Higher Education and Research Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Wes Streeting and Alex Chalk

Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 13th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Wes Streeting]

I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 9, page 6, line 14, at end insert—

‘( ) The OfS must ensure that the ongoing registration conditions of each private registered higher education provider include a condition that a student’s union be established, where “student’s union” has the same meaning as in section 20 of the Education Act 1994.”

This amendment would extend the provisions of the 1994 Education Act to require private providers to have a student’s union as an ongoing condition of registration.

Amendment 6 would extend to private providers the provision of the Education Act 1994 that requires institutions to have a students union. Since their inception, students unions have played a powerful role in providing real value to the student experience in various ways. They have a representative function, which we have alluded to in discussions about student representation in other parts of the Bill. They also offer broader welfare provision and support for individual students. They run campaigns on a variety of issues, whether physical health, mental health, academic wellbeing or study skills. A huge amount of volunteering takes place in students unions. All those things enrich the institution and individual students unions.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case on the role of students unions, which do valuable work, but should it not be a matter for students to decide whether they wish to constitute themselves, rather than that being imposed by diktat?

[Wes Streeting]

That is an interesting thought. Perhaps the Government might consider arrangements that would make it easy to set up a students union. My understanding is that the definition of a students union in the 1994 Act is so broad that it favours students. Simply coming together and having some degree of representative function or, indeed, an institution setting up a representative function might constitute a students union as defined by the Act. It is not clear, however, whether that provision would extend to private providers.

For example, if a new university of Ilford North were set up—it would have to pick the right bit of Ilford North, so that it did not find itself in a different constituency—and I enrolled as a student, I might want to join a students union and find that there was not one. I then approach the institution to set one up, but the answer is fairly negative. Perhaps the new provider does not want to provide a block grant for a students union or the time and space in the governing body agenda to constitute a students union. There could be myriad reasons why providers might object.

I think that students unions are part and parcel of the higher education student experience. That is not just the stereotypical student experience of full-time undergraduate students of a certain age; there are many examples of student representative bodies that have constituted themselves and played an effective role through a range of modes of delivery. The Open University Students Association, for example, is not a traditional students union in the sense of a campus, because the Open University is not a traditional university in that sense, but it has an active and effective students union that is able to represent and advocate for its members. Other part-time institutions, such as Birkbeck, are in the same position.

I would like to ensure that students unions, which are a central part of the student experience, are a central part of every student experience at every institution. They benefit not only individual students, but institutions. We should celebrate the role of students unions and enshrine them in the private part of the higher education sector through the mechanism of this amendment.

Higher Education and Research Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Wes Streeting and Alex Chalk

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 8th September 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Wes Streeting]

Having listened to the arguments, I am genuinely baffled by the Government’s reluctance to give way on the notion of student representation on the board of the office for students. I cannot understand how it could be reasonably argued that students’ interests lie at the heart of the office for students when there might be no voice around the table with current or recent experience of being a student.

[Alex Chalk]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that students are not being excluded? It is not the case that they will not be included; they just might not be. The schedule simply allows the flexibility to ensure that if the representative is a student, they are the best person for the job.

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. It is in the nature of the business of the office for students, which is, after all, for students, that it will be always discussing the kind of issues on which it would be advantageous to have the perspective of a current or former student who had been involved in student representation, so that the OFS could reach the right conclusion and listen to the right perspectives.

It is some 12 years since I graduated from university, and more than half a decade since I left student representation. Although I maintain a passion for representing the interests of students, as reflected in the amendments I have tabled and in the contributions I tend to make in the Chamber, I do not pretend for a moment to know what it is like for students currently studying on my course at my university, let alone on all other courses at all other universities. Things have moved on. I know the higher education sector can sometimes move at a glacial pace when it comes to improvements and developments, and it suffers from small c conservatism, but none the less there have been significant changes. In the student finance system alone, the architecture for tuition fees has changed twice since I was at university, and the repayment terms and conditions have changed even more. I cannot understand the argument we have heard this afternoon.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Wes Streeting and Alex Chalk

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. I congratulate all those on both sides of the House who have made their maiden speech today, and done so very well.

I have an interest in the debate as a primary school governor, at Grove primary school in Chadwell Heath, and as a councillor—an unpaid councillor, I should emphasise, given recent media reports—in the London borough of Redbridge, so I have several different perspectives on the Bill.

I want to respond first to a comment made by the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes), in her enthusiastic speech, on the record of the last Labour Government. The Conservatives really need to decide whether they are the heirs to Blair, championing the school reforms that they are happy to laud in the misguided hope that we will feel uncomfortable or embarrassed by the fact that during our 13 years in government we made an enormous difference or whether they want to talk down the record of the Labour Government. They really cannot have it both ways.

As one who went to school under the last Labour Government and saw the improvements that were made, I am proud of the fact that we transformed the fabric of our schools through Building Schools for the Future. The secondary school I attended is now unrecognisable. It is an academy and its results have improved enormously. I am proud of the programmes the Labour Government introduced, such as the sponsored academies programme, which has delivered investment and greater freedoms and autonomy for our schools, excellence in cities and the London Challenge, tackling poor school performance, increasing educational achievement and tackling the inequality and educational disadvantage that hold back too many people, in particular those from the most disadvantaged families. I am also proud of initiatives started when we were in government, such as fast-track teaching and the major recruitment campaigns such as “Those who can, teach”, as well as the introduction of routes such as Teach First. Not only did we improve the quality and quantity of people entering the teaching profession, but we raised the standards and status of the profession.

That stands in stark contrast to the record of the five years of the coalition Government in terms of low morale and teachers leaving the profession in droves because of dissatisfaction caused by the Government’s reforms and the extent to which Ministers, for political gain, are happy to beat up on the teaching profession in the hope of bumping up a few points in the opinion polls. The present Government should show some humility about the record they inherit from the coalition. Ministers should come to the Dispatch Box with more answers about how to address the problems than we heard last Thursday, when my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) raised these issues in her Adjournment debate.

This is the first education Bill that we have had from a Conservative Government since the 1990s, and it says an awful lot about this Conservative Government and their aspirations and breadth of ambition for our schools that the Bill is so thin and so ill-defined. If the Secretary of State for Education, when she was at the Dispatch Box earlier, had not been so busy providing a running commentary on the Labour leadership contest—perhaps she is launching her own gambit for the Conservative leadership contest that we will see in the next couple of years—maybe she would have had time to provide a little more definition to a Bill whose Second Reading she expects us to troop into the Lobby and vote for this evening.

Not only does the Bill think small, but it continues the mistakes of the previous Government. There is a misguided focus on one part of the system, local authority maintained schools, and one solution, academisation. I have no doubt that for some schools conversion to an academy and bringing in new leadership and new funding is the right way to turn around people’s life chances through improvement in the quality of provision at the school, but as so many Opposition Members have said this afternoon, that is just one route towards improvement. I challenged the Secretary of State earlier with a case study from my own borough, where Snaresbrook primary school was deemed by Ofsted to be failing. Action was already being taken by the local authority in partnership with the governors, the parents and the pupils, and as a result of those efforts the school was already on the path to improvement, with renewed leadership and a re-energised and refocused governing body. To have forced academisation at that stage, as the Bill would require, would have disrupted progress.

The Secretary of State’s predecessor was right to listen to local people, parents and the Conservative-led local authority at the time and conclude that it was right for the school to continue as part of the local authority family because it had a clear sense of how it would move forward. I am pleased to report that Snaresbrook primary school has made considerable improvements within the local authority family.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I have listened with care to the eloquent representations that are being made, but is it not dangerous, whichever side of the argument one is on, to paint one era as being rosy and another era as being grim? Under Labour, it is a fact that standards slipped. In the PISA league standards we went from 8th to 28th in maths and from 7th to 25th in reading. Although I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman’s school bucked that trend, it is correct to say that these are—

[Alex Chalk]

Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Wes Streeting]

I am grateful for the intervention, because the hon. Gentleman makes precisely the point that I am trying to make and reflects the narrow-minded ideologically driven view that the only route to improvement is academisation. That is exactly what the Bill presents us with. What we had before was the flexibility to look at the particular circumstances of a school and decide whether it was right that it should be converted to an academy or remain part of the local authority family, or whether other means for improvement should be considered. The Bill would remove the flexibility that the previous Secretary of State exercised in the case of the local primary school in my borough and would compel it to become an academy, which may or may not be the right way forward. If the hon. Gentleman is on the Bill Committee, perhaps I can gain his support for amendment along those lines.

Other hon. Members have referred to the oversight and inspection of academy chains. Following on from the intervention, it is right that there are some fantastic academy chains which are providing great service to the schools within their family—chains such as Ark and the Harris federation, which are in the business of education for the right reasons. They want to tackle educational inequality and improve life chances and educational outcomes, and those chains do a fantastic job. But I still cannot fathom why Ministers are not listening to the concerns that have been raised by the Sutton Trust and Sir Michael Wilshaw, and even some of the evidence produced by the Department itself, which is that we are doing some schools no service at all by trapping them in academy chains that are failing them. Why do we not open them up to the rigour of inspection? Why do we set academy chains apart and not require them to achieve the same high standards and undergo the same inspections as others do?

This is the contradiction in the Government’s approach. They present Labour Members as taking a narrow-minded ideologically driven dogmatic approach, but it is actually the Government that are taking that approach. It is they who are making an assumption that academy chains can do no wrong, whereas we acknowledge that there is good and bad right across the mixed economy of education. We can accept that. Why cannot the Government do so, and why are they not addressing that question in the Bill?

Contrary to what the Government have said, academies do not always outperform local authority-maintained schools on educational improvement. Of course anyone who wants to skew the statistics in a certain way can draw the conclusion that they want, but the Government should look at the research produced by the National Foundation for Educational Research and others, which compares schools like for like. If we compare similarly performing schools, like for like, and examine them within the context of local authority-maintained schools or academy chain schools, there is not much difference between the two. If there is to be a more evidence-based approach to the debate, Members need to examine the evidence rather than simply parroting propaganda produced in a remarkably poor fashion by the Whips of the governing party.

Finally, I want to mention the definition of “coasting”. The hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) gave the House what she thought was a very good definition of the term, and in some cases I might even agree with her. I know that she is being billed as a rising star in her party, but with the greatest respect, she is not yet the Education Secretary. We have not heard a definition of coasting schools from either the Secretary of State or Ministers, even though their Bill is now before the House of Commons for its Second Reading and the concept of coasting schools is at its centre. Perhaps the hon. Lady should be on the Government Front Bench, because she is providing the answers that her Ministers are not. For now, however, we have absolutely no idea what coasting schools are, how they will be judged and measured, and how the Secretary of State will intervene to improve them apart from through forced academisation, which I have already said might not be the best way forward. Why on earth those on the Treasury Bench expect us to troop into the Lobby with them to support the Second Reading of such a half-baked Bill I do not know. They need to be a bit more reasonable in their expectations.

The Bill also says absolutely nothing about the people on the fringes of education. For example, there are 17,000 pupils in pupil referral units, only 1.4% of whom will get five good GCSEs. Where do they figure in the Bill? How are their needs going to be addressed? And of course, the Bill is simply looking at the problems that exist now, rather than at the education system of the future. For the Conservatives’ first education Bill since they entered Government to have such a narrow focus shows a real lack of imagination. In this century, this country will have to work and compete very hard on the global stage for the jobs of the future. That will require all our young people to go through an excellent, world-class education system that thinks hard about pedagogy and about the manner and the environment in which we teach in a rapidly changing world. There is absolutely nothing about that context in the Bill. It is a narrow, ill-defined Bill that is unworthy of a Second Reading. I might have been in the House only a short time, but I know a half-baked Bill when I see one. It is time for our coasting Ministers to provide better definitions before turning up with such a Bill.