Department for Education

William Wragg Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) and, on the Government side of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey), who made very pertinent points about the need to maintain funding for maintained nurseries, which do such a fantastic job. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee, of which admittedly, I am a member, and our illustrious chairman, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who is sitting opposite me, for granting time for this debate.

There are

“lies, damned lies and statistics”—

how true that is for the important debate on the expenditure of the Department for Education. How true those words are for the barrage of claims and counter-claims. How true Disraeli’s quip is for neatly summarising our dilemma of who to believe. To misappropriate another eminent Victorian, in terms of education funding at least, it is “the best of times” and “the worst of times”. In Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities”, we read of a land of great contrasts. Today, we hear of schools in different parts of the country that are similarly contrasting. There are siren calls for parental funds for toilet paper in Berkshire while those in the inner capital supposedly cannot find enough things on which to spend their money.

It is true that there has never been more public money spent on education, and the Government are to be commended for that. Indeed, the diversion of a further £1.2 billion is a good start, but I want to be able to recommend Her Majesty’s Government for even greater commendation. I want my right hon. and hon. Friends to go further. Bluntly, I want more cash for schools in my constituency. Without sounding too demanding or unreasonable, even at the risk of being less macho in the eyes of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I want to be able to put the case as to why the schools budget must be increased.

Have I, as a Conservative, lost my sense of fiscal rectitude? Am I, for saying “spend more money”, seeking to be a pale imitation of a socialist? Am I fearful of the rapacious march of left-wing fanaticism, which we see embraced with wild abandon by segments of our society? I think not. Rather, like any good Conservative, I believe in investing money wisely in things with a proven record of return, and there is no greater stock worth investing in than our children’s education.

Schools in Stockport, the borough that I partly represent, are among some of the most poorly funded in the country, so it is a tremendous credit to them that they generally achieve such good results, yet I fear that we are at a point at which this is becoming unsustainable. I say “unsustainable” because, being well managed, they have had to be careful with the budget for years, well before the current cost pressures were brought to bear, and therefore, put simply, because they are financially lean there is little scope for the efficiencies envisaged by the Department.

Since being elected to this place, I have sought to build strong professional relationships with the schools and headteachers in my constituency. I have always been grateful for their insight on the issue of school funding. It is fair to say that they are asking not for the world, but merely for comparable resources with similar schools that they are judged against. It is inherently unfair to expect schools with similar characteristics to produce the same results as their peers on wildly differing budgets.

I recently sought the views of all the headteachers in my constituency on this matter. I am particularly grateful to those who met with me—I may outdo the hon. Member for Harrow West at this point—including the headteachers of Brookside Primary, High Lane; Torkington Primary School, Hazel Grove; Fairway Primary School, Offerton; Mellor Primary School; Werneth High; and Harrytown Catholic High School. I am also immensely grateful to Jacqui Ames, the headteacher of Norbury Hall Primary School, and Joe Barker, the headteacher of Marple Hall School, who are the primary and secondary heads representatives respectively for Stockport. They have furnished me with facts and financial analyses that have been very helpful as I have sought a better deal for my local schools.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for meeting me and the aforementioned headteachers to hear at first hand the challenges they face. It was a constructive meeting. We have an excellent complement of Ministers, who I know will argue strongly for their departmental budget in the forthcoming spending review. I have some ideas I would like to suggest they pursue with the Treasury and our right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. First, many of us had hoped that the new national funding formula would be more radical in seeking to address decades of underfunding under Governments of different colours. If the basic grant element of the formula is not to be increased in percentage terms, it may be necessary to target additional funding at the lowest quartile of poorly funded schools. Secondly, the Treasury should fund pay settlements, national insurance increases and additional pension contributions, which form the vast bulk of the cost pressures on school budgets. It is only right that teachers have better pay and conditions, although this should not adversely affect overall teaching and learning.

Heeding your advice, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will conclude by offering some thoughts to the Government in all seriousness and with good will and encouragement. There has been much understandable focus on the national health service, but we must not allow justifiable funding needs to crowd out other vital areas of the public sector. To my mind, and I sense the same in many colleagues, the schools budget is one such that deserves equal attention, care and consideration.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Wragg Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

Some schools already choose to teach about the dangers of gambling in their curriculum—for example, in their PSHE provision. During the recent call for evidence, we heard from a number of problem gambling charities, including Gamble Aware, and we are considering the evidence that they submitted.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the provision of integrated user-friendly programmes is crucial to delivering good PSHE in primary schools, and will he recognise the work of organisations such as 1decision and Headway, which I have the pleasure of hosting in Parliament today?

[Nick Gibb]

I very much hope that those organisations will respond to the call for evidence; we are keen to hear from organisations with expertise in this area. We are consulting on the content of relationships education, and we will respond to the consultation shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Wragg Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point about one of the cost pressures facing schools. We are working on seeing what we can do to help and developing a new framework to help to bring down recruitment costs, especially on the supply teachers she mentions.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Schools in my constituency welcome the principle of the national funding formula, which will see an increase in funding. Will my right hon. Friend meet me and representatives of primary and secondary schools to ensure it is implemented in the right way?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is correct to say that the implementation of the national funding formula is a very important step forward. I always happy to meet my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Wragg Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, we are working on introducing a free website to enable schools to recruit teachers.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

16. What steps his Department takes when children’s services are found to be inadequate.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

All children must be kept safe, and we take tough intervention action when any council fails in its duty.

[Mr Wragg]

As the case in Rotherham today shows, the introduction of experienced and high-quality leadership is part of the answer. Will my hon. Friend, in his new portfolio, take on board the recommendation of the Select Committee on Education and place a greater emphasis on giving support and guidance to children’s services when considering intervention?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Many Government interventions provide support and guidance that works within an authority’s existing structure. In serious cases, an independent commissioner can provide those recommendations, and of course the ultimate reprimand is to be put in a trust.

Schools: National Funding Formula

William Wragg Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has been clear that our £1.3 billion additional investment will lead to the per pupil core schools budget being protected in real terms, which is good news. As for the schools the hon. Lady mentions specifically, we will ensure that all Members get the breakdown of the notional allocations. I expect some local authorities to choose simply to reflect the national funding formula at a local level, but that will be a matter for them. I am sure that Members from across the House will want to have those discussions at a local level.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and look forward to additional financial resources for Stockport’s schools. Much of the previous concern about school funding centred on the proportion of the basic amount per pupil, so will she comment further on that aspect of the new national funding formula?

[Justine Greening]

The basic amount will be going up and the proportion is broadly stable, but the bottom line is that the £1.3 billion extra in the core schools budget is principally going through that per-pupil amount, which is why it has been raised overall, and why I have chosen to protect the amount for additional needs.

Schools Update

William Wragg Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

There will be higher per-pupil funding in respect of every school in every local area. What we are saying is that we want to be able to give more money to headteachers to enable them to take the decisions that they think are in the best interests of their schools. I have spent many years as a school governor, and I know the work that goes on to make the most of the budgets. I also want to challenge my own Department to make some efficiencies so that we can put that money in the hands of headteachers to spend on the frontline in schools.

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

I welcome the additional funding for Stockport schools, and I also welcome a very listening Secretary of State. Will she prove her mettle further by taking on board the recommendations on recruitment and retention contained in the report of the Education Committee in the last Parliament?

[Justine Greening]

This is a vital issue. I think we have more teachers in our school system now than ever before but we need more, and we have to ensure that the teaching profession—I have always seen it as a profession —is a strong career and one in which teachers see continued professional development right the way through and one that is competitive. One of my old teachers up in Rotherham is retiring today, and I have just written him a note to thank him for 45 years of service to children in Rotherham. Teaching is an amazing vocation and one that I would recommend to anyone who cares about developing our young people for the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Wragg Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Notwithstanding the generally higher funding for London schools, will my hon. Friend update the House on the progress towards a fairer funding formula for the rest of the country?

[Mr Gibb]

Yes. We are considering the consultation document we published in March. The consultation finished in April, and we are looking at the responses. We will respond to the consultation shortly.

Schools that work for Everyone

William Wragg Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

As I understood the hon. Gentleman’s policy, it was simply to scrap charitable status, but what we want to do is to make sure that our independent schools actually earn that charitable status and truly deliver more public benefit taps than some are currently doing. It is fair to say, however, that the overwhelming number of independent schools already do much in their local communities.

[William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

As a comprehensive schoolboy, may I commend my right hon. Friend for her bold new departure? Will she ensure, however, that at all times the language used by the Government focuses on people’s aptitudes rather than solely on their academic ability? I believe that, in that way, there are no losers; instead, all talents are championed and pupils are fulfilled.

[Justine Greening]

As a comprehensive schoolgirl, I think that is an excellent point. I can assure my hon. Friend that this is about making sure that we have diversity and choice in our schools system so that, whatever kinds of talents children have, they can find a school that will truly enable them to be developed successfully.

Educational Performance: Boys

William Wragg Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Karl MᶜCartney]

I agree with my colleague, who makes a very good point, and it is something that I will cover later on in my speech. I am happy to take as many interventions as possible.

Most males who are not in education, employment or training are unemployed. For those men with no or low skills, that has an impact on their mental health, employment and predilection to commit crime. Those men constitute the largest group in our criminal justice system. When it comes to apprenticeships, there are now 30,000 more female apprentices, a trend and gap that has been in place for at least the past five years. After university, a lower percentage of male graduates will be in full-time work, a higher percentage will be unemployed and far fewer enter the professions. Nowadays, there are more women becoming doctors, vets, dentists, solicitors and teachers than men every year, which reflects the numbers taking related degrees. Twice as many women are now training to be a GP as men.

We can see that all played out when it comes to wages. According to the Office for National Statistics, on average men in full-time or part-time work under 29 years of age are paid less per hour on average than similarly aged women. That remarkable transition flies in the face of the shrill equal pay brigade, who while proclaiming the need for equality seem quietly to gloss over that fact when shouting from the rooftops with regard to equal pay. I want equal pay for those with equivalent experience and qualifications and skill levels regardless of their gender or age.

What is causing the gap—a gap that broadly was not there before the 1980s but which has been increasing since then? That has been an area of some contention, which may partly explain why so little investigation has so far taken place, because it is difficult to agree or find solutions if there is no agreement on what is causing the problem. In essence there are a number of themes.

The first is that boys develop more slowly in their teen years than girls, so boys and girls are not at the same natural development level, even when they are the same age. Many of us long ago accepted that boys and girls are different. The second is around social attitudes and background. There is some evidence that boys have less positive attitudes towards education than girls have, and that they receive less support at home. The role of fathers and/or role models is seen as vital to instilling in their sons the importance of education.

[William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

On that note of support at home, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the issues is with parents’ confidence in their own literacy? Reading to their children can be quite intimidating if their own standards of literacy are poor. Is it not therefore necessary for the Government to focus on that area to address the early years?

[Karl MᶜCartney]

My colleague from Hazel Grove makes a very good point.

Perhaps longer working hours and one-parent families where the father is not the primary carer are also an issue. The economy has changed, so the value of job opportunities in masculine-type work, such as in heavy industry, has changed, or such jobs are not as available as they once were.

Another theme is whether the education system is boy-friendly. I believe that the educational system, schools and the sector as a whole are not focused enough on supporting boys. That could be because schools lack understanding about boys and what makes them tick. Practical education, a level of freedom to think and act for themselves, clear goal-setting, career and subject choice support, all within a clear disciplinary framework, are needed, as is an environment that nurtures and celebrates, and does not denigrate, masculinity. The situation is exacerbated by a lack of male teachers and role models in schools. If boys see only women in schools, in whatever roles, that reinforces their view that education is just for girls.

I and others have noticed that the majority of pictures in the national papers recently—each year, it seems—were just of girls celebrating their exam success, not boys and girls, which perhaps sends a subliminal message to boys that education and success are a girl issue and not for them.

SATs Results

William Wragg Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree entirely with the Chairman of the Education Committee. Numeracy and literacy are basic skills and building blocks—the Prime Minister has called them the ultimate vocational subjects. Everybody needs to have confidence in them. On post-16 funding, this Government have required those who do not have a grade C at GCSE English and maths to continue to take the subject. It is worth noting that 70% of key stage 2 pupils who took the new test last week achieved the expected standard in mathematics. They are to be congratulated on their hard work.

This Government refused to accept the status quo that let young people down. That was why, in consultation with experts from across the education sector, we introduced a new, world-class primary school curriculum. That curriculum raised the bar on what counts as a good enough standard in the three R’s so that children would leave primary school genuinely ready for success in their secondary studies.

To measure how schools and pupils were performing against the new curriculum, new tests were required. I know that some oppose testing, but they could not be more wrong. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne was challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) about what tests she would introduce, but she could not answer that question. I think we can agree that tests are a vital part of teaching because they allow teachers to know whether a pupil has understood key subjects, give parents confidence that their children are on track and allow schools to identify where extra support is needed.

These tests are not about holding children to account and they are not exams. The best schools try to make sure that taking SATs involves as little stress as possible. As one teacher said to me just last week, “The children had such a positive attitude towards the SATs, which definitely paid off.”

[William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend knows about teachers’ concerns on this issue. What is she doing to assuage these concerns and to engage with the profession? More importantly, what is she doing to ensure that, next year, more than 53% of children in our primary schools meet the expected standards?

[Nicky Morgan]

I am of course aware of the concerns. I read emails and letters from teachers, and I have conversations with teachers at every school that I visit. Those concerns were inevitable, given that this was the first year. This was always going to be a challenging year, as is the case for the first year of any new tests. I say that as someone who took the new GCSEs in their first year, way back in the late 1980s. We have made moves to tackle the workload and we are, of course, listening to the feedback that teachers have given us this year as we think about the structure of the assessment frameworks for next year. We will continue to do that.

I talked about a positive attitude towards SATs because that is not unique. Polling from ComRes of 10 and 11-year-olds found that 62% of pupils either “don’t mind” or “enjoy” taking the tests. That is far more than the number who say that they “don’t like” or “hate” taking the tests.

As I said, I know that in the first year of these tests being rolled out, the administration was not as smooth as it could have been, and for that we have apologised. However, in the few cases where errors occurred, we took immediate action, ensuring that the overall roll-out of the new SATs was a success. Lower results do not represent a failure of our reforms. I have been very clear that it is not possible to compare this year’s results with last year’s. We have always been clear that because we not only introduced a new curriculum but raised the bar, results would be lower as the new curriculum is bedding in.

That brings into sharp relief the contrast between this Government and the Labour party. We want children to really understand the curriculum so that they can compete with the best in the world. We do not want to run the risk of them leaving school without the knowledge and skills that they need to succeed. The Labour party, in contrast, clearly appears quite happy for that to happen. Labour Members forget that it is not the children in schools in leafy areas with supportive parents who read to them every night who most need their primary curriculum to set them up for life. It is the ones who are not brought up with high aspirations and interested parents who need their teachers and schools to aim high for them, and that is what these tests and the new curriculum are about.

In fact, the results showed that schools have resoundingly risen to meet the higher bar: two thirds of pupils achieved the expected standard in reading; seven in 10 achieved it in mathematics; and almost three quarters achieved it in writing. Despite the doom-mongering from Labour Members, more than half of young people achieved the expected standard in all three subjects. That number will rise as schools and pupils experience more of the new curriculum.

What does this mean for children who did not meet the expected standard? It means one thing: secondary schools are now aware of that and are able to give those pupils the support that they need to catch up. It absolutely does not mean, and never has meant, that those children have somehow failed. The only people who have used these results to label children failures are the National Union of Teachers and now the Labour party. That is absolutely shameful.