Graham Stuart
MP for Beverley and Holderness · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I hope and expect that we can move forward in the right way and get the balance right between being overly prescriptive to the banking industry and setting a clear sense of direction to make sure that no one is left behind, as so many Members have set out.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this debate.”
“Is my hon. Friend as astonished as I am that the Minister—I know she is new to her post—has come here to propose a six-month extension of the movement of costs from bills to the Exchequer and cannot tell the Committee how much money that will cost?”
“The Minister is being most generous again. I did not ask her about protecting consumers from energy price shocks; I asked about a clear, unequivocal manifesto pledge to reduce household energy bills by £300. She, like her predecessors, refuses to address it directly. It was a clear promise.”
“Banking hubs themselves came out of an industry response from the NatWest executive. Does the Minister agree that we must present the information from the Lloyd review to the banking groups, be clear about what we want, and give them the opportunity to respond and provide a solution, as they did with banking hubs, so that we can perhaps a…”
“I am pleased to say that Lloyds listened and, as of this morning, people can deposit cheques at those places. These issues being raised by Members across the House today are important. I trust that given the timing of the Richard Lloyd report, the Minister in her seat will make sure that they are be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.”
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“I would be grateful if the Minister clarified when exactly the new SEN code of practice is expected to be published. I am told that it might not be published until June, which would leave very little time for the new system to come into force from September. I appreciate that it will take up to three years to migrate existing statement holders to the new code of practice, but I know that many parents would appreciate learning the latest information about the timetable. I am aware of the time, so I shall touch on Lords amendment 128 only briefly. It will enable young people in foster care to live at home until the age of 21 if that is right for them and their foster family agrees.”
“We heard from Di Roberts, the principal of Brockenhurst college, who gave the example of two learners with profound deafness: they were on marine engineering apprenticeships and had to have signers to help them with their training. They are precisely the young people who need extra support to follow their ambitions so that they can succeed in life. The Bill should not open a door to local authorities to take that support away, simply because someone needs longer to complete their education or training. A young person’s age is a comparatively superficial factor that should not be used to determine whether they would continue to benefit from an EHCP. I want quickly to mention Lords amendment 110. It affects clause 67, which governs the new code of practice as regards special educational needs.”
“I appreciate that Ministers have taken steps to increase the accountability and responsiveness of the offer made by local authorities, but I ask the Minister to undertake carefully to monitor the standards set by different local authorities across the country so that some do not duck their responsibilities, as other hon. Members have mentioned. I want to speak in favour of Lords amendments 69 and 70. In our scrutiny report, my Committee welcomed the introduction of integrated education, health and care plans—or EHCPs, as doubtless no one will remember to call them—which are at the centre of those amendments. We were clear in paragraph 98 of our report that “the cut-off point for EHCPs should be when educational outcomes are achieved”, rather than by reference to any specific age.”
“Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather)—sadly, she is no longer in her place—acknowledged the “huge crossover with children with disabilities”. The omission of reference to the disabled seemed to run directly contrary to the Government’s laudable aspiration to achieve the earliest possible intervention for those who need extra support. I am therefore delighted that the Bill has been amended in that way. The only weakness I identify is the continued lack of regulation on the local offer for children and young people mandated by clause 30. The weight of evidence received by my Committee clearly supported the introduction of minimum standards for the local offer—the Minister referred to that earlier—which the Government have consistently resisted.”
“As has been said, when the achievements of this coalition Government are reviewed, the Bill will rank highly among them. This large group of amendments certainly strengthens the Bill. When the Education Committee conducted our pre-legislative scrutiny in the autumn of 2012, the evidence we heard made a strong case for the inclusion of disabled children, with or without SEN, in the scope of entitlement provision and education, health and care plans. Mencap emphasised that it was undesirable that eligibility for much of the support in the Bill could be engaged only via an educational trigger, meaning that children and young people with primary health and care needs might not be identified as having SEN until they reached an educational setting. In her evidence to us, the former Minister, the hon.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey). I want to speak in support of the large group of Lords amendments that extend the scope of clauses 22 to 32 to include disabled children, as well as those with special educational needs, but I first want to place on the record my thanks and those of my Committee to the Minister for his close co-operation on the Bill over the long period of its development. His actions to improve it in response to our recommendations and those of many others have been greatly appreciated. Something about how he has conducted himself in bilateral and multilateral meetings has endeared himself to the House, which might explain why he has been given the accolade of Minister of the year. I will not seek to curse his future career with such praise any more, so I shall move swiftly on.”
“Funding is a constant struggle, not just for Walkington, but for schools across my home county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, which is the area that receives the third lowest amount of funding in the country. In that context, I find it hard to believe that some of the £600 million that has been allocated to the free school meals policy could not have been better spent to promote fairer outcomes for all, wherever they may live.”
“It might not worry our coalition partners, but this amendment means that the Government will find themselves in the bizarre position of taxing families on low and middle incomes to subsidise children from affluent homes. There is also a wider question about the priorities in our education system. Last Friday, I visited Walkington primary school in my constituency. It is a great school. Over the past three years, thanks to the hard work of its teachers, it has moved from the 52nd to the 12th percentile in terms of progress. It has achieved that despite receiving £500 less per head than the national median funding for primary schools.”
“I ask the Minister whether it would not have been better, at a time of austerity, to target the extra funding more carefully, either by extending free school meals to families whose earnings place them just above the current entitlement threshold or by providing extra funding for valuable schemes such as breakfast clubs to help the pupils who most need them. Perhaps the funding could have been used to ensure that sixth-form colleges and further education colleges are not penalised by having to pay VAT or through 18-year-olds losing funding because of pressures elsewhere in the budget. Like any Government spending, this policy has to be paid for.”
“There is very little time left so, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will not give way. The proposed statutory guidance under Lords amendment 129 will ensure that schools have to observe national standards. That will go a long way to ending the current lottery in respect of children’s safety at school. Lords amendment 135 represents something of an exception to my generally positive feelings about the Bill. I want to be clear at the outset that free school meals are a matter of basic social justice and I wholeheartedly support them. However, I am wary about extending free school meals to all pupils in reception and years 1 and 2, regardless of how well off their parents are.”
“Q4. Does the Prime Minister share my outrage at the false choice presented by the chairman of the Environment Agency between protecting urban areas and protecting rural areas from flood? Does my right hon. Friend recognise that my constituents in Holderness, and people in the Somerset levels and elsewhere, expect decent maintenance and dredging, and not abandonment?”
“The hon. Gentleman has been very generous in giving way and I am grateful to him for doing so. May I ask him at the very least to nuance his policy on non-qualified teachers? I do not know whether since the last debate, three months ago, he has sought evidence on the quality of non-QTS teachers in our schools. If he has, perhaps he could share it with the House. If he has not, will he at least undertake to carry out a piece of research to consider the quality of those teachers before putting in train a system that could ultimately lead to their removal, if not sacking, from the classroom?”
“When we questioned Alison Wolf about this issue this morning I asked her about a study, which I suggested to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) should be carried out before such a policy is implanted. She said: “I think it’s important to do that and particularly in respect of vocational courses. I remember a case where in Texas they did something similar and the main people who got sacked were, I am afraid, what they call shop-teachers.” Is there a danger that we will take out those who are re-engaging people in the classroom, re-engaging children and helping them with vocational courses, if the Labour party does not, at the very least, commit to a piece of research before going ahead with this policy?”
“However, when the Government are right and the Opposition are putting forward an irresponsible policy that is wrong, it is my duty to challenge it.”
“Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), I was confident that he must have uncovered compelling new evidence on the importance of QTS—that he and his team must have been working through the night to provide devastating proof on why QTS is so vital, and why teachers without QTS should be forced out of a job. I challenged him on that again today and he had no answer. When I asked the hon. Gentleman at least to consider conducting an inquiry to find evidence before making a decision, he suggested that I was partial because three months ago, and again today, I took issue with him on this matter. If I appeared aggressive in doing so, it was not because I sit on the Government Benches. I could list the issues on which I disagree with the Secretary of State and on which I am happy to challenge him in this House.”
“The House will remember that during the course of that debate I challenged the shadow Secretary of State to supply the evidence showing that employing non-qualified teacher status teachers in our state schools was damaging children’s prospects, or to provide examples of head teachers who were taking on unqualified teachers just to save money or sticking them with low-achieving children. If that evidence was produced, we could then review the impact of non-QTS teachers on educational standards and consider, on that evidence, whether to outlaw them. There was no answer to my question. Ahead of the speech made by the hon.”
“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. One hundred and forty years ago, Benjamin Disraeli said: “Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.” —[ Official Report , 15 June 1874; Vol. 219, c. 1618.] His words are as true today as they were at the time. I am glad that the shadow Front-Bench team grasp the central importance of teacher quality to driving up standards in our schools. However, I doubt I am alone in feeling that today we are living through the parliamentary equivalent of groundhog day. Almost exactly three months ago, the Opposition secured a debate on this topic.”
“He does not employ non-QTS teachers on permanent contracts, but the academy employs peripatetic, non-QTS staff to provide expert tuition in fields such as sport, art and music, helping to stretch able students.”
“I turned, then, to the teaching profession itself and contacted the principals of several academies in Hull to hear about their experiences. I spoke to people such as Dr Cathy Taylor, the head of the Sirius academy, who told me that her school employed five teachers without QTS out of a total teaching strength of about 87. Those five include excellent teachers in art and maths, both of whom are completing their teaching qualifications, Members will be delighted to hear, but they also include specialists in ICT and salon services. The Sirius academy has a strong professional development programme, and Dr Taylor was clear that she would never employ more non-QTS staff than could be properly mentored within the school. I also spoke to Andy Grace, the principal of the Boulevard academy.”
“I thank the Secretary of State. The point, if the shadow Secretary of State will listen, is that the evidence is anecdotal. To bring in such a change, if one believes in evidence-based policy making, the hon. Gentleman should do the work first, gather the evidence and make sure he is doing the right thing before outlawing these teachers. Over the past 48 hours, I have asked any number of experts what studies have been conducted into the quality of QTS teachers as opposed to non-QTS teachers. I have spoken to the Education Committee Clerk to see whether the Committee is aware of any studies, to academic experts such as Alan Smithers at the university of Buckingham, an adviser to my Committee, to the Institute of Education and to Ofsted, but none could identify any empirical surveys in this area.”
“When it comes to the evidence for their campaign, the Opposition are quieter than the library of a Trappist monastery. Is the shadow Secretary of State in favour of evidence-based policy making? I know that he would not want to score political points if it were to hurt our children’s education. He has had three months since the last debate to find evidence that non-QTS teachers are damaging schooling. He has had three months to find evidence that moving a teacher without QTS to QTS on the job improves learning in their classes. Has he found any evidence? If so, where is it? Why does he not share it with us? If he could point us in the right direction, I am sure my Committee would be happy to pursue the matter. If unqualified teachers are doing harm, let us move fast to get rid of them.”
“I would welcome such research, but the fundamental position of the Secretary of State is that, within a strong accountability system, we should trust head teachers. The number of non-QTS teachers is reducing. There are many fewer now than when Labour was in power, and the shadow Secretary of State’s refusal in successive debates to acknowledge that is mildly irritating. We have fewer of them and there is strong accountability, yet we keep hearing this proposal to get rid of them. That point echoes the comments by the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson): “If you find someone who is a great musician but they can’t spend three years getting the proper teaching qualifications, I think you should use them”. He gets it; it is a shame that the Opposition Front-Bench team do not appear to do so.”
“Gentleman has to make an impact in his new brief, and to secure his place in the shadow Cabinet. It cannot be easy having to mollify the resurgent left of his party, let alone the trade unions which bankroll almost every aspect of his party’s actions. However, I urge him not to put politics ahead of the evidence, and I know that he would not put ambition ahead of principle. For those of us on the Back Benches who are trying to work out how best to improve educational opportunities for our constituents, this debate is bizarre, and I ask the shadow Secretary of State to change his policy.”
“Before teachers without QTS, whose number has reduced, are removed from the system, the shadow Secretary of State needs to show why that is a good idea. When Charles Parker, the chief executive of the Baker Dearing Trust, came before the Committee this morning, he said of people who taught in university technical colleges, including those with PhDs: “They’re amazing people, they are highly professional, but they may not be highly professional in the sense of being qualified teachers.” Before they are got rid of, let us check that there are not more good than bad; let us ensure that they are not doing good. If they are doing good and the hon. Gentleman gets rid of them, it will damage not just his conscience, but the education of the children whom he is duty bound to protect. I understand that the hon.”
“The recent action taken on Al-Madinah and the Discovery New School by Lord Nash, the Under-Secretary of State, followed his setting out in detail the requirements those schools had to follow in order to turn themselves around and required his personal supervision of those schools. What role will school commissioners have in future to ensure that we no longer have Ministers trying to run schools from a desk in Whitehall?”
“It is a pleasure to be the end-stop to this statement. I have been a critic of the Environment Agency in the past, but will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating it on its staff and on the way it is working in partnership with East Riding of Yorkshire council to deliver a much more joined-up approach, as mentioned by colleagues across the House? Can he assure residents in Kilnsea which was flooded—businesses were also flooded there—that remote, rural spots such as that will see their flood defences prioritised for investment, and that they will see that bank renewed, which desperately needs to be done?”
“People living in rural areas earn less on average than people living in urban areas, pay higher council tax and get fewer services, which are more expensive to deliver, yet there is a 50% rural premium or penalty, with 50% more going to urban areas than rural ones. We welcome the rolling of this grant into the general fund, but it will do nothing to close the gap between urban and rural, which cannot be defended.”
“Will the Minister join me in congratulating those who recently helped set up a food bank in Beverley, those who have run the Holderness food bank from Hornsea—the church groups and others—for the last two years, and the Real Aid children’s charity in Tickton outside Beverley, which does so much to help those in crisis? There will always be people in crisis; we need to make sure we have in place the measures to support them.”
“Sixth-form colleges are peculiarly successful in addressing the Government’s two key aims on education, so it makes no sense to penalise them in the way that is happening now. The VAT penalty that sixth-form colleges face is worth an average of £250,000 per college, and as has been said, the problem is worsened because, unlike other institutions, they cannot cross-subsidise. If that money were to be provided to sixth-form colleges, it would help them to save courses that are being lost, including less popular courses such as further maths. Ministers are quite right to identify the need to encourage science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. Sixth-form colleges can play a positive part in doing that, if they are provided with the wherewithal to do so.”
“It would be better to do the right thing by sixth-form colleges, not least because, as has been said, they are the most successful 16 to 19 providers that we have. If the Government’s education policy is about anything, it is about raising standards across the board and, of course, closing the gap between rich and poor. Well, guess which the most successful institutions are in the 16 to 19 sector at doing both those things? You’ve got it—sixth-form colleges. I have no sixth-form colleges in my constituency; I am not banging a constituency drum here. The sixth forms in my local schools will probably be cross with me for speaking up for sixth-form colleges so often. However, the whole point of the Education Committee is that we look at the evidence and try to work out what is the best thing to do. Well, guess what?”
“If anyone wants to play party politics, I will point out that the Opposition were wrong to leave the position uneven when they were in power. However, the Government have set out their aim, but now they are not fulfilling it. They have moved in that direction, but there is a real opportunity to take action on this issue. In the overall scheme of things, it would not be that expensive to do so; for sixth-form colleges, it is estimated that it would cost no more than £30 million. There are reasons why sixth-form colleges could be treated differently from further education colleges, if one wanted a stepped programme. To say, “This is wrong, but we can only afford to rectify some of it, so we will rectify none of it” is illogical.”
“Friend the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, who is a deeply distinguished member of the Government, that we do not have a Minister from the Department for Education here to answer questions about what is essentially an education matter. That letter was co-signed by 73 MPs from across the House, and it made the point that the unfair treatment of sixth-form colleges as far as VAT goes made no sense and was, in fact, untenable. The good news is that the Government agreed, fundamentally, that they could not defend that treatment. The bad news is that they do not plan to do anything about it. That is a shame, because Government policy is to create a level playing field for 16 to 19 provision, and they are right to do so.”
“Thank you very much, Mr Bayley, for calling me to speak. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, and to confirm that both the Minister and the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who secured the debate, had agreed to my speaking in it. I am sorry if I should also have informed you, Mr Bayley, but I think my bureaucratic resources ran out after contacting the Minister and the hon. Member. Given the short time available, I will try to keep my comments brief. In October, I wrote a letter to the Secretary of State for Education. It is a shame, notwithstanding the great respect that I have for my hon.”
“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I think there are feelings across the House on this subject. I said that I would keep my remarks brief, so perhaps I will bring them to a close. The big point is that sixth-form colleges have for years consistently been the most successful providers at delivering the Government’s key educational aims for 16 to 19-year-olds, but time and again, they appear to be on the front line of cuts in funding. That cannot make sense, in terms of having a rational, coherent approach to this issue.”
“Far from seeing sixth-form colleges cut back, sliced and reduced in capacity and capability, I would have thought that, having found a delivery system that works better than others, we should desperately look at expanding and supporting it in a way that is fair to other providers. I do not want in any way to be prejudiced against sixth forms, but I would like a level playing field, because we have the exact opposite: we are seemingly strengthening those with the weakest record, and weakening those with the strongest record.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for saying so. There is another aspect that it is worth pointing out briefly. At the moment, because of the freedoms for schools that I think are broadly supported across the House—there is certainly support for them on the Government Benches—there is a danger that we are sleepwalking into the creation of more small sixth forms, which we know, from sustained evidence gathered over time, perform poorly. At the same time, we are undermining institutions that have a long track record of success in raising standards for all, and in closing the gap between rich and poor. We cannot allow that to happen, so we need the Government to wake up and recognise the jewels that they have in the form of sixth-form colleges.”
“I agree. If a system is most successful and cost-effective, establishes high standards, particularly for the poorest, and closes the wealth gap, I would think people would be delighted to see it expand. I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton), and then I will draw to a close.”
“Again, it does not make sense for a Government who are rightly using the pupil premium and other measures to try to close the gap to finish up looking to make reductions at the end of the period—at the time when pupils need help to get over the line, and to get themselves on the first rung of the employment ladder—rather than looking to put in place additional support. The sixth-form college sector is not looking for special treatment; it is simply looking to be treated fairly, compared with other providers.”
“My hon. Friend is right. Perhaps that is the danger of making political promises that are nice and neat. His party might want to look carefully at the way that the protection of schools has left very few areas where we can cut in order to deliver reductions in spending. It could be that a series of measures that were positively meant have eventually led to this cut. Those who are 18 at the start of an academic year and who are still at a sixth-form college are likely to be those clinging on to education, having struggled in post-16 education, and they may be at risk of becoming NEET—that is, not in education, employment or training.”
“I do not really understand what the Minister says about a cap protecting consumers. Before we had these payday lenders who get so much opprobrium, the alternative was very often door-to-door loan sharks who would break your legs if you did not pay them back. The great feature of the payday lenders is that they do not do that. What assurance can he give that any caps we impose will not force people back into the hands of unscrupulous and illegal lenders instead of the payday lenders, who at least work within the law?”
“That is ever more important in what is now designed to be a self-improving, more autonomous school system. The challenge has been laid down, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.”
“We argued for more robust appointment processes for the chairs of governors, accompanied by clear procedures for removing poorly performing chairs from office. The Government agreed, but they have no plans to give governing bodies more power to remove elected governors, so the Committee finds itself only partially satisfied. Our report demonstrated the importance of recruiting and retaining high-quality, effective governors. It simultaneously identified the challenges in achieving such a standard. I accept that the Department for Education’s work on governance is still in development, just as the wider educational landscape is still evolving, but a continued focus on governance will be important in years to come if we are to deliver better educational outcomes for the next generation.”
“The Government said that they did “not agree that there is a need for a new role for Ofsted here… Having Ofsted make specific recommendations on the proposed solution could blur the boundary of responsibilities between the Chief Inspector, the local authority and the Secretary of State.” Does the Minister not accept that clear advice from Ofsted might be required to prompt some local authorities to take decisive action? The Secretary of State has seemed remarkably reluctant to act, even when the most obvious evidence of failure was present. The Government rejected the notion that the Secretary of State had held back from using his powers of intervention, although I would say that the evidence suggests the opposite.”
“Regrettably, the Government response was adamant that good schools “don’t need government to mandate training.” Will the Minister reconsider that response if it becomes apparent that the standards of training remain unacceptably inconsistent between schools? Likewise, we recommended that Ofsted should use its power and responsibility explicitly to recommend that a governing body be replaced by an interim executive board following an inadequate inspection.”
“Secondly, the Government should explain how relevant local groups, including pupils, parents and staff, should have a voice in the business of the governing body and the running of the school. Thirdly, clarity should be provided on how decisions are made in academies, along with details of where to turn should concerns arise. I have summarised the main findings of the Committee’s report. I am pleased that the Government agree with much of what we said, but with some notable exceptions. As I have explained, our report concluded that mandatory training for all governors should be introduced if Ofsted intervention is found to be ineffective.”
“We recommend that existing regulatory and legislative requirements should be reviewed to ensure clarity on the proper division of strategic and operational functions between head teachers and governors. The fifth and—you will be delighted to hear, Mr Rosindell—final part of the Committee’s report considered new models of governance. Academies define their own governance procedures, subject to approval by the Secretary of State. Such freedoms for academies have led to the evolution of new models of governance, from which lessons could be learned in many cases. Our report highlighted some confusion, however, about the accountability of some academy governance models, and we made three main recommendations. First, the Government should identify the roles of governors in the different types of academy.”
“Ministers should investigate why so many local authorities and, indeed, the Secretary of State for Education have been reluctant to use their powers of intervention where school governance is a concern. We ask the Government to clarify the role of local authorities in school improvement, as that function will provide an important challenge to schools between Ofsted inspections, the gaps between which can be quite long under the current regime. As an adjunct to that, we considered the relationship between governing bodies and head teachers. In its 2011 report on school governance, Ofsted noted: “Absolute clarity about the different roles and responsibilities of the headteacher and governors underpins the most effective governance.” However, we heard evidence that schools face difficulties in managing that relationship properly.”
“We remain concerned that current approaches to addressing underperformance and failure in governing bodies are insufficiently robust. Accordingly, we recommend more demanding appointment processes for the chairs of governors, accompanied by clear procedures for removing poorly performing chairs from office. We also recommend that time limits should be imposed for the implementation of interim executive boards. We believe that Ofsted should explicitly recommend IEBs following an inspection, where deemed appropriate. If Ofsted goes in to review a school and finds the school’s governance to be fundamentally wanting, it is appropriate that Ofsted should be able to recommend the speedy replacement of the governing body with an IEB.”
“We welcome the Government’s encouragement for governing bodies to undertake more self-evaluation and peer-to-peer review, using tools such as the all-party group on education governance and leadership’s 20 questions—I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) on his work on that all-party group—and other tools in the new governors’ handbook. We also welcome Ofsted’s new data dashboard, which will help governing bodies to become more adept at using performance data effectively. It is important to note that, although the data dashboard provides an easier route to start grappling with such data, it is not the end of the road. One would hope that governors will use the data dashboard to get a feel for the issues and then delve more deeply into the data, to hold their schools effectively to account.”
“SGOSS may be ideally placed to take on the role of recruiting clerks, while simultaneously ensuring some sort of quality assurance. I would be grateful to learn whether—and if so, how—the Government intend to facilitate that process. Clerks also need to be equipped with high-quality information and guidance. We are particularly concerned that the revised governors’ handbook, which contains less detailed guidance than the previous version, is aimed only at new governors. Will the Minister inform us of what steps, if any, have been taken to ensure that the revised handbook is relevant to governors of all levels of experience and acts as an easy access point for advice and guidance? The fourth section of our report considers the problem of poorly performing governing bodies.”