Education and Adoption Bill — House of Commons, 2015-09-16
Topic: Education
Tristram Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), the shadow Secretary of State for Education, on her excellent and passionate speech, and thank the Secretary of State for her kind words In a former life, before I joined what Engels would have described as the breezy heights of the Back Benches, I tabled a reasoned amendment to the Bill on Second Reading. I tried to develop, on behalf of the Labour party, some common ground with the Government, because we all share a passion for improvement in our schools and adoption system. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) revealed, the Government turned down every single one of our amendments in Committee, which shows that they have no interest in the kind of one nation, consensual government we were told they were interested in developing. That is why it is absolutely right that the Opposition Front Benchers will lead us to vote against the Bill tonight As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central said, there are huge challenges in education today. A recent report by the World Economic Forum puts us 27th out of 30 advanced economies in providing access to learning. As she said, there are immediate challenges in the retention and recruitment of teachers; in improving the quality of teaching, day in, day out, across our schools; in providing more school places in areas where they are needed, as a result both of the baby boom and the Government’s immigration policy; and in retaining a broad curriculum when the Government are cutting school budgets by 10% over the course of this Parliament, which will limit pupil choice as teachers are laid off and courses curtailed Broader challenges are facing education across the UK. We must tackle inequality in the early years by supporting parenting, attachment, and early years investment, and we must promote the collaboration, partnership and challenge that we need in an era of school autonomy. It is great that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) has revealed the Liverpool challenge, which is beginning to take his work forward across the country. We must reform the upper-secondary curriculum, and develop a consensus to steer us away from the tired, GCSE model and towards a 14-to-19 baccalaureate model. We must attract high-quality teachers into low-income communities, because that is where they will make a real difference Nothing in this Bill—this Government’s first legislative Act in education policy—goes anywhere near addressing those critical challenges for our country. It is, as has been said, a tired, highly political and partisan piece of work and, with great respect to those in the civil servants Box, it has been drawn together rather shoddily over the summer and does not deserve our support. It seeks to resuscitate debates of a decade ago, and I find it sad that Tory thinking on education—which has been rather vibrant in recent years—has now been shown to be dead On Second Reading we set out some much needed improvements: action on coasting and underperforming academies and—crucially—academy chains; a quality threshold for new academy sponsors; devolution of power from the Secretary of State to combined authorities; and the end of the assault on free speech among parents. At the heart of this Bill lies dogma. The Secretary of State complained about a one-size-fits-all policy, but what she has brought to the House today is the idea that the answer to every educational challenge is academisation. That is a fallacy. What makes the difference in education is high-quality teaching, strong leadership, a faculty committed to change, and supportive parenting. In many situations a change of structure can afford that, and that was the original vision behind the Labour party sponsored academy programme. However, the debate has moved on, and as the Education Committee recently reported: "Academisation is not…the only proven alternative for a struggling school." It also stated that there is "no convincing evidence of the impact of academy status on attainment in primary schools" It is right to oppose this Bill as it does nothing to challenge coasting academy schools, thereby letting down tens of thousands of schoolchildren on the altar of political ideology. We know what can raise standards in coasting schools: strong systems of partnership and challenge between and among schools; the professional development of teachers, week in, week out; strong leadership by heads. Instead we have blanket academisation, as if that is the only answer The Bill fails to address poor academy sponsors. Too many children have been let down in my constituency and those of my hon. Friends by the Department for Education’s "pile ‘em high" approach to academy sponsors. There has been a massive over-expansion in academy chains, and once again children are paying the price. There is an absence of good-quality academy sponsors, and nothing to show that forced academisation will improve quality. I remain of the view that Ofsted should inspect academy chains, just as it should inspect a local authority The Bill continues the remarkable programme to concentrate power in education in the hands of Whitehall. Steve Hilton, who used to be a guru for the Prime Minister, recently criticised the Government for their "soviet" command and control approach to education. The Secretary of State rails against bureaucrats, yet she gives more power to bureaucrats at the Education Funding Agency and Whitehall. The Labour party believes in devolution, which is why our amendments to hand real power to combined authorities in education and devolving schools policy were such a good idea. The middle tier is a real problem with the Government’s approach to education. Their vision of regional schools commissioners being able to solve every problem for academies has been shown to be completely wrong, and there is little evidence they are delivering the sustained improvements we need in schools Finally, the Bill launches a terrible assault on civil society. We need power closer to communities, but the Bill wrenches it from the hands of communities and once again gives control to Ministers. The Bill must be seen alongside the charities gagging Bill, the attack on trade unions in the Trade Union Bill and the assault on the free speech of the BBC. Time and again, we see an assault on free speech by the Government. It strikes me as wholly wrong not to allow parents to be involved in the conversation about the education of their children We generously gave the Government the benefit of the doubt on Second Reading, but they abused that trust in Committee by rejecting amendment after amendment. They have decided to begin this Parliament as they ended the last one, with a stale and tired debate about school structure, when our education system so desperately needs an inspiring, challenging and equitable programme for the future. It is right that we oppose the Bill Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.