Schools that work for Everyone — House of Commons, 2016-09-12
Topic: Education
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): If I may, I would like to start by offering some advice to the Government: "Stop your silly class war." [Interruption.] That reaction is very interesting, because it was not my advice but that of the last Prime Minister—who is still currently, I believe, the right hon. Member Witney—when asked about Tory MPs wanting to return to grammar schools. He went on to say: "I think it is delusional to think that a policy of expanding a number of grammar schools is either a good idea, a sellable idea or even the right idea" He was the future once, but the current Prime Minister wants to hark back to the past. Where once, under Labour, we had "Education, education, education", this Government’s mantra is "Segregation, segregation, segregation" Perhaps the Secretary of State can start by telling us when the Prime Minister told her what her education policy was going to be. When the Secretary of State came to this House last Thursday, she told us that there was nothing to announce. She said: "we have not yet actually made any policy announcements; they will be made in due course."—[Official Report, 8 September 2016; Vol. 614, c. 470.] She assured us that she was looking into "a range of options". Yet, lo and behold, just 24 hours later the Prime Minister unveiled their policy in full. Apparently it did not take that long to look at those options. This is not a surprise. The Prime Minister’s plan seems to be that we need grammars, secondary moderns and technical schools. This is a line taken directly from the Conservatives’ 1955 manifesto—hardly an education policy for the 21st century. Was the Secretary of State unaware of the Prime Minister’s speech or did she forget to tell the House—or perhaps the dog ate that bit of her answer Today’s statement is another sorry excuse, so I have some serious questions that the Secretary of State has yet to answer. Will she confirm that the new Prime Minister has absolutely no mandate for this policy? Not only was no such pledge in their manifesto, but the former Prime Minister, as Leader of the Opposition, promised precisely not to bring in new grammar schools. He said: "It is not something we would do if elected." We will hold the Government to account, and the country will hold the Government to that promise When the Prime Minister’s predecessor was asked whether he would cave in to his Back Benchers over grammar schools, he said: "I lead. I don’t follow my party; I lead them." He was able to do that for more than six years, but his successor has hardly managed six weeks It is not just the former Prime Minister who opposes the plans; the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) has said of the creation of new grammar schools: "I believe that an increase in pupil segregation on the basis of academic selection would be…a distraction" from the serious efforts to narrow the attainment gap The Conservative Chair of the Education Committee said last night: "We have serious issues about social mobility…and I don’t think that having more grammar schools is going to help them." He went on to say: "I think that the creaming off of the best is actually detrimental to the interests of the most." Will the Secretary of State now apologise for dismissing all opponents of her plans by placing dogma over pupils and opportunity? All the major research shows that where there are grammar schools today, access to them is limited to the most well-off. It also shows that educational attainment in grammar areas for those who fail to get into grammar schools is below the national average. Given the overwhelming academic evidence that grammars fail to improve the standards of the majority of children, what research is the Secretary of State basing her decision on, and will she lay it before this House Will the Secretary of State explain just how this policy is going to work? She seems to be saying not only that every new school can be a grammar, but that every existing school can convert to a grammar as well. I may be a comprehensive girl, but even I can see the flaw in thinking that it is possible to let every school in the country select through an exam. Will the Secretary of State tell us just how she will decide which schools will be allowed to segregate pupils and which will not We are told that the new grammars may be free schools, but free schools are not free to the taxpayer. How much of the schools budget will be put aside for these new grammar schools? Has the Secretary of State received any extra funding from the Treasury, or will it have to be taken from existing schools, which are already facing the first real-terms cut in decades Page 25 of the Government’s consultation document says that for schools to become grammars, one requirement that they may have to meet is to establish a new, non-selective secondary school, with capital and revenue costs paid by the Government. Perhaps the Secretary of State can reassure the House that that will be paid for by new funding arrangements that she has reached with the Treasury, rather than being squeezed out of school budgets that are facing a real-terms cut.