Educational Attainment: Yorkshire and the Humber — House of Commons, 2016-04-18
Topic: Education
Nicholas Dakin (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) on securing the debate, which has been excellent, along with the hon. Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland). It has shown the strength and passion of Yorkshire and the Humber MPs across the Chamber. My hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen made the case really well about the dangers of education becoming a postcode lottery. Sadly, the evidence suggests that children in the so-called northern powerhouse are falling behind, which we definitely do not want to happen. She was right to emphasise the importance of teacher quality and to urge the Government to do more to address the teacher recruitment and retention crisis that we face. She was also right to welcome steps set out in the White Paper, such as the setting up of the National Teaching Service. She urged the Government to accelerate such actions and drew attention to the problem of Teach First retaining so many of its teachers in areas where they are perhaps less needed than they are in Yorkshire and the Humber. That is a challenge to the Minister and the Government The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who used to chair the Education Committee, made an interesting and informed contribution, as he always does, focusing on good leaders and good teachers being the key. He drew attention to the Hanushek research, which shows that teachers performing on the 90th percentile add an extra year’s learning compared with teachers performing on the 10th percentile. That reminds us of the need to do everything we can to get teachers to the high level of performance we need consistently across the country. He reminded us that the high-stakes accountability system sometimes creates perverse incentives, so more intelligence is needed in how we deal with those incentives so that we get the right teachers and the right leaders in the right places and deliver the right outcomes across the country My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) talked about her constituency passionately, drawing attention to the underperformance of young people there but pointing out that it was not for want of trying. She drew attention to the enormous challenge that the city of Bradford faces. The word "challenge" came up again and again. We need to look at the London Challenge as an exemplar for tackling this issue. She said that if the northern powerhouse is to mean anything at all, it must mean that we invest in educational excellence and make sure that things are moving forward The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), in a characteristically robust contribution, made the strong point that pupils get only one go at their education, which is why it is so important to get it right. He drew attention to parental responsibility. The Minister might want to talk about what the Government are doing to support parents—not just in a technical way, but by supporting parenting and parenthood—so that the opportunities that young people coming into the system with good parental backgrounds have are equalised across the piece.