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Iraq

21. Mrs. Ann Cryer (Keighley) (Lab): If she will make a statement on the representation of women in positions of power in the new Iraqi Government. [182670]

The Minister for Women and Equality (Ms Patricia Hewitt): I am delighted to say that six women have been appointed as Ministers and seven women as Deputy Ministers in the new Iraqi Interim Government. That includes a Minister for Women.

Mrs. Cryer: I thank my right hon. Friend for that encouraging list of appointments in Iraq. Will she have any input into the organisation of elections to the National Assembly, which I understand may well have a reserved list for women, perhaps even of 25 per cent.? Will she have a word with Members of the National Assembly of Pakistan, who were elected on such a list and who are pretty well disregarded by their colleagues because of the way in which they were elected?

Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. As she knows, we have throughout supported Iraqi women who want and, I believe, deserve a strong voice in the future government of their country. I am delighted to say that two of the seven commissioners on the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq are women. There is indeed a commitment that 25 per cent. of the candidates for the new Transitional National Assembly should be women. That is being taken forward by the United Nations, which will facilitate that election and electoral system.

Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): Although it is welcome that women are involved in the new Government, the role of women in the new Iraq needs to be at least as good as it was under the previous regime,
 
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which ironically, in its general treatment of women, was better than many other states in the middle east. With regard to the question from the hon. Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer), is not the problem the fact that we have transferred sovereignty to the people of Iraq? Our job is not to tell the people of Iraq how to organise their society, but to ensure that there is a democratic framework that enables women to prosper and thrive in that society and in its Administration.

Ms Hewitt: I must say that the Iraqi women with whom I have worked closely over the past 12 months would not recognise the hon. Gentleman's description of the previous regime, under which many of them and their families suffered and from which several of them were forced to flee. We do not seek to dictate how the Iraqi people should shape their future society and Government, and we support Iraqi people, and in this case Iraqi women, in having their voices heard. Iraqi women insisted on the transitional council withdrawing its proposal to reinstate sharia law, and they also insisted—we supported them—on the inclusion of women in all the new power structures. Many of those strong and courageous women will be elected to the Transitional National Assembly, and they will play an important role in building a strong, stable and democratic Iraq.

Professional Qualifications (Government Support)

22. Ms Sally Keeble (Northampton, North) (Lab): What support the Government are providing for women returning to work who want to acquire professional qualifications. [182671]

The Deputy Minister for Women and Equality (Jacqui Smith): We recognise the barriers that women face in returning to work and acquiring professional qualifications, and consequently we have introduced a raft of measures to help ease the transition. Those measures include the new deal for partners, the new deal for lone parents, the new deal 50-plus, new rights for working parents, a national child care strategy, tax credits and financial support as part of the lifelong learning programme.

Ms Keeble: Is my hon. Friend aware that University college Northampton in my constituency runs very good nursing and teaching courses? However, women find it difficult to complete those courses and return to work because they have problems paying for child care, and other problems arise during holidays. Such women say that the schemes help them return to work to stack shelves, but not to do professional jobs. Will she talk to her colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education and Skills—some of them are sitting on the Front Bench—about integrating benefits and the student support system to allow women to qualify as nurses and teachers and to take degree courses rather than just diplomas? [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not want advice from Opposition Front Benchers. The hon. Lady knows that her question was far too long and rambling.
 
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Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend rightly identified not only the challenges faced by those who want to return to teaching or the health service, but the importance of bringing back into those sectors those women and their skills. Progress has been made on bursaries and child care support in both education and the national health service, and I shall bear my hon. Friend's comments in mind and report them to my colleagues.

Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con): Is the Minister aware that it takes a long time to obtain a professional qualification in child care and that the need for more people to work in child care is urgent? Does she agree that a mother who has successfully brought up a child to school age has effectively served a rigorous apprenticeship in child care? Will she consider accrediting that experience towards a professional qualification for mothers who want to return to work in the child care profession?

Jacqui Smith: The hon. Lady is right. The massive expansion in child care under this Government has placed child care workers' skills at a premium. The hon. Lady makes a fair point about the skills that women gain by bringing up their own children. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Children and other ministerial colleagues are examining how we can recognise those skills, while also recognising the importance of high quality training for our child care workers.
 
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Gender/Trade Issues

23. Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge) (Lab): What action she is taking on gender and trade issues. [182672]

The Minister for Women and Equality (Ms Patricia Hewitt): Yesterday, I published a White Paper on trade and investment that makes the case for global trade that is fair, as well as free, and stresses the need for trade policies in developing countries to be integrated with programmes for development and poverty reduction and to ensure that the position of women, who are the majority of the poor in those countries, is taken fully into account.

Mrs. Campbell: Does my right hon. Friend agree that women are often more adversely affected than men by trade globalisation issues? For instance, they are more likely to be affected by the transfer of call centres abroad. Will she ensure that her policies take account of gender issues and that our trade rules mean that globalisation is good for women as well as for men?

Ms Hewitt: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that we have to consider the differing impact that growing trade and technology can have on men and on women. It can work in both directions. The manufacturing jobs that we have lost to global trade have often been male jobs, but the new jobs created in developing countries have often been taken by women. The point is to take such factors into account to ensure that women as well as men, in developing as well as developed countries, can benefit from the growth in the world economy.

 
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Education and Skills (Five-year Strategy)

12.30 pm

The Secretary of State for Education and Skills (Mr. Charles Clarke): Today, I am proud to publish the Government's five-year strategy for education and skills and for children's services.

Since 1997, substantial new investment and significant reform have brought education, skills and children's services to the centre of our national life. A powerful alliance now exists for higher standards, embracing parents, our schools, colleges and universities, the voluntary sector, local authorities and employers. Improvements can be seen across the board: nursery education is now available for all three to four-year-olds; our 10-year-olds are among the best readers in the world; specialist schools are producing our best-ever results in secondary education; record numbers of young people are going on to university; and adults at work are gaining new skills.

That progress has reversed years of under-investment and complacency; but more than that, it has lifted expectations in communities all over the country where educational failure had become entrenched. People know that education provides the key to lifelong achievement, and they now believe that it can be for them and for their children. They are right to have those expectations, challenging though they are to all of us in Government. Most parents do not want good schooling to depend on the ability to pay or to be rationed by admissions to selective schools. For many years, a quality education was the prerogative of the few: it must now become the entitlement of all.

Five key principles of reform will underpin our drive for a step change in children's services, education and training: first, greater personalisation and choice, with children, parents and learners centre stage; secondly, opening up services to new and different providers; thirdly, freedom and independence for front-line head teachers and managers, with more secure streamlined funding arrangements; fourthly, a major commitment to staff development, with very high-quality support and training; and fifthly, partnerships with parents, employers, local authorities and voluntary organisations to maximise the life chances of children, young people and adults.

Our five-year strategy is ambitious for children and learners at every stage of life. In the early years, all parents will be able to get one-stop support through children's centres that provide a combination of child care, education, health and advice services, and there will be a flexible system of "educare" that joins up education and childcare to provide 12½ hours of free support a week for three to four-year-olds before they start school, with more choice for parents about when they use it. Local authorities will play a major new role, through children's trusts, in joining up all local services for families and children.

In primary schools, we will continue to drive up standards in reading, writing, numeracy and science, but also to enrich the school curriculum and to give every child the chance to learn a foreign language and to take part in music and competitive sport. We will develop more dawn-to-dusk schools offering child care and after-school activities to help children and busy parents.
 
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Those extended schools, as they are called, will combine with early years and with family learning providers to provide a genuine educational centre to every local community.

In secondary education, we will build on the achievements of the past seven years to increase freedoms and independence, accelerate the pace of reform in teaching and learning and extend choice and flexibility in the curriculum. Driving our reform will be a system of independent specialist schools—not a new category of school, but more independence for all schools.

Independence will be within a framework of fair admissions, full accountability and strong partnership. We will never return to a system based on selection of the few and rejection of the many. The strict national requirement for fair admissions will remain and we will not allow any extension of selection by ability.

We will put in place eight key reforms. First, real freedom for schools will come only with secure and predictable funding in the hands of head teachers. Every penny meant for schools must get to them. We will therefore introduce guaranteed three-year budgets for every school from 2006, geared to pupil numbers, with a minimum per pupil increase for every school each year. That dedicated schools budget will be guaranteed by national Government and delivered through local authorities. We will consult in the autumn on the practical arrangements and on ensuring there are no adverse effects for other local government services.

Secondly, we expect all secondary schools to become specialist schools with a centre of excellence. They will now be able to take on a second specialism. High-performing specialist schools could become training schools or leaders of partnerships.

Thirdly, every school will have a fast-tracked opportunity to move to foundation status, which will give them freedom to own their land and buildings, manage their assets, employ their staff, improve their governing bodies and forge partnerships with outside sponsors.

Fourthly, there will be more places in popular schools. There is no surplus places rule. We already enable popular and successful schools to expand—we have a special capital budget for that. Now we will speed up and simplify the means to do it. There will be more competitions for new schools, which will enable parents' groups and others to open up schools.

Fifthly, a new relationship with schools will be established to cut red tape without abandoning our ambitious targets for school improvement or intervention in failing schools. We will halve the existing inspection burden on schools, with sharper short-notice inspection. Schools will have a single annual review carried out by a school improvement partner—typically, a serving head teacher from a successful school.

Sixthly, in areas where the education service has failed pupils and parents, sometimes for generations, we will provide for 200 independently managed city academies to be open or in the pipeline by 2010. About 60 of those new academies will be in London.
 
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Seventhly, through the "Building Schools for the Future" programme, and a sevenfold increase in the capital budget for schools since 1997, we will refurbish or rebuild every secondary school to 21st century standards in the next 10 to 15 years.

Eighthly, foundation partnerships will enable schools to group together to raise standards and take on wider responsibilities, such as special educational needs or hard-to-place pupils.

Local authorities will play a key part as champions of pupils and parents, setting a strategic vision for services in their area, encouraging and enabling strong partnerships of schools, holding schools to account and intervening where standards are at risk.

In each school, every pupil should have the personalised teaching they need to succeed, backed by excellent training for teachers, a broad and rich curriculum and more sport, clubs, societies and trips. We will continue to crack down on truancy and poor behaviour wherever it occurs, giving new powers to schools and local authorities.

From the age of 14 onwards, there will be a much wider choice of subjects, with better vocational options delivered in close collaboration with employers, and the opportunity to start an apprenticeship at 14. There will be more choice after 16, with high-performing specialist schools opening more sixth forms where there are not enough.

There will be a new framework for the curriculum and qualifications following the Tomlinson review. I appreciate the Conservative party's support in working with us. That will help the reform process. I also appreciate the strong support that the director general of the Confederation of British Industry gave yesterday for working together. That is a positive step.

In the autumn, we will publish a Green Paper on bringing together activities and services for young people. The structure of what is currently offered to young people is too complicated and unclear, and we will tackle that.

For adults developing their skills, there will be free tuition for basic skills and for those going on to level 2 qualifications, which is equivalent to five good GCSEs. There will be a leading role for employers through sector skills councils and a reformed further education sector, rewarding success and closing weak courses and colleges. For those going on to university, there will be grants for students who need them, an end to up-front fees and a fair system for graduates to contribute to the cost of their course. There will be foundation degrees in vocational subjects, designed with and for employers, and world-class research to maintain our leading edge, particularly in science and technology.

This ambitious programme of reform is backed by the further investment announced by the Chancellor in his Budget statement in April. Spending on education will rise by more than £11 billion to £58 billion by 2008 and—through the efficiency review and the 30 per cent. reduction in the Department's main staff—will be focused more than ever on front-line services.

The dividing lines for the future of children and schools are clear: whether we select a few, or raise standards for all; whether there is no role for local
 
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authorities, or a new role for local authorities; whether we take funding out of public services, or put it in; whether there is freedom for all, or a free-for-all; and whether some children matter, or every child matters. On this side of the House, we have made our decision: for excellence, for opportunity, for choice, but, importantly, for all.

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