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Is the pledge of 10 hours' free one-to-one tuition a sensible way to deliver support to youngsters who, after all, will have very different problems? The youngsters who fall beneath the threshold for intervention will include some who are very close to it and some who are disastrously far from it and will probably never meet it because of the nature of their special needs. In the modern world and the 21st century, what type of Government, other than one with the instincts of a Soviet Government of 50 or 100 years ago, would really think of prescribing centrally that the same number of hours, 10, should be delivered for all such youngsters, regardless of the views of teachers and head teachers on what they need, regardless of the need for flexibility to deliver in different-sized groups and regardless of whether some youngsters might need 20 or 25 hours and others with considerably fewer challenges might need only four or five?
Surely that is the kind of pledge that gives the Government such a bad name for trying to impose such solutions from the top down. I hope that we will hear further responses on the matter from the Government next year, when they complete their review of deprivation. Surely the right answer is to introduce a fair system of funding for schools that delivers more, particularly to deprived youngsters, and then to allow the schools themselves to deliver the standards that need to be set nationally in a light-touch way and enforced by Ofsted.
Ed Balls: I look forward to the debates that will happen in Committee. We will set out more details on how we will implement the guarantees as we take forward the White Paper in advance of that. As usual, the hon. Gentleman is making serious policy points. The point that he made about the pupil premium is absolutely right. A pupil premium could lead to more or less resourcing going to a school with more disadvantage, depending on what else is happening to school budgets and the school formula. Simply saying that one wants a pupil premium could be consistent with major and substantial cuts, so it is an important point. However, a pupil premium where money went to the school based on the number of disadvantaged pupils would not guarantee that the pupils with disadvantages or extra needs would actually get the support that they need.
We are not saying that there has to be detailed prescription; we are saying that it should be for the school to make the decision in year 7 about a pupil who is falling behind. But we are saying that there should be a minimum entitlement of at least 10 hours for any pupil who has not got to level 4 at the end of year 6. If we do not do that, parents cannot know that their child with greater need will get greater support. How that is delivered-singly or in small groups and over how many hours-is a matter for the school to decide, but unless we set a minimum entitlement, how will we know that the pupil will get the support that they need?
Mr. Laws:
The Secretary of State raises a serious issue about how we achieve accountability for money that goes to schools, but his solution is still entirely the wrong one. The problem with him-this is what divides his grouping within the Labour party from my party and, to a certain extent, from the Conservative party, although the Conservatives have different ideas about the amount of devolution that should apply to schools-is that he believes, ultimately, that the man in Whitehall
and Westminster knows best. There is no better version of the man in Whitehall and Westminster who thinks that he knows best than the Secretary of State.
Because the Secretary of State thinks that he knows best, he thinks that the only way that schools can be trusted to deliver on such matters is for him to tell them precisely what they will have to deliver. The problem with that is that no Secretary of State can reflect from one desk in Westminster and Whitehall all the requirements, complexities and particular circumstances of 23,500 schools and 11.5 million pupils. He has gone way too far in this particular supposed guarantee in imposing a one-size-fits-all solution from Westminster and Whitehall. That is the wrong way of holding schools to account.
Ed Balls: I apologise to Members of the Conservative party, but this is the serious debate about policy that we did not have earlier from the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), so I would like to engage in it. There is an issue here. I agree that we have to make sure that we get more flexibility and power to head teachers and teachers, but at the same time, parents want to know that their school will be a good school and that if their child falls behind, they will get extra help. How can we ensure that that will happen without the right combination of accountability for the progress of every child and without telling parents that their child has a right to extra support? If we simply leave it to local decision making-or, as we know from the Conservatives, basically opt out entirely from the national curriculum of the state system and have a much more market-based free-for-all-it might work for some children, but how can we guarantee that a child from a particularly disadvantaged background whose parents may be less engaged will get the necessary support? How can we make sure that we deliver social justice in that way?
Mr. Laws: We can never ensure that we deliver social justice by trying to prescribe from Westminster and Whitehall a system that will fit every school and every child in the country. What we can do is ensure that an individual school has the funding it needs and then that the school is held properly to account for what it does with the money. The Government's job, it seems to me, is to put in place a system of oversight and inspection that will then hold schools to account for the money they get. That is very different from telling schools how to spend that money.
Ed Balls: I accept that. We are having a legitimate debate about how we frame these guarantees to get these matters right both in terms of funding and how they are specified. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but does he agree that telling schools to opt out of the national curriculum, to stop being part of the state school system, to not accept the accountability that comes from the report card and then basically to sink or swim depending on whether the school is a good one, is totally unfair, unjust and would leave many children substantially disadvantaged? Does he agree on that point, even if we can debate our differences about the guarantees?
Mr. Laws:
The Secretary of State is trying to draw me into agreeing to something. Even though we would like to see a much more devolved system of education with much more freedom for schools, I agree that we will
never end up delivering high school standards in the foreseeable future by relying only on market mechanisms. I would still like to see much more choice and competition in education, but we will need some type of strategic approach to make sure that schools deliver, particularly in the most deprived areas where, as the hon. Member for Keighley (Mrs. Cryer) said earlier, we cannot always assume that parents will have the ability or the inclination to move pupils around. We have to be able to bring successful schools to those communities and cannot rely on youngsters and parents moving large distances.
Let me move on from this exchange with the Secretary of State to discuss the obvious issue of school accountability. Another important part of the debate is about the school report card. When we heard the statement on the White Paper in June or July this year, we said that we welcomed the idea of having a school report card. I think that there is potential to deliver a much better overview of what schools are achieving. At the moment, Ofsted goes to inspect every few years, but it is only every few years and circumstances in schools can change pretty rapidly. It would be valuable to know more about parental views and it would be useful to be able to compare families of schools with similar catchments rather than just on the basis of the overall results.
We nevertheless have some fairly serious concerns about the school report card model that the Secretary of State is seeking to introduce. First, my understanding-I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong-is that the school report card is, to my surprise, going to be delivered not by Ofsted or even by local authorities, which, in the Government's jargon, although not usually in the substance, are supposed to be the commissioners of education, but by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. That rings all the alarm bells because trying to manage and oversee 23,500 schools from Westminster and Whitehall is deeply damaging. It potentially leads to a situation in which anyone running education from the Department has the strong incentive over time to demonstrate that schools are improving.
I understand that in New York, where this school card approach has been tried, schools were initially awarded a single grade from A to F-or something like that-and there was originally quite a good distribution of schools in different categories. The latest figures came out from New York recently, but they showed that virtually all schools were graded in the A and B categories. That sends out a warning: there is a risk both of those who oversee these arrangements having an interest in the outcomes and of creating a whole series of measures of school performance that are woolly, difficult to measure-things such as well-being and pupil perception-and open to the predictable attempt by schools to meet the targets in any way possible, which often fails to measure what is going on underneath. Anyone serious about what is going on in education in this country is worried that the existing target approach used by the Government to drive up standards-with some success in many areas-is actually leading to serious distortions in what is being chosen in terms of subjects and how it is being delivered.
I believe that Teach First graduates are giving a presentation of their views on education here next Monday; they will put forward their view that in some of the most deprived schools in the country, many youngsters end up making choices about the curriculum and qualifications based not on their own interests but
on the desires of schools to achieve in the league tables. It is deeply worrying if choices are being made in education only to meet targets rather than because they are right for the pupils.
Ed Balls: On that particular point about distorting choices-we will soon be able to have our debate in Committee-what is the hon. Gentleman's view of the proposal that we should exclude all vocational qualifications from these school-by-school comparison league tables? For example, it is proposed that we should not include construction, music, dance, design, IT or any of the vocational qualifications. Does he think that that would lead to a distortion in the choice that schools and pupils would make? Would that be a good distortion or a bad distortion?
Mr. Laws: Yet again, the Secretary of State is trying to draw me to his side of the Chamber. He knows that I think that the Conservative proposals-to leave vocational subjects out of the league tables-are very bad. I believe that the Conservative party may already have made a U-turn on this, if the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) was right the other day.
Michael Gove indicated dissent.
Mr. Laws: Ah, it seems that there are two spokesmen on whether there has been a U-turn because the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said the other day that the Conservative party had dropped that particular proposal.
Michael Gove indicated dissent.
Mr. Laws: Well, it is on the record. The reason why this issue is so important is, as the Secretary of State said, that we do not want children choosing subjects because of league tables, because in many cases vocational subjects may be right for young people. What school is going to encourage the take-up of vocational subjects if they are not included in the league tables? The issue is to ensure that the weightings are right and realistic, which they may not be at the moment, and not to aspire to a curriculum that might have been appropriate for Eton in 1850 but is not right for England today. I hope that there will be some changes to the school report card process as we take the Bill through Committee. At the moment, we do not think it will deliver and we think it will replicate a lot that is happening elsewhere in the system.
We dealt a few moments ago with the Badman review. I shall say only that we share many of the concerns about the perception of home education that the Badman review process has created. Although we think it is reasonable for all parents who are home educating to register their children, our greatest concern is that that should not become a back-door way of foisting much of the bureaucratic and centralised education system on those who are seeking to home educate often precisely in order to escape from that system. They do not want it coming in through the back door.
I believe that I have made clear our major concerns about the Bill. We believe that it will usher in a tidal wave of new bureaucracy that will do very little to drive up standards in schools. Many of us will conclude that if this Parliament comes to an end before the Bill comes into law, it will be a good thing for education.
1.39 pm
Peter Bottomley (Worthing, West) (Con): It has been interesting to listen to today's speeches and some from yesterday also repay reading. I would particularly like to commend the speech of the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), which showed what a model Member of Parliament can cover in not that many minutes after 17 years in Parliament. It was an inspiring speech, which I commend to anyone elected to this Parliament after the next election. It will show how it is possible to be on the Government side, pretty loyal, and interesting as well as representative of the interests of constituents.
I would like say a few words to the Secretary of State, if I may have his attention for a moment. [Interruption.] It is not comfortable for either the Prime Minister or the Secretary of State to spend all their time talking to people beside them on the Front Bench when a Member is trying to make a remark about them. It shows a discourtesy to the House which I find regrettable. The fact that the Secretary of State is now choosing to leave the Chamber could be described as going beyond what I had expected.
I think that one camera ought to be trained on the person at the Dispatch Box when a Member on the other side of the House is speaking. Yesterday we saw the Prime Minister spending all his time chatting to people. During the part of the debate when the Secretary of State was not getting involved with the Liberal Democrat spokesman, he was talking to the person sitting beside him. All that he wanted was for the person beside him to smile and nod as though he were being very clever. I think that a better example would be given to people in our schools and colleges if the Secretary of State could actually listen to the debate that the Government have introduced. I think that that is what people in this country expect.
When I speak in schools and colleges, I say to pupils, "If you are good enough, consider being a teacher." We want the best people to become teachers. They are not always the ones with firsts, or even the ones with degrees, but I think that in many fields, whether it is formal education or otherwise, being a teacher is one of the most rewarding of experiences, and certainly very important to society.
My mother-in-law was a teacher, my sister has been a head teacher, my brother-in-law has been a lecturer, and two of our nieces are teachers. I think that it is tremendous to be able to provide education, together with inspiration, motivation, aspiration and dedication. It means saying, "I will not necessarily become as well off as some of my contemporaries who have gone into fields such as industry," but, at the end of a working life or, indeed, at the end of a whole life, being able to look back and say, "Here are the people whom I have helped to teach and to share an excitement and interest"-whether the subject was science, literature, languages, philosophy or mechanics.
I went up to Cambridge last week to attend the launch of a book on the history of earth sciences at the university. A large part of it was dedicated to my great-great uncle, Sir Gerald Lenox-Conyngham. He never went to university, but he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Reader in geodesy and geophysics as a result of his help in developing those subjects. He has now been succeeded by Dan McKenzie, described by the present president of the Royal Society as probably
the greatest living geophysicist, who made people aware of plate tectonics. Being able to challenge received ideas about what is going on inside our earth, let alone ideas about astronomy and even theories about how education can be made to work, is a great thing, and I am glad that today's debate is about education, although I shall also say a few words about health.
My wife and I have five grandchildren who attend the same primary school that our three children attended. It has no advantage over other schools-it has as great an ethnic mix as any-except for the fact that, over the 40 years or so for which we have known it, the head teachers have been people who believed in order, and in having expectations of what teachers and children can achieve together. Every child learned to read, and, having learned to read, was given a hymn book. Every child learned to swim. Every child learned, when out, to behave in a way that prompted people to ask, "What school does that child come from? It must be very impressive." That is something that does not require money. It is something that should be common and shared, and I hope that it will be.
The downside is that parents and teachers together do not always succeed. I hope that, when my party serves in government, we shall find a way of publishing, perhaps every two years, the results of studies keeping track of young people in each age cohort. I hope that we shall publish, for instance, the number of young people who each week, for the first time, commit a serious criminal offence. That figure used to be more than 2,000 a week. The vast majority of those young people were male, and by the age of 30 a third of young people had been convicted of an offence for which they could have been jailed for six months or more. I am glad that they were not, but those are pretty horrifying figures.
I hope that the position is now changing, but it used to be the case that 5,000 people in this country took up smoking each week. The same number of cigarettes were being sold each week. We knew that 2,000 people had died-not all of them prematurely-and we knew that 3,000 had given up while still alive. Virtually all those 5,000 people were under 21. Smoking was a habit copied from other people-a social contagion.
Let us take another issue that affects people's lives-not just the lives of teenagers, but those of many people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. The number of people in the country who, each week, contribute to a conception that ends in a termination is over 6,000. More than 40 per cent. of people will, at some stage in their lives, contribute to a conception that ends in a formal termination.
All those figures are as easy to reduce as reducing the incidence of drink-driving among young men proved to be. We managed to reduce the number of occasions-2 million a week-on which a young man aged under 30 would drive a car having consumed more than the legal limit of alcohol to 600,000. Two thirds of a socially acceptable, body-breaking, illegal habit evaporated with no change in the law, no change in sentencing, and no change in enforcement. We achieved a change in understanding, a change in behaviour and a change in results.
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