Barry Sheerman - schools committee chairman

Question: what will the education priorities be in the coming months?

Sheerman: Between now and the next general election the focus will continue to be on secondary education and improving the GCSE results of the 600-odd worse performing schools.

There is no doubt that there will be a new education bill coming through after the Queen's Speech which will allow the new bodies currently shadowing the qualification and examination organisations.

In that bill there will also be measures on children's trusts and elements of the new strategy on the national targets for schools.

The whole movement towards trust schools will also gather pace, people sometimes take their eye off that because the focus tends to be on academies, but there will be a very fast development of trusts over the next year or two.

In addition the government will really focus on the building schools for the future programme now that the Conservatives are committed to scaling that down if elected.

Overall investment will be controversial because the Conservatives have begun attacking the basis and outcomes of the government's additional resources for schools.

There will also be a discussion about expanding higher education as the numbers going to university continues rising despite the warnings that the change in tuition fees would lead to a drop off in numbers.

All in all the committee will be very busy in the coming months.

Question: What's your reaction to the GCSE results?

Sheerman: I'm very pleased. Every year that the good grades go up, and all grades rise is a cause for celebration. Every time whether it is A-level, GCSE or the key stage tests there is always some think-tank or someone who claims rather dubiously that actually things are getting worse and we're going to hell in a handcart, that standards are being diluted or something.

I visit more schools than anyone else in Parliament and I see hardworking students and schools really achieving much more than they did 10 years ago.

As we have seen there has been a 36 to 46 per cent rise in GCSE top grades including maths and English over those 10 years and that is a tremendous achievement.

Of course we would like all children to have those sorts of results but all children that aren't the same and I am delighted that there is more diversity in the system, that there are more opportunities to take good, stretching vocational as well as academic qualifications.

GCSE results have improved, schools have improved and I'm very happy.

Question: Has the 'national challenge' to the worse performing 600-odd schools to improve their results had a positive effect?

Sheerman: When that policy was announced there was a bit of the threatening language which was a bit unfortunate. It was misinterpreted wrongly and so there was a view that those 600 schools were failing schools and I don't think that was the government's intention.

I think the government's intention was to raise the levels of achievement in a particular group of schools and that they would be given greater assistance to climb up the ladder.

Many of them, but not all of them, are in areas of high deprivation and population turnover so I think the effect is positive although I know a lot of heads and staff were stressed by the way the announcement was made.

Question: Do you think Ed Balls is moving towards a diploma to replace the A-level as recommended by the Tomlinson review?

Sheerman: When Mike Tomlinson's report came out, those of us who wanted to see a change in the rather forbidding structure for a lot of people with different talents didn't get much help from the government.

There was very little change in the national curriculum or in the kinds of qualifications that students could pursue and when Tomlinson came out it was rejected by Tony Blair and the CBI and of course there was a retreat.

I still believe that much of what Tomlinson wanted to implement was right and now we see much more of a move back to that philosophy.

People have come to accept that there is nothing wrong with A-levels living alongside the baccalaureate and now we're going to have the diplomas coming in in September.

Quite honestly why not have a diversity of qualifications that can be of interest and more suitable for the widest possible group of students? There's nothing wrong with that and I look forward to that diversity.

I think diplomas are the first step but whether anyone is going to go further and say they will subsume A-levels I doubt, but we could move towards that.

If I was in the secretary of state's shoes I would be quite happy to let a different qualification grow alongside the existing one and let people make up their own minds.

Question: Is this autumn make or break for Gordon Brown's premiership?

Sheerman: It is a very important stage. This is a government that is truly in a mid-term situation in the middle of its third term and hoping to get a fourth term. That is always historically difficult for any party of government; people get tired, people get bored and however weak and feeble the opposition is people tend to flirt with the idea of a change in government.

That is the situation we are in. My view is that it is not necessary and does not have to happen if the Labour Party goes away, looks closely at what it has achieved in the last 11 years and evaluates what is good and what the bang for the buck was what did we get for our investment. Then we need to ask which ones were the ones that the electorate liked.

When we have done that audit we can position ourselves for the next five years.

Lord Giddens is absolutely right - we need to look for a new paradigm, the New Labour paradigm has run its course and we need to find a new one based on the evidence, based on what's worked.

A party in government can do it and the real challenge to Gordon and the rest of the leadership of the party is to show that they have the strength, will and purpose to do it.

Question: David Miliband has hinted at a new paradigm - would it be useful, wise or likely to have a leadership challenge.

Sheerman: I very much doubt there will be a leadership challenge. In the Labour Party that is not something that is very easy given the constitution.

If there was a leadership challenge that would have to be precipitated by a decision from Gordon not to carry on and he would only not carry on if he lost the confidence of a sizable part of his cabinet and of the parliamentary Labour Party.

Question: There have been rumours to that effect - is it possible?

Sheerman: If there was anything of that kind going on I was out of the loop.