David Amess

Conservative Party | Southend West

School standards

Mr. David Amess (Southend, West): "Education, education, education" and "tough on the causes of crime" are very slick phrases that Labour has used, but the situation now is that the British people simply do not trust a word that the Government say.

I suspect that the Minister for School Standards has to go to another meeting, so I should perhaps first put on record my reason for speaking in this debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir Teddy Taylor) suggested earlier, representatives from Southend education authority were to meet the Minister at 3.30 this afternoon. There can be no criticism whatever of the Minister for his having to postpone the meeting. My hon. Friends called for this debate today, and it is just one of those things. It is not for me to speak for my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East, but I suspect that he was disappointed because, much earlier, he had specifically asked for a meeting with the Secretary of State.

That being said, I say to the Minister for School Standards that I hope that nothing in my speech will sour the tone of our meeting, which I believe has been rescheduled for November. I am very anxious to work with the Government to get the best possible settlement for children in Southend.

Sir Teddy Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that as we have waited a while for a meeting, and it is now the beginning of September, we should have that meeting as soon as possible, not in November?

Mr. Amess: I know that the Minister will be abroad for a while on parliamentary duties. Many of the representatives coming from Southend are teachers and head teachers. It has been somewhat difficult to pull the dates together. I suspect that that is why—I say this gently to my hon. Friend—the meeting will be in November. Who knows, perhaps we might even be—

James Purnell: In an effort to ingratiate himself with the Government Front Bench, the hon. Gentleman might start by talking about the fantastic examination results that we have just had, where they have come from and whether the extra funding that we provided has made any difference to the results.

Mr. Amess: That is certainly on the list. I shall be joining the Minister in his congratulations to local children in Southend.

Given the amendment to the motion of Her Majesty's loyal Opposition, the pattern of the debate is already established. The Opposition, as is our job, are holding the Government to account. The Government and their partners in crime, the Liberal Democrats, want to talk about what happened during the last Conservative Government. They do not want to consider what has been happening in the more recent past, and we are moving on to seven years of Labour government. They can try that, but it will not wash with the general public, who are interested only in what the present Government are doing. In terms of education, they will regret that since 1997 the Government have centralised everything. If I were to be asked to analyse where the money is going, I would say that too much is going on centralisation.

I suppose that the violins will come out now, but teaching used always to be seen as a vocation. Teacher retention was highlighted in a recent survey by the General Teaching Council, which found that across the nation a third of England's teachers are expected to leave teaching within five years. Among the main reasons cited by teachers for their wish to leave the profession are badly behaved pupils, an excessive work load, initiative overload and a target-driven culture. Thirty-four per cent. of teachers expect to leave the profession within the next five years. That says it all. Teachers no longer see their profession as a vocation.

I know that Labour will say, "Look at all the wonderful IT units that Members are being asked to open every week. Look at all the marvellous sports facilities. Trevor Brooking is opening a new sports facility next week at Belfairs school." However, the survey shows that teachers have never left the profession because they felt that they were teaching in a dump. It was never like that. I do not believe that teachers were leaving the profession because of physical circumstances. The situation is much more serious than that. I hold the Government to account because I believe that there has been centralisation.

Jonathan Shaw: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is interesting to note that the survey does not show that teachers are mentioning pay? Is that not a reflection on the fact that the Government have invested in pay, and that that factor is not in the list?

Mr. Amess: It does not appear to be in the list in the survey, but it is on every other list. I gently refer to the Annunciator screen, which shows that I am not speaking. It shows that the hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) is still on his feet. I do not know how that is taken into account in terms of time.

I wish to respond to the intervention about examination results. Four of my five children are still at school. I rejoice with the Minister for School Standards that my oldest daughter got an A and two Bs and will be reading English and drama at Queen Mary college. It is a splendid university which rejected her father more than 30 years ago. I am delighted that St. Bernard's school did not only produce Helen Mirren; it was responsible for providing my daughter with a splendid education. My youngest daughter is about to start there. My other daughters are at Southend high school for girls and at Westcliffe high school for girls. I never forget that it was the Labour party, supported by its partner in crime, the Liberal party, which did everything it could to undermine grammar school education. Opposition Members like to send their children to grammar schools, but we found in Southend that we had to fight Labour to retain our four grammar schools.

The House may also be interested in another piece of information. My research assistant comes from a staunch Liverpudlian family. His parents wanted the best for his son, so they sent him to a private school. He is a staunch Conservative because he wants to thank the last Conservative Government. When his father lost his job, the assisted scheme enabled him to stay and enjoy private education.

Jonathan Shaw: Would the hon. Gentleman assist the House and tell us what a staunch Liverpudlian is?

Mr. Amess: Someone who is still proud of Liverpool—I see that the hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas) is in the Chamber, so I must be careful—and speaks with a strong Liverpudlian accent.

As for Southend, I am advised by our education department that we have nine primary vacancies, 19 secondary school vacancies for teachers and two vacancies in our special schools. The Minister for School Standards has probably had a chance to glance over the agenda for a meeting that we were going to have. We would have discussed the effects of Southend's low formula spending share settlement on schools' budgets in Southend and the passporting of £700,000 over and above the required sum. The second issue that we were going to explore was the marked effect of cuts on our high-achieving schools in Southend—sadly, Southend high school for boys has had to remove Latin from the curriculum for the first time in its history. We would have discussed those who have followed the Government's instructions in schools serving areas of considerable disadvantage, and the narrowing of the attainment gap. The Government have said that poverty is not an excuse for low achievement, but some of our schools are having to dismantle the staffing structure that has brought about excellent achievements. When the Secretary of State came to the Dispatch Box on the day before we rose for the summer recess, more money was pledged for next year but, of course, the damage had already been done.

The final matter that we wanted to explore with the Minister for School Standards was the borrowing that some schools have had to make from the local authority to get through this year. Next year's settlement will be low, and those schools simply cannot sustain that deficit.

I wanted to share with the House three comments by head teachers of schools in Southend. None of their letters was politically motivated—they were simply written when the ramifications of our financial settlement began to bite. I shall not name the first head, who said:

"I am not one of those headteachers who constantly complains about a shortfall in their budget. However, the proportion of my budget that has been attributed to staffing costs has risen from 82 per cent. last year to 90 per cent. this year. Obviously this makes all other aspects of school management difficult, although I have managed to set a balanced budget. This budget does not, however, allow for the extra staff and other resources that I would wish in order to achieve an improvement in school results."

National insurance contributions were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Green), and the head teacher says that NICs, together with an increase in teacher pension contributions, are

"having a huge effect on a largely people-based environment."

That says it all. It does not matter what the schools are like—if there are not any good-quality teachers, schools will struggle to provide the sort of education what we want.

The head teacher went on to say:

"The consolidation of teacher salary grades from point 9 down to 6 is also biting hard this year as more staff become eligible to apply for the upper pay threshold."

Finally, she said:

"By good housekeeping I am fortunate to have a carry forward figure that allows for some maintenance and refurbishment to take place, but I cannot do this from the . . . financial government income."

I will name Mr. Frank Keenan, headmaster of St. Thomas More high school for boys, who would have been at the meeting with the Minister and represents secondary heads in Southend. He says:

"several schools in Southend are forced to declare deficit budgets in this current year (including my own), and we are having to meet L.E.A. officers to draw up four-year recovery plans. In my school, we are in the absurd position of having a £3 million new extension project due to open in September, but we will not have the money to clean it or maintain it!"

That is an absurd situation.

The third and final letter comes from a head teacher at the largest primary school in Essex, which has the biggest education authority, although Southend is unitary. She says:

"Our school is very successful but also very vulnerable. Our current budget deficit of £170,000 will place our school at risk. Our success depends on good will. Redundancies and the threat of redundancies undermines the good will that keeps our school open to children and their families from 7.30 am to late at night . . . We have been told to come to terms with running a 'less successful school'. That can never be right especially in the current context with its emphasis on equal opportunities for all young people . . . We have made cuts. We are not replacing teaching staff and support staff who are leaving (value of £70,000)."

I hope that when we meet, the Minister will have had an opportunity to reflect on the points that I have made.

One of our local newspapers, the Southend Evening Echo, cribbed a recent story in The Sun calling for private tutors to be subject to the same legislation as state school teachers. I shall not name the gentleman in question, but it has come to light locally that a private tutor—I am thinking here of morale in teaching generally—is still teaching despite having been caught with indecent images of children on his home computer. He was not charged, but received a police caution and was placed on the sex offenders register for five years. Teachers are drawing to my attention the fact that, as the law stands, a person who is placed on the sex offenders register is barred from teaching in a state school, but not prevented from giving private tuition. Will the Minister reflect on that issue and perhaps write to me, so that we can at least have some guidance locally?

I come to the end of my speech feeling confused about how long it has lasted, as there seems to be a problem with the monitor. This year's funding crisis in the education system has led to what one head teacher calls

"far and away the worst situation I have ever had to manage."

The over-centralisation of education has created a situation of huge complication, and no one understands the way in which the system works. Despite showering the education system with money, the reality is that teachers and parents are all suffering the effects of the Government's regime of command and control.

I think that the Government, in their seventh year in office, have lost for ever the trust that they had. They have broken their promise that extra money would get to the schools where it would make a real difference to standards. That is what has happened in Southend. Parents and teachers have a right to be cross about the crisis in our schools. Thousands of children face the new school year with fewer teachers and support staff than ever before. For the Government to accuse local councils, schools and the School Teachers Review Body of being responsible for the funding difficulties is an absolutely shameless piece of buck-passing.

At the 1997 general election, we can all recall seeing in the wee hours of the morning all the Labour supporters gathered together, at a time when they thought that it was trendy to be associated with celebrities, to the sound of the D:Reem song, "Things Can Only Get Better". I do hope that they still have a copy, because the incoming Conservative Government will play it with relish.