You could tell from this afternoon’s Education Questions in the Commons that ministers are worried about the row over their school reforms: they’d planted loyal questions from backbenchers to help them fend off criticism. Even before the Conservatives had raised the latest concerns about the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, Labour backbencher Luke Akehurst had popped up to ask Bridget Phillipson about child protection. The Education Secretary seized the opportunity to describe the Bill as ‘the single biggest piece of child protection legislation in a generation’, adding: ‘That’s why it’s a shame that the Conservative government – the Conservative opposition – have played silly games on this subject.’
Akehurst helped her out a bit more with his supplementary question, saying: ‘Last week, the Leader of the Opposition dismissed safeguarding measures in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill as a distraction. After the tragic cases of Star Hobson, Arthur Labinjo Hughes and Sara Sharif, can the Secreatry of State remind members opposite why these measures are so vital if we are to protect children?’ As Tory MPs noisily objected to their characterisation, Phillipson insisted ‘that is what the Leader of the Opposition said.
Actually, it wasn’t: Badenoch was quite reasonably complaining at Prime Minister’s Questions last week that Keir Starmer kept dodging her questions about the changes to academies and teacher pay in the legislation. She was pointing out that the Prime Minister was talking about other elements of the Bill, including the child protection measures, as a distraction from the debate about academies. Here is her quote from last Wednesday: ‘The Prime Minister thinks that he can distract people from what is wrong with the Bill. This is not about breakfast clubs and school uniforms.’
Anyway, Labour are continuing to claim that the Tories are trying to oppose the child protection measures in the Bill so that it doesn’t have to answer the substantive questions about academy freedoms, including questions from its own MPs including Siobhain McDonagh. Unfortunately for the Conservatives, their attempt to raise these substantive questions later in today’s session didn’t go very well. Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott pointed out that the Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza has now criticised the Bill’s plan to end the academy order to turn around failing schools. She was midway through asking whether Phillipson would listen to the Children’s Commissioner and her own backbench colleagues when she was cut off by the Speaker, who complained that her question was too long for this part of the session, which was now on topical questions, and they are supposed to be short and punchy.
Anyway, Phillipson replied with the line that it was Labour that had started the academy movement, ‘and a Labour government will ensure that they continue to flourish’. She claimed that the reforms would allow the government to ‘intervene more rapidly and more effectively’ to turn around failing schools – a claim McDonagh and others have disputed. ‘The party opposite have nothing to say on school standards, more interested in their own record than the best outcomes for children.’
Trott countered that her opposite number didn’t understand that ‘her Bill is going to make things worse, not better’, and that the government had not actually laid the amendment Starmer had claimed was forthcoming on teacher pay. Phillipson’s payoff was that while ‘there was an awful lot’ in Trott’s again quite lengthy question, there was ‘very little about how we deliver higher standards for our children’, adding that ‘the only people in hock to vested interests are the party opposite: more interested in defending school uniform racketeers and the private schools lobby than investing in our state schools.’
None of this was a defence of the proposals on ending academisation for failing schools or freedom on teacher pay. Even though Phillipson and Starmer are very happy to have a fight over VAT on private school fees, they aren’t taking the opportunity on their own reforms for schools.
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