Category: Speeches

Michael Gove – 2011 Statement on Industrial Action in Schools

The statement made by Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 30 June 2011.

On Tuesday I gave a statement to the House on this Government’s response to the planned industrial action by two of the teaching unions. In that response I outlined the action I had taken and I also provided data on likely closures based on early estimates from local authorities and Academies.

We now have a fuller picture, updated this morning, based on data from all 152 local authorities and all 707 Academies.

Our data show that 5,679 local authority schools were closed, 4,999 were partially open and 5,860 were fully open, while the situation with a further 4,320 has not been reported to us or the local authority did not know.

The figures also show that of the 707 academies and City Technology Colleges, 201 were closed, 235 were partially open and 271 fully open.

This means that 27% of all Local Authority schools were closed, 24% were partially open and 28% were open. Data were unavailable for the remaining 21%. 28% of Academies were closed, 33% were partially open, and 38% were open.

I know that many teachers are concerned about the changes that have been proposed to their pensions. But I believe that we must resolve these differences through discussions and that the action today, while discussions are still going on, was disappointing and unnecessary. I am grateful to headteachers and governors who have worked hard to keep schools open. And I am particularly grateful to all those school staff who – while they may also have concerns about pensions – have decided to go into work today to minimise the impact on pupils and their parents. However I am also disappointed that there has been disruption to the lives of so many parents across the country. The Government remains committed to discussing pension reforms with all the teacher unions openly, honestly and constructively.

15/09/2022
Nick Gibb – 2011 Speech to the Reform-AQA Conference

The speech made by Nick Gibb, the then Education Minister, at the Reform AQA Conference held on 28 June 2011.

Thank you very much, Andrew, and thank you to AQA and Reform for hosting this conference, for your kind invitation to speak today and for your kind words just now. This is the last day of this year’s GCSE examinations, and I’d like to take this opportunity to wish pupils the very best of luck for their final exams, and a well-earned rest after all their hard work.

It is always a pleasure to attend a Reform conference. Last year, I said confidently that I knew Reform would be a friend to the Coalition Government but, like the best of friends, wouldn’t be afraid to tell us when you thought we had got things wrong or could do better.

Well, I think it’s fair to say that, by that measure, you have been a very good friend indeed…

As you say, Andrew, I have been Minister for Schools for just over a year now, and Shadow Minister for Schools for five years before that. During that time I have visited hundreds of schools, observed hundreds of lessons, and listened to hundreds of teachers.

So much of what I’ve seen has been deeply impressive. As we said in our White Paper in November, there is much in the English school system of which we can be proud.

This country has some of the very best schools in the world. Every day, thousands of pupils receive stimulating, engaging and rigorous lessons. We already have thousands of wonderful teachers, and more are joining the profession every year.

But among these examples of excellence, we know that some schools are struggling.

The Secretary of State has established floor standards for both secondary and primary schools. We’ve raised the floor for secondary schools to 35 per cent of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grades A*-C including English and Maths, and at least as many pupils making good progress between KS2 and KS4 as the national average. Next year that floor will rise to 40 per cent. Our aim is to raise the standard to 50 per cent of pupils at each school achieving that floor by the end of the Parliament.

At primary level we have introduced a floor standard for the first time. 60 per cent of pupils achieving Level 4 in English and Maths at Key Stage 2 and at least as many pupils making the expected levels of progress between KS1 and KS2 as the national average, will be the new floor for every primary school in the country.

That means there are 216 secondary schools below the secondary floor standard at the moment, and around 1,400 primary schools below the primary floor – of whom more than 200 have been under the floor for five years or more. Raising standards in these schools is a priority for the Department.

The UK is dropping down the PISA international rankings, falling from fourth to sixteenth in Science; seventh to 25th in literacy; and eighth to 28th in Maths. Our 15-year-olds are two years behind Chinese pupils in Maths, and a year behind their peers in Korea or Finland in reading.

We’re not preparing our school leavers sufficiently well to meet the expectations of employers. The CBI’s annual education and skills survey just last month found that almost half of top employers are forced to invest in remedial training in literacy and numeracy when they hire someone straight out of school or college.

And the attainment gap between rich and poor and between the state and private sectors remains, in our judgement, unacceptably wide.

In 2010, 80.3 per cent of children achieved level 4 in English at the end of primary school – but only 55.6 per cent of white boys on free school meals achieved this level. In other words, only around half of white boys from the poorest backgrounds started secondary school able to read and write well enough to access the secondary curriculum.

This isn’t a one-off occurrence, but a worrying pattern. Last year, 55 per cent of all pupils achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A*-C including English and maths. But the number of children on free school meals who achieved the same level was just 31 per cent.

Whilst GCSE results go up every year, the gap of 28 percentage points between children from the poorest backgrounds and the rest of the population remains stubbornly wide.

Figures released by the OECD this month have shown that poor children in this country are less likely to exceed expectations for educational performance than their deprived peers in most other developed nations. Britain’s record is well below the global average, coming 28th out of 35 leading nations in terms of social mobility on that measure – below countries like Estonia, Latvia, Mexico and Slovenia.

These are the statistics which are driving us to make radical reforms.

Reducing the gap in attainment between pupils from rich and poor backgrounds is a key moral objective of the Coalition Government. Children only get one chance at their education, but we believe these results show that too many of the poorest children are still being let down in English schools.

Evidence from PISA, the OECD, McKinsey and others shows that the strongest education systems around the world – the education systems which are racing ahead of us in the rankings – are those which recruit and develop the best teachers.

In the highest performing education systems around the world, teachers are consistently drawn from the brightest and best graduates . In Finland, for example, teachers are selected from the top 10 per cent of graduates. In South Korea, teachers come from the top 5 per cent.

In these high-performing countries, there are strong systems of professional development, and teachers’ performance is carefully monitored. Teachers learn from successful teachers and schools learn from successful schools.

And because the profession is so highly valued in those countries, it is seen as high status. In Finland, more than a quarter of young people describe teaching as their number one career choice . Yet in this country, only 2 per cent of first class honours graduates from Russell Group universities choose to teach after graduating .

The quality of our teachers matters because international research shows that it is the single most important factor in determining a pupil’s progress. A report from McKinsey in 2007 found that “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers” .

Studies in the United States have shown that an individual pupil taught for three consecutive years by a teacher in the top ten per cent of performance can make as much as two years more progress than a pupil taught for the same period by a teacher in the bottom ten per cent of performance.

At secondary level, in particular, research in this country indicates that teachers’ knowledge of their subjects will determine their pupils’ success, especially in the sciences and maths.

For Physics, the subject expertise of the teacher is one of the most powerful predictors of pupil achievement at GCSE and A level. Similarly, in Maths, pupils taught by teachers with a high level of subject knowledge have been proven to achieve better results.

Yet over a quarter of Maths teachers in years 7 to 13 in English schools do not hold a post-A level qualification in a subject relevant to Maths.

40 per cent of teachers of Physics and Chemistry do not hold undergraduate degrees in subjects relevant to Physics and Chemistry. Half of all teachers of French or German do not hold undergraduate degrees in subjects relevant to French or German .

We want to learn from the highest-performing education systems around the world to improve our own performance. To learn from those countries which are now out-performing us. And while they continue to reform and improve, we want to improve more quickly. As President Obama has said: “the countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.”

All the evidence points in the same direction. As the most recent PISA briefing note on UK schools repeated: “the bottom line is that the quality of a school system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.”

The Government’s priority is to deliver high quality teaching to all children. This is why we called the White Paper which we published last year, “The Importance of Teaching”, and why we have focused on improving the quality of teaching.

So the question is how: how do we “raise the bar” on teacher quality? We believe it’s a question of rebalancing the system in favour of teachers. We need to improve the support and opportunities available to teachers. And remove the obstacles that are hindering them.

We want to make teaching more attractive to high-quality entrants and help teachers to develop their skills further still.

We have expanded Teach First into the North East, so that it now operates across the whole country. We’ve also taken Teach First into primary schools so that children of all ages can benefit from some truly excellent young teachers.

We’ve launched the Teachers’ Standards Review Group under Sally Coates, the principal of Burlington Danes Academy, to rewrite the QTS and other standards for classroom teachers, focusing them on the key skills and attributes effective teachers need.

But we also want schools to take the lead in creating more opportunities for teachers to learn from their peers in continuing professional development and leadership training.

We are establishing new centres of excellence in teaching practice – called Teaching Schools, modelled on Teaching Hospitals – where both new and experienced teachers can learn and develop their professional skills throughout their careers. Over 300 schools have applied to become Teaching Schools so far and we look forward to designating the first 100 Teaching Schools next month.

Alongside Teaching Schools, yesterday we launched a discussion document about our strategy for reforming initial teacher training to focus on key teaching skills, including managing behaviour and handling pupils’ Special Educational Needs. We want to give schools a stronger influence over the recruitment and selection of trainees and the content of their training; and we want to allow schools to lead their own high quality initial teacher training in partnership with a university.

In particular, we will ensure that teachers are trained to teach reading, to prevent the tragedy of thousands of children leaving primary school every year unable to read properly. Last year, 9 per cent of pupils started secondary school functionally illiterate, unable to read either for school or for pleasure. Over 15,000 children did not reach the lowest marking level in the Key Stage 2 reading test. Over 20,000 children could not even read well enough to take the test.

Without the ability to read what’s on the interactive whiteboard or in their textbook, these children end up falling further behind their classmates, more likely to become disillusioned, disengaged and disruptive.

Research overwhelmingly shows that the most effective method of teaching children to read is systematic synthetic phonics , but at present only half of newly qualified primary teachers rated their training as good or very good in preparing them to teach reading and phonics. We will ensure that teachers are properly trained so they can successfully teach early reading using synthetic phonics, and we’re working very closely with the university education faculties to achieve that.

We are also proposing to offer financial incentives of up to £20,000 to attract more of the best graduates in shortage subjects into teaching; and enable more talented career changers to become teachers.

We will no longer provide Department for Education funding for graduates to enter initial teacher training without at least a 2:2 degree, and we will require trainees to pass tougher literacy and numeracy tests before they start training – without the option of unlimited resits, as they have now.

Finally, we know that teachers want opportunities for further study and continuing professional development to focus on enriching and enhancing their subject knowledge.

We have therefore introduced a new, competitive £2 million Scholarship Scheme. This fund will enable a number of teachers every year to pursue post-graduate qualifications or other rigorous study in their subjects.

Applications are being invited now with the first round of funding to be awarded in December. Funding in the first year will focus on the core subjects of Maths, English and Science, as well as special educational needs, where we also have shortages.

Giving teachers and head teachers their professional autonomy is the driving force behind the acceleration of the Academies programme.

One of our first priorities in office was to pass the Academies Act and one year on, 704 academies are now open – over twice as many as a year ago. By the end of the year, over a third of all secondary schools will be academies . Teachers in these hundreds of new academies enjoy greater professional freedoms, so that they can concentrate on doing their jobs as they know best.

We’re encouraging new free schools to be established in areas of need – set up by groups of teachers, parents or educational foundations. In the latest 2012 round we received 281 applications. We expect between 10 and 20 new free schools to open this September. Of the 32 Free Schools that the Department is currently progressing, 2 are located in the most deprived 10 per cent of Lower Super Output Areas; a third are in the most deprived 20 per cent of such areas; and 59 per cent are in the most deprived 50 per cent of Lower Super Output Areas.

We also want to sweep away the bureaucratic burdens being heaped onto teachers which consume energy and time, and sap morale.

In just one year, under the last Government, the Department produced over 6,000 pages of guidance for schools – more than twice the length of the complete works of Shakespeare but, I would argue, somewhat less inspiring.

Teachers in all types of schools told us that one of the biggest drains on their time was wading through overlapping, over-prescriptive diktats from the centre.

We’ve started to cut this back by scrapping unnecessary bureaucracy and streamlining the duties, guidance and paperwork piled onto schools.

We are also slimming down the Ofsted inspection regime. Rather than examining schools against 27 different headings, it will now focus on the four important core areas: quality of teaching, pupil achievement, leadership and management, and pupil behaviour and safety.

Pupil behaviour affects both the current and the future teaching workforce. A survey of undergraduates found that the greatest deterrent to entering the teaching profession was the fear of not being safe in the classroom , while two-thirds of teachers say that poor pupil behaviour is driving teachers out of the profession .

We have issued new and clearer guidance to help teachers to handle poor pupil behaviour, cutting more than 600 pages of guidance down to just 50.

The Education Bill (currently going through the Lords) will further strengthen teachers’ powers so that they can control classrooms effectively.

Reducing and simplifying guidance will greatly reduce the burdens on teachers’ time, and will enable them to spend more time focusing on actually teaching. Over the next few months we will be publishing shortened guidance in a wide range of areas. In total, departmental guidance will be more than halved.

As well as guidance, we want to remove unnecessary central prescription and allow head teachers and governing bodies of maintained schools more freedom to manage their schools.

The current arrangements for dealing with teacher performance are too complicated and fragmented and more than half of teachers and headteachers surveyed by the Sutton Trust last year agreed or strongly agreed that there was not enough freedom for schools to tackle under-performing teachers.

We are currently consulting on new arrangements which will make it easier for schools to identify under-performance and to tackle it quickly, effectively and fairly.

We’ve launched a review to slim down the National Curriculum. We want to move it to a clear, concise specification of core academic content, for teachers to teach in whatever way seems best to them – again, sweeping away reams of paper and lever arch files that specify the content of lesson plans and how to teach. How teachers teach should be left to their professionalism.

We’re also concerned about the standards in our public examinations, and want to see A levels re-connected with the universities and with the learned societies. We want GCSEs to increase the emphasis on spelling, punctuation and grammar, and we’ve asked Ofqual to advise us on that.

In the Economist this week, the Bagehot column cites Westminster School where in 1994, 21 per cent of GCSEs taken achieved the top A* grade. By 2004, 59 per cent of the grades at that school were A* and in 2009, 81 per cent.

No one argues that pupil selection or the work ethic at Westminster School has changed since 1994, certainly not to this degree. We need to restore integrity and confidence in our GCSEs.

In conclusion, Andrew, in essence our education policy has 3 overarching goals:

to close the attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds
to ensure our education system competes with the best education jurisdictions in the world
and to trust professionals and raise the esteem of the teaching profession.

It’s an ambitious programme and although self-praise is no praise, I hope you’ll agree that in the first 12 months of this administration we have made an energetic and expeditious start to achieving these goals. Thank you very much.

15/09/2022
Mark Prisk – 2011 Speech to the UK Contractors Group Annual Lunch

The speech made by Mark Prisk at Hyatt Regency Churchill hotel, London on 28 June 2011.

Introduction

Thank you for that introduction, James [Wates; chairman].

It’s a real pleasure to join you for your annual lunch today. The UK Contractors Group has had a good a year – under the leadership of James and Stephen [Ratcliffe, director], the organisation has been a tireless and effective advocate for contractors and for the wider UK construction sector.

You have helped the Government, as we have got on with our central task – putting economic growth right at the heart of our programme of work.

And that matters, because the construction industry is a critical engine for growth. As a former chartered surveyor, and as someone who started my own business, I understand just how important it is – contributing 8% of the UK’s Gross Value Added; employing around 3m people; and keeping over 300,000 firms in business.

Importance of construction industry

This is the reason we want to build on our partnership, and ensure the whole of Government works with the industry to forge an even closer relationship. Because we are committed to taking practical action to help the sector grow in future.

That approach is already yielding real results. Our collaboration on the construction strategy is an excellent example of what we have achieved together.

We wanted the process to be challenging and rigorous and the UKCG helped make sure it was both, giving us real insights into the obstacles hampering your members’ plans to grow.

I am grateful for that, because sustainable growth has to come from private enterprise – from businesses investing, hiring, exporting and expanding.

Of course, I am well aware that construction has experienced very tough times in recent years, with the recession choking demand across all markets. I don’t underestimate for a moment how difficult it has been.

So it is a positive sign that the most recent data from the Office for National Statistics suggest the picture is beginning to brighten at last, with output rising by 5.5% in the three months to April.

It is still very early days – so I shall avoid making ill-advised comments about green shoots. But this Government’s decision to commit to a number of crucial capital projects should make a contribution to that improvement.

Because – despite the record budget deficit we inherited, and the very difficult choices we have had to make on public spending – we are prioritising essential investments in the economic fabric of our nation.

Government investment

We have published the first ever National Infrastructure Plan for the UK, which outlines the scale of the challenge and how we will unlock £200bn worth of public and private sector investment over the next five years to deliver it.

The Spending Review provided a settlement of over £10 billion for maintenance and investment in key road and local transport schemes across the country, including Crossrail.

And it allocated £1 billion to fund commercial scale carbon capture and storage demonstration projects.

Investments such as these will help generate new business for contractors. But this by itself is not enough. Government also has a responsibility to work with the construction sector, and help it prepare to grasp these and other opportunities in the years ahead. We can do this in a number of ways.

Plan for growth

Our Plan for Growth, which was launched alongside the Budget in March, identified construction as a priority sector for the UK economy. It set out our plans to make sweeping changes to the planning system, which has been a brake on growth for too long.

So we are introducing a powerful presumption in favour of sustainable development, in order that in future the default answer to planning proposals is yes.

We intend to introduce a number of measures to streamline the planning applications and related consents regimes, removing bureaucracy from the system and speeding it up.

This will include a 12-month guarantee for the processing of all planning applications, including any appeals.

We will also pilot a land auctions model, starting with public sector land. And we will ensure a fast-track planning process for major infrastructure applications.

Construction Strategy – next steps

It is also essential we provide certainty about the pipeline of future public projects- that’s a message we have been getting loud and clear from the whole of the construction industry.

So we have committed to publishing a long-term forward view of projects and programmes in the autumn, as part of the National Infrastructure Plan. And we want to see a similar approach for general construction.

We will start, this autumn, by publishing each quarter a rolling two-year programme of infrastructure and construction projects where public funding has been agreed. And if it transpires that 90% of this work is already contractually committed, we will think again.

We want to do all we reasonably can to ensure you have the clearest possible picture of projects coming up.

This will help give companies the certainty and confidence they need to invest in their business – whether that’s in capital projects, innovation or skills.

The plans we outline will complement and reinforce the work we are already taking forward as a result of the Construction Strategy.

The other important part of the equation is to reduce the costs associated with construction and infrastructure procurement. So we have given a clear commitment to cut costs by 20%.

We aim to achieve this through measures such as encouraging standardisation rather than bespoke designs. But this does not mean a Stalinist, monolithic system of centralised design. It’s a question of striking a sensible balance – still making room for the vernacular, while avoiding needless repetition and its associated costs.

Costs will also be cut by setting clear criteria for asset performance; and introducing new models of procurement.

In addition, we are committed to the phased introduction of Building Information Modelling, moving towards a requirement for fully collaborative 3D BIM – encompassing electronic project and asset information; documentation; and data – by 2016. This clear requirement should boost the adoption of BIM throughout the construction supply chain.

Low carbon

We also need to keep a sharp eye on what will be needed in the future – in particular the need to transform our built environment so it is fit for a low carbon future. Retrofitting the existing building stock is a huge challenge in this respect.

But we also have a great opportunity for growth, created by this and many other emerging low carbon markets.

They will require innovation in everything, from designing low-carbon building products and processes, to finding more efficient ways of working. And not just for the way we construct buildings, but also the way we use them when finished.

Many of you will know that the Low Carbon Innovation and Growth Team, led by Paul Morrell, looked at all of these for the Government and made a series of recommendations in a very thorough report. We will be giving our formal response to their findings tomorrow.

Exports

Let’s not forget that there are substantial and growing global markets for low carbon construction and its associated services. So it’s vital that the UK industry harnesses its undoubted strengths in design, consultancy and contracting and markets them abroad.

Our ability to grasp new opportunities in expanding overseas markets will be critical to the UK’s long-term growth prospects. UK Trade and Investment is refocusing its efforts to help UK firms seek them out.

They include setting up a High Value Opportunities Programme, to identify the biggest growth opportunities around the world and help UK companies of all sizes to access them.

And trade promotion and export opportunities are now benefiting from strong leadership across the whole of Government.

Indeed, the Prime Minister has made it a personal priority, leading a high-profile trade mission to China in November, during which a Sustainable Cities Memorandum of Understanding was renewed.

In March, the Deputy Prime Minister led a mission to Mexico, during which the UK-Mexico Business forum was launched, identifying infrastructure as one of the key sectors for future collaboration.

In future, creating new commercial opportunities will be at the centre of British diplomacy, and at the heart of bilateral relations with our international partners.

London 2012

And the next year offers us a once in a lifetime opportunity to advertise British contracting know-how to the rest of the world – the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The eyes of the world will be upon us next July and August – and the UK construction industry can take enormous pride in what, collectively, it has achieved.

It is a hugely complex site which has thrown up a host of challenges, in terms of engineering, finance and logistics, to name just a few. What we see taking shape in East London are a chain of world-class venues, with all the necessary infrastructure to support them.

So this is the time for us to get out and sell the expertise of our companies around the globe – from the contractors building the facilities, to the SMEs all along the supply chains that end in the venues.

British construction has proved conclusively that its ability to procure, design and manage facilities is second to none. In the next twelve months we must make the most of this chance to showcase just what we can do here in the UK.

Conclusion

As we are meeting in the Churchill Hotel today, it seems apt to quote the man himself. He once said: ‘We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.’

I believe the London Olympics, and its venues, are an unrivalled opportunity to shape the future of UK construction – using the Games as a springboard into new markets overseas.

If together we seize this opportunity, I have every confidence the industry will emerge stronger from what has undoubtedly been a difficult period.

Many challenges still remain – promoting low carbon construction; improving Government procurement; and creating the environment in which UK construction can flourish.

They are all vital issues. But collectively they add up to a compelling case for the Government and the construction industry to work together to bring about real and lasting change.

I am sure it will take a while to get this right; but it’s vital we do, so a resurgent construction industry thrives in the years ahead.

15/09/2022
Jim Wallace – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Wallace of Tankerness)

The tribute made by Jim Wallace, Baron Wallace of Tankerness, in the House of Lords on 9 September 2022.

My Lords, I was born two and a half years after Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth ascended the Throne. Until yesterday, in common with the majority of people in this country, I had known only one monarch. For so many of us, the Queen alone represented what we think of as and understand by the concept of monarchy. She was “the Queen”. Her reign was one of exemplary, selfless and faithful service, sustained by a profound Christian faith—a life of service inspired by following the way of Jesus, the Servant King.

However, it was not a slavish adherence to duty. Many people have commented on the late Queen’s pertinent comments on visits, her informed observations and the real interest she showed in people and communities. She engaged with these people and their communities on visits for 70 years and more, and invariably left them feeling much better for having met her. It is testimony to the gracious manner in which she fulfilled her role as our Queen.

Comments have been made today and in many of the commentaries over the past 24 hours about the dramatic changes that have taken place in our country, across the world and in society since the Queen ascended the Throne in 1952—things that almost certainly would have been unimaginable in that year. I recall reading somewhere that, at the age of 50, she was the first head of state ever to send what we now call an email. The Scottish Parliament was probably only a twinkle in the eye of some political activists, but the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, recalled her visit to the Scottish Parliament’s Sitting in Aberdeen on the occasion of her Golden Jubilee in 2002. She gave so much encouragement to those of us who had been in there from the beginning and had taken some brickbats from the press for what we were doing. I also recall that, when she opened the new Scottish Parliament on 1 July 1999, she referred to the

“pragmatic balance between continuity and change”.

Truly it was her ability to achieve and maintain that pragmatic balance over seven decades, not least in political and constitutional relationships, that was one of the key hallmarks of her reign.

I first met the Queen in Kirkwall in 1987 when she unveiled a new stained glass window in St Magnus Cathedral on the 850th anniversary of the cathedral’s foundation. When I last met her, less than three weeks ago, she referred to that visit. As a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, a church in which she always showed a keen interest, I had been asked to preach the sermon at the Sunday morning worship in Crathie church. The Queen graciously invited me to spend two nights at Balmoral Castle on her beloved Deeside—but no barbeques. It was a privilege to have had such quality time talking to her. Her mind was sharp. She had a keen interest in what was going on. I experienced the warmth of her personality, which so many people have talked about. She so readily put me at my ease.

It was also a privilege to engage with close members of her family over those two days, who also did so much to make me feel welcome. It is them—the family to whom the Queen was a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt and mother-in-law—I have particularly been thinking about over the past 24 hours. As we give thanks for the life of the Queen—a remarkable life of humble leadership and service—I know that we will want to keep in our thoughts and prayers her close family, especially His Majesty King Charles, for whom her death is so very real and personal. May they know the comfort that Jesus promised to those who mourn.

15/09/2022
David Craig – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Craig of Radley)

The tribute made by David Craig, Baron Craig of Radley, in the House of Lords on 9 September 2022.

My Lords, I, too, share the deep sorrow and grief felt throughout the nation, the Commonwealth and overseas for the passing of Her Majesty. Her devotion, commitment and strength of purpose were not only most remarkable but sustained so magisterially throughout her long reign. I offer my condolences to His Majesty King Charles III and all the Royal Family.

I was 22 years old and on my flying training course when Her Majesty ascended the throne aged 25. It has always been a mark of her greatness that she assumed her role and responsibilities at so youthful an age and in such full measure. While attending the state visit of her parents to South Africa in 1947, she made on her 21st birthday the vow, already repeated today, that

“my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service”.

It was an admirable and most impressive pledge for a 21 year-old young lady.

Indeed, it was my privilege to meet her for the first time as soon as two months after she made that vow—still a princess and attending one of her early royal solo events. The occasion was the centenary celebrations at my school, Radley. The Archbishop of Canterbury had preached in chapel. The warden and others had made speeches of welcome and thanks. The school prefects, of which I was one, entertained the princess, less than four years our senior in age, to tea in our study. No masters were present; we had her all to ourselves. We plied her with meringues and biscuits and presented her with a box of chocolates; Radley’s archive still holds the receipt, making clear that this sweet offering cost all 15 of us not only 16 shillings and eight pence but a whole week of our sugar ration. Also in that archive is a copy of part of her handwritten letter to a friend, describing her day at Radley. She wrote:

“The tea with the prefects was very enjoyable, and certainly a great change from some of the rather dull teas one has on official occasions. This one couldn’t have been more fun.”

She was well known for her sense of fun, as well as for her sense of duty and responsibility.

Of course, during my time in the senior ranks of the Armed Forces, and even later, I had the privilege of meeting Her Majesty on numerous occasions. In 1991, when I was Chief of the Defence Staff, she asked me personally to Buckingham Palace to brief her on the ongoing operations in the first Gulf War. She was, as always, deeply interested in the performance of her Armed Forces.

It is the greatest of blessings to have known such a charming and charismatic person. May she rest in peace and in our memories for ever.

15/09/2022
Arminka Helić – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baroness Helić)

The tribute made by Arminka Helić (Baroness Helić) in the House of Lords on 9 September 2022.

My Lords, I share something with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham: I never had the honour of meeting Her Majesty, although I did have the honour of being in her presence.

I did not grow up in Britain, or indeed in a monarchy. Queen Elizabeth was not the daily background to my childhood and identity, as I know she was for so many people in this House, in this nation and across the Commonwealth. In school, I was taught about the former kingdom of Yugoslavia and its royal family, who had abandoned the country at a time of great difficulty in the Second World War and whose supporters had been on the wrong side of history. Yet, as I studied the language and literature of this country at university, and then sought refuge here, the virtues and principles of Her late Majesty the Queen showed me a different idea of monarchy.

The values Elizabeth II embodied, to which noble Lords have paid tribute so eloquently, were the values I have come to associate with this United Kingdom which is now my home. The sense of service which she so defined, and defined her, and which she chose to emphasise as the fundamental principle of her reign, is an example and inspiration to all of us in public life. The Queen was a reminder that, across periods of huge change in politics, society and technology, there are values that persist. Through times of uncertainty or division, she was a unifying force. You could look to her for continuity and an idea of how to act and how to serve.

Her leadership was respected and admired across the world. As one former refugee from Iran now serving in the United Nations told me this morning, it does not matter where you are from: she was a point of light for us all. For the people of this nation, the Commonwealth and the world, the Queen represents an ideal of decency and quiet duty which offers hope and reassurance.

For those like me who came to this country as refugees and immigrants, the Queen brought us together. In our admiration and love for her, we became British. She was a lighthouse, guiding us through the darkness and showing us by her actions how we might place duty and humility at the heart of our lives. So she will remain.

My thoughts now are with her family and His Majesty the King. Our pain can be only a shadow of what they feel—those who knew her best and loved her first as a mother and a grandmother. I offer His Majesty King Charles III my loyalty and support, and pray for his long reign.

15/09/2022
Waheed Alli – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baron Alli)

The tribute made by Waheed Alli, Baron Alli, in the House of Lords on 9 September 2022.

My Lords, I have not spoken in your Lordships’ House for many years but I felt compelled to do so today, and I am glad I did. I wish to associate myself with much of what has been said about Her late Majesty and everything she embodied. I also echo the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and pay tribute to the opening speeches by the Front Benches and many others today. It makes you proud to be a Member of this House as you listen to the tributes, the contributions that almost everybody in this House has made to public life and the interaction they have had with Her Majesty the Queen.

Her Majesty’s life set us all an example. My time in this House—it has been long—has been focused on equality, as many noble Lords will know. The notion of equality and monarchy can be difficult to reconcile in the abstract. The most fitting tribute I can pay to the late Queen is that she made that reconciliation look easy. She was a great equaliser; she equalised in almost every room into which she stepped. Her sense of duty should humble us all.

I have always been enamoured by the motto of the BBC:

“Nation shall speak peace unto nation”.

Her Majesty was the personification of this, and I mourn her passing. I celebrate her life, with all of you, and I wish long life to His Majesty the King.

15/09/2022
Julie Smith – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baroness Smith of Newnham)

The tribute made by Julie Smith, Baroness Smith of Newnham, in the House of Lords on 9 September 2022.

My Lords, I rise to speak from perhaps a unique perspective in your Lordships’ House. Almost all the very powerful and moving tributes to Her late Majesty we have heard today have been from noble Lords who met Her Majesty, but I never met Her Majesty in person. I thought yesterday, “I don’t think I will rise to speak in tribute to Her late Majesty; what can I say?” But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, “Surely my perspective is somewhat more similar to the many millions of loyal subjects across the United Kingdom and other countries who have our sovereign as their head of state”. As my noble friend Lady Benjamin said, she dreamed of meeting the Queen when she was a child in Trinidad, and she never thought that that would happen. But in her case, like so many of your Lordships, she had the opportunity to meet Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Exactly eight years ago, the second Friday of September 2014, I received an email to say that Her Majesty the Queen had agreed my title. The missive had been sent thanks to Her Majesty the Queen, and my friends and relatives all said, “That’s wonderful; you’re going to be in the House of Lords. Does that mean you’re going to meet the Queen?” There was an immediate assumption that if the monarch opens Parliament, and if we see people who get MBEs, CBEs, DBEs and KBEs going to the palace to receive them from the Queen, then surely if you get a peerage—what higher honour could there be?—you receive it from the sovereign. So, I had to explain a little bit of the British constitution and how, although the Queen makes her Letters Patent in order for us to be here, in practice we do not kiss the ring or have any other direct interaction with Her Majesty the Queen.

Like many children of the 1970s, and like the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, I remember the Silver Jubilee—and I too remember Virginia Wade winning Wimbledon. I come from Liverpool and, like many children, I went to a street party. My mother paid five pence every week for a collection so that I could go, and I got one of the commemorative coins, just like every child. In the 1970s, when this country still believed in deference, you expected young children to look to Her Majesty the Queen, and people across the Commonwealth would look to the Royal Family. Fast forward 45 years and the world has changed fundamentally.

As we heard from my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who was present at the last Coronation, the country has become so much more diverse—we have heard from many noble Lords of different faiths—and the Queen has overseen that growing diversity. But the country itself has, in many ways, become much less deferential and much less interested—one might think—in pageantry. However, my youngest godson, who is three, and his brother like nothing more than singing what they call “The Queen’s song”; to them, that is what the national anthem is. That might be strange. I do not know how many three, four or five year-olds like to sing their national anthem—this is not a country like the United States, where you are expected to do so—but for those children, and for anybody under the age of 70, our national anthem has been wrapped up with the identity of Her Majesty the Queen. All of us are going to have to think about what it means to have King Charles III, and we are all going to have to get used to thinking about His Majesty the King.

One of the things that has been so tremendous this week is the outpouring of grief in the country. This is a personal moment for the Royal Family—like other noble Lords, I send my most sincere condolences to His Majesty the King, the Queen Consort and the rest of the Royal Family—but it is also a time of heartfelt grief in this country and other countries where Her Majesty the Queen was head of state. She has been the most wonderful role model, both for those of you who met her and for those of us who never met her in person. We can only hope and pray that, whereas Her late Majesty had a very short apprenticeship to be our Queen, her son, who has had a 70-year apprenticeship from the best teacher he could have had, will find the faith and fortitude to be as wonderful a monarch of our country as his late mother. I wish him well. God save the King—and thank you, Ma’am.

15/09/2022
Susan Williams – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II (Baroness Williams of Trafford)

The tribute made by Susan Williams, Baroness Williams of Trafford, in the House of Lords on 9 September 2022.

My Lords, it is an honour to contribute to these speeches recognising the value that Her Majesty the Queen gave this country. There are over half a million nurses in the UK and she met many of them. She had been patron of the Royal College of Nursing since 1953 and will be sorely missed. Her interest was great. She met many Florence Nightingale Foundation scholars—I am president of that foundation—and many of those scholars lead our NHS trusts and community services. She worked with the Queen’s Nursing Institute and always had a deep interest in nursing. She met so many nurses from so many different countries, backgrounds and faiths, and they all valued the discussions she had with them.

As I got more senior, I met the Queen on several occasions, but what she wanted senior nurses to do was to introduce her to the people who were working on the floor or in the community—and, obviously, sometimes to patients. At the end of the pandemic, she said she recognised that nurses had played a very important part in our pandemic response. Of course, over the years she visited palliative care centres and children’s centres, and after the Manchester bomb, she spoke to a variety of nurses and patients. She also had quite an interest, as I have, in homelessness and how healthcare was delivered there. That issue has now been taken up by His Royal Highness Prince William. I also remind noble Lords how brilliant she was with people in distress: she coped with somebody breaking into her bedroom and kept them calm. That is quite a challenge.

I join other members of my profession in remembering a role model who took the rough with the smooth. The Queen was interested in all her people’s welfare and was fair and polite to everybody she came into contact with. I will just say that, although she did not know it was me, exactly 49 years ago I was a second-year student at the Westminster Hospital at a time when, on the whole, her staff and friends were admitted to the Westminster Hospital if they were not well. I was working in theatre and, in theatre, if you had been on night duty, you had to go down in the morning and collect the blood from the basement and bring it up to the theatres. You had to do that separately, so you did not muddle blood for different theatres. There were only two lifts: one for emergencies and the other for ordinary behaviour.

We were told at 6 am that nobody was to use the routine lift until 7 am, but I had the blood to collect, so I had several journeys down eight sets of stairs, because theatre was at the top and blood was in the basement. At 7.02 am, I was on my last trip and I thought, “Great, I can get into the lift.” So I pressed for the lift in the basement, it opened and there was our matron, whose name I can remember, with the Queen, who had overrun visiting a member of her staff. I stood with two bags of blood in each hand, curtsied, stood back and out of the lift they got. She just smiled at me—so many noble Lords have mentioned that smile. I spent the next 72 hours expecting to be called for by the matron. That did not happen and I am pretty convinced it was because the Queen probably laughed once she walked away from me.

I join others in sending my condolences to His Majesty King Charles III, his sons and his wife, the Queen Consort, Camilla, who I trust will support and comfort him throughout his reign in the way the Queen was supported by Prince Philip.

15/09/2022
Michael Gove – 2011 Speech at Policy Exchange on Free Schools

The speech made by Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, on 20 June 2011.

As a nation, we are blessed with some of the best schools in the world. But at the same time, we also have too many that are still struggling. There are hundreds of primaries where the majority of children fail to reach an acceptable level in English and maths. Primaries where the majority of children leave ill-equipped to face the challenges ahead. On a human level, it is a tragedy. For many of those children, their time at secondary is marked by – at best – frustration and disappointment, and – at worst – defiance and disruption.

On an economic level, it is a serious threat to our international competitiveness and puts our recovery at risk. As a country, only about half our pupils manage at least a ‘C’ in both English and maths GCSE – in Singapore, it’s four in five. In the last decade, we have plummeted down the international league tables: from 4th to 16th place in science; from 7th to 25th place in literacy; and from 8th to 28th in maths. British 15-year-olds’ maths skills are now more than two whole academic years behind 15-year-olds in China. While other countries have raced ahead we have – in the words of Andreas Schleicher, the OECD’s Director of Education – “stagnated.” This stagnation leaves children poorly prepared for the world we face.

We have just suffered the worst financial crisis since 1929. Our economy is weighed down by a huge debt burden. Europe has major problems with debt and the euro. Meanwhile there is a rapid and historic shift of political and economic power to Asia and a series of scientific and technological changes that are transforming our culture, economy and global politics. If we do not have a school system that is adapting to and preparing for these challenges then we will betray a generation.

Already, almost half of UK employers are unable to find the science and maths specialists they need, and the majority predict problems in finding such staff in the future. And what makes the situation so much worse is that, domestically, this unpreparedness, this poor performance, is so powerfully concentrated in areas of disadvantage. Far too often, deprivation is destiny.

We have one of the most stratified and segregated school systems in the developed world. More than 70% of poor pupils in parts of China and Hong Kong exceeded the standard expected of them – compared to just a quarter here. The gap in attainment between rich and poor, which widened in recent years, is a scandal. Schools should be engines of social mobility, places where the democratisation of knowledge helps vanquish the accidents of birth. But in the system we inherited, the gap just widens over time. By age 16, a deprived pupil is only half as likely to achieve five or more good GSCEs, including English and maths. And by 18 the gap is vast. In the last year for which we have figures, just 40 out of 80,000 of our poorest pupils made it to Oxbridge – down from 45 the previous year. Far, far too many young people are being robbed of the chance to shape their own destiny. It is a moral failure; a tragic waste of talent; and an affront to social justice. We need nothing short of radical, whole-scale reform.

When it comes to deciding what such reform should be, we need to start by looking to the best. And the best – and those who want to be the best – are changing fast. When you look at the highest-performing and fastest-reforming education systems, there are three essential characteristics that stand out.

The best-performing nations – like Finland, South Korea and Singapore – all recruit their teachers from the top pool of graduates. Which is why we are reforming teacher training and expanding programmes such as Teach First, Teaching Leaders and Future Leaders, who attract the brightest and best into the classroom. And because the biggest barrier to talented people coming into or staying in teaching is poor behaviour by pupils, we are strengthening teachers’ powers to maintain order in our new Education Bill.

Secondly, the top education nations are uncompromising in their commitment to rigorous accountability. The latest analysis from the OECD underlines that smart external assessment – proper testing you can trust – helps lever up standards. You need mechanisms that send a relentless signal that you believe in holding everyone to higher and higher standards. That’s why we introduced our English Baccalaureate: to encourage more children, especially from poorer backgrounds, to take the types of qualifications that open doors to the best universities and the most exciting careers.

And thirdly, the highest-performing education systems are those where government knows when to step back. We want a school system in which teachers have more power and in which they are more accountable to parents – not politicians. It’s this characteristic of success, this driver of reform, that I want to focus on today.

Rigorous research from the OECD and others has shown that more autonomy for individual schools helps raise standards. In its most recent international survey of education, the OECD found that “in countries where schools have greater autonomy over what is taught and how students are assessed, students tend to perform better.”

In Singapore, often cited as an exemplar of centralism, the Government has deliberately encouraged greater diversity in the school system – and dramatic leaps in attainment have been secured as a result. Schools where principals are exercising a progressively greater degree of operational autonomy are soaring ahead. And as the scope for innovation has grown, so Singapore’s competitive advantage over other nations has grown too.

In Sweden, the old bureaucratic monopoly that saw all state schools run by local government was ended. Over a fifth of Swedish schools are now non-selective, highly-autonomous, state Free Schools. Academic studies confirm that pupils at these schools get better results than pupils at traditional schools; that Free Schools improve standards across the local authority; and that parental satisfaction has significantly increased.

In Canada, and specifically in Alberta, a diverse range of autonomous schools offer professionals freedom and parents choice. As a result, Alberta now has the best performing state schools of any English-speaking region.

And in America – where the Charter Schools system implemented by New York and Chicago is perhaps the quintessential model of school autonomy – the results are extraordinary. One need only look at the figures. The median income of families in New York City Charter Schools is 30% lower than in the city as a whole. And ethnic minorities, who have historically been failed by the school system, are overrepresented in Charter Schools: Charter school neighbourhoods are 75 per cent more black and 30 per cent more Hispanic than across the City as a whole. Yet Charters are helping these pupils achieve amazing things. Pupils attending Charter Schools achieve better results than those who applied for a charter school but failed to secure a place in the admissions lottery. And the longer pupils stay in Charter Schools, the better they do: a pupil who attends a Charter School is 7 per cent more likely to get a high school diploma for every year they are there. So three years in a Charter means they are 21 per cent more likely to get a diploma than if they had attended a traditional state school.

In his excellent article in this month’s Atlantic – which I would encourage you all to read – New York City Education Chancellor Joel Klein holds up Harlem Success Academy 1 as an example of just what autonomous schools can achieve. Harlem Success Academy 1 has a pupil intake of amongst the most disadvantaged in the state. Yet the school now performs at the same level as New York City’s gifted-and-talented schools – all of which have tough admissions requirements, while Success randomly selects its pupils by lottery. And when schools achieve those kind of results, parents sit up and take notice. As Klein says: “…[W]e should make sure that every student has at least one alternative – and preferably several – to her neighborhood [primary] school. We implemented this strategy by opening more than 100 charter schools in high-poverty communities. Tellingly, almost 40,000 families chose these new schools, and another 40,000 are on waiting lists.”

Across the world, then, autonomy is proving a key driver of success. The good news in England is that we already have some excellent domestic examples to draw on. Granting greater autonomy has already generated success stories here. In the five or so years after 1988, the last Conservative Government created fifteen City Technology Colleges. These schools are all-ability comprehensives, but they enjoy much greater independence than other schools. Overwhelmingly, they are located in poorer areas – yet this doesn’t stop them achieving great results.

Seeing the success of CTCs, the last government took the principle of autonomy forward under its Academies programme. The scheme took chronically failing schools away from Local Authorities and placed them under the wing of a sponsor, who was given the freedom and flexibility to implement real change. Last month, academics at the London School of Economics published a landmark assessment of the scheme. They found three things. First, that “Academy conversion generates… a significant improvement in pupil performance.” Second, that this improvement is not the result of Academies ‘creaming-off’ pupils from nearby schools: the fact that more middle-class parents want to send their children to their local Academy is a consequence of the school’s success, not a cause. And thirdly – and most significantly – beyond raising standards for their own pupils, Academies also tend to raise pupil performance in neighbouring schools. Success, it seems, is contagious.

It would be negligent not to try and build on this success so we’re expanding on what’s already working well. We remain committed to this original strand of the Academies programme – and we are taking it further than ever before. This year, we will open more sponsored Academies than the last Government did in the first eight years of the Academies programme – and more than in any single year in the history of the scheme. 88 schools have already been identified and will open in the next academic year. We are also expanding the programme to failing primaries. We are working to identify the weakest 200 primary schools in the country; they will become Academies in 2012.

But autonomy isn’t just a mechanism for reversing underperformance – it works for accelerating high performance as well. So we decided to allow those professionals who were already doing a brilliant job to really spread their wings. We began by allowing any outstanding school to convert to an Academy. And now we’re enabling more schools to reap the benefits of autonomy by letting any schools apply for academy status – provided it’s teamed with a high-performing school. The rapid conversion of so many great schools to academies means there is now a pool of excellent institutions to build chains of schools, simultaneously autonomous and collaborative, working in partnership to raise standards. Over 1,200 schools have applied for Academy status. Over 800 of these applications have been approved. Over 400 have already converted and are open – bringing the total number of open academies to over 700. Tony Blair, the architect of the reform programme his party has now rejected, said that reaching 400 Academies would have a “transformative effect” on the education system. Well, we’ve almost doubled that in a year. We are transforming education in this country at an unprecedented pace.

And if it’s possible to become an autonomous school by partnering with another school, or by securing a sponsor, or by converting, then it should also be possible to start a truly autonomous, truly free, school from scratch. So we invited teacher groups, parent groups, charities and others to apply to set up their own schools. In the first year, over 300 answered the call, and I am delighted that over a dozen Free Schools are expected to open this September.

Before the election, countless people told me that it was foolish to expect any Free Schools at all to open in September 2011. Pilot the scheme for September 2012, they said, and don’t expect any serious numbers until September 2015. But we proved them wrong. The first Free Schools will open just 7 to 12 months after submitting their initial plans to the Department. This is remarkable. In the past, it normally took between three and five years to set up a maintained school. Elmgreen School, one of the first parent-promoted schools, took four years to open from conception. JCoSS, a Jewish community secondary, took nine years. It took five years to create the first 15 CTCs. It took one term of office to create the first 17 Academies. Yet we expect to have more than a dozen new schools open in just over a year.

And we’re not just getting great new schools open more quickly – we’re doing it more efficiently too. We are not being prescriptive about Free Schools and so they come in all shapes and sizes. Some are housed in existing schools. Others will be based in a range of refurbished and adapted buildings, including a former library in London and an office building in Norwich. The critical point is that we have been thinking creatively about how to secure excellent new schools at a time when budgets are tight.

Delivering high quality education against the backdrop of public spending pressures is one of the two major challenges facing my department. The other is demography. Nationally, we could need around quarter of a million more primary school places by 2014-15 – with London feeling this squeeze more than most. So we announced in December that we would double the levels of ‘basic need’ funding spent by the last Government to £800m to help LAs provide new places. The Free Schools programme could help us alleviate some of the pressure as well. Schools like the Harris Free School in Peckham and Redbridge Primary will, from September, help meet local demand in areas facing a serious problem with places.

But satisfying local demand is about more than the macro-level argument of basic need. On a human level, it’s about meeting parents’ desire for a good local school – a school that’s easy to get to, that feels like part of the community. Unsurprisingly, a number of applications come either from community groups trying to save a beloved local school or start one in a hitherto neglected area. Like Stour Valley Community School in Suffolk, or the SABRES group in Breckland, where parents’ ‘Save our School’ campaigns are protecting the ideal of great community education.

And even where there are places at local schools, they’re not necessarily the type of school places parents are happy with. A choice between two things you don’t want is hardly a choice at all. Free Schools offer a genuine alternative – and they have the freedom to be different. Like the Norwich Free School, which will integrate high-quality education and child-care year-round. The school will be sited right in the heart of Norwich so that working parents can make full use of the affordable extended school provision which will be available on the school premises for 6 days each week, 51 weeks of the year.

What is also remarkable is just how many Free Schools want to use this freedom to innovate specifically for the benefit of the very poorest. In America, the Charter School movement was started by idealistic young teachers who were sick and tired of the entrenched practices that were persistently failing the most vulnerable. There is the same appetite for change here, and it’s clearly manifest in the first tranche of Free Schools. The teachers running the outstanding Cuckoo Hall Academy, for example, have decided to set up a new school – Woodpecker Hall Primary Academy – so they can reach more deprived children in North London. Indeed, around a third of the Free Schools aiming to open in September are located in the 20% most deprived areas in the country, and we hope to see many more Free Schools targeting disadvantage in the future.

The latest application round closed just two weeks ago and, as the Free Schools team in the department goes through the proposals, we’re already seeing some interesting things. Encouragingly, there has been no drop-off in momentum: despite introducing a more rigorous application process, we have received 281 applications to set up a Free School in 2012. For the first time, we called for groups to set up special Free Schools, so that children with Special Educational Needs could have access to more excellent state special schools. Twenty groups answered the call. For the first time, we invited applications for alternative provision Free Schools, so that we could provide more targeted intervention for young people at risk. Thirty four groups took up the challenge. And we are also encouraging businesses and universities to help tackle the shortage of high-quality technical education by setting up University Technical Colleges. Thirty seven groups have applied to open a UTC next year.

Twelve applications came from existing Academy providers who, like Cuckoo Hall, want to use their expertise to help even more of the poorest pupils. Over half of applications – 126 in total – came from teacher, parent or community groups, ready to play a bigger role in shaping local children’s futures. We’ve even had an application from a Premiership football club: Everton FC is hoping to start an alternative provision Free School that would use sport to engage a wider spectrum of students.

The process is continually evolving. We are constantly reviewing and refining the programme to help get high-quality schools open where they are most needed. We’ve always made clear that we want children from the very poorest homes to have access to the very best education. If there are Academy sponsors or Free School groups who especially want to target poorer children, then we need to think of ways we can help them do just that. We’re currently consulting about whether Academies and Free Schools should be able to prioritise children receiving the pupil premium. Schools would know that the more children they managed to attract from poorer backgrounds, the more funding they would get. The pupil premium gives schools the money need to help the poorest; changing the Admissions Code lets that money operate as a genuine incentive.

While we’re in a hurry to get new schools open up and down the country, we are uncompromising when it comes to quality. The bar for entry is set high, and we make no apologies for that. In recent months, we’ve adapted the application process, making it more rigorous and learning from the best practice around the world. We’ve developed a new application form, requiring applicants to provide more detail about their school. We’ve introduced interviews for shortlisted proposals, so we can ensure only the strongest are successful. And we’ve introduced a single application deadline, allowing us to judge applications against each other and identify only the very best to take forward.

As the Prime Minister made clear in his Munich speech, we are absolutely determined to ensure that no one who has an extremist agenda – whether it’s politically or religiously extremist – has access to public money. Of course, it’s a free country, and we’re not going to attempt to police what people believe. But we are determined to ensure that those who receive public funding – and especially those who are shaping young minds – do not peddle an extremist agenda. That’s why, in response to an excellent Policy Exchange report, we have set up a dedicated team within the Department who will rigorously police any application for public money, including Free School applications. And we make it explicit in the application guidance that we will reject any proposers who advocate violence, intolerance, or hatred, or whose ideology runs counter to the UK’s democratic values.

Yes, the application process is rigorous. But clearing that hurdle doesn’t mean schools are off the hook. We know that autonomy works best when it’s paired with sharp, smart accountability. Last week, I announced that we would intervene in the weakest 200 primary schools in the country and put them in the hands of sponsors who could turn them round. I said we would identify a further 500 primaries for urgent collaboration with the Department. I said we would raise the floor standards and ask more of all our schools. Let me be clear: these tough measures apply to maintained schools, Academies and Free Schools alike. When it comes to failing schools, there are no favoured children, no ‘get out of jail free’ cards. When an Academy is failing, when a Free School is letting pupils down, then action needs to be swift.

But just as we must be uncompromising in our vigilance, we must be unyielding in our resolve. There will be glitches and hurdles along the way. Reform is untidy business; sweeping reform even more so. There are no smooth revolutions. Still, we must press forward. We are, after all, spurred by a moral imperative: we simply cannot afford to let another generation of children down.

15/09/2022