Category: Speeches

The below speech was made by the Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham, on 24th January 2013 to the King’s Fund.

Today I open Labour’s health and care policy review.

For the first time in 20 years, our Party has the chance to rethink its health and care policy from first principles.

Whatever your political views, it’s a big moment.

It presents the chance to change the terms of the health and care debate.

That is what One Nation Labour is setting out to do.

For too long, it has been trapped on narrow ground, in technical debates about regulation, commissioning, competition.

It is struggling to come up with credible answers to the questions that the 21st century is asking with ever greater urgency.

I want to change the debate by opening up new possibilities and posing new questions of my own, starting with people and families and what they want from a 21st century health and care service.

For now, they are just that – questions. This is a Green Paper moment – the start of a conversation not the end.

But what you will hear today is the first articulation of a coherent and genuine alternative to the current Government’s direction.

It is the product both of careful reflection on Labour’s time in government and a response to what has happened since.

Everything I say today is based on two unshakable assumptions.

First, that the health and care we want will need to be delivered in a tighter fiscal climate for the foreseeable future, so we have to think even more fundamentally about getting better results for people and families from what we already have.

Second, our fragile NHS has no capacity for further top-down reorganisation, having been ground down by the current round. I know that any changes must be delivered through the organisations and structures we inherit in 2015.

But that can’t mean planning for no change.

Those questions that the 21st century is bringing demand an answer.

When the modern condition means we are all living with higher levels of stress, change and insecurity, how do we give families the mental health support they will need and remove the stigma?

How will we ensure we are not overwhelmed by the costs of treating diseases linked to lifestyle and diet?

And how can we stop people fearing old age and have true peace of mind throughout a longer life?

Huge questions that require scale and a sense of ambition in our answers.

When a Labour Opposition last undertook this exercise, the world looked very different. But it had to be similarly ambitious.

People were waiting months and years for hospital treatment, even dying on NHS waiting lists.

So Labour set itself the mission of rescuing a beleaguered NHS which was starting to look as if it was on the way out.

A big ambition and, by and large, with help of the professions, we succeeded.

We left office with waiting lists at an all-time low and patient satisfaction at an all-time high; a major turn-around from the NHS we inherited in 1997.

But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

I can trace the moment that made me think differently, and challenge an approach that was too focused on hospitals.

In early 2007, my sister-in-law was in the Royal Marsden dying from breast cancer.

After visiting one night, she called me over and asked if I could get her home to be with her four children.

I told her I thought I would be able to.

But, after a day of phone calls, I will never forget having to going back to Claire and say it couldn’t be done.

And I was a Minister who knew how the system worked, so what chance have families who are at a low ebb and don’t know where to start?

As a Government, we were talking about choice. But it was a painful discovery for me to find we were unable to deliver to this most fundamental of choices.

Concerns about the way we care for people in the later stages of life, as well as how it is paid for, has built and built over recent years.

Stories of older people neglected or abused in care homes, isolated in their own homes or lost in acute hospitals – disorientated and dehydrated – recurred with ever greater frequency.

I have thought long and hard about why this is happening.

It is in part explained by regulatory failures and we will of course learn the lessons emerging from the Francis Report as part of this policy review.

Changes in nursing and professional practice may also have played a part.

But, in my view, these explanations deal with the symptoms rather than the cause of a problem that goes much deeper.

My penny-drop moment came last year when I was work-shadowing a ward sister at the Royal Derby.

It was not long after the Prime Minister had proposed hourly bed rounds for nurses.

I asked her what she thought of that. Her answer made an impression on me.

It was not that nurses didn’t care any more, she said. On the whole, they did.

It was more that the wards today are simply not staffed to deal with the complexity of what the ageing society is bringing to them.

When she qualified, it was rare to see someone in their 80s on the ward after a major operation.

Now there are ever greater numbers of very frail people in their 80s and 90s, with intensive physical, mental and social care needs.

Hospitals hadn’t changed to reflect this new reality, she said, and nurses were struggling to cope with it.

They were still operating on a 20th century production-line model, with a tendency to see the immediate problem – the broken hip, the stroke – but not the whole-person behind it.

They are geared up to meet physical needs, but not to provide the mental or social care that we will all need in the later stages of life.

So our hospitals, designed for the last century, are in danger of being overwhelmed by the demographic challenges of this century.

And that is the crux of our problem.

To understand its roots, it helps to go back to the 1948 World Health Organisation definition of health:

“a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

A simple vision which stands today.

But, for all its strengths, the NHS was not set up to achieve it. It went two thirds of the way, although mental health was not given proper priority, but the third, social, was left out altogether.

The trouble is that last bit is the preventative part.

Helping people with daily living, staying active and independent, delays the day they need more expensive physical and mental support.

But deep in the DNA of the NHS is the notion that the home, the place where so much happens to affect health, is not its responsibility.

It doesn’t pay for grab rails or walk-in showers, even if it is accepted that they can keep people safer and healthy.

The exclusion of the social side of care from the NHS settlement explains why it has never been able to break out of a ‘treatment service’ mentality and truly embrace prevention. It is a medical model; patient-centred, not person-centred.

But, in reality, it’s even worse than that.

For 65 years, England has tried to meet one person’s needs not through two but three services: physical, through the mainstream NHS; mental, through a detached system on the fringes of the NHS; and social, through a means-tested and charged-for council service, that varies greatly from one area to the next.

One person. Three care services.

For most of the 20th century, we just about managed to make it work for most people.

When people had chronic or terminal illness at a younger age, they could still cope with daily living even towards the end of life. Families lived closer to each other and, with a bit of council support, could cope.

Now, in the century of the ageing society, the gaps between our three services are getting dangerous.

The 21st century is asking questions of our 20th century health and care system that, in its current position, will never be able to answer to the public’s satisfaction.

As we live longer, people’s needs become a complex blur of the physical, mental and social.

It is just not possible to disaggregate them and meet them through our three separate services.

But that’s what we’re still trying to do.

So, wherever people are in this disjointed system, some or all of one person’s needs will be left unmet.

In the acute hospital ward, social and mental needs can be neglected. This explains why older people often go downhill quickly on admission to hospital.

In mental health care settings, people can have their physical health overlooked, in part explaining why those with serious mental health problems die 15 years younger than the rest of the population.

And, in places, such is the low standard of social care provision in both the home and care homes, barely any needs are properly met.

What, realistically, can be achieved from a home care service based around ten-minute slots per person?

On a practical level, families are looking for things from the current system that it just isn’t able to provide.

They desperately want co-ordination of care – a single point of contact for all of mum or dad’s needs – but it’s unlikely to be on offer in a three-service world.

So people continue to face the frustration of telling the same story over again to all of the different council and NHS professionals who come through the door.

Carers get ground down by the battle to get support, spending days on the phone being passed from pillar to post.

So far, I have spoken about the experience of older people and their carers.

But the problems I describe – the lack of a whole-person approach – holds equally true for the start of life and adults with disabilities.

Parents of children with severe disabilities will recognise the pattern – the battle for support, the lack of co-ordination and a single point of contact.

CAMHS support at the right time can make all the difference to a young life but is often not there when it is needed.

Children on the autistic spectrum are frequently missed altogether.

The mantra is that early intervention makes all the difference. But it is rarely a reality in a system that doesn’t have prevention at its heart.

If we leave things as they are, carers of young and old will continue to feel the frustration of dealing with services which don’t provide what they really need, that don’t see the whole-person.

They won’t provide the quality people want.

But nor will they be financially sustainable in this century.

For One Nation Labour, this is crucial. Protecting the institutions that bind us together, like the NHS – the expression of what we can achieve together when everyone plays their part.

Right now, the incentives are working in the wrong direction.

For older people, the gravitational pull is towards hospital and care home.

For the want of spending a few hundred pounds in the home, we seem to be happy to pick up hospital bills for thousands.

We are paying for failure on a grand scale, allowing people to fail at home and drift into expensive hospital beds and from there into expensive care homes.

The trouble is no-one has the incentive to invest in prevention.

Councils face different pressures and priorities than the NHS, with significant cuts in funding and an overriding incentive to keep council tax low.

So care services have been whittled away, in the knowledge that the NHS will always provide a safety net for people who can’t cope. And, of course, this could be said to suit hospitals as they get paid for each person who comes through the door.

In their defence, councils and the NHS may be following the institutional logic of the systems they are in.

But it’s financial madness, as well as being bad for people.

Hospital Chief Executives tell me that, on any given day, around 30 to 40 per cent of beds are occupied by older people who, if better provision was available, would not need to be there.

If we leave things as they are, our DGHs will be like warehouses of older people – lined up on the wards because we failed to do something better for them.

But it gets worse. Once they are there, they go downhill for lack of whole-person support and end up on a fast-track to care homes – costing them and us even more.

We could get much better results for people, and much more for the £104bn we spend on the NHS and the £15bn on social care, but only if we turn this system on its head.

We need incentives in the right place – keeping people at home and out of hospitals.

We must take away the debates between different parts of the public sector, where the NHS won’t invest if councils reap the benefit and vice versa, that are utterly meaningless to the public.

So the question I am today putting at the heart of Labour’s policy review is this: is it time for the full integration of health and social care?

One budget, one service co-ordinating all of one person’s needs: physical, mental and social. Whole-Person Care.

A service that starts with what people want – to stay comfortable at home – and is built around them.

When you start to think of a one-budget, one-service world, all kinds of new possibilities open up.

If the NHS was commissioned to provide Whole-Person Care in all settings – physical, mental, social from home to hospital – a decisive shift can be made towards prevention.

A year-of-care approach to funding, for instance, would finally put the financial incentives where they need to be.

NHS hospitals would be paid more for keeping people comfortable at home rather than admitting them.

That would be true human progress in the century of the ageing society.

Commissioning acute trusts in this way could change the terms of the debate about hospitals at a stroke.

Rather than feeling under constant siege, it could create positive conditions for the District General Hospital to evolve over time into a fundamentally different entity: an integrated care provider from home to hospital.

In Torbay, where the NHS and Council have already gone some way down this path, around 200 beds have been taken out from the local hospital without any great argument as families have other things they truly value.

Unlike other parts of England, they have one point of contact for the co-ordination of health and care needs.

Occupational Therapists visit homes the same day or the day after they are requested; urgent aids and adaptations supplied in minutes not days.

If an older person has to go into hospital, a care worker provides support on the ward and ensures the right package of care is in place to help get them back home as soon as possible.

Imagine what a step forward it would be if we could introduce these three things across England.

For the increasing numbers of people who are filled with dread at the thought of mum or dad going into hospital, social care support on the ward would provide instant reassurance.

It is a clear illustration of what becomes possible in a one-service, one-budget world with prevention at its heart.

If local hospitals are to grow into integrated providers of Whole-Person Care, then it will make sense to continue to separate general care from specialist care, and continue to centralise the latter.

So hospitals will need to change and we shouldn’t fear that.

But, with the change I propose, we can also put that whole debate on a much better footing.

If people accept changes to some parts of the local hospital, it becomes more possible to protect the parts that they truly value – specifically local general acute and emergency provision.

The model I am proposing could create a firmer financial base under acute hospitals trusts where they can sustain a back-stop, local A&E service as part of a more streamlined, re-modelled, efficient local healthcare system.

So A&Es need not close for purely or predominantly financial reasons, although a compelling clinical case for change must always be heard and we would never make the mistake of a blanket moratorium.

I am clear that we will never make the most of our £120 billion health and care budget unless hospitals have positive reasons to grow into the community, and we break down the divide between primary and secondary care.

It could see GPs working differently, as we can see in Torbay, leading teams of others professionals – physios, Occupational Therapists, district nurses – managing the care of the at-risk older population.

Nerves about hospital take-over start to disappear in a one-budget world where the financial incentives work in the opposite direction.

NHS hospitals need the security to embrace change and that change will happen more quickly in an NHS Preferred Provider world rather than an Any Qualified Provider world, where every change is an open tender.

I don’t shy away from saying this.

I believe passionately in the public NHS and what it represents.

I think a majority of the public share this sentiment.

They are uncomfortable with mixing medicine with the money motive. They support what the NHS represents – people before profits – as memorably celebrated by Danny Boyle at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

Over time, allowing the advance of a market with no limits will undermine the core, emergency, public provision that people hold dear.

So I challenge those who say that the continued advance of competition and the market into the NHS is the answer to the challenges of this century.

The evidence simply doesn’t support it – financially or on quality grounds.

If we look around the world, market-based health systems cost more per person not less than the NHS. The planned nature of our system, under attack from the current Government’s reforms, is its most precious strength in facing a century when demand will ratchet up.

Rather than allowing the NHS model to be gradually eroded, we should be protecting it and extending it as the most efficient way of meeting this century’s pressures.

The AQP approach will not deliver what people want either.

Families are demanding integration. Markets deliver fragmentation.

The logical conclusion of the open-tender approach is to bring an ever-increasing number of providers on to the pitch, dealing with ever smaller elements of a person’s care, without an overall co-ordinating force.

If we look to the US, the best providers are working on that highly integrated basis, co-ordinating physical, mental and social care from home to hospital.

We have got to take the best of that approach and universalise it here.

But there are dangers of monopolistic or unresponsive providers.

Even if the NHS is co-ordinating all care, it is essential that people are able to choose other providers. And within a managed system there must always be a role for the private and voluntary sectors and the innovation they bring.

But let me say something that the last Labour Government didn’t make clear: choice is not the same thing as competition.

The system I am describing will only work if it is based around what people and families want, giving them full control.

To make that a reality, we want to empower patients to have more control over their care, such as dialysis treatment in the home or the choice to die at home or in a hospice.

We will work towards extending patients’ rights to treatment in the NHS Constitution.

This would mean the system would have to change to provide what people want, rather than vice versa.

The best advert for the people-centred system in Torbay is that more people there die at home than in any other part of England.

When I visited, they explained that they had never set out to do that – a target had not been set – but it had been a natural consequence of a system built around people. A real lesson there for politicians.

So an NHS providing all care – physical, mental and social – would be held to account by powerful patient rights.

But, as part of our consultation, we will be asking whether it follows that local government could take a prominent role working in partnership with CCGs on commissioning with a single budget.

This change would allow a much more ambitious approach to commissioning than we have previously managed.

At the moment, we are commissioning health services. This was the case with PCTs and will remain so with CCGs.

The challenges of the 21st century are such that we need to make a shift to commissioning for good population health, making the link with housing, planning, employment, leisure and education.

This approach to commissioning, particularly in the early years, begins to make a reality of the Marmot vision, where all the determinants of health are in play. Improving PH will not be a fringe pursuit for councils but central to everything that they do.

But it also solves a problem that is becoming increasingly urgent.

Councils are warning that, within a decade, they will be overwhelmed by the costs of care if nothing changes.

They point to a chart – affectionately known as the ‘graph of doom’ – which shows there will be little money for libraries, parks and leisure centres by 2020.

One of the great strengths of the one-budget, Whole-Person approach would be to break this downward spiral.

It would give local government a positive future and local communities a real say.

The challenge becomes not how to patch two conflicting worlds together but how to make the most of a single budget.

To address fears that health money will be siphoned off into other, unrelated areas, reassurance is provided by a much more clearly defined national entitlement, based around a strengthened NICE, able to take a broader view of all local public spending when making its recommendations.

It won’t be the job of people at local level to decide what should be provided. That will be set out in a new entitlement. But it will be their job to decide how it should be provided.

That would provide clarity about the respective roles of national and local government, too often a source of confusion and tension.

But I want to be clear: nothing I have said today requires a top-down structural re-organisation.

In the same way that Andrew Lansley should have refocused PCTs and put doctors in charge, I will simply re-focus the organisations I inherit to deliver this vision of Whole-Person Care.

Health and Well-Being Boards could come to the fore, with CCGs supporting them with technical advice.

While we retain the organisations, we will repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and the rules of the market.

It is a confused, sub-optimal piece of legislation not worthy of the NHS and which fails to give the clarity respective bodies need about their role.

This approach creates the conditions for the evolutionary change towards the Whole-Person vision rather than structural upheaval.

At a stroke, those two crucial local institutions – council and hospital – have an alignment of interests and a clear future role to grow into.

But the same is true for social care.

At present, it is trapped in a failing financial model.

The great attraction of the Whole-Person approach, with the NHS taking responsibility for coordination, is that it will be in a position to raise the standards and horizons of social care, lifting it out of today’s cut-price, minimum wage business.

Social care careers would be more valued and young people able to progress as part of an integrated Whole-Person workforce.

Of course, the change we aspire to, particularly in social care, won’t come by simply changing structures. It will need a change of culture including leadership, training, working in teams, better information and seeing patients and families as partners in achieving better health and care.

So Whole-Person Care is the proposal at the heart of Labour’s health and care policy review which is formally launched today.

It will be led by Liz Kendall, and will run alongside Diane Abbott’s separate Public Health Policy Review. Over the next six months, we will be holding events in all parts of England seeking views on two central questions.

First, do you see merit in this vision of Whole-Person Care and support the proposals for the full integration of health and social care?

Second, if you do, how far down this path of integration do you think we should go?

The fact is that, even if we move to a fully integrated model, and shift resources from hospital to home, it won’t be enough to pay for all of one person’s care needs.

We need to be very clear about that.

So this opens up the question of the funding of social care.

It is the case that, with the shift of resources out of hospital, more preventative social care could be provided in the home and, in all likelihood, better standards of social care offered, as we have seen in Torbay.

For instance, we have already proposed that this should include people on the end-of-life register. It would also include provision for those with the highest needs and at risk from going into hospital.

But rather than leave this unspecified, people need to know exactly where they stand. Currently, council care provision is the ultimate lottery.

In a single system, it would be right to set for the first time a clear entitlement to what social care could be provided and on what terms, as part of a national entitlement to health and care.

That would help people understand what is not covered – which is very unclear to people at present.

But the question arises: what is the fairest way of helping people cover the rest?

At present, beyond the £23,000 floor, care charges are unlimited.

These are ‘dementia taxes’: the more vulnerable you are, the more you pay.

As cruel as pre-NHS or US healthcare.

No other part of our welfare state works in this way and, in the century of the ageing society, failure to resolve how we pay for care could undermine the NHS, the contributory principle and incentives to save.

Some people might ask why they should save for retirement, when the chances of it all being washed away increase every year?

In this century, we can’t carry on letting people go into old age with everything – home, savings, pension – on the roulette table.

So there is a political consensus that the status quo is the worst of all possible worlds and it needs to change.

We agree about the need to find a fairer way of paying for social care, but not on what that system should be.

The Government have begun to set out their version of Andrew Dilnot’s proposals.

A cap, not of £35,000 but over the £50,000 Dilnot recommended, and possibly up to £75,000.

This is better than the status quo.

But we all know that setting a cap of up to £150,000 for a couple is not a fair solution.

For Labour, it fails a basic One Nation test.

Offering some protection to the better off, but doing little to help a couple in an average semi in the Midlands or the North.

But it also fails a sustainability test.

By failing to address the shortfall in council budgets, it leaves people exposed to ever-increasing care charges and more likely to pay up to the level of the cap.

This won’t feel like progress to many.

So, as part of Labour’s policy consultation, we will ask for views on other ways of paying for social care.

We will only have a solution when all people, regardless of their savings and the severity of their needs, have the chance to protect what they have worked for.

There are two basic choices – a voluntary or all-in approach – and, at this stage, we are seeking views on which path people think we should take, building on the foundations of a fully merged health and social care system.

Both would represent a significant improvement on the status quo, but both present significant difficulties in terms of implementation.

Andrew Dilnot’s proposed cap and means-test would help everyone protect their savings.

It would mean people only pay as much as they need to, but, in the worst case scenario, could stand to lose a significant chunk of their savings.

If people support this option, we would be interested in hearing views on how it could be funded.

One of the problems with the voluntary approach is it assumes the continuation of two care worlds – one charged for, the other one free-at-the-point-of-use – with all its complexity.

So it is right to ask whether we can move to an all-in system, extend the NHS principle to all care.

This would mean asking people to pay differently for social care to create a level playing field on how all care is provided.

But it would only work on the all-in principle and that is its major downside: all people would be required to contribute, rather than just those needing care.

People’s exposure to care costs in an all-in system would be significantly lower. But, as with any insurance system, people might pay and never end up using the service.

As with the voluntary option we would be interested in hearing people views on the pros and cons of the all-in principle and options for how this could be done.

It is an open question whether a broad consensus can be found on funding social care on either a voluntary or all-in principle.

But Labour is clear that this must not stand in the way of progress now to get much more for people from what we currently spend on health and care.

To Beveridge’s five giants of the 20th century, the 21st is rapidly adding a sixth: fear of old age.

If we do nothing, that fear will only grow as we hear more and more stories of older people failed by a system that is simply not geared up to meet their needs.

A One Nation approach to health and care means giving all people freedom from this fear, all families peace of mind.

Whole-Person Care is a vision for a truly integrated service not just battling disease and infirmity but able to aspire to give all people a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being.

A people-centred service which starts with people’s lives, their hopes and dreams, and builds out from there, strengthening and extending the NHS in the 21st century not whittling it away.

A service which affords everyone’s parents the dignity and respect we would want for our own.

There will be many questions which arise from what I have said today.

I don’t yet have all the answers.

But that’s why Labour is opening this discussion now.

It’s an open invitation to anyone who has anxieties about what is happening to the NHS right now to help us build a genuine alternative – integrated, collaborative, accountable.

I don’t want to do the usual politician thing of pulling a policy out of the hat at the time of the next manifesto that takes people by surprise.

Instead, I want to involve as many people as I can in shaping an alternative they can believe in.

The task is urgent because the NHS is on the same fast-track to fragmentation that social care has been down.

The further it carries on down this path, the harder it will be to glue it back together.

Unlike the last Election, the next one needs to give people a proper choice of what kind of health and care system they want in the 21st century.

That’s why I started by saying it’s time to change the terms of the debate and put more ambition into our ideas.

Labour is rediscovering its roots and its ability to think in the boldest terms about a society that cares for everyone and leaves no-one behind.

People need One Nation Labour to be as brave in this Century as Bevan was in the last.

That’s the challenge and we will rise to it.

Below is the text of the speech made Andy Burnham, the Shadow Education Secretary, to the 2010 NASUWT Conference.

Good afternoon.

It’s great to be with you – even if it is as the first Labour Shadow to address you for some time.

What a difference a year makes.

The only positive is that gives me the first real opportunity for fifteen years to step back, refresh and rethink Labour education policy for new times.

I intend to use it properly.

So today I want to talk to you about the principles that will underpin my approach to that important task.

I might not have been an Education Minister. But I do have a few strong views about education and real passions which go to the heart of why I am in politics.

I need your help and ideas in building on the best of what Labour achieved in Government and developing a genuine alternative to the current direction of travel

Of course, there were things we didn’t get right. That’s why Labour needs time to reflect.

But we can’t afford to have our heads in the clouds. And this brings me to my second theme for today.

An attack has been launched on state education in England.

Structures that have underpinned a successful school system for decades – fair admissions, national standards, local planning – are being swept away.

It’s a whirlwind – an unseemly rush to reform with no consultation, no pilots, no evidence.

A reckless ideological experiment designed to break a successful school system and turn it into a free-for-all.

A plan for some children and some schools, not all children and all schools.

An unforgiveable gamble with the life chances of our children.

So much change has been thrown at the system at once in the last 12 months at once that it’s been hard to stand back and make sense of it all.

Today, I want to put all the pieces together.

I want to show what’s at stake.

I want to explain how the combined effect of the erosion of fair admissions and the promotion of a narrow, academic curriculum will create an inevitable drive towards an elitist, two-tier school system – a new generation of grammar schools and secondary moderns.

England is sleepwalking into a new era of selection and segregation in our schools – and it’s time to raise the alarm.

Tories in Government have forgotten that they didn’t win an outright mandate from the public for right-wing reforms to our public services.

As for Mr Clegg … well what can you say?

I was campaigning in Sheffield the other day. On one doorstep, I was saying how hard it was to work with them now as I had no idea what Mr Clegg stood for.

Quick as a flash this bloke said: “I know what Clegg stands for. Mr Cameron, when the PM walks into the Cabinet room.”

What I do know is that Mr Clegg has put the Lib Dems’ name to an Education Bill – every single word of which contradicts a motion passed at his Party’s annual conference.

So it falls to us to remind them.

Let’s do that by launching a joint campaign today to change that Bill – and put down a clear marker against the drive towards an atomised, competitive, divided education system

Just as the Government has been forced into retreat on NHS reform, if we fight together for what we believe in we can preserve a semblance of a state education system for the next Labour Government.

I will explain later how we might do that.

But, first, Labour’s policy review.

I have two clear tests for an education policy: will it help all school be good schools? Will it help every child to be the best they can be?

I’m proud that, in Government, Labour made demonstrable progress towards these goals.

Our schools saw a decade of improvement: more teachers, smaller classes, a stronger, more professional workforce, more classroom support, better school buildings and ourdoor play facilities, modern ICT, better discipline, better sport and arts.

Per pupil funding was finally brought up to the European average, 4,000 schools were rebuilt – and, as a result of all these things, standards rose.

In 1997, one in two schools were below the basic benchmark. By 2010, that was just 1 in 40 schools. 80% of secondary schools and 90% of primary schools had good or outstanding behaviour.

It’s a record Labour can be proud of – but I know it simply wouldn’t have been possible without our partnership with you.

So, on behalf of the Labour Party, I would like to thank this union for all that is has done to champion comprehensive state education, and show how constructive social partnership can work for all to improve standards in our schools.

Your contribution to this revolution was recognised last year when Ed Balls launched the Teachers’ Guarantee at this conference last year.

It was an expression of our trust in the professionalism of teachers – and our desire to support you to have the greatest impact on the learning, well-being and development of your pupils.

And I can say today that I will carry forward that principle into our policy review.

Mr Gove talks about the importance of teaching – as if nothing happened in 13 years.

Just as they have sought to re-write history on the economy, so they have deployed a barrage of selective facts to decry the achievements of our children, our teachers and our schools in the last fifteen years.

The fact is that last decade saw teaching transformed – from a profession demoralised and undervalued to the top destination for Oxbridge graduates.

40,000 more teachers, 120,000 more teaching assistants. The best generation of teachers ever, according to OFSTED.

This was achieved not by Government alone but by partnership and constructive dialogue on the things that matter to teachers, by being fair on pay and pensions.

In Government – and in partnership with NASUWT – Labour took tough decisions on pensions to make them more affordable and viable.  Together, we were able to improve long-term sustainability and reduce the risk to the taxpayer and retain the principles of equity and flexibility.

I hope even people who did not agree with us on everything will recognise that as a more honourable way of working that unilaterally deciding to increase employee contributions in advance of the Hutton Report.

The Government have made a mockery of partnership. So I understand why teachers are angry. Pension affordability is one thing. But permanent changes in the name of deficit reduction – particularly when the banks are getting a tax cut – are quite another.

When it comes to schools, parents rightly expect all avenues to be explored before other action is taken. But the onus is very clearly on the Government to rebuild trust and negotiate a fair settlement.

More broadly, Gove’s free-for-all in teachers pay and conditions will mean his rhetoric about teaching will never match up to the reality.

I know from my experience in the NHS that you build stronger and more stable public services with social partnership and national pay frameworks.

That will remain at the heart of Labour’s approach to education and is what I mean when I talk about building on the best of what we did in Government.

But we didn’t get everything right. And I know we won’t move on unless we acknowledge and face up to those things.

During the Labour Leadership election, I said I regretted the fact that, at times, Labour didn’t seem sufficiently proud of its comprehensive schools. I shuddered the day they were labelled ‘bog-standard’ – a huge disservice to the sheer variety and quality of what goes on in our schools.

For someone coming in new to education policy, the depth of negativity in the media towards our schools is quite striking.

I’m sure that there can’t be another country in the world that talks down its schools, its teachers, its qualifications and its young people in the way we seem to do.

So I will champion the school system that did a good job for me – and is doing its best for my children in difficult circumstances.

A second area where I think we need to reflect is in how we make policy.

At times we allowed the London context exerted an undue influence on the formulation of national policy.

We didn’t always get the balance right between national targets, on the one hand, and school and teacher autonomy on the other.

We didn’t focus enough on improving opportunities for the half of kids unlikely to go to University.

Politicians of all sides like to polish messages for the pushiest parents, leaving teachers are left to deal with the reality of trying to create schools that work for everyone.

I can see how this has led to a disconnect between politics and the teaching profession.

I want to address this in Labour’s policy commission on 0 to 19 education which is now underway.

Today I issue the warmest of invitations to you all to play a part in it.

Through Chris, I would like to hear your thoughts and ideas, on where we got things right in Government, where there is further to go, and where a changing world demands new approaches.

I want our policy review to look at clear entitlements for on-going professional development, giving teachers the opportunity to update their skills and specialisms.

I want to teaching to be seen as a high-status profession on a par with medicine and law.

I want to see a culture that means it is as unacceptable for a student to be failed in the classroom as it is for a patient to be failed in the consulting room.

Turning the best generation ever of teachers into the best teachers in the world should be a national mission in the coming decades. It matters for our children, our communities, and the long-term prosperity of our country.

The big challenge I have set the Commission is to rethink comprehensive education for this century, showing how it can embody aspiration and achievement in schools and colleges across the country. I want it to do that by making sure all policy recommendations are firmly based on evidence, not whim or prejudice.

Some right-wing commentators who think these two statements are incompatible, that the evidence doesn’t support what they call an outdated orthodoxy.

Since I took on this job, I have spoken of my unshakeable belief in the comprehensive ideal. Immediately, this drew a lazy characterisation that I was therefore in favour of levelling down; that I was anti-choice and diversity.

I am none of those things. I support parent and student choice, diversity of provision in schools, the promotion of academic excellence and high achievement.

My mission is to show how they are entirely compatible within a truly comprehensive system. Indeed, that is the only way we will help all children be the best they can be.

So let me refer some of those commentators to some authoritative evidence:

“Systems that show high performance and an equitable distribution of learning outcomes tend to be comprehensive, requiring teachers and schools to embrace diverse student populations through personalised educational pathways.

“In contrast, school systems that assume that students have different destinations with different expectations and differentiation in terms of how they are placed in schools, classes and grades often show less equitable outcomes without an overall performance advantage.”

It comes from last year’s PISA report. Michael Gove is fond of quoting PISA. But, interestingly, not this bit.

He doesn’t refer much to this bit either:

“Countries that create a more competitive environment in which many schools compete for students do not systematically produce better results.”

Nor this:

“Most successful school systems grant greater autonomy to individual schools to design curricula and establish assessment policies.”

PISA identifies three ingredients of a successful schools system: autonomy over the curriculum; collaborative rather than competitive; and comprehensive in terms of intake.

I will base Labour’s policy on these solid foundations. And, this brings me to my second theme.

I will show how Mr Gove is going in precisely the opposite direction on each of the three – to a more prescriptive, competitive and socially-segregated system.

The current Secretary of State has two qualities in abundance which are a lethal mix in any minister: incompetence and ideological zeal.

He doesn’t care much for detail or evidence – probably because it doesn’t support the ideological experiment he is inflicting on our children.

There is no evidence that the Free Schools policy will drive up standards. In fact at worst, as experience in Sweden suggests, they will have a negative impact – not just on standards but on social cohesion.

Michael Gove doesn’t mention Sweden much now, and prefers to points to the US and charter schools as his inspiration.

Yet, here too, academics at Stanford University found that fewer than one in five charter schools outperformed comparable state schools and over a third were doing “significantly worse”.

That is why I call his policy direction a reckless gamble with standards.

My summary of the first 12 months of this Government’s education policy is a sorry story of broken promises, incompetence and wrong-headed reforms.

They said they would protect Sure Start – but cut the funding and removed the ringfence.

They said they would keep the Education Maintenance Allowance – but scrapped it at the first opportunity.

They said it would be wrong to dismantle school sport partnerships – but they have.

And crucially, they said they had found more resources for schools, that the Pupil Premium would be additional to the schools budget.

Labour is publishing new figures today which show that the rhetoric simply doesn’t make the reality – the schools budget will fall every year for three years and per pupil funding is cut.

Thousands of teachers at risk of redundancy. 700 local communities who have seen school building projects cancelled are watching money being poured into Free Schools.

With mainstream schools facing harsh cuts, local communities must be allowed to judge whether this is the best use of resources – but the Free School programme is shrouded in secrecy.

You deserve better than this. Children, families, communities – all deserve better than this.

Where is the fairness in an approach to education where public money is used as bait to lure schools into an ideological experiment?

Labour’s academies programme was focused on turning around schools in the most deprived areas.

This Government has perverted it into a purely ideological programme with no plan for how it will drive up standards – an uneven playing field where money follows ideology not need.

The Government have fallen straight into the trap of believing that making structural changes will automatically deliver improved standards.

Unfair pressure is being piled on schools to change status. Consultation in some cases is cursory. And, disgracefully, Education Ministers put pressure on schools to sideline the voice of this trade union.

All this from a Government which preached freedom and autonomy.

In fact, they are more centralising, top-down and prescriptive than we ever were.

Mr Gove wants to tell communities what kind of schools they must have and students what subjects they must study.

So much for student and parent choice.

Parents should have influence over local schools. But the Education Bill says communities can only have one kind of new schools – a new-style academy or Free School.

The English Bacc is forcing a narrow academic subject selection on schools and students.

All this leaves Government promises of autonomy and localism in tatters – and observers scratching their heads at a Secretary of State in danger of collapsing under the weight of his own contradictions.

What guarantees do parents have about standards in this free-for-all – where schools to open in any building, with unqualified teachers, bypassing the National Curriculum?

Isn’t there a real risk that new schools will destabilise existing good schools?

So it’s to put down a marker against this dangerous experiment.

Instead of obsessing over structures, which are meaningless to many parents, we will be seeking to amend the Bill to secure what really matters to them.

Will my child have a fair chance of getting into a good school? Will they have good teachers?

Labour will seek to preserve local admissions forums to support the rights of parents at local level to have fair access to schools of their choice.

And we will safeguard standards by seeking to amend the Bill to ensure that all publicly-funded schools employ qualified teachers, requiring free schools to be covered by the same requirements regarding teaching qualifications as other schools.

Simple, common-sense amendments that give children and parents guarantees and protection from the worst of Gove’s free market madness.

I hope all those who have misgivings about this Government’s direction of travel will rally round the campaign to amend the Education Bill.

These amendments won’t solve everything – but they will send a clear message to the Government that they can’t break up our school system without a fight.

A fair school system is under threat from the combination of two things: changes to school governance – where schools are their own admission authorities; and the introduction of a narrow academic English Baccalaureate as a measure of performance.

The English Bacc provides an incentive to focus on some students rather than others and sidelines vocational learning.

Michael, you can’t design an entire school system around the requirements of the Russell Group.

The danger is that, in a highly competitive system, schools will greater power over admissions will prioritise students likely to succeed under the English Bacc – creating a selective system by the back door.

I came into politics to challenge elitism in education. And I’m now ready to give this Government the fight of its life to save the kind of school system I believe in.

Conclusion

My own journey in life took me from a Merseyside comprehensive in the mid-1980s to Cambridge and then to the Cabinet.

It has shown me the best and worst of our education system and society.

Doors never open for some young people because they are never given the confidence to knock on them.

I joined Labour in the mid-80s because that I wanted to challenge it and I’m proud of the progress we made in Government: more young people leaving school with decent qualifications; more people staying on; more people going to university.

Today, I’m more fired up than ever because I see history repeating itself and all this hard-won progress thrown into reverse.

When the Government trebled tuition fees, it filled me with despair. I could almost hear the sound of falling aspiration in my constituency.

And when I hear a Prime Minister say it’s OK to hand out life chances and plum jobs on the dinner party circuit, it reminds me why I’m I do the job I do.

For all the progress we have made as a society, it remains the case that the postcode of the bed you are born in pretty much determines where you end up in life and what chances you have.

I know that a two-tier school system, no EMA and trebled tuition fees will reinforce that, stacking the odds against those who have least.

So the stakes couldn’t be higher.

I want an education system that is an engine of true social mobility, that helps all children be the best they can be.

If this is your vision too, let’s fight for it together before it is too late.

Below is the text of the speech made by Andy Burnham, the Shadow Education Secretary, to Demos on 12th July 2011.

When I was given this job, I said I wanted to rethink comprehensive education for the 21st century.

Today I will set out my vision for what that means in practice.

My thinking has been shaped by discussions in Labour’s Schools Policy Review and I am grateful to the experts on the group for their insights, and pleased that we are joined by one of them today – inspirational former primary school head, Richard Gerver.

I would also like to thank Demos and Microsoft for hosting us today, and Mike Baker for agreeing to chair this event.

My experts have told me one clear home truth: for too long, politicians have been labouring under old and out-dated assumptions about education and schools.

Having begun in denial, I am now able to admit they are right.

So, as Secretary of State for Education, I would look to build a school system in England based on three clear principles:

First, where hard work is properly rewarded and all young people have something to aim for beyond school.

Second, where we reach every single child, by judging schools on the difference they make for every individual student – including how far schools stretch the brightest

Third, where learning is made relevant to life today, building the character and qualities young people will need to succeed in 21st century

Reward, reach, relevance – these will be my 3Rs to guide schools reform in the 21st century.

I will seek endorsement for them from Labour’s Annual Conference as part of a report of the schools policy review.

It sounds simple. But, as I want to explain today, a school system that truly lives and breathes these ideas will be different than it is today.

And, if it is to be a reality, it’s the political debate about education that urgently needs to enter the 21st century.

My son starts secondary school in September.

Last week, we attended the induction evening with other parents.

The head began by asking us not to judge what we were about to hear by our own time at school.

Schools today were preparing young people for a very different world than the 1980s, he said.

Our sons and daughters could expect to have at least 10 different jobs throughout their career.

Unlike their grandparents, who did specific jobs in large industries, they will most likely work in smaller companies. They will need to be all-rounders, able to adapt quickly to new situations.

It is more likely that they will be employers as well as employees.

With all this in mind, he said, thinking only about exam results would be to miss the point.

Facts and content are not all that matters as some of our children will work in industries we don’t yet know about.

Success in the 21st century will depend on young people’s ability to be resourceful, adaptable, self-confident, creative and self-managing.

Good presentation and people skills will be essential, as will critical thinking.

As I sat listening to this, I was struck by two things: first, how it echoed what I had been hearing from my experts on the policy review; second, how I wished I could get him before the House of Commons to make this speech.

Most MPs, myself included, base their views on education on their own school days and what life was like in the 60s, 70s or 80s.

As the outside changes rapidly, schools remain frozen in time in the minds of most MPs.

But, since the Election, it’s got worse.

Under the Coalition, thin king about education has headed backwards at breakneck speed – following the script of a 1980s film.

You may remember it. It starred a man called Michael, who was trapped in the 1950s.

Back to the Future probably would have been a better title for Michael Gove’s White Paper.

Learning facts by rote to pass exams – names of rivers, Kings and Queens – is relentlessly promoted above instilling the essential qualities young people will need to navigate the modern world.

It’s hard to understand the thought process that can conclude that the way forward for England’s schools in the 21st century is to bring in a new ‘gold standard’ measurement system that values Latin and Ancient Greek above Engineering, Business Studies or ICT.

And, in a world of work that gets more complicated by the day, what do ministers do?

They drop the requirement for work-related learning at Key Stage 4 and allow the Careers Service to melt away before our eyes.

It’s a wholly inadequate response.

By setting out an alternative vision today, I hope to refocus the education debate away from the Government’s obsession with structural reform and back on more fundamental questions.

What are schools for? What do employers want from them?

This is where I start from.

Employability is important, but it’s not all that matters. Schools have to be about values and citizenship too.

Somewhere along the line, as well as being stuck in the past, politicians have lost this broad view of education.

Schools should build strong and prosperous communities in which all young people are ready and able to fulfil their potential – as citizens, employees, employers, mums, dads, carers and neighbours.

This is my answer to the question ‘What are schools for?’

But I don’t know what the Government thinks.

Instead, we see a blizzard of activity focused on changing school structures without any clear vision of what makes the 21st century school.

The Government urgently needs to correct this and to show how its structural reforms will deliver its vision.

Failure to do that risks making its own reform programme an irrelevant sideshow: change for its own sake, a numbers game, rather than focusing schools on the job in hand of rising to the big economic and social challenges of this century.

I am optimistic about our future, but right now our schools look stuck in the last century and government changes are sending them backwards not forwards.

If current policy stays unchanged, I have great fears for where we’ll be in 10 years time.

The lethal combination of the narrow English Baccalaureate and a free-for-all in schools risks cementing an impression that has been building for the last 20 years: a production-line approach to education where schools are stressed-out exam factories teaching to regurgitate facts u nder pressure rather building rounded characters.

Schools have no choice but to focus on what they’re told.

As the Secretary of State told the Commons yesterday, there has been an increase in the number of young people learning Latin in state schools.

I’m not sure it’s the cause for celebration he seems to think it is.

I have nothing at all against bright young people choosing Latin at GCSE. But what I suspect is happening is that schools are steering children towards EBacc subjects and the effect of this is that it is limiting choices for all children within the school.

But I certainly can’t celebrate a system that encourages a focus on the top 30% of students at the expense of the rest.

It leads me to ask: What has this Government got against creativity? What have they got to say to the 70% of children who are unlikely to opt for EBacc subjects?

I think it’s inevitable that the effect will be a school system that sift s into two levels – schools that do well under EBacc and those that don’t.

This risks taking us back to the 1950s: a two-tier system where technical or practical is second-best, our education system is divided, and a generation of children failed.

England urgently needs an alternative to this out-dated thinking.

We need an education policy that is both forward-looking and reasserts the broad view of education.

So here are my emerging ideas about how to build a school system based around the three principles I mentioned at the beginning.

First, a system where hard work is properly rewarded, by giving all young people something to aim for – building on our success in expanding university and apprenticeship places.

The education debate in England urgently needs to be re-balanced.

As Demos has rightly identified, politicians of all parties over a long period of time have let down the 50% or more of young people not planning to go to university.

Because most went to university, there is a tendency to think exclusively about A Levels and the university route, exams and qualifications.

Our school system has traditionally provided great clarity to young people on university route, as to what they need to do to secure a place.

Young people outside that route have had nothing like the same clarity and have been expected to make their own way.

Unless that changes, our school system will continue to cater for some children, not all children. We won’t rise to the big challenges of this century, which are different to the last.

When we started school, our generation had more certainty and structure.

On the whole, people knew university was a realistic possibility – and affordable – if they met the required standard.

For those planning to enter work, trainee schemes operated by large industries were in much more plentiful supply. Entry requirements for them were well understood.

Today, there is still clarity about what it takes to go to University – even if that is a receding possibility for many young people.

But, with the demise of large industry, there is nowhere near as much clarity for young people who want to get good vocational qualifications that will take them towards skilled work.

And this problem will only get bigger, as young people switch off from higher education.

I think this is taking the country in the wrong direction, as university education gives people the all-round versatility and confidence they will need for the modern world.

But, if we are to avoid a lost generation, we must urgently rethink what we are offering as a society to young people not planning to go to university.

When they start school, all young people need to feel they have something to aim for.

If they don’t have a clear sense that school needs is leading somewhere and giving them a path in life, the risk will be that we see young people switching off at school in greater numbers as the EBacc is not what they want and other courses will have the distinct feel of being second-best, an afterthought.

So what to do?

I want all young people to have a solid opportunity to aim for at 18 – be it a University place or apprenticeship.

But, if we want to instil the right values in our young people, it can’t be about handing everything on a plate.

So I believe this points to developing a new social contract with young people.

When starting school, the message to all young people should be clear: if you put in the hours, and if you meet the required standard, you will gain a solid, prestigious qualification which will open up a good opportunity for you beyond school.

This means we will need good-quality apprenticeships in much more plentiful supply than there are today, and much clearer information and structure for how they access them.

For instance, why isn’t there as much clarity over applying for apprenticeships as there is for applying to universities?

Could we build up the system John Denham introduced into a true UCAS-style system where the best opportunities go to those who work hardest?

Delivering this change will be about building on what we did in Government, but taking it to a new level.

Labour saved apprenticeships from near-extinction.

We more than quadrupled the number of places in our 13 years in government and had plans for further big expansions of public sector apprenticeships.

If the path towards an apprenticeship was as clear as the path towards university, more young people would see the relevance of their education and understand that hard work would be rewarded.

This is why the current shambles around the careers service is so damaging. The school and college leaders’ union, ASCL have said that 2 million young people could mi ss out on careers advice due to government mismanagement.

A social contract for young children of the kind I am talking about will be essential to preventing the terrifying prospect of lost generations throughout this century.

But it will also build a society based on the right values.

In the eyes of the public, Labour in government started to lose an association with hard work and the idea that the way to get on in life is to put in the hours.

At times, we created an impression that opportunities would be provided regardless of people’s willingness to grab them.

A society based on responsibility means firmly planting at the heart of our school system the idea that hard work will be rewarded.

This takes me to my second principle – a school system that reaches every single child, where there is an incentive to stretch every child.

Labour made huge progress at every stage of children’s development.

Sure Start brought a whole-family approach to education and helped bring children to primary school ready to learn.

Primary schools were our great success story. But it’s from 11 to 19 that the picture is more mixed.

I’ve been reflecting on what we got right and wrong.

In 1997, inheriting a system with 50% of schools failing to give a third of kids basic standards in English and maths meant we needed to get a pretty firm grip at the centre.

Our National Challenge benchmark of 5 A*-C at GCSE was the right measure for the time and helped us to turn around over 1,000 failing schools.

But sticking with it for as long as we did brought two problems with it: first, it judged schools by how well they did with some children, not all children; second, it did not provide sufficient incentive to stretch the brightest, to turn Cs in Bs, Bs into As, and As into A*s.

The new Government has made great play of the fact that it is continuing Labour’s approach – but with added fervour and intensity.

This is a debatable claim. But it is true to the extent that the current Government are now in grave danger of cementing into the system some of the flaws in Labour’s approach.

I believe there will always be a need for some measure of absolute standards in our schools.

But in Government we were beginning to move away from 5A*-Cs as a headline measure, because we knew that any ‘threshold’ standard like this would focus attention at the borderline and not incentivise schools to focus on every child.

We can’t turn off the flow of data, and the more information we have about our schools, the better. But we can control how politicians handle and react to that data.

By making the English Bacc their headline performance measure for schools the Government has ensured that turning grade Ds into Cs will remain a core focus for schools.

Having promised to end top-down targets, schools are being plac ed in a vice-like grip – not just the EBacc but also a tougher 5 A to Cs floor target.

Labour’s policy review is looking at whether it is possible to reform league tables so that schools are judged by the difference that they make with each individual learner.

We will now do further work on developing a simple measure –using CVA or VA as a starting point – that is well understood, trusted by parents and supported by the profession.

If we get it right, it could align the political imperative to measure how schools are doing with the professional vocation of teachers to make a difference for every child.

It would be a simple expression of what should be the mission of every school: pushing every pupil to be the best they can be, with a clear incentive to put no limits on how far we stretch the brightest.

But we will only do that if we also enact my third principle and create a system where learning is made relevant to life today, building t he character and qualities young people will need to succeed in 21st century.

Schools need to give young people need relevant answers to the challenges in their lives.

They need forward-looking courses of study, with links to the world of world, that don’t just focus on facts and knowledge but instil the essential qualities they will need to get on in a changing world.

Relevance is an important concept in education – but not one that features in current Ministerial thinking.

We mustn’t trap ourselves in the out-dated thinking that learning falls into clear categories: the academic or vocational, the theoretical or the practical, the brain or the hands.

Many subjects, like medicine or engineering, are a mixture of both.

We can both stretch young people academically – for example, by offering triple science at GCSE – whilst also promoting practical or vocational learning, like the Engineering Diploma. It’s not a choice between the two, as the Government seems to suggest.

Employers and universities are united and clear in what they want from schools – young people strong in the basics and displaying what they call ‘employability skills’ – like self-management, team working and problem solving.

And they want to see more young people with specialist knowledge in science, technology, maths and engineering.

So it follows that we need a school system that instils those essential qualities, builds strong characters and encourages independent learning.

It is clear that a content-driven curriculum alone will not develop the attributes that employers and universities say they are looking for.

We need to look at how we ensure all young people have the opportunity to develop the knowledge and attributes they need for the modern world.

I think we need to look at two areas first.

First, is there a case for setting out a minimum entitlement for all children – a binding statement of rights in a world where the education system is more fragmented and some schools narrow their focus?

It could build on our pupil and parent guarantees, scrapped by this Government.

Like the right to one-to-one catch-up if a child fell behind in the basics.

Like the opportunity to study triple science at GCSE, or to learn a language at primary school.

Increasing the life chances of children from poorer families in a century where social networks and family connections are becoming more important means giving them access to the same breadth of opportunities as children from better-off families that broaden horizons.

It’s not just about academic opportunities. There is a real fear that sport, cultural opportunities and work experience become random again and the preserve of those whose families can organise opportunities.

These are the things that develop confidence and character.

In my view, every child should have the chance to experience qualified coaching and competitive opportunities in a range of sports.

Just as I would like to see every child experience a creative and cultural education – with opportunities to learn a musical instrument, to act in a play, to develop confidence in public speaking.

Sport and arts are the things that can turn on a light inside many children, helping them achieve more in their core academic studies.

And if we are truly to raise aspirations for every child, we need to be far more ambitious about work-related learning.

Employers have a right to say that schools are turning out young people lacking in the skills they are looking for.

But they also have a responsibility to get involved in schools and help them develop those skills.

Experience of the workplace is essential if we are to broaden the horizons of our most deprived children.

We know that when young people organise their own work experience, a form of social reproduction takes place and they end up experiencing the type of work their families are involved in.

You don’t often find working class kids spending two weeks in a law firm if they have to organise it through their own connections.

Rather than scrapping the requirement, we should have a much more ambitious view where the worlds of law, finance, media and politics are opened up to young people from less well-connected families.

Third sector organisations like Future First and the Education and Employers Taskforce are helping schools to build the networks that they need to offer these opportunities in their local communities.

But minimum entitlements alone will not be enough. We also need a radical rethink of the 14-19 curriculum so that we can give young people a relevant and engaging path from school to work.

Looking back, Labour missed a moment in 2006, with the publication of the Tomlinson Report.

We had a chance to reshape the curriculum and the work of schools – relevant, rewarding, built around the strengths and interests of every child – but failed to take it.

I want to go back to the principles of that report but update it too.

We stand a better chance of engaging all young people if we can offer them relevant options at 14.

English and maths must always be at the core of a young person’s education, and no one should be forced to specialise before they are ready. But they should be able to if they are.

Last week, I visited the JCB Academy and saw students following a programme of study that they had chosen – and that they clearly found highly relevant and engaging.

The Engineering Diploma that JCB Academy offers mixes high quality academic and practical learning, and can help open the doors to apprenticeships and university.

But, importantly, it doesn’t close any doors – the head teacher told me that if, at 16, one of their students decided they wanted to study medicine, there would be no reason why they couldn’t. The school will score zero on the English Baccalaureate.

Instead of closing down their choices, as the English Baccalaureate does, I think we should open them up – so young people can follow the pathway that is right for them and develop their talents, be those are academic, technical, linguistic or creative.

I think we need to look at introducing a true Baccalaureate, like the International Baccalaureate: a broad programme of learning that lets all young people choose the path that suits them best but gives all the solid, prestigious qualification age 14-19 that is valued by employers and universities that I was talking about earlier.

If we are to do this successfully, it will demand more of our teachers.

Standing in front of a class and teaching kids to memorise facts isn’t easy.

But it might seem more straightforward than developing a relevant programme of study that speaks to every child and equips them with not only the knowledge, but also the essential attributes, they will need to succeed in the modern world.

Luckily, we currently have the best generation of teachers ever. I want to make it a national mission in the coming decade to build the best teaching workforce in the world.

That’s why I am asking if there’s a case for working towards making teaching a masters-level profession, following the example of the best school systems around the world.

Only with the highest-quality, most professional teaching workforce in the world will we be able to deliver an education system that rewards hard work, reaches every child and is relevant to the modern world.

This emphasis on access to CPD for teachers could be linked to the introduction of a professionally-led licence to teach.

A more relevant 14 to 19 curriculum will also mean changes for our schools.

I want to see every local area develop exciting and engaging new post-14 pathways, working with employers and post-16 providers.

The implication of this is two major changes from current policy: first, a continuing and important planning role for the local authority in education; second, an education system where collaboration between schools, rather than hand-to-hand combat, is the driving force.

Education is essentially a collaborative activity: the more people share thoughts and ideas, the more they learn. But the market model doesn’t recognise this: it encourages schools jealously to guard the best of what they’ve got; and will produce winners and losers, where young people get trapped in struggling institutions.

My vision is to open up the best that every area has to offer to all children.

A refocused 14-19 curriculum might also mean at 14 that we spend more time bringing the very brightest children together from schools a cross a local authority area, so they can learn from each other and we can give them a clearer idea of what is required on the Russell Group or Oxbridge path.

A system that is “comprehensive and collaborative”: not a rose-tinted view of education but, according to PISA, the defining characteristics of the world’s best education systems.It is about facing future challenges, not a vision of education stuck in the past.

It is about instilling essential qualities rather than focusing solely on facts and exams.

It is about finding a route through for every child, not just the top 25%.

If we don’t do these things, we are facing a century when there is a real risk that social mobility will go seriously into reverse.

The British Promise that Ed Miliband has spoken of – where children have greater life chances than their parents – will only be a reality if we can bring our schools into the 21st century.

Preventing a lost generation and wasting the talents of our young people is one of the great challenges of our times.

As university gets more expensive, EMA withdrawn, and old structures break down, it will be those kids without connections, and family networks, who fail to get on.

I came into politics to challenge that.

And its why today I put forward my vision for comprehensive education in the 21st century: relevant, rewarding, aspirational for all.

Below is the text of the speech made by the former Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham, on 10th March 2010.

When I became Health Secretary last year, I put reforming care for older and disabled people at the top of my priority list.

I have to admit there have been days since when I’ve had cause to question the wisdom of that decision.

This issue, as we all know, is a political minefield and I’ve asked myself more than once whether I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

But, as difficult as it gets, I am absolutely determined to see it through.

That’s because, though real improvements have been made, our social care system remains fundamentally unfair – as harsh as healthcare provision in the days before the NHS.

And my conviction to do something about it was forged from seeing my own grandmother – a proud Scouse lady – laid low emotionally and financially.

I have a strong sense of the injustice here and there’s no point being in politics if you’re not prepared to act on those instincts when you have the chance.

So I can say today that I am resolved on two things: first, that I will bring forward proposals for a National Care Service in a White Paper this side of the Election; second, that I still want to build as much political consensus around it as I possibly can.

With that in mind, I think it is a positive thing that we’re gathered here today and that all three parties are back in the same room. I’d like to thank Age UK for making it possible.

As well as revealing our differences, I hope today’s debate might also surprise people by revealing more consensus between the parties than they might think.

First, all parties seem to agree that reform is now urgent, and that the Green Paper has achieved the aim I set for it of building unstoppable momentum for a fundamental reform bill in the next Parliament.

Second, that the idea of a National Care Service – replacing today’s local lottery with national assessment and national entitlement – has been broadly accepted.

Third, there is also emerging consensus that payment must be based on a partnership between the individual and the state and be fair across the generations, as a cross-Party commission concluded this week.

Fourth, that in its design, the National Care Service should provides care which is personal, preventative and integrated with other services.

As we look to build further consensus, I have been listening and reflecting on what has been said during our Big Care Debate.

Some felt the Green Paper didn’t say enough about carers and I think that’s a fair criticism. The White Paper will say more about how the National Care Service will help carers cope, by providing them with better support when they need it.

People also raised questions about benefit reform. On Attendance Allowance, the Age Concern manifesto states that ‘any reform…must retain its essential features’. I agree. And I will ensure that the White Paper reflects this.

So far, so good. But from here it gets harder as we talk about how to pay – with claims of taxes of one kind or another.

The problem with this politically-charged debate is that it ignores the fact that today we have the cruellest tax of all – a dementia tax, as the Alzheimer’s Society puts it, where the more vulnerable you are, the more you pay.

We know that eight out of ten people will develop a care need as they got older. So we know we are likely to have to pay something for our care but no-one knows how much. It’s a cruel lottery where people are forced to gamble with their homes and savings.

The need for reform is not in doubt. The question is how to pay for it.

The broad choice is between a voluntary and compulsory system. There are pros and cons with each.

A voluntary funding option would provide more choice, but with low take-up. It would come at a greater cost to the individual, and the question is: can it be made affordable to all? I think of my constituents in Leigh when I ask that question. Our Green Paper put the cost of this at £25,000.

A compulsory option would be more affordable and provide care on NHS terms – free at the point of use when it is needed – but it would take choice away from the individual.

So that’s the basic question that the Government is still considering.

For me, the crucial test of any proposed solution is that it must be within the reach of all people and affordable to everyone.

It will only be lasting solution if everyone is able to get the peace of mind that comes from knowing your care needs are covered. And any solution must help all people to protect what they have what they have worked for so it can be passed on – nobody should have to lose their home to pay for their care.

If we fail to act now, the unfairness will only increase as we all live longer.

And the problem now affects many more families and many more communities as today’s generation of pensioners are the first real home-owning generation.

They are looking to us work together to find the solution and we must not let them down.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham, on 30th March 2010.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It’s a great pleasure to be here, and to welcome you all.

For carers, for older people, for people with disabilities, for families and communities, for everyone who has campaigned for a better deal for those in need of care and support – for all of us – this is a momentous day.

When William Beveridge wrote the founding document of the welfare state in 1942 he set out the five ‘giant evils’ of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness, that as a society we would work join together to overcome.

Now, as we all live longer, thanks in no small part to the NHS, a sixth giant has emerged – fear of old age.

The social care system is the only remaining part of our welfare state that is not organised on a collective basis. And as a result, over the years we have seen too many vulnerable people and their families struggling to cope, often losing everything to pay for care.

But today, once and for all, we say – no more.

I want to thank all of you for everything you’ve done to help us get to this point and in particular Imelda Redmond and the Care and Support Alliance. I’d also like to thank a wonderful man – Phil Hope the Minister for Care Services. And to thank David Behan, Sally Warren, and their team, and so many others. It has been a tremendous effort. And when the road has become rocky – which at times it has – I’ve been spurred on by your commitment.

This has become a personal mission for me – forged by my own family’s experience, by memories of my mother fighting for better care for her mum.

There is a historic wrong here, which we have to put right.

For the sake of the generation entering care now, and for generations to come, we have to put in place a fair, affordable and lasting solution.

And that is why, today, I am confirming that the government is committed to the principle of creating a National Care Service.

A service that is comprehensive, fair for all, and free for everyone when they need it.

A service that completes the vision of the welfare state – that sees only the individual and their needs, and not their ability to pay.

A service that promises not just more support for carers, for older people and for people with disabilities, but peace of mind for all.

The White Paper we are publishing today sets out how we will build this new service.

The case for change

And it’s been a long journey to get us here today.

Improvements have been made over recent years. But there are still too many people whose experience of the system is defined by frustration, poor quality and neglect – and often by a wearying battle to get the help they need.

Too often the system can be confusing and unresponsive. Different services don’t always work together, and there is a postcode lottery, as people with the same needs receive different levels of care depending on where they live.

The fact is our care system was designed for a different era. It cannot cope with the challenges of today, let alone the demands of tomorrow.

The Big Care Debate

We recognised the scale of the challenge in last year’s Green Paper, Shaping the Future of Care Together. And because this is an issue that affects everyone we launched the Big Care Debate. It soon became the largest ever consultation on care and support in England.

Over 68,000 people took part – including many of you. We have published the independent summary of the consultation alongside the White Paper.

And it confirmed much of what we thought about the current system. In one response someone said:

‘There are a great number of people who do not understand what to do or where to go. I myself have spent 12 months looking and only by accident found what I was looking for.’

That’s no way to serve some of the most vulnerable people in society.

But we’ve listened – and our White Paper has been shaped by what people told us.

We set out three options. 35% of people supported a partnership approach. 22% an insurance approach. But the most popular option, with 41% support was a comprehensive approach.

We’re responding to that desire for real change – for fundamental reform of the system. That’s what today is all about.

The National Care Service

The new, National Care Service will offer high quality care and support for all – whoever you are, wherever you live in England, and whatever condition leads you to need that support.

Like the NHS, everyone will contribute and everyone will get their care for free when they need it.

It will support families, carers and communities, and ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect. No-one will be forced to give up their home or their savings to get care – ensuring everyone peace of mind.

And the National Care Service won’t just make people into passive recipients of care handed out by an unresponsive system. It will provide more personalised care that is focussed on keeping people well and independent, enabling them to stay in their home if that is where they want to be. It will give people choice and control over their own care and their own lives.

Rather than being told what services they are going to receive, people will have a personal budget if they want one, giving them power over how their care and support entitlement is spent.

We’ll take common sense steps to make people’s lives easier – like joining-up referral processes for social care and attendance allowance.

We’ll ensure that different parts of the system work better together, with a new duty for NHS bodies and local authorities to deliver integrated care.

And we will provide a better deal for those unseen and unsung heroes of our care and support system.

In this country today millions of people – on every street in every town – are providing care at home for a loved one.

These everyday heroes are the mark of a civilised society – but in truth we are not serving them today as well as they are serving us.

The National Care Service will provide better support for carers through clearer and more accessible information – and it will give them the peace of mind that their loved one will receive high quality care and support under the new service.

We can’t, in any situation, replace the loving support that carers give – and nor would we ever wish to. The National Care Service has to be built on that bedrock, to enable us to help everyone.

Funding

We all have a stake in these issues. Eight in ten of us will need care as we get older. And, of course, no-one knows how much care they will need or how much they will have to pay.

That’s because we currently have – as the Alzheimer’s Society described it – a dementia tax, where the vulnerable pay more, where people can see tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds wiped out by the costs of care. People are having to deal with the loss of their homes, their savings and every ounce of their financial security, at the very time that their family is going through a period of terrible emotional stress.

To make the National Care Service work, everyone will have to make a contribution.

But because of this, care and support will be free for everyone when they need it – and the costs of covering everyone’s care needs will be reduced.

This means people of all incomes will get peace of mind in old age and be able to protect everything they have worked for. Like the NHS before it, it will end the catastrophic costs of care.

And it will promote social mobility, because it will help to protect people’s homes and savings – helping lower-income families keep their foothold on the property ladder.

So at the start of the next Parliament we will establish a commission to reach a consensus on the best way of financing this system. The commission will determine the options which should be open to individuals so that people can have choice and flexibility about how they contribute.

That’s what you told me at the Care and Support Conference in February. I hope you recognise much of what is in the White Paper today.

We expect that people will continue to pay for the accommodation costs for residential care. However, we will introduce a universal deferred payment system, so no one has to sell their homes in their lifetime in order to pay for residential care.

We will also keep the current system of Attendance Allowance and Disability Living Allowance. The National Care Service should be built on these foundations. The benefits of the current system will be replicated in the new service – and I am happy to confirm that today.

Delivering the National Care Service

Building the new National Care Service will be one of the biggest changes to the welfare state since the creation of the NHS.

It is a major reform and it can’t be completed overnight. So we will build the new service in three stages, and we will establish a National Care Service leadership group to co-ordinate the implementation of the new service.

The first stage is to implement the Personal Care at Home Bill, which is before the House of Commons this evening. This Bill enables us to guarantee that those with the highest needs will receive free personal care in their own home.

It also establishes intensive reablement services in every community to help people retain or regain their independence and confidence after a crisis or the first time they need care.

During this stage we will also continue to implement the reforms to the system that are already delivering benefits – such as in tackling dementia or supporting carers.

And the fact that this Bill is before the Commons tonight should give you all encouragement that this is not just words – the action starts right now.

The second stage, during the next Parliament, will be to start to build the National Care Service, including creating the commission on funding for the Service.

To ensure that the Service has a proper legal basis, we will introduce a National Care Service Bill, which will set out the duties of the Secretary of State and local authorities to provide care to those who need it.

We will abolish the postcode lottery by establishing in law the point at which someone becomes eligible for state support.

And from April 2014, people will receive their care free if they need to stay in residential care for more than two years, again removing the fear of catastrophic costs and protecting people’s assets and savings.

These two stages will together mean the most vulnerable in society – those with the highest needs – are protected from very high care costs wherever they may need care.

The third and final stage of reform, after 2015, will be the introduction of the comprehensive National Care Service – establishing once and for all a system that is fair and free at the point of need for everyone.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt this is an ambitious goal.

In creating a comprehensive National Care Service we are setting out to change, forever, the story of our welfare state.

But that, simply, is the challenge for this generation.

Some six decades ago when my predecessor, Nye Bevan, was moving the NHS Bill in the House of Commons, he said it would ‘lift the shadow from millions of homes’.

It did lift the shadow – and that reform has lit the nation ever since.

Looking to the future, I believe the National Care Service can do the same.

And in closing, I’d like to ask you to go out and make that argument.

If you believe this is the right reform for older, vulnerable and disabled people in this country please join us in making that argument for fundamental reform.

I believe we have an opportunity to make a change and we all need to come together to seize it – to create a National Care Service and to protect our citizens now and for the rest of this century.

Thank you very much for listening.