The speech made by Laura Trott, the Shadow Education Secretary, in Manchester on 7 October 2025.
Conference, hello.
It is an honour to address you as Shadow Education Secretary, a job I have always dreamed of doing.
Education Secretary would obviously be better, but I am working on it.
Three people are on my mind as I speak to you today, three people who have shaped my thinking, whose stories I want to replicate across the country.
The first is a girl called Celine, who I heard about from her headteacher.
She lived on a dangerous council estate in Sheffield.
The closest school to her home was not delivering for children.
It was unsafe, with dismal results and terrible behaviour.
It had been that way for years, as was the case with all the schools in the area.
That is, until the arrival of the free schools programme, a Conservative policy pioneered by the formidable Michael Gove and Nick Gibb.
Thanks to them, a brilliant headteacher called Dean Webster was able to establish Mercia School.
When Mercia opened, Celine got her sliding doors moment: a chance to attend a different, better school.
When she started at the new school, the headteacher Dean visited Celine in her flat.
He told me how, on his way there, he passed gangs on the corner and had to step over people passed out on drugs.
It was a glimpse into the world awaiting Celine. However, through a traditional academic education, a longer school day, and zero tolerance for bad behaviour, Mercia School gave Celine a lifeline.
I am delighted to tell you that this summer, Celine achieved top A-Level results and is now going on to study Law at university.
A brilliant school set her on a very different path, a school which did not exist 15 years ago and would never have existed without Conservatives in Government. That is the difference we can make.
The second person whose story I would like to share today is a young boy I met in Ilford. I shall call him Mason, but that was not his real name.
He had a horrendous home life and, for understandable reasons, was acting out terribly at school.
He was not coping.
He was making life a misery and learning impossible, not just for him but for the other 29 children in his class too.
Enough was enough, and Mason was rightly removed from mainstream education and placed in alternative provision for children with behavioural problems.
That is where I met him. This specialist provision helped change his life. It was his version of intensive care, helping him to get back on his feet, with the highly specialised support that he needed and so craved.
There are too many who think it is compassionate to keep a child like Mason in mainstream school, at the expense not just of his future, but that of his classmates’ futures too.
Let me tell you what real compassion looks like:
It is taking Mason out of a setting that was failing him, letting him get the extra support he clearly needed.
That is what we need to fight for, for children like Mason.
The third person whose story I would like to share is a teacher called Kat.
I met Kat on a recent visit to her school, Trinity, a free school in a deprived area in Leeds where she is the Principal.
Sixty-one per cent of her pupils are disadvantaged, and over 70 per cent do not have English as their first language.
Kat radiates passion for her school, her teachers, and her students, and her energy is infectious.
She was rightly proud of the curriculum they have developed, the high standards of behaviour they expect from every student, and the results they are seeing every day, which far outstrip anything previously achieved in the local area.
Results, I might add, that they can only achieve because of the freedoms that come with being an academy.
Freedoms that I refuse to let the Labour Government take away casually without any thought for the consequences.
Celine, Mason, and Kat: I am in their service, and that of the thousands like them.
They are why I do this job.
Unlike Bridget Phillipson, I will never come to work thinking only about the unions.
Conference, we know that this Party, the Conservative Party, is the true party of opportunity.
We know it is not about where you have come from, but where you are going.
You should not be defined by who your parents are or where you were born, but by your ideas and what you have to contribute.
That is why the Conservative Party is the party of opportunity. We Conservatives never succumb to the soft bigotry of low expectations, because we believe that every child should have a chance in life.
Reforming schools unleashes opportunity. Plain and simple.
However, it is not enough just to believe in public service reform. The inconvenient reality, and other parties might want to note, is that you actually have to have a plan to deliver it too.
That is exactly what the Conservatives in Government did.
An Academies Act passed in 77 days.
Hundreds of new free schools.
Thousands of new academies.
A rigorous curriculum.
High-quality technical education.
Tougher exams.
Better teaching standards.
Phonics.
A stop to grade inflation.
Calculators in exams thrown out.
Millions more children in good and outstanding schools.
That is what Conservatives did in Government.
We reformed schools, and standards went through the roof.
Those schools have improved not through words, but through strong accountability, academic rigour, rigorous inspection, and freedoms.
Crucially, all of that happens with teachers, not bureaucrats, in control.
Conference, under us, English children became the best at reading and maths in the Western world.
This is an achievement that other countries marvel at. They look to us as an example of what they want to replicate in their schools.
They are eager to learn how this was achieved. However, unbelievably, all of these reforms are under threat.
They are under threat from a Labour Party who believe in backing unions over backing children, a Labour Party that even booed one of Britain’s best headteachers in the House of Commons, simply because she runs a school that was opened by a Conservative Government.
The only consistent strand of this Labour Government is that union demands come ahead of the interests of children in this country.
It should be no surprise to anyone that Bridget Phillipson is running to be deputy leader of the Labour Party.
As Education Secretary, she has spent more time appeasing union bosses than standing up for children.
From the outset, her loyalties were clear.
In her first few months, she held dozens of meetings with union leaders, allowing them to write her policies.
What was the result?
A Schools Bill that nobody voted for.
Botched Ofsted reforms.
A dumbing down of standards.
A misguided curriculum review.
Every single time the Education Secretary has been confronted with a tough decision, she has capitulated to the left.
This might help with her deputy leadership election, but it does not help children at school.
In all the chaos going on in the world, we must stop and realise the extent of the damage that Labour are doing to schoolchildren, and that starts with unpicking our school reforms.
There is no evidence that Labour’s so-called reforms driven by unions will improve a single school. Not one.
The sad fact is, we already have a live case study of why Labour’s changes will not work. It is a little over 40 miles away from this hall.
Over the border, children in Labour-run Wales are being let down. They are untouched by the education revolution seen here in England. Unfortunately, Wales has seen plummeting standards and poorer outcomes.
Just look at this graph. Instead of learning what not to do from Wales, the Education Secretary is inexplicably repeating the very same policies. The very same mistakes.
Why? Because union bosses want her to.
Trading policy for their votes.
All to the detriment of children’s education.
Shame on the Labour Party.
Shame on them for letting that waste of potential happen here.
Labour are turning their backs on everything we know improves schools, everything that people in this hall have worked so hard for, everything that Celine, Mason, and Kat need.
This is a quiet betrayal of all children, but it is the poorest who will be most affected.
This is nothing less than educational vandalism.
Conference, together with my brilliant Shadow Education team, Diana, Saqib, Rebecca, and Jack, we will fight it every step of the way.
Let me turn now to one of the key problems facing our schools: behaviour.
We must ensure that every child who goes to school is given the chance to learn from excellent teachers and without fear for their safety.
I went to a good comprehensive, with some brilliant teachers to whom I am extremely grateful.
However, I also saw the consequences of bad behaviour.
I can tell you, being at a school where teachers are sometimes locked in cupboards, things are thrown in the classroom, and fights break out in the hallway does not make it easy to learn, or for teachers to teach.
The truth is that children cannot learn if they are stuck in a chaotic environment where bad behaviour runs rife.
You would think this is obvious, but not, it seems, to the Labour Party.
Sadiq Khan thinks that when you bring a knife into a classroom, you should not be expelled.
Andy Burnham, who has been a popular topic of conversation recently, called for an end to pupil referral units, so no more expulsions for the most disruptive pupils. That is mad.
North of the border in Scotland, the SNP have actively sought to keep disruptive pupils in mainstream schools, to the point where last year just a single pupil was permanently excluded over an entire academic year, across the whole of Scotland.
Conference, turning a blind eye to aggression, disruption, or violence is not moral leadership; it is an abdication of responsibility.
Pursuing inclusion at the expense of order is the opposite of compassion.
It abandons the child who needs real specialist help and who is crying out for support.
Instead of this left-wing nonsense, we have a blueprint to improve discipline, building on the work of the last Government.
It starts with being honest about the need for permanent exclusions.
We cannot shy away from setting clear boundaries, excluding pupils when they have been extremely violent or are carrying a knife.
This is not about giving up on those children. It is the opposite.
Children must learn that actions have consequences. That is how the world works.
Under the Conservatives, our policy is simple: one knife and you are out.
If you assault a teacher, then you are out.
If you sexually assault someone, then you are out.
If you have been expelled from not just one but two mainstream schools, then it is clear that mainstream classrooms are not for you.
If children bring knives into the classroom, then they should not be there.
If they are violent, then they should not be there.
Under the Conservatives, they will not be there.
However, the important piece of the jigsaw here is that, once children have been excluded, it is our duty to them and their future to give them the support they need, moving them into specialist alternative provision, where they stand a real chance of success.
Staff in these settings work with extraordinary dedication to turn around the lives of children.
I have seen this first-hand. When done well, it is a quality of education that can be tailored to their needs.
I saw that with Mason. However, we need more places like this.
It is clear to me that there is not enough high-quality alternative provision, and as a result, disruptive pupils are being kept in mainstream education for far too long.
Our blueprint will create more high-quality places in alternative provision, reducing disruption for the many who suffer from it and delivering specialist support for the few who need it.
Every local area should have specialist provision, partnering with football teams and sports clubs who are brilliant at engaging young people.
Just yesterday, I visited Old Trafford and saw the amazing work that Manchester United Foundation are doing to provide young people with role models, mentors, routine, and discipline. This should be everywhere.
Girls should have separate provision from violent young men. We should push standards up through every academy chain, partnering with one.
We should make alternative provision independent of local authorities. We should ensure that every provider is registered so that every setting is inspected by Ofsted, ensuring proper accountability and rigour, especially in those settings for some of the most disadvantaged and challenged children.
We must ensure that those children, especially the most violent, are turning up to their alternative provision, that they are not slipping out of sight and into criminality.
We believe children should be in the classroom, not on the street. Fines should be issued automatically when they are not there, because these children need help, and we need to ensure they get it, and they only get it if they turn up.
If we do all this, we can show compassion for those who need it most, not by some false inclusivity that damages everyone, but by challenging and fixing the behavioural issues.
Now, let me address another problem causing behaviour issues: smartphones.
Time after time, teachers have told me that smartphones are one of the biggest causes of bad behaviour.
The government’s own research shows that they disrupt nearly half of GCSE classes every single day.
Look abroad: in Portugal, schools that banned smartphones saw a huge drop in bullying.
Australia, Norway, Finland, and France are all tightening restrictions on smartphones.
Meanwhile, Labour ignore our calls for action.
The single biggest thing Labour could do, right now, to improve behaviour is to get smartphones out of the classroom.
Yet, the Prime Minister says a ban is unnecessary.
Bridget Phillipson calls it a gimmick.
While they stick their heads in the sand, who suffers the most?
It is the most disadvantaged.
When I first started going into schools to talk about this to the students, I did not necessarily expect to be the most popular person.
Taking away smartphones from teenagers is not something you think will go down particularly well.
Yet I have been overwhelmed by the response.
The most frequent reaction from students after a ban has been put in place is one of pure relief.
I will never forget the face of one boy when he told me that it made him feel safe.
Young people do not want this to be an issue they have to deal with. They want the adults to sort this out.
I am speaking to Bridget Phillipson directly now:
For goodness’ sake, just get on and do it.
The sad truth is this: we have had broken promise after broken promise from the Department for Education.
You simply cannot trust Bridget Phillipson when she says she is going to improve our schools.
Conference, you all know about Labour’s plans to become the only country in Europe to tax education.
It was one of their core manifesto pledges and one of their most vindictive.
The result of their attack on the independent sector is not more teachers in state schools, but fewer. Four hundred fewer, to be precise.
We have not got a better state school system from Labour’s education tax. We have just got more crowding in classrooms, because independent schools are closing at a record rate.
Pressure is being piled on the state sector in a way that teachers across the school system warned about.
The Prime Minister himself admitted money is not going to state schools.
Conference, and I promise you I am not making this up, instead of using the money to hire more teachers as the manifesto said, the Prime Minister is using the money to house illegal migrants.
Under the Conservatives, we will never tax education to make our state schools worse off.
Conference, as I have laid out for you today, by blindly following trade union orthodoxy, Labour are taking us backwards.
It took real courage and conviction for us to get those school reforms through 15 years ago. Headlines of local papers at the time read: “Hands off our failing schools.”
Unions were allergic to the change, competition, and accountability.
Decades on, Labour’s stated ambition for their so-called reforms is to create more consistency in the education system. Not excellence.
In practice, that means levelling down across the board.
In recent decades, parents and children have voted with their feet.
Bad schools closed. Good schools thrived. That is the strength of choice. Those are Conservative principles in action.
Labour’s Schools Bill rips that apart, handing local authorities sweeping new powers, not only to block good schools from growing, but even to stop an outstanding school from keeping the same number of pupils. This is madness.
It risks shattering the life chances of some of our most deprived children.
We know that turning failing schools into academies is the single most effective way of helping children.
Yet Labour will keep children trapped in failing schools for longer, denying them the opportunity they deserve.
This will be Labour’s record.
That will be Bridget Phillipson’s legacy.
That is why we must fight them all the way.
Fight the educational vandalism of Bridget Phillipson, who puts the unions’ interests above British interests, above the interests of Celine, Mason, and Kat.
Teachers deserve better. The next generation deserves better. Our country deserves better.
It is the Conservatives who have reformed education for the better before.
We will do so again.
Thank you.
