Tag: Michael Gove

Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, in Nottingham on 13 September 2011.

It’s a special pleasure to be here in Nottingham this evening – it gives me an opportunity to say some very heartfelt thank yous.

To Vanni Treves, Toby Salt, and, above all, Steve Munby, for the visionary leadership they have shown at the National College;

To their team – some of the most gifted and committed people in education today;

But above all to you – the heads of the first 100 Teaching Schools.

You are 120 of the best school leaders in England – which means 120 of the best school leaders in the world.

And 120 of the most important people in this country.

The history of educational improvement in this country has sometimes been written with references to parliamentary Acts – whether it’s Forster’s, Fisher’s, Butler’s or Baker’s.

And implicit in that narrative has been the assumption that educational improvement in this country has been driven by politicians – usually Liberals or Conservatives.

Whereas of course, the truth is entirely different.

Educational progress in this country has not been driven primarily by politicians.

It’s been driven, generation after generation, by teachers.

And especially headteachers.

People like you.

From Arnold of Rugby to Wilshaw of Mossbourne,

From Roxburgh of Stowe to Wilkins of Outwood Grange,

From Rae of Westminster to Ross-Warzynski of Altrincham…

The pioneers who have redefined what we think of as excellence in education have always been teachers…

And the reformers who have consistently raised our expectations of what education can achieve have always been headteachers…

But there has been one change – even in my lifetime…

The biggest names in contemporary education

The most influential leaders

The bravest reformers

Are now, overwhelmingly, in the state sector not the private…

So when people ask me the question – how will you improve our state schools

I always answer – by relying on our state schools…

And, specifically, by relying on you in this room.

So – no pressure there….

And, looking around this room, I feel a special sense of confidence that in your hands state education is in the right hands.

Every time Governments have given great leaders more room to exercise autonomy, they’ve taken an inch of freedom and made a mile of difference to thousands of young lives.

Look at the City Technology Colleges set up after 1988. These all-ability comprehensives enjoyed much greater independence than other schools. Headteachers exercised new-found power to extraordinary effect. Despite being overwhelmingly located in poorer areas, the CTCs achieved – and continue to achieve – great results: the proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals in CTCs who earned five or more good GCSEs at grades A* to C is more than twice as high in CTCs as it is for all maintained mainstream schools.

Of course, the autonomy enjoyed by schools like the CTCs, and indeed Grant-Maintained Schools, was eroded after 1997.

But the best minds in the last Government knew that was a mistake. And when they were given the chance to shape policy we saw autonomy return and school leaders back in charge.

Andrew Adonis knew it was headteachers, not councillors, not ombudsmen, not advisers or consultants, who made schools succeed. So he cut through the red tape, and established the London Challenge, Black Country Challenge and Manchester Challenge. In every case strong heads were teamed with schools in challenging circumstances and they achieved great results.

Alongside those school improvement programmes, another, even more radical set of changes gave school leaders an even greater opportunity to make a difference.

The Academies programme gave great heads the chance to totally transform underperforming schools by taking them out of the local authority embrace, bestowing on them all the freedoms CTCs had, and then giving them the chance to take more schools under their wing through chains and federations.

And those Academy chains have achieved amazing things. School leaders like Dan Moynihan at Harris, Barry Day at Greenwood Dale, David Triggs at AET and Paul Edwards at the School Partnership Trust have spread excellence far beyond their own individual schools and transformed hundreds of lives for the better.

And inspirational as those individuals are, they are not exceptional. We know that given the right level of independence many, many school leaders can match them.

The evidence proves that if you empower those at the frontline they can exceed your expectations. A few months ago, academics at the London School of Economics published a landmark assessment of the Academies programme.

They found three things. First, that “Academy conversion generates… a significant improvement in pupil performance.” Second, that this improvement is not the result of Academies ‘creaming-off’ pupils from nearby schools: the fact that more middle-class parents want to send their children to their local Academy is a consequence of the school’s success, not a cause. And thirdly, beyond raising standards for their own pupils, Academies also tend to raise pupil performance in neighbouring schools.

Like CTCs and the Challenge schemes, Academies showed what amazing things can be achieved when heads are put in the driving seat.

And the international evidence confirms this.

The highest-performing education systems are those where government knows when to step back and let heads get on with running their schools. Rigorous research from the OECD and others has shown that more autonomy for individual schools helps raise standards. In its most recent international survey of education, the OECD found that “in countries where schools have greater autonomy over what is taught and how students are assessed, students tend to perform better.”

In Singapore, often considered a model of authoritarian centralism, the Government has nonetheless deliberately encouraged greater autonomy in the school system – and dramatic leaps in attainment have been secured as a result. Schools where principals are exercising a progressively greater degree of operational freedom are soaring ahead.

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

And in America – where the Charter Schools system implemented by New York and Chicago is one of the most radical models of school autonomy – headteachers are turning around the lives of hundreds of thousands of the most deprived children. To take just one example… Harlem Success Academy 1 in New York has a pupil intake of amongst the most disadvantaged in the state. Yet the school now performs at the same level as New York City’s gifted-and-talented schools – all of which have tough admissions requirements, while Success randomly selects its pupils by lottery. With New York and Chicago leading the way, more parents across America are demanding Charter Schools in their local areas.

Freedom works; and the word is spreading.

And what is also spreading – and with your help will spread even further – is the superb practice your schools exemplify.

When one looks at the best heads and the best schools in the country, several common characteristics leap out.

First, uniformly high expectations.

Our nation has suffered for generations because we’ve presumed that only a minority are capable of academic excellence. But the amazing performance of the best state schools proves otherwise.

As the Prime Minister pointed out last week, when comprehensives such as Walworth Academy in South-East London and Burlington Danes in Hammersmith, with almost half their students on free school meals, can get 70 and 75 per cent of their students to pass five good GCSEs including English and Maths, then its clear politicians have been consistently underestimating what our young people are capable of.

But you know that. Great heads, like you, recognise that giving many more young people a rigorous academic foundation will provide them with the basis for a brighter future, whatever they choose to do.

The OECD has reminded us today that the higher the level of academic knowledge, the greater the economic, professional and cultural opportunities open to any child.

And as Alison Wolf pointed out in her ground-breaking report on vocational education, premature specialisation, particularly the abandonment of core subjects before the age of 16, limits the opportunities all children deserve to enjoy.

RH Tawney was right when he said: “what a wise parent would wish for their children, so the state must wish for all its children.”

And any wise parent today will be aware that both prestigious universities and discriminating employers especially value students with qualifications in rigorous subjects such as Maths, English, the sciences, foreign languages and the humanities.

So inspired by the example you have set, we looked for ways to work with the grain of parental expectations and to meet the demands of employers and colleges.

Together I believe we can encourage more state schools to give their pupils an even more rigorous academic grounding. Which is why we have introduced the English Baccalaureate: a suite of rigorous GCSEs that, we believe, gives every young person more choices in the future.

I know that many of you agree: the proportion of pupils receiving the E-Bacc at the schools represented in this room is much higher than the national average.

The E-Bacc has already prompted a welcome uptake in the number of pupils choosing to study history, geography, foreign languages and the sciences.

There has been a particular increase in the number opting to study the three separate sciences at GCSE. In a recent survey undertaken by the Department the numbers doing physics chemistry and biology GCSEs appears to have risen by more than 100 per cent.

Of course, as I have learned during my short time in this job, no good deed goes unpunished.

And schools like yours, which perform superbly academically and thus give children amazing opportunities, are sometimes damned as exam factories. Gradgrindian institutions where children are shackled to their desks until they’ve managed to clear the C/D borderline and then starved of any access to culture, enlightenment or entertainment until they’ve got their A*.

But the truth we all know is that, overwhelmingly, those school that do well in exams are those schools that have also got other things right.

Schools that understand that citizenship is not simply a subject that you teach for one hour a week, but far more an approach towards others which you embody every minute of the school day.

Schools that encourage their staff and their pupils to see themselves as a part of a wider community; to volunteer; to show respect for others; and to exhibit the qualities that exemplify great citizens of the future.

Schools that can see the importance of competitive team sport extending beyond physical fitness – into character building and an ambition to be the best.

Schools that appreciate the need to foster creativity – in graphic art, in design, in music, in dance, in drama and in literature, while at the same time recognising that their pupils can only truly be creative when they’ve mastered the basics.

Schools like your schools.

These virtues, these values are obvious to any visitor – well before you’ve had the chance to inspect the pupil attainment stats and see how performance compares with Fisher Family Trust expectations.

That’s why I think its important for me, as a politician, to emphasise that the most important things that happen in a school can’t be captured in national curriculum programmes of study and will never be measured in league tables, can’t be legislated for, regulated into existence or implemented as part of a National Strategy.

What they can be, however, is observed, applauded, celebrated and replicated.

Which is why your role is so important.

Because Teaching Schools can exemplify these virtues, evangelise for these values and ensure they become widespread.

You can show that what is sometimes called the tacit – or hidden – curriculum is as important in making a school outstanding as performance in any test demanded by the national curriculum.

I want to work with you – and the National College – to spread great practice in these areas.

And I have asked Ofsted to ensure that is made easier. By using its reports to celebrate more often what is special about our best schools – by moving away from verdicts based on data to judgments based on wide, extensive and nuanced observation.

But let me be clear – that is not a retreat from telling hard truths to administering soft soap.

Your schools are all rated ‘outstanding’ in Ofsted’s ‘teaching and learning’ category. But it is a worry to me that so many schools that are still judged as ‘outstanding’ overall when they have not achieved an outstanding in ‘teaching and learning.’ I intend to ask the new Chief Inspector to look at this issue and report back to me with recommendations.

These are just a few of the ways in which you have influenced our approach.

And I want schools across the country to learn from you too. That’s why I am absolutely delighted that you have decided to take up our offer of becoming Teaching Schools.

There is a growing trend amongst world-leading education systems toward more classroom-based teacher training. Research undertaken by McKinsey’s in 2010 looked at eight high-performing education systems around the world. What they found was that the best systems embed professional and talent development in schools.

And that’s no surprise to me. Because that’s where the real experts in education – teachers and leaders – tend to be found.

In Finland trainees receive extensive classroom teaching practice under the guidance and supervision of experienced teachers.

In Singapore I saw trainees learning how to improve their craft and strengthen their classroom management skills by observing the very best teachers at work in the classroom.

In China I found that every classroom was treated as an open space with teachers welcoming observation so they could learn from watching others, and being watched themselves.

All of these nations currently outperform us educationally and the emphasis they place on both intensive school-based classroom training and continual school-based professional development is at the heart of their success.

Higher education institutions will continue to make a significant and important contribution to teacher training. But we want schools to play a much bigger role.

As employers, schools should have greater responsibility for recruitment; be more involved in the provision of quality placements; and have more say in the development of content for training.

There are already ways for schools to be involved in teacher training, and some of you here today are participating in these schemes. But we want to make it easier for more schools to get involved. So we will allow schools to recruit trainees and then to work with an accredited teacher training provider to train them to be qualified teachers.

Schools will be expected to employ these trainees after graduation. So there will be an incentive on the part of the schools to recruit the very best – thus driving up the standard of prospective teachers further.

And the enhanced prospects of securing a job in a great school will entice even more high-quality applicants.

And as a further incentive to attract top graduates into the schools that most need them, trainees who are recruited and selected by schools with a high proportion of pupils on free school meals will receive a larger bursary than other trainees.

Having a more direct involvement in initial teacher training means that schools will also get a greater say in shaping what teachers learn.

And I want your views on how we can, together, improve the subject knowledge of teachers in critical areas.

The science and maths communities have been clear that they would like to see much more teaching of science as three separate subjects in secondary school.

It provokes the question why the National Curriculum for science is not currently divided along subject lines. Why should we have a science curriculum that’s split into areas like ‘The Environment, Earth and Universe’ and ‘Organisms, Behaviour and Health’? Why not have biology, chemistry and physics? Of course, I don’t wish to pre-empt the National Curriculum Review, but I do want your views on how we can ensure the quality of science teaching continues to improve.

If our National Curriculum Review does conclude that science should be taught as three distinct subjects, this would obviously have knock-on effects on teacher training and the way that courses are funded. Many members of the science community argue that teacher training has hitherto focused too much on general science teaching, and that this has encouraged generalists at the expense of specialists. The physics community have found this particularly problematic. They say that many physics and engineering students want to train as physics teachers – or physics and maths teachers – but are put off by the way that training is currently organised, because many physicists and engineers do not want to teach chemistry or biology.

At a time when we desperately need more physics teachers, it makes sense to think of ways we can make entering the profession more attractive. With only 0.4 per cent of engineering graduates going into teaching, we need to look at how we might tap in to that pool. The Institute of Physics’ new pilot PGCE in Physics and Maths is exactly the sort of innovation we need and we strongly support it. We want to see more such innovations and, as Teaching Schools will have a greater involvement in course development, we look to you for new ideas.

Another topic on which I’d be interested to hear your thoughts is the issue of specialist primary teachers. Most state primary teachers are trained as generalists. But some of the best state primary schools in the country insist on discrete subject teaching in KS2. And one of the things many parents value about private primaries is that they often have specialist teaching from an early age. Obviously, I am alive to the practical difficulties of demanding too high a degree of specialism in, say, small rural primaries. Nonetheless, I think the idea is worth exploring further, and I will be discussing with the TDA how we could prioritise courses that train primary specialists – especially in maths and science.

Improving ITT is crucial, but while I am evangelical about the need to attract even more high quality people into teaching I am equally determined to improve the support we give to those already in the profession.

And I believe no institutions are better placed to provide superb continuous professional development for teachers than your schools.

At the moment, too much CPD provision is, frankly, a bit scattergun. There are a lot of great programmes being delivered, but there are also a number of less good schemes. It’s difficult for every school to know what constitutes a worthwhile investment. That is one reason why we see the level of spending on CPD vary so much between schools.

Teaching Schools can help, not only by advising other schools on great CPD services they’ve used, but also by providing such services themselves.

Teaching Schools can use their close relationships with other schools to develop CPD programmes that genuinely fit existing demand. And other schools will choose whether or not to take advantage of these programmes, making Teaching Schools accountable to their peers.

As with initial teacher training, the National College will be responsible for quality assuring the work Teaching Schools do, and will remove accreditation from any school not meeting the standards. CPD is yet another area where we’re moving to a model that puts schools in control. We’re letting heads buy in – and help create – the services they really want.

And one area where we are convinced the demand exists for improved support is at the level of middle leadership. Specifically at department head level.

That is why we are introducing a new programme – Specialist Leaders in Education – to ensure outstanding middle leaders, whether heads of department or those at assistant and deputy level – can help other schools and in turn prepare themselves to step up to the next level.

There will be 1,000 SLEs in the first year, rising to 5,000 by the end of 2014. Part of Teaching Schools’ role will be ‘talent spotting’ the best senior and middle leaders and helping them earn SLE status. This will involve providing them with training, mentoring and support – while at the same time deploying them to improve neighbouring schools. Through such programmes, the wealth of knowledge, wisdom and experience in this room will be passed on to the next generation of heads.

One in four existing headteachers will be eligible to retire in the next four years. We need to ensure that there are enough dynamic, committed young headteachers to take their place in the future. And with our SLE programme we can help ensure that succession planning in all schools becomes easier. So more gifted professionals can take on the special responsibilities, and enjoy the special sense of pride, that comes from being a headteacher.

Of course for all of us in education the driving moral purpose behind our work is the belief that every child has a talent which deserves to be identified, nurtured and stretched.

And we all know that children only have one chance at education.

That’s why I have made it clear that this government will not allow underperforming schools to simply carry on as before. That’s why we’ve raised floor standards and why we’re taking new powers in the education bill to intervene when schools are in trouble.

Where children are being failed, action will be swift. And Teaching Schools will be central to our reforms. You all have the capacity to help enhance the leadership, improve the teaching and fix the behaviour problems in our most challenging schools.

And it’s not only in our most challenging schools that you can have a transformative effect. As the Prime Minister pointed out last week, there are far too many coasting schools in the country, with a level of performance we still term satisfactory but we all know isn’t good enough.

Teaching Schools have the capacity to form partnerships with these schools, providing them with advice and support. Many of these schools will themselves have the capacity to improve but they need encouragement, a guiding hand, and the setting of higher expectations. We’ll be saying more, shortly, about how we ensure progress is made. But your role will be critical.

Looking at the road ahead can sometime be unnerving. The enormity of the challenges we face can be daunting: for all the advances we have made – and are making – in education, thousands of children are still being failed. And events such as the summer riots can test our faith further: schools are being confronted with a more complex set of challenges than ever before.

Yet looking around the room today, it’s impossible not to be optimistic about the future. Each one of you is living proof that one person can make a difference to the lives of thousands. And by listening to you, by trusting you, by handing power to you, there’s no limit to what we can achieve.

Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Gove, the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath, in Westminster Hall on 17 December 2008.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) on securing the debate and the hon. Members for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling) and for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) on their speeches, both of which contained much good sense.

I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Interests. As a journalist, I write for The Times and have been an executive of that newspaper as news editor. I am committed to the principle of free expression and the freedom of the press. That is not only a consequence of my professional career and vocation, but because I believe that it is only through an effective free press that the exercise and abuse of power can be monitored effectively.

While this country has the police, the courts and a system designed to track down and punish those who do wrong, the press has historically played an invaluable role in bringing such people to the attention of the courts and the police. Sometimes the press is needed to draw our attention to the failure of the authorities in the pursuit of wrongdoing, extremism or other activities that threaten the public interest. Only this week, The Times pointed out that someone who has connections to Islamist extremism that might concern us all has been employed as an adviser to the Metropolitan police’s Muslim contact unit.

Not just newspapers, but other institutions that exercise a journalistic or quasi-journalistic function have exposed extremism in public life. Think-tanks such as Policy Exchange, which I used to chair, and the Centre for Social Cohesion have pointed out the extent of extremist influence—particularly but not exclusively Islamist extremist influence—in British public life. Because of the international nature of the extremist threat, there are examples of the press being more effective than states or international institutions in exposing such dangers. An example is the work of Claudia Rosett at The Wall Street Journal in exposing the failure of the UN effectively to police sanctions against Saddam Hussein. In all those areas, free expression and a free press have been vital in exposing abuses.

The right hon. Member for Rotherham pointed out that it is of particular concern to all of us who are attached to the freedom of the press that individuals who have been alleged to have links to extremism have used British courts to close down the investigation or publication of allegations that are in the public interest. He mentioned the examples of Khalid bin Mahfouz and Mohammed Sawalha, a British resident who tries to close down legitimate investigation into extremism on the internet.

As the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for North Norfolk pointed out, there is in effect a public interest defence in law for the sort of investigative journalism that I am sure we would all applaud. The Reynolds defence offers journalists and newspapers a form of qualified privilege. That is qualitatively different from the sort of privilege enjoyed in courts and by Members of Parliament because it allows newspapers the comfort that it is legitimate for them to publish allegations provided that the process followed demonstrates that the journalism they are engaged in is of high seriousness, that appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that the allegations are in the public interest and that they are being properly investigated. They do not subsequently have to prove justification to the same threshold required in other cases.

A problem with the Reynolds defence is that instead of being an aid to free expression, according to some it has become an obstacle to free expression. The guidance that the courts originally gave newspapers to help them publish material in the public interest has become another set of hurdles that they have to clear. The hon. Member for North Norfolk pointed out that Jameel and others v. Wall Street Journal Europe Sprl made it perfectly clear that the Reynolds defence should help, not hinder, free expression.

There has been only sporadic implementation of that defence and a misunderstanding of it in many courts. That is why at the very least it is worth exploring whether we can enshrine the principles of the Reynolds defence in statute. That would send a clear signal from Parliament to the courts that the Reynolds defence is in effect as a public interest defence that allows the publication of material that should be part of public debate, particularly when serious issues such as extremism and terrorism need to be investigated.

Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD): The hon. Gentleman has set out some components of the Reynolds defence. I believe that part of that approach of responsible journalism is to report the denial of the allegations by the accused. That is not a requirement, but I am interested to hear his view on the matter.

Michael Gove: The hon. Gentleman is right that broadly 10 principles are outlined in the Reynolds defence, one of which is the strong suggestion that an effort should be made to secure the response of the individual against whom allegations are made. It is a basic principle of good journalism that the other person’s case should be heard.

I would not wish to erect those 10 principles into 10 absolute hurdles. Discretion should be exercised in the courts and any change to the law should acknowledge that. The important points are whether the material that is published is in the public interest, whether the case is urgent and important enough to justify publication and whether overall the journalists, the newspaper or the blog can demonstrate that they have done everything in their power to ascertain the truth and importance of the allegations that are published.

On costs, the point has been made that conditional fee agreements can raise profound questions of a chilling effect on publication. Indeed, Lord Hoffman has pointed out that freedom of expression may be seriously inhibited by conditional fee agreements. The hon. Member for Croydon, Central has pointed out that they can be helpful to individuals without resources who have been defamed. I do not wish to see the end of them, but it is important that an effort is made not to perpetuate the chilling effect on publication in the ongoing review into the costs of civil judgment. In particular, small and independent newspapers, think-tanks, research groups and other organisations that are vital components of a free and rigorous culture of debate and accountability must be protected in any structure that we create.

Finally, it has been pointed out that internet publication can lead to links being created to articles that were published and brought into the public domain four or five years previously because they remain on an internet archive. That may be done to substantiate a point that is being made afresh. An individual who creates such a link to material that is already in the public domain can be sued. At the very least, it is questionable whether we should allow the courts to pursue an individual who in all innocence creates a link to an article that has not been the subject of a defamation action. That individual may be sued because of the desire of another to pick off a weak link who he considers to be rich pickings and a suitably unprotected victim. In those circumstances, it would be appropriate for the court to ask, “Why did you not go for the big boys first?”

Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Gove, the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath, in Westminster Hall on 17 April 2007.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Olner.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) on securing the debate. As the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell) pointed out, my hon. Friend made a brilliant speech in the debate on the Queen’s Speech, in which he outlined the scale of the challenge that our society faces. That challenge is not one of religious separatism, but one of ideological division, and here I must take issue with what the hon. Member for Hazel Grove said in his fascinating, wide-ranging, but in some respects misconceived remarks. He was right to stress the importance of community initiatives. He was, as ever, right to stress the importance of pluralism and to recognise that one size does not fit all when we are dealing with the various problems that we have all had an opportunity to analyse in the debate. However, he was wrong to suggest that the problem is an explicitly religious one, and to draw the historical comparisons that he did.

I should point out that, when the hon. Gentleman said that we no longer believed in one version of British history that saw us moving towards a golden future, he was disavowing a grand Liberal tradition. That version of history, which saw us moving towards a more liberal future, which used to be known as Whig history, and was the product of Macaulay and Trevelyan, used to be the guiding light of his party. It is a pity that it is no longer. One of the insights of Macaulay, Trevelyan and other Whig historians is that what has made Britain great is not just our respect for pluralism and tolerance, but a belief in liberty, rooted in our historic institutions. Those institutions are challenged by the specific ideology outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe.

Islamism is distinct from Islam. Islam is a great faith that has nourished millions for hundreds of years. To this day it contributes intellectually and spiritually across the globe to enriching the lives of a great many people. No one on the Conservative Benches would want to criticise Islam as a faith. Indeed, it has enriched this country. Islamic scholars and tens of thousands of British Muslim citizens make Britain a better and more tolerant place today, but the best of those—in fact, the majority of them—also recognise that those who call themselves, sometimes, Islamists or jihadists, or who use another name, such as Salafists, and who follow the specific Islamist ideology are following a 20th-century totalitarian aberration that is intended to undermine the very tolerance that makes Britain both a safe and a warm house not just for its Muslim citizens but for all citizens. If we are to ensure that toleration will survive in this country, and protect pluralism and liberty, we need to be aware of the precise nature of the threat. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe deserves praise for drawing attention to that challenge in this House and elsewhere.

Andrew Stunell: The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to address his remarks to me, and of course I acknowledge the points that he was making about the hon. Member for Wycombe, who has rightly set out his stall on the matter. I hope that I conveyed the point that I wanted to make, which is that confronting the extremists is not the major job that we have. We must address the society.

Michael Gove: Both go hand in hand, and we cannot effectively champion the interests of moderate Muslims and of our pluralist, tolerant and liberal society, unless we show a determination to tackle extremism. It is the extremists who, in the past, have crowded out from the debate the moderate voices in the Muslim world. I am thinking particularly of the voices of female British Muslim citizens, which have been stilled and silenced as a result of extremists operating not just in mosques but more broadly in our society.

I want to say a word of appreciation about my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) and congratulate him on his speech. He brings huge expertise and great integrity to the debate. In his professional career before he joined us in this House he spent many distinguished years serving this country and defending its interests. While he has been in the House he has proved himself a dedicated public servant, and whenever he speaks on such issues it behoves all of us to pay close attention to the expertise and integrity that he brings to bear on them, as he did so effectively today.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on his speech. Rather than inhabiting a constitutional Never Land, all that he did was stick up for those Enlightenment values that are the best protection for all minorities. In that respect I am delighted that his comments found a ready answering call in all my hon. Friends’ speeches.

When we are talking about integration and cohesion it is important for all of us to choose our words carefully and to tread with care. With your permission, Mr. Olner, I want to make a brief apology to the House. On a previous occasion, in December 2005, I had an opportunity to question the Home Secretary about his strategy for preventing extremism. I believe that several individuals whom the Government had asked to work with them on preventing extremism were themselves linked to extremist groups. I took the opportunity to raise in the House the names of some of those individuals. One of them, a gentleman called Ahmad Thomson, is a Muslim convert who was involved in holocaust denial, and I believe that it was right to draw attention to his involvement and that of several others whose enlistment by the Government in their fight against extremism seemed to be mistaken.

However, even as I was pointing out that the Government had made a mistake, I myself made a mistake. One of the individuals to whom I drew attention was Mr. Khurshid Ahmed. I remind the House that the gentleman to whom I drew attention has exactly the same name as another Khurshid Ahmed who is indeed linked with extremist activity, and who operates primarily in Pakistani politics but also has a link with institutions in this country. The Khurshid Ahmed who served on the preventing extremism together group is an admirable individual. I have now had the opportunity of meeting and working with him on several occasions.

When I discovered my mistake, I immediately wrote to Mr. Ahmed and to the Home Secretary to apologise and to put the record straight, but I have received representations from Mr. Ahmed’s Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Austin), who asked me to use any opportunity to place on the record in Hansard an acknowledgment of my mistake and to underline what I said in my letter, which was that Mr. Ahmed has done considerable work to further integration and cohesion in our society, and that he deserves nothing but the highest praise for his many years in public life. I am happy to use this opportunity to state on the record, for the benefit of Hansard and those outside, my appreciation of Mr. Ahmed’s work and of the calm, diligent way in which the mistake was brought to my attention by the hon. Member for Dudley, North, whose own contribution to fighting extremism in his area of the west midlands also deserves to be noted with credit by the House. I placed copies of the letters that I wrote in December 2005 to the Home Secretary and to Mr. Khurshid Ahmed in the Library earlier today.

I mentioned that it is important to acknowledge our mistakes, and I believe that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, in her conduct since taking on responsibility for integration and cohesion matters, has acknowledged that the Government made errors in the past. She did that not in a breast-beating way, but in an appropriately respectful fashion. Before sitting down and allowing the Minister to reply to the many questions that have been put by my hon. Friends,

I would like to acknowledge that the Government have moved but also to indicate that there is still some way to go.

I believe that the Government have accepted that, before the fateful events of 7 July 2005, they had fallen down on the job when it came to questions of integration and cohesion, and of extremism, specifically within the Muslim community. They have acknowledged that the principle of the covenant of security—that unless someone is actively engaged in violence against the state, their activities would be tolerated, no matter how extreme their preaching—was a mistake. More than that, I believe that the Government have acknowledged that some of their chosen partners in the Muslim community and elsewhere were not as well chosen as they might have been.

The Secretary of State was absolutely right to point out recently that Muslim organisations that boycott holocaust memorial day should no longer receive public money. I also note with approval that recently she has been showing a willingness to work with the Sufi Muslim Council, the British Muslim Forum and especially the Fatima Women’s Network, all of which are more moderate Muslim organisations.

The Government’s greater openness to working with moderate, mainstream organisations is to be welcomed, but it provokes a couple of questions. First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe pointed out, the Government still seem to be taking a disjointed and far from synoptic approach. I mention one area that he did not, which comes under the rubric of the Department for Education and Skills. Why is it that the Government’s adviser on the teaching of Islam in higher and further education, Dr. Ataullah Siddiqui, is linked with the Islamic Foundation and the Markfield Institute of Higher Education, both of which are institutions that were set up by the Jamaat-e-Islami party, an explicitly Islamist organisation, and its supporters? In other words, why is the man who is charged with checking extremism on Britain’s campuses in fact linked with a body that was set up by a separatist Islamist organisation?

Secondly and more broadly, I welcome again what the Secretary of State said about seeking to encourage mosques to register with the Charity Commission and, as a result, receive not only help with fundraising, but a higher level of oversight and help with governance. What, however, do we do with mosques that explicitly reject that kind offer because they wish to carry on with extremist preaching and teaching? How do we ensure, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe said, that the flood of extremist Wahabi literature and, indeed, Saudi money into certain mosques is effectively checked so that the process of indoctrination in an extremist ideology is scrutinised and we deal effectively with teaching that might encourage a new generation of people who believe in separatism and division?

In that regard, I am very interested in my hon. Friend’s question about the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board. Why is the Muslim Association of Britain—the UK branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organisation—on an equal footing with the British Muslim Forum and the Muslim Council of Britain? Why is Finsbury Park mosque, which used to be the haunt of Abu Hamza, now run by the Muslim Association of Britain’s Dr. Azzam Tamimi? Why, having got rid of one extremist, do we have another version of extremism in control?

I have a final request for the Minister. I appreciate that time is pressing and that she has a limited amount of time in which to answer all our questions, but can she prevail on the Secretary of State and the Cabinet to ensure that we have a full-day debate on this issue in Government time? Given the setting-up of the commission, the Secretary of State’s announcements and, crucially, the prospect of significant changes in the Government machinery for dealing with this most sensitive of issues, as well as the Government’s fitful record of implementation, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Newark referred, we need the Government to give a clear statement in their own time on precisely what the new strategy is. That will give those Opposition Members who wish to see them and our multi-ethnic society succeed an opportunity to make an effective contribution to this ongoing process.

Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Gove, the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath, in the House of Commons on 22 May 2007.

thank the Secretary of State for her grace and courage in coming to the House to make the statement today. It cannot have been easy announcing a retreat on a policy that she had no part in implementing originally. It is big of her to take the flak.

I also thank the Secretary of State for allowing me sight of her announcement, which I received just 25 minutes ago—clearly this is a day for doing everything at the last minute.

May I ask why, after being warned more than a year ago that they were comprehensively mishandling this issue, Ministers have seen fit to retreat only now with eight days to go before home information packs were due to be implemented? Why did Ministers not take the opportunity that we offered last week to think again? Was it stubborn vanity or sheer incompetence? The Secretary of State may argue that this humiliating climbdown was precipitated by the judgment issued in the High Court today, but that prompts the question that goes to the heart of the matter: why did Ministers find themselves in court in the first place? Why did they press ahead with a scheme that everyone who knows anything about the housing market told them was flawed at the heart?

Those warnings, unlike this climbdown, did not come at the eleventh hour. In this House at this Dispatch Box a year ago, we told the Government that their scheme was flawed. The Government told us that we were scaremongering, but 11 months ago they were compelled to execute the first in a truly embarrassing series of U-turns by dropping the mandatory home condition report, which was the keystone of the original home information pack, just hours after the Minister for Housing and Planning had defended it in this House. However, they were still determined to press ahead after that U-turn. Why did they not take the opportunity to work with us and others to put the stability of the housing market first? Why did Ministers decide to ignore the growing chorus of concern, shut out expert advice and carry on regardless?

On 21 February, all the key stakeholders who were originally invited to help the Government set up the scheme issued a warning letter to the Minister for Housing and Planning asking for an emergency meeting to address fundamental concerns with the scheme. They were not granted the meeting for which they asked: why? In desperation, the same group wrote to the Secretary of State on 2 March asking for a collective emergency meeting. Again, they were snubbed and no collective meeting was granted: why? What explains that refusal to listen to the experts, who were once charged with setting up the policy and whose involvement would be key to implementing it? Was it because this Government could not bear to be told that they were in the wrong, or did they not realise what a mess they were presiding over? Was it deadly arrogance or fatal ignorance? After today’s announcement, we know that this lady is for turning.

There are still many unanswered questions. The Government were warned that there were not enough qualified, accredited and certificated home inspectors in place. Over a year ago, I warned that getting those people in place was crucial. Only last week, the Minister for Housing and Planning told us that we had enough people to ensure the smooth operation of the scheme—she told us that everything would be all right on the night. Why did she offer that cavalier assurance, when the Secretary of State has told us that there will not be enough people in place after all? We know that relations between these Ministers are bad, but did the Secretary of State find out only in the past few days how few qualified people are in place? When did she know the real numbers? And why was not the House informed about the truth last week?

How can Ministers ever again ask to be taken seriously on the environment, when they have comprehensively mismanaged a measure that they argued throughout was vital to fighting climate change? Will the Secretary of State also confirm that today’s judgment in the High Court underlines what we have argued all along and what best practice in the European Union shows—you do not need home information packs for energy performance certificates? Will she agree to meet me, my colleagues, the Liberal Democrats and everyone with an interest in getting the housing market right to ensure that there is at last some expertise in this process?

Is this not a desperate, last-minute retreat designed to ensure that the Minister for Housing and Planning is airlifted out of this Department by her friends in the Treasury in a future reshuffle, so she does not have to cope with the chaos that she has created? And is it not truly tragic that confidence in the industry, the stability of the housing market and the battle against climate change have all been damaged by this Government’s arrogance and incompetence?

Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Gove on 30 June 2016.

The British people voted for change last Thursday. They sent us a clear instruction that they want Britain to leave the European Union and end the supremacy of EU law. They told us to restore democratic control of immigration policy and to spend their money on national priorities such as health, education and science instead of giving it to Brussels. They rejected politics as usual and government as usual. They want and need a new approach to running this country.

There are huge challenges ahead for this country but also huge opportunities. We can make this country stronger and fairer. We have a unique chance to heal divisions, give everyone a stake in the future and set an example as the most creative, innovative and progressive country in the world.

If we are to make the most of the opportunities ahead we need a bold break with the past.

I have repeatedly said that I do not want to be Prime Minister. That has always been my view. But events since last Thursday have weighed heavily with me.

I respect and admire all the candidates running for the leadership. In particular, I wanted to help build a team behind Boris Johnson so that a politician who argued for leaving the European Union could lead us to a better future.

But I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.

I have, therefore, decided to put my name forward for the leadership. I want there to be an open and positive debate about the path the country will now take. Whatever the verdict of that debate I will respect it. In the next few days I will lay out my plan for the United Kingdom, which I hope can provide unity and change.

Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, at the Governing Governors’ Forum on 12 May 2016.

Good morning, and thank you very much for that kind introduction.

It is a great pleasure to be here today among so many motivated and dedicated governors at a time of exciting changes – and challenges – for the prison service. Looking around the room, I see a good number of familiar faces from my many prison visits and discussions. These have taught me so much about the scale of those challenges that you deal with every day.

Dare to be different

One of your number, Russell Trent – the governor of the new HMP Berwyn in north Wales – was on holiday recently when some of his plans for the prison suddenly attracted a wave of criticism.

In his desire to boost rehabilitation he had spoken of wanting to create a prison atmosphere that was as close to ‘normality’ – to life on the outside – as possible.

He had explained that when Berwyn opened, the ‘men’ – not ‘prisoners’ – would be held in ‘rooms’ rather than ‘cells’. The men would have telephones in their rooms so they could ring their families and say goodnight. Prison officers would knock on the doors of those rooms before entering, as a basic courtesy.

These cheap and simple measures, Russ pointed out, would make HMP Berwyn a decent place that would facilitate rehabilitation, and that could only be a good thing because keeping offenders from re-offending makes us all safer.

As a former Royal Marine, Russ Trent is not one to shrink from ‘incoming’. Even so, he did wonder how much trouble he would be in on his return from holiday.

The answer, I’m glad to say, was none.

Quite the opposite.

When it comes to governing prisons, Russ’s instincts are absolutely right. Because the principal purpose of prison is rehabilitation.

We want individuals who leave prison to be changed characters – to be redeemed, to have rejected violence as a way of settling disputes, to have overcome the impulsiveness, weakness and lack of self-respect which drew them into crime in the first place, to have become assets contributing to society rather than liabilities who bring only costs.

And we don’t make it easier to rehabilitate individuals back into society if, during their time in custody, they live in squalid conditions, face daily indignities and don’t have the chance to form relationships based on mutual respect.

But in order to make prisons work we need to allow Governors to govern. At the moment you are held back – by too many rules, too much bureaucracy and, to be frank, the fear that if something goes wrong – or even worse – gets in the papers – then that’s it – career over.

So I have one essential message that I want to get across today. I am behind you; Michael Spurr is behind you – in your desire to lead your prisons, not just manage them. We want you to dare to be different – to exercise as much autonomy as possible – to be guided by moral purpose not manuals and rulebooks – in your mission to change lives for good.

If we want safer streets, we must first have safer prisons
If we give you – the people in this room – more freedom and support then I believe we can make all our prisons much more effective at rehabilitation. And that will serve the highest purpose of all – making our society safer, more secure and more civilized. When nearly half of those in prison go on to re-offend, we cannot say our criminal justice system is working. Only by changing how prisoners behave – when they’re in our care – can we contribute effectively to public safety.

But before we can do the necessary work of rehabilitation which will make our streets safer, we must first ensure that our prisons are made safer. Only when they are places of calm stability and order can we make the difference we need to.

I have nothing but admiration for those who work in our prisons: officers, teachers, chaplains, governors – all those who devote themselves to caring for offenders are, I believe, doing genuinely noble work. Work for which they don’t get nearly enough recognition, praise and thanks. So nothing I am about to say is intended as criticism of those who work so hard in our prisons to keep society safer.

Indeed I hope many prison officers – and those who work alongside them – will welcome a candid acknowledgement of just how difficult and dangerous conditions now are in our prisons.

The most recent figures for deaths in custody and violence in prisons are terrible. There’s no point trying to minimise, excuse or divert attention away from the increasing problems we face.

One hundred self-inflicted deaths in custody, up from 79; assaults on staff up by36 per cent to 4,963; an increase of 25 per cent in incidents of self-harm.

I am grateful to the outgoing Chief Inspector of Prisons, Nick Hardwick, and his successor, Peter Clarke, for their unsparing focus on the problems we face.

Nick drew attention to the accelerating increase in serious assaults in his annual report last July.

Since then, report after report, while often praising the hard work and dedication of officers, has reinforced the scale of the challenges. Peter’s report into Wormwood Scrubs published earlier this year – in which he condemned the institution as rat-infested, over-crowded and nowhere near safe enough – was particularly chastening. I was painfully reminded of just how far we have to go when I heard of the assaults inflicted on a male and female prison officer at the Scrubs just this weekend. These incidents weigh on my conscience.

Our prisons need a radical programme of reform which will take several years to implement before they can make the positive difference I know you are all capable of delivering, but what prisons need now, most of all, is rapid action to enhance staff safety and improve prison security.

We have taken some significant steps already. We have recruited 2,830 prison officers since January 2015, a net increase of 530. We are trialling the use of body-worn cameras; our tough new law on psychoactive substances comes into force at the end of this month – including sentences of up to two years for their possession in prison – and we are strengthening the case management of individuals at risk of harming others. The Violence Reduction Project is giving us a better understanding of the causes and characteristics of violence. A new project on suicide and self-harm will give extra support to vulnerable prisoners.

But we need to do much more. I will be giving further details in the weeks ahead about other urgent steps we are taking to improve safety across the estate.

I am – personally – delighted that work to enhance security in all our prisons is now being led by a new director – the superbly talented and experienced former Governor Claudia Sturt. She will be given the resources and support she needs to make a positive difference for good. And I want to work closely with her – and with all prison staff and their representative bodies – to make the changes we need.

Governors at the heart of change

Claudia’s appointment embodies one of the central elements of our reform programme – putting Governors at the heart of driving change.

The lesson of other public service reforms is that empowering managers at the frontline by giving them greater autonomy generates innovation. Proper accountability and scrutiny then identify which institutions and which innovations are driving the biggest improvements, so others can emulate them.

From July 1, four trailblazing governors will be appointed to run prisons with the maximum possible level of autonomy under current legislation. But while these early adopters will have huge scope to innovate, every governor will be granted greater autonomy and expected to use new freedoms to improve rehabilitation.

In particular, I want to see prisoners spend much more time engaged in the sort of purposeful activity which prepares them for life on the outside – pursuing worthwhile educational qualifications, or working in an environment that will help them get a satisfying job on release.

Not only are these goods in themselves, it’s also manifestly the case that the more prisoners are engaged in activities which occupy their hands and minds, the more they see a link between their daily routine and a chance to succeed on the outside, the more they are given hope that by their own actions they can secure a better future – the less likely they are to feel frustrated, angry and un-cooperative. The more purpose there is in every prisoner’s day, the more likely their prison is to be an ordered, safe and successful environment.

The review of prison education by the inspirational academy head teacher Dame Sally Coates will be published shortly. I mustn’t pre-empt its full range of recommendations. But as the Prime Minister has already said, Sally will argue that governors should be given direct control of education budgets.

It’s a big change. But radical change is needed. The current level of education provision in prisons is frankly inadequate. While there are some inspirational teachers, quality overall is far too low. That’s partly because the present system means that just four further education providers serve all prisons in England with an often unrewarding diet of low-level qualifications which do not open career doors.

It’s no good for prisoners – or society – if their experience of education is banal material tediously delivered which has little or no relevance to securing any sort of satisfying job. Education needs to give prisoners skills that will enable them to lead socially constructive and economically valuable lives. It should also provide prisoners with the chance to grow culturally and morally – to develop new interests and strengthen character.

Critically, education should also help prisoners to acquire the social skills and virtues which will make them better fathers, better husbands and better brothers. Ensuring that prisoners can re-integrate into family life and maintain positive relationships is crucial to effective rehabilitation. Families are one of our most effective crime-fighting institutions. And we should strengthen them at every turn.

Under our reform plans, individual Governors will be able to demand that their current education provider radically improves – and if not, they can take their custom elsewhere. Governors will be held to account for educational outcomes and celebrated for the value they add – providing an additional incentive and reward for getting more prisoners to acquire meaningful qualifications.

Critical to our reform programme, however, is providing not just the right incentives to empower managers who want to support rehabilitation but also providing the right incentives for offenders themselves to engage in rehabilitative activity.

That means giving Governors more control over how incentives are shaped for, and privileges granted to, the offenders in their care. Prisoners need to be able to see a direct link every day between engaging in purposeful activity and living in a more civilised environment.

We also need to review the position of prisoners who have received Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) Sentences. We must not compromise public safety but there are a significant number of IPP prisoners who are still in jail after having served their full tariff who need to be given hope that they can contribute positively to society in the future.

We also need to enable Governors to release more prisoners on temporary licence. It can only enhance public safety if prisoners can gain experience of work and life on the outside prior to full release, learning how to conduct themselves properly and contribute effectively so they can integrate successfully back into society.

Giving prisoners incentives to change

Let me turn first to the Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) scheme. My colleague Andrew Selous has been consulting widely among governors, staff and others – to assess how well the current system is working.

The answer – not very. The widespread view is that IEP does not do enough to encourage good behaviour, or contribute to rehabilitation.

It is seen as bureaucratic and punitive, offering little difference between standard and enhanced levels.

We propose to reform the system – giving Governors far greater autonomy to shape incentives and privileges in a way they consider right for their institution. We think there, of course, need to be minimum standards of decency and it’s probably right to have a core framework around which individual approaches can be built.

It seems sensible to have national standards on the number of privilege levels, the process governing reviews and appeals, and the transfer of privilege levels after a prison move.

But while we need to respect the fact that prisons operate as part of an integrated system we must also recognise that prisons work best when leaders lead. It must be right that the man or woman in charge of any institution should be able to reward the behaviour that makes their institution work well in the way they think best. Or else what does leadership mean?

I was very struck by how effective autonomy over granting privileges can be when I visited the prison Nick Hardwick most admires in this country – the Military Corrective Training Centre (MCTC) in Colchester, Britain’s custodial facility for men in the Armed Forces.

The Commanding Officer there – the leader of the institution – has huge flexibility over how he grants privileges and additional freedoms to prisoners. Enthusiastic commitment to work and education secures the rapid accumulation of additional benefits. That not only contributes to an atmosphere of order and purpose, it helps accelerate the offender’s journey back into the mainstream.

Of course, the MCTC caters for a very specific type of offender but the principles behind the CO’s approach are clearly applicable in almost any prison – as Nick Hardwick was right to point out in his report of March last year. ‘The MCTC,’ he noted, ‘holds some complex and challenging detainees and there is much they do from which the civilian system could learn.’

We want to learn from that, and will consult with governors over how changes to IEP will work in practise.

The next area I want to touch on briefly is the future for IPP prisoners. I was struck, like many others, by the candid admission from the former Home Secretary David Blunkett last month that these sentences had developed in a way he had never envisaged. I sympathise with his position.

And in helping to resolve this issue I am grateful to be able to turn once more to Nick Hardwick – in his new role as Chairman of the Parole Board.

There will always be some prisoners whose behaviour and attitudes render them a continuing danger to the public and who need to remain in custody for a significant time.

But there are also – clearly – some prisoners who have served their tariff, who want to prove they are ready to contribute to society and who have been frustrated by failures in the way sentence plans have worked and bureaucracy in the parole system.

I’m pleased work is already being done inside prisons to reinvigorate sentence plans in complex cases, leading to prisoners being released at an appropriate point.

But more still needs to be done – and I have asked Nick to help develop an improved approach to handling IPP prisoners which keeps inside those who pose real risks to the public but gives hope and a reason to engage in rehabilitative activity to the majority.

Which brings me to the third area of change I wanted to touch on today – the use of Release on Temporary Licence (ROTL) to reintegrate offenders into society.

Properly used, ROTL can do a huge amount to improve a prisoner’s chances of finding a long-term job. ROTL removes the ‘cliff edge’ between custody and liberty, and enables prisoners to adjust to the expectations and demands of society.

Allowing a prisoner out on temporary release is not a soft option – it is a preparation for the hard choices that life on the outside demands. ROTL requires prisoners to commit to proper work, the discipline of new routines and respect for new boundaries set by others.

ROTL doesn’t just help prisoners prepare for employment. It also helps prisoners strengthen the family ties which are crucial to rehabilitation. Mothers can develop stronger relationships with their children; husbands can demonstrate they are ready to behave with greater consideration and regard for others.

We know that the three most powerful factors helping to keep ex-offenders from re-offending are a good job, strong family ties and a stable place to live – ROTL makes all of them easier to achieve.

The structure of ROTL was always reformist – it put power in the hands of individual governors. It was for you to decide – when you were confident that an offender’s risk to others was diminishing – to give them the chance to grow into their imminent freedom.

ROTL has made useful citizens – social assets – out of people who once generated only pain, injury and trouble.

Offenders have completed plumbing and heating qualifications under ROTL and now unblock U-bends for a living. We have turned out gym instructors, barbers, chefs, landscape gardeners, builders – even locksmiths and a Parliamentary researcher.

The system, of course, is not infallible. Mistakes in the past led to an understandable tightening-up of the rules. When individuals abuse freedoms, regimes will be tightened.

But ultimately, public safety is better served by allowing prisoners to develop the skills and characteristics they need to succeed on the outside through extensive use of ROTL than it is by keeping too many prisoners inside and then releasing them ill-prepared and unready for life outside – more likely than ever to go back to a life of crime.

The number of prisoners to benefit from ROTL has fallen by 40 per cent since 2013. So I think now is the time for a change.

After careful consideration, we have decided to give governors more control. Although it will take time for confidence in the system to return fully, I believe that it would be wrong to allow a very few high-profile cases, appalling though they were, to distract us from the long-term advantages for society of ROTL.

With the help of careful assessment processes, I am confident that our reform-minded governors can identify the most promising candidates for a successful, safe, ROTL. Prisoners like Jason Ridgeway, a former Light Dragoon who served in Bosnia and later fell into debt, and was jailed for his involvement in a drug dealing operation.

Now in Kirklevington Grange Open Prison, in north-east England, he has been taken on as a general worker for the construction giant Balfour Beatty.

He says his job has been crucial to his rehabilitation and wishes he didn’t have to stay in prison for one full day each week even when work has been offered. His mother is not well, and he can now help her – a ‘massive weight off my shoulders’, he says. As for Balfour Beatty? Jason says: ‘I can’t big the company up enough for taking us on. What they get from us lads, the keen ones, is really hard work. They have absolute loyalty.

‘So many people here are basically good, but they can be backed in a corner and desperate. This is a real way out.’

Jason was speaking to an audience of employers, journalists and the intimidating figure of Andrew Selous. Another prisoner present – jailed for 14 years for ‘gang-related stuff’ – was so nervous that day he could barely speak. ‘Go on Michael, you can do it,’ bellowed his Balfour Beatty manager and mentor. And Michael did. ‘I just want to say “thanks” for the chance,’ he said. ‘It means everything.’

Let me repeat what he said, so simply. ‘It means everything.’

In HMP Send, I recently met the impressive law student and mentor CJ, who wakes up at 4am to read her textbooks before heading off into London to counsel young people against joining gangs. ‘I’ve spent over five years incarcerated,’ she says, ‘and RoTL has been one of the most rewarding, fulfilling, enlightening and freeing experiences of not only those five years, but of all the years of deception and darkness that preceded prison.

‘Rotl gave me the chance to be the person I have always wanted to be: a productive, hardworking, respected member of a team; a responsible parent who can financially look after their child and family; a contributing member of society who takes pride in paying their taxes.’

Productive. Hard-working. Respected. Responsible. Able to look after children and family. And a proud tax-payer! What more could any government or governor want of a prisoner?

Conclusion

Some people believe my reform programme to empower the men and women in this room has an ulterior motive.

Not true.

While I have the utmost respect for our private prison operators, I also have faith in NOMS, its leaders and its staff to turn around jails. Over the coming months and years, some change will happen quickly.

The effects of other reforms will take longer, as we go further to help the most disadvantaged, and open up opportunities in education and work. NOMS’ greatest resource is its people. Listen to their feedback and encourage their visions. You never know where the next big idea will come from, so empower everyone – up and down the ladder – to contribute and innovate.

By now, you will all know one of my favourite quotes on prisoners, from a speech made in 1910 by Winston Churchill as Home Secretary, when he urged us to find the treasure in the heart of every man. You may be less familiar with another inspirational penal pioneer, a direct contemporary of Churchill but one who campaigned for prison reform on the other side of the Atlantic.

Thomas Mott Osborne was a wealthy Democrat politician who turned to good works, becoming chairman of the New York State Commission on Prison Reform in 1913. No armchair do-gooder, Osborne had by then spent a week undercover in the state’s infamous Auburn high security jail – later writing an electrifying diary about his experience of its harsh regime based on silence, corporal punishment and labour.

His time in Auburn was enough to convince Osborne that in the words of the great Victorian statesman – and one of my own heroes – William Gladstone, it was ‘liberty alone that fits men for liberty’.

He set up a Mutual Welfare League for ex-prisoners to help them find jobs, and, while they were looking, help with housing, food and clothing. His purpose was to ‘bridge the gap’ between their discharge from prison and ultimate rehabilitation. In New York, The Osborne Association still works on behalf of offenders – because the challenges they still face are only too familiar.

Osborne sounds like a man after my own heart. ‘Not until we think of our prisons as, in reality, educational institutions shall we come within sight of a successful system,’ he said of his approach. ‘And by a successful system I mean one that not only ensures a quiet, orderly well-behaved prison, but has genuine life in it – one that restores to society the largest number of intelligent, forceful, honest citizens.’

I particularly warm to Osborne’s rallying cry as he took over as warden of New York’s infamous maximum security jail, Sing Sing, in 1914. ‘We will turn this prison from a scrap heap into a repair shop!’ he declared.

Let me thank you all, once again, for your tireless work keeping the public safe and our prisoners secure. And – now equipped through our reforms with the tools you need to run your own repair shops – thank you in advance for creating a new generation – of intelligent and honest citizens.

Below is the text of the written statement issued by Michael Gove, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, to the House of Commons on 12 May 2016.

Following the troubling allegations raised by whistleblowers—and documented by the BBC’s “Panorama”—about the treatment of young people in custody at Medway, I appointed an independent improvement board to investigate the centre’s governance and the safeguarding measures in place there.

I am today publishing the board’s report, which tells a powerful story—not just about what went wrong at Medway, but about broader problems in the youth justice system, and specifically in the children’s secure estate. The board’s conclusions reinforce the interim findings from the separate, wider review that I have asked Charlie Taylor to prepare on the youth justice system, which will report this summer.

Given the findings of the independent improvement board, the pending Charlie Taylor review and the announcement by G4S in February 2016 of its intention to sell its children’s services business I have agreed with G4S that the new contract to operate Medway will not proceed.

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) will take over the running of Medway in the short term—by the end of July—and will work closely with the Youth Justice Board on the enhanced monitoring arrangements that will be put in place. Beverley Bevan—an experienced prison governor with seven years’ experience of working with young offenders—will be appointed as the governor at that time.

The independent improvement board made a series of recommendations which we accept in full and which will be implemented across all three secure training centres (STCs). By implementing these recommendations, we will strengthen external scrutiny, safeguarding and monitoring arrangements and clarify the responsibilities of organisations and individuals involved in providing services at all STCs. Steps will be taken to ensure that whistleblowers—including young people who speak out—are supported and listened to.

However, the fundamental problem identified by the independent improvement board was that those running Medway conceived of it as a place of coercion, where the culture and the incentives—as they were designed in the contracts—were centred around the corralling and control of children, rather than their full rehabilitation. Their focus should instead have been on education and care, on identifying root problems and giving children the opportunity to find their way back into society, and to make something of themselves.

Charlie Taylor’s interim findings have made it clear that the places where young offenders spend time should not be junior prisons, but secure schools. I am announcing today that each of the secure training centres will have a new governing body who will scrutinise and support those running each centre. This will be a first step towards giving these centres the type of oversight and support that we would see in an ordinary school.

When Charlie’s final report is published, I hope we will be able to move swiftly to a model which ensures that the educational mission of these establishments is central to their existence.

Based on the findings of the independent improvement board, I will appoint a similar youth custody improvement board to work across the youth secure estate, to help to make sure that children are safe and to improve standards of behaviour management in each secure training centre and young offender institution that holds children, including those currently run by NOMS. I will confirm the board appointments in due course.

I am grateful to all the members of the independent improvement board who delivered their important work at such impressive speed.

This report, and our response to the recommendations made by the independent improvement board can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/medway-improvement-board-report-and-moj-response-to-its-recommendations.

I will place a copy of these in the Libraries of both Houses.

Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Gove, the Lord Chancellor, on 19 April 2016.

Speech available as a PDF.

Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Justice, on 15 March 2016.

Can I begin by thanking the Federal German Government, Chancellor Merkel, and my good friend, the British Labour MP John Mann, for the opportunity to speak here today.

It has been a little over five years since leading politicians came together for the second Inter-parliamentary conference on Combating Anti-Semitism, in Canada.

As we meet for the third such conference, our work is needed more than ever.

Because anti-Semitism is not just the oldest hatred, it is also a virus which mutates.

In the Middle Ages, anti-Semitism was focused on the religious identity of Jewish people and found its expression in forced conversion, ghetto-isation and expulsion.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was the physical identity of the Jewish people that came under sustained attack. Pogroms and racial laws culminated in the unique horror of the Holocaust – history’s greatest crime.

The memory of that crime, and the appeal to all of us: ‘Never again’, generated a new determination to protect human rights and stood behind the creation of the state of Israel – a modern miracle.

But now – after horrors that should have meant this hatred was banished forever from human hearts – anti-Semitism is resurgent.

In the last year Jewish citizens of European nations have been targeted by fanatics simply because of their identity.

They were slaughtered because they shopped in a kosher supermarket, or volunteered to protect a synagogue.

One victim, Yoav Hattab, was the last of four hostages to die in the siege at a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris, in January 2015.

Yoav, the student son of the Chief Rabbi of Tunis, was just twenty-one years old when he was shot dead by a killer who claimed allegiance to so-called Islamic State.

Witnesses said that this brave young man died trying to confront the gunman with a weapon he had discarded.

There is a reason that I mention Yoav in particular. Tragically, this was not the first time his family had been targeted.

In 1985, Yoav’s aunt was one of three worshippers shot dead in a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba. She was just fourteen years old.

The gunman, a local police officer, opened fire with a submachine gun on people as they prayed.

Thirty years separate those deaths, and still Jews live in fear.

In France, recorded anti-Semitic attacks soared by 84 per cent in the first quarter of 2015, according to Interior Ministry figures.

In Britain, the number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded in 2015 was 924. This was the third-highest total ever, according to the Community Security Trust, a leading charity that protects British Jews from anti-Semitism and related threats.

Today, anti-Semitism targets the collective identity of the Jewish people. Jewish citizens of European nations are targeted if they dare to assert the dignity of their difference.

Synagogues and schools need security guards. Children wearing the kippah, or students meeting as the’ University Jewish Society’, face intimidation. And, of course, the most important expression of collective Jewish identity, the state of Israel, is faced with a campaign of prejudice against its very existence.

The BDS movement – urging the use of boycott, disinvestment and sanctions against Israel – claims to draw inspiration from the struggle against apartheid.

But the comparison is offensive. Israel is a democracy in which all citizens are equal: whether Jewish, Arab, Christian, Muslim, of Ethiopian heritage, Bedouin and Druze – all have the same votes and rights, which is why Arab Muslim politicians sit in the Knesset and a distinguished Arab lawyer sits on Israel’s Supreme Court.

More than that – the BDS campaign indulges prejudice rather than fighting it. It calls for the shunning of Jewish academics, the boycott of Jewish goods, the de-legitimisation of Jewish commerce. We have seen these all before. And we know where it takes us.

Modern anti-Semitism finds a home in far too many hearts. There are those on the radical left whose purported sympathy for Arab suffering never results in campaigning against Middle East autocrats, but always in opposition to Israel.

There are those on the extreme right whose dark prejudices have never been extinguished and who now use opposition to globalisation to revive old anti-Semitic tropes.

And there are Islamist extremists who want to undermine what they see as the Zionist-crusader state and rail against Jewish influence everywhere.

We need to stand against them all – and any who might be persuaded by their arguments – in solidarity with the Jewish people – and in solidarity with their right to national self-determination.

There is a duty on all of us in public life to speak out.

And to watch out for those with whom we might align ourselves

There is a particular duty on those of us charged with upholding justice to pursue justice in this cause.

That means asking how those who threaten Jewish lives, Jewish work and the Jewish people’s rights to self-determination – whether in Tehran or Tower Hamlets – can be confronted and held to account.

It also means – as the British Government has done – outlawing prejudice paid for by public money.

We have made clear that local authorities and public bodies cannot adopt BDS policies aimed at Israel; they cannot use public resources to discriminate against Jewish people, Jewish goods and a Jewish state.

The legal changes we have made follow a campaign led by the pioneering organisation, Jewish Human Rights Watch, which I wish to salute today. Its founding father Manny Weiss – the child of Holocaust survivors – has been a valiant campaigner against prejudice and his work has been recognised by our Government.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, is clear that this is a battle he is determined to win. ‘We will fight anti-Semitism with everything we have got,’ is his vow.

‘Together, we will make sure Britain remains a country that Jewish people are proud to call home – today, tomorrow and for every generation to come.’

And I know that commitment to openness and tolerance – that belief in human equality and dignity – is shared by everyone here today.