---

Children, Schools and Families

I genuinely welcome the new Secretary of State to his post. He has been an important individual in front of and behind the scenes in this Government for a long time, and we are pleased that the Prime Minister—the former Chancellor—has put him into this job because we assume that that indicates it is a priority for the Government. We also welcome the fact that other elements of children’s policy will be part of the Department’s responsibilities, and we hope to find common ground on many issues in future. I want to raise some questions about several points in the statement, starting with funding. The Secretary of State announced a couple of new initiatives on funding, which we will check, if he does not mind me saying so, to ensure that they are genuinely new. I was disappointed, given that the Prime Minister was there to support him today, that he did not mention what is surely one of the Government’s flagship policies on education funding, which was announced by his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in March 2006 and reannounced, as is the practice, in March 2007: bringing the level of state education funding up to the private school level. We later found out that the announcement actually meant that by about 2022, the level of state funding would be up to the private level in 2005—a less impressive pledge. Can we have confirmation today of when that objective will be met, and whether it will be as far into the future as most commentators think? Would it not be more sensible to deliver that objective through mechanisms such as a pupil premium, but starting with those children from the most deprived backgrounds, targeting pupils by setting up a premium that follows them through their educational experience? Secondly, I should like to clarify the position on academies. The Secretary of State put a positive gloss, as we might have expected, on academies policy. I have become accustomed to expecting that reports in the Financial Times are reasonably accurate. We read this morning, presumably through a briefing from the Department, that there will be a huge shift in tone on academies and no more reform for its own sake. We also found out that, under a new regime, councils will have to support proposals for academies at all stages of the process, from the initial expression of interest to the implementation stage, for the Secretary of State to be comfortable. Briefing behind the scenes appears to have occurred, and suggests that he will make it more difficult for academies to be approved. Today’s statement did not give that impression. Will he clarify whether there is to be any change in the requirements for local government approval for academies? Lest we are suspicious of the figure of 400 academies, will he tell us the financial provision that the Department’s budget has made for academies for the next five or six years? The Secretary of State said much about personalisation. As a newcomer to the portfolio, I assume that that is the current jargon in education policy, which I imagine many teachers believe that they have been trying to implement in the past 30, 40, 50 or 60 years. Is not there a tension between a personalisation approach, which tries to help individual pupils, and the perception from today’s statement that much of the personalisation is being handed down from the centre? That appears to contradict the statement that he made in an interview with Polly Toynbee only a few weeks ago, when he said that the Department cannot direct everything from the centre. What flexibility will there be in the funds that are passed down for personalisation so that schools and teachers can use the money sensibly, and teachers are not treated like children?... I am not about to take one.