Damian Hinds MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Does the hon. Lady know what the attainment gap was at key stage 2 and key stage 4 in 2010, and how it compares with right now?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It was 3.2%—so the proportion in fact shrank slightly over those 14 years. I therefore wonder what verdict Government Members, in their bid to avoid a race to the bottom, give on the Labour Government from 1997 to 2010, which left us with 3.2% of the teaching workforce not being qualified.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Just to ask a factual question that I should know the answer to, are those regulations published?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Of course, and for many people that is the right thing to do. There are mid-career and later-career programmes for coming into teaching and I want people to do those more and more. Sometimes, however, people come from abroad, and it could be from a country with which we do not necessarily have mutual recognition, or they might come from the independent sector, so they might have taught for many years and be an outstanding practitioner. The hon. Gentleman also said if he went to the mechanic, he would not want someone who is just fascinated by engines, and I understand that entirely. However, if someone wanted to learn football, and they had the opportunity to learn from a professional footballer, although not as the only PE teacher—

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thought I was doing the questions. My question is: what is the thing that has changed and got worse over this period, which the Government think they are going to address? What is driving the inclusion of these provisions in primary legislation? What problem are Ministers trying to solve?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I did not realise we were going to spend today talking about football.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  She makes my point for me.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am at liberty to reveal that, after those 14 years, the proportion of the teaching workforce without qualified teacher status was 3.1%. [ Interruption. ] Then I thought—like the hon. Member for Lewisham North, the Whip—that it might have been from a low base and that there must have been huge growth in those 14 years. So I looked back to see what the proportion was in 2010. Last year, it was 3.1%. Can you guess what it was in 2010, Sir Edward?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen. I enjoyed his speech and I think he made several very good points, a number of which the Opposition would agree with. We certainly agree with the importance of the foundation of qualified teacher status, and a lot of work rightly went into reforming the core content and framework of initial teacher training, as well as the early career framework. Those are incredibly important foundations for a successful career in teaching. With the present Government’s plan to recruit just 6,500 teachers over the next five years, which is a material slow-down compared with the Parliament just ended, it should be more straightforward to hit those recruitment targets, but I do not think this discussion is really about the numbers that we can recruit into the teaching profession. It is about getting the right people, which the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen also said. It is not about obsessing over having the structures but getting the right people, and this is about getting the right people in front of children in school settings. By the way, presuming we are not just talking about academics, that also applies to sport, music and art.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  To give a few examples, I have asked about the distinction between elective home education and education otherwise than at school, what happens with optional uniform items, and what happens in schools that already have a breakfast club that lasts longer than 30 minutes. None of these were meant to be difficult or rhetorical questions, designed to catch the Minister out; they are genuine questions, and I do not think any were answered on the floor of the Committee. My question is, therefore, will Ministers write in general, or do we need to put down further questions if we want to get answers?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I did say, “One last time,” but I cannot refuse my hon. Friend.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Lady 100%, just as I agreed with what the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen said entirely. Of course, there is not just a material difference between not being a qualified teacher and being a qualified teacher. It is like night and day, and what teachers learn about pedagogy and the experience they get during that time cannot be replicated on an online course or by reading books. She is right, too, that during covid millions of people up and down the country quite rightly developed, renewed or enhanced their respect for the teaching profession and for what teaching is capable of doing.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I have a genuine question, as they say on Twitter. Quite a lot of teachers and school leaders have asked me, what is the difference between people joining a RISE team and national leaders in education?

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I do not know whether the hon. Member has a copy of my notes, but that is what I was just about to say. I argued on Second Reading that the ability of academies—which are now the majority of secondary schools and a large number of primary schools in this country—even if most of the time hardly any use it, to deviate somewhat from the national curriculum is a safety valve against politicisation. I remind colleagues on the Labour Benches that their party is currently in government with a whacking great majority, but it is possible that it might not be forever. We all have an interest in guarding against over-politicisation. As we have heard, and as my hon. Friend the shadow Minister rightly said, it can be an instrument of school improvement to ease off from some aspects of the national curriculum while refocussing on core subjects.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Bless the hon. Gentleman for saying I am engaging, but I am obviously not that engaging, because I spent the first three minutes explaining why the national curriculum is the core standard and why it is central to our school system. That does not mean, though, that we cannot have some deviation from it, just like—if I recall this, I might bring it back to mind—qualified teacher status, which is, of course, a central part of our teaching profession, but that does not mean there cannot be a little bit of deviation—it is about 3% and has been for the last decade and a half—from it.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Sort of. It is not really a floor or a ceiling at the moment; it is a very loose framework that says, “These are the things at key stages 1 to 4 that one should cover.” It is not really a floor because it does not say, “You must learn these things. You may learn others.” It says, “These are the broad categories of things that you must learn.”

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  For clarification, I meant that if a trust or a school had not followed its own complaints procedure and the DFE needed to intervene, that would result in an increase in the volume of parental complaints. The DFE does handle parental complaints, of course. I think that there would be an increase in the volume. My question was about the specific resourcing implications of that, particularly in a changed world with social media: when people get wind of these things, complaints could grow somewhat.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will if the hon. Member wants to correct what I said.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The national curriculum is a vital part of our school system, but its centrality does not mean there is never space for deviation from it. A couple of hours ago I was saying that initial teacher training and qualified teacher status is a fundamental foundation of our school system, with 97% of teachers in the state education system having qualified teacher status. It was 97% in 2024, and as it happens it was also 97% in 2010. Similarly, we know that the great majority of schools follow the national curriculum the great majority of the time.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am not sure that the hon. Lady’s Front-Bench colleagues will necessarily thank her for making that intervention. That view is held by some. Sir Christopher would rightly admonish me were we to get into a whole debate about PSHE or RSHE, but it is true that the RSHE curriculum covers a range of things that, rightly, children must learn about as they prepare for the adult world, develop their sense of self and their place in society and, crucially, learn respect and kindness towards others, along with valuing all individuals. There is also a degree of flexibility within the curriculum, because at the end of the day there are 21,500 schools in the country, and there are schools with different character and different intakes. I am sure the hon. Lady is not trying to make my point for me, but if we make the national curriculum more rigid, we actually run into more problems, rather than solve them.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Gentleman is going to pose a great rhetorical question like that, he should have an answer ready. What is it? What is this thing that we are reaching for? I do not think any of us in this room is well qualified or well placed to say, “Where can we take this school?” The person best placed to decide that is the school leader. We would like to give some leeway and flexibility, within a system of all sorts of measurements, constraints and so on, for people to be able to innovate and do what is right for children.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  For all the reasons that I gave, it does apply. Ofsted requires a broad and balanced curriculum from every school, and the vast majority of the time the vast majority of schools say that that is the national curriculum, but some of them may innovate and deviate. They may need to do something different to support children or they may be in a school improvement phase. All those are good reasons. In a system where we trust school leaders and teachers to do what is right for the kids in front of them, those are all reasons to have some flexibility.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I will give way to the hon. Member for St Helens North as he was the nicest to me.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I do not think those things are in conflict. My point was that the national curriculum, as it was set up, is quite loose. It did not have to be, it does not have to be now and it does not have to be in five or 10 years. It can be written exactly as Ministers at the time wish to write it. Although the hon. Lady says we are not debating whether to make the national curriculum more rigid, actually we might be—we do not know. I will come to that in a moment. I was saying—you will be pleased to know, Sir Christopher, that I do want to accelerate—that the flexibility can be an instrument for school improvement, either for entire year groups, for the entire school or, indeed, on a longer basis, for a nurture group or a group or individual who, for whatever reason, needs additional support. It also means that schools might specialise somewhat, and that they might innovate without having, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston rightly said, to overthink about whether they are complying exactly with this or that specification. At a time when we are rightly concerned about attendance numbers, it has been suggested to me that making adherence to the national curriculum more specified, and possibly the curriculum itself being made more rigid, could be injurious to school attendance or inclusion in mainstream schooling if it makes more children feel rejected, uncomfortable or unhappy at school and so seek education either at home or in alternative settings. The crucial point is that, whether schools have innovated with an academy trust curriculum, decided to deviate to support individual groups for a period of time, or specialised somewhat, they will all be judged by Ofsted on the simple requirement of having a broad and balanced curriculum. For most schools the easiest way to comply with having a broad and balanced curriculum is to follow the national curriculum—but there can be other ways. Again, like my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, I am left wondering what the problem the Government are trying to solve is.

• 4 Feb 2025 · Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Now we are on to modern methods of construction: scaffolding or a floor? I do not know. I will give way to the hon. Member for Bournemouth East, then I promise I will move on.