Whenever I look at education, I speak as a parent first and a politician second. The same dynamic is vital for our Labour party. If we continue to drive our school reforms from the perspective of parents, we will prosper. Put political dogma first, and we will lose.
There are two reasons why I feel so strongly that our school reforms must go ahead: one based on the policy itself and the other a broader point of political direction for New Labour.
In policy terms, we must continue to reform education, because the most deprived children still get the worst education. Seven out of every 10 pupils receiving free school meals do not get five good GCSEs. This is unacceptable to anyone with progressive values.
Overall, there has been a significant improvement after nine years of a New Labour government, but the fact that 44 per cent of children are still not getting five good GCSEs is not good enough. It’s better, of course, than the 55 per cent we inherited, but to rest our ambitions here would be a gross dereliction of duty for a Labour government. It would sell the country short at a time when it is patently clear that the best way to compete in the globalised economy of the 21st century is by having a skilled, well-educated workforce.
But our school reforms are also vital in showing the path by which Labour can sustain and renew itself in office against a refreshed opposition. Whether it is in reforming schools, the NHS, welfare, pensions, law and order, or preparing Britain for the competitive force of globalisation, we have to be the ones taking the hard decisions, meeting the challenges, explaining why change is the only way to make the nation stronger, fairer and better.
As I said in my spring conference speech, we cannot be the people who speak primarily for interest groups or the establishment that is happiest when as little as possible is changing, or behave as if we were an outsized NGO. We are the people’s party and have to act for the people of 21st-century Britain who have elected us.
People today have higher expectations of public services and want them designed around them. They are not dogmatic about whether such services are delivered through public, independent or voluntary sectors or a mixture of the three. They want local people and local communities to be empowered to make changes for themselves, funded fairly and within sensible rules set by national and local government. Misunderstand this and we will spend most of the next century like we did the last – out of power.
This does not mean our third term reforms have to pretend we are starting from scratch. Our school reforms build on what we know has worked since 1997, taking our achievements – of which everyone involved in education can be proud – and developing them, being on the side of the people who depend on us the most.
So, having already seen how city academies, specialist schools and foundation schools have delivered a better education for more children, we want to combine the freedoms of all three to allow schools to form trusts with external partners such as local universities, businesses, charities, councils or other schools. It will be up to schools themselves to decide if they want to go down this path. But if they do, we will see it as our job as a New Labour enabling government to help them, particularly in the most deprived areas where they can gain the most. By harnessing this energy in our civil society, we can empower people to deliver enormous change in their own communities for the better.
I understand the concerns that have been raised within the Labour movement about the schools’ white paper. But many of them have been worries, not about the reforms we are proposing, but about the school system as it stands today – the varying provision, concerns about back-door selection, the way the poorest are still not educated well enough.
I agree with these concerns but believe that is why we need to go further – not down tools and say ‘job done’. Our proposals are intended to address them. The safeguards we have put in place will strengthen the bill and guarantee fair admissions with no back-door selection. That is vital. But so is further school reform to help transform the life chances of hundreds of thousands of children who depend on us.
In short, the education debate symbolises the future for Labour. Have the courage to reform and empower and we earn the right to stay in office for another generation, setting the political agenda on centre-left values. Avoid reform and duck the challenges and we will not only lose power, we will not deserve it.