Labour’s education policy adds up to teaching those they don’t like a lesson they won’t forget

It’s hard not to see the current Government’s education policies as looking after the interests of a few adults, and not many children.

“It’s the epitome of for the few not the many” as one Conservative MP told me when looking at Bridget Phillipson’s first months in charge of the DfE.

If one of your very first acts as a new, Labour Education Secretary, is to give the teaching unions a 5.5 per cent pay rise for this year and limit the ability of Ofsted to actually spell out if a school is doing well or not, it is, even casting politics aside, hard not to suggest that teachers now come first.

The NEU is often seen as the tougher and more entrenched of the two big teaching unions, but right of centre eyebrows have been raised by the nomination of firebrand Corbyn supporter and former fire brigades’ union chief Matt Wrack for the post of head of the NASUWT, which had been seen as the more moderate of the two.

Despite the post-election Labour largesse, despite that mythic £22Billion black hole they say was chalked up, the NEU is currently balloting members in England over potential strike action following the latest offer of a 2.8 per cent pay rise for the year after this.

In a moment of Trott versus Trot, the Shadow Education Secretary told GB News this weekend:  

“The policies that she’s espousing are definitely more Jeremy Corbyn than they are Tony Blair.”

Laura Trott MP is spot on, and despite the Conservative’s own internal issues, that no-one in the party denies, the business of opposition has been made easier in her brief by the Government providing a target rich environment.

There’s a reason Conservative opposition is on firm ground here.

Firstly because there is so much that doesn’t add up in Labour’s justifications for the changes contained in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Whilst some of the wellbeing proposals are finding cross party support the areas on academies, the curriculum and teacher pay defy comprehension.

Secondly, education is one area, where ‘the inheritance’ question is not great for Labour. The tribal and predictable “but you were in power for 14 years” doesn’t have much potency. Tories are happy to defend their record.

As Laura Trott wrote on this site in November

“Under the last Labour government, the number of pupils sitting core academic subjects halved. Alongside this we plummeted down international league tables, the attainment gap at A level widened and universities and employers lost confidence in the education system.

In contrast under the Conservatives we soared up international league tables, and a focus on core subjects has been one of the driving forces behind this improvement in standards for children from all backgrounds over the last decade.”

Thirdly these positive education outcomes in England were not remotely matched in Wales under Labour, and in Scotland under the SNP educational standards  have been a near disaster, where once they were a source of national pride.

The last firm foundation for Conservative criticism is the Labour government seems hell bent on removing the powers the last Labour Government gave schools and used to hail as one of its own legacies.

Blair created Academies; the Tories not only kept them but expanded them. Many of them are the most successful schools in the country. The attack on them is not only an attack on Conservative policy but Labour’s own past policy. Corbyn you can imagine doing it, Starmer’s ‘centrists’, less so.

It seemed to have been demonstrated over twenty years, beyond reasonable doubt, schools really do know far more about how to improve standards and the lives of the their children, than local authorities and union leaders. 

I don’t add widespread criticism as a bolster to the arguments against Phillipson’s measures but would note there’s been plenty. Most recently Amanda Spielman, former head of Ofsted, told the Telegraph, at the weekend:

“It is hard to understand the motivation, beyond being seen to be different, though the new minister is clearly giving a great deal of time and attention to the desires and demands of unions. And alas, unions will always defend the interests of the adults in schools over those of children… I do hope she will think again, before the damage is done.”

That word ‘motivation’ is key. Why is Bridgit Phillipson so focussed on changes many predict will worsen educational outcomes? Add on the anger over VAT on private school fees, added to the repeated meetings with the teaching unions and she’s  given the impression, it’s personal, and not a little vindictive, and settling old scores.

Class war on classes.

People who pay twice for education – the state system via taxation, and fees they personally choose to pay for their own children – are seemingly entitled privileged people who should not be assisted in, of all things, educating their children. And if the rewards of removing that help is to ‘fund 6500 new teachers’ – where will they come from?

Phillipson herself, who against odds she shouldn’t have had to face, got a good education, worked hard, is clearly smart and now resides at the top of the Education tree, seems now in post, to favour levelling down, not levelling up, with the risk of some of the most disadvantaged, being disadvantaged further.

Of course the Government say nothing of the kind.

All these measures are, according to them, to improve the education of children whatever their background, wherever they are in the country. It’s laudable, who wouldn’t want that?  The problem is, some of the key areas in the Bill to supposedly achieve this aim, could simply reduce the chances for other children, and overall have completely the opposite effect.

If opposition for oppositions sake is a bad thing, and it is, Government for Government’s sake is not dissimilar. The Bill appears to be the political opinion of a party too close to the unions, fired by the politics of envy and condensed into refighting battles of the past to offer a far from proven future.

As the Bill re-enters Parliament, one lesson this Government seems to have taught itself is ‘when in a black hole, just keep digging’. It’s beholden on the Conservatives to persuade the public that they know the way out of that hole, because it’s worked before.