The Cornerstone Group

While the musical chairs on the Titanic are in full swing, the Government ship appears to be sinking. By the time Prime Minister Brown has finished his reshuffle, the Government is going to look weaker than before. It would seem his appointments have more to do with back-room deals than what is in the interest of the Country.

By the way, do you remember Brown’s promise to strengthen Parliament? So what is one of his first actions as Premier? To replace Jack Straw who was regarded as an excellent Leader of the House of Commons and was trying to strengthen the powers of Parliament against the Executive with Harriet Harman.

Strengthening parliament …

 with Harriet Harman?

 Now Ms Harman now known as ‘Three-Hats-Harman’ has to split her time between the highly partisan jobs of being Labour Party Chairman and Deputy Leader and that of being a strong and independent representative of the interests of the House of Commons. These are irreconcilable and show Brown’s total contempt for Parliament.

Everybody seems to be repeating the mantra ‘we must be on the centre ground otherwise we’re doomed’, so I thought I’d better look it up in the dictionary but there is no dictionary entry for centre ground. It is one of those phrases that has no meaning or substance.

Thatcher - The Common Ground

Margaret Thatcher had it right when she said the Conservative Party must occupy the common ground. This is what the Conservative Party needs to strive for. The common ground is what most people beleive on any particular issue. It doesn’t matter whether its on the left or right of the political agenda.

Now the dictionary will tell you that common ground is a set of shared beliefs and interest; a foundation for mutual understanding.

So the fight against global warming which might be on the left of the political spectrum is on the common ground because most people support it. Similarly, pulling power back from the European Union and re-establishing sovereignty is on the right but is clearly on the common ground because a large proportion of the British people believe in it.

 Re-establishing British sovereignty - a common aim of the British people

Using this barometer I thought it might be interesting to list where the Party should be if it is to capture the common ground. I suggest the common ground requires:

A strong stance against uncontrolled immigration

A very tough line against criminals

Support for our brave men and women of the armed forces

Freedom for our doctors and nurses to use their own clinical judgement

Education that drives up standards rather than levels down

Support for local democracy rather than state control

Lower taxation both locally and centrally

A smaller state with more personal responsibility

The common ground should be the cornerstone of Conservative policy. Listening to the People and delivering what they want.

Peter Bone is MP for Wellingborough

Yesterday, the Cornerstone Steering Group met with a fascinating group of young Catholic priests to talk about areas of mutual concern.

The issue I raised was the future of church schools. I am greatly worried that under Gordon Brown, the Labour Government will throw a sop to its own backbenchers and seek to curb or restrict the nature of our church schools. Even Tony Blair, with his children until recently at church schools in my constituency, did some damage, with, for example, ending grant maintained status in 1998 for schools like the London Oratory and in last year’s Education Act to prevent schools from interviewing, even if only to establish the religious devotion of the parents and children. Nevertheless, with Blair, there was always a sense that the damage he could do was a little limited by the probable charge of hypocrisy, given his own family’s patronage of them.

One less noticed aspect of Brown’s leadership in its early days has been his sop to Leftists in Labour over rented social housing, with his move away from creating balanced communities under Blair to a more traditional Labour emphasis on far more social housing for rent. I fear Brown wanting to do more to placate the Left, and church schools might be the issue. A move may even come under the cover of “integration”, as attempts are made to show – wrongly – that church schools are a barrier to mixing communities of different racial backgrounds, mainly in northern towns and cities, but also in London.

Such a battle would find its front line in my constituency, home of two of the very best church secondary schools in the country, the (Catholic) London Oratory, which educated three of the Blair children, and (Church of England) Lady Margaret School, which rejected one of them.

We have our own issues in Hammersmith & Fulham with secondary education. Despite these excellent schools, there are far too few places in good schools for local parents. Our Borough has the fastest rising rate of independent school attendance in Britain – up 19% since 2000. Parents are voting with their feet. The new Conservative Council is taking action, setting up a schools commission to look at the issue afresh, and to design solutions. A new academy, or academies, may well be offered. Next door in Chelsea, we will have a new Church of England Academy, sponsored by the local authority, the first of its kind in Britain.

It is right that David Cameron is giving the issues around secondary school standards and organisation such attention. I agree with him on academies. A coherent and far-sighted plan for our secondary schools will need more than top quality church schools, but they will at least be a big part of the solution.

“The recent debate over academic selection has unhelpfully distracted attention from the really important challenges facing public policy makers; how to improve the performance of the 3221 secondary schools that are not grammars and all the 17,642 primary schools across Britain. Whatever one thinks about grammar schools – and the authors of this pamphlet like them by the way – David Willetts’ bigger and better point about the need to focus on the many schools, not the few, has been lost in the ensuing row over one part of his speech…

So let’s move on from a sterile debate about whether we build a handful more grammar schools, to a productive discussion about the straightforward steps that might make a significant difference to the educational opportunities of millions of children.”

To read the full paper click here and to comment click on the comments section in the title bar above.

Risking Our Children’s Futures

A report published last month by the Prince’s Trust exposed the growing crisis of the ‘lost generation’ of ‘neets’ – young people not in education, employment or training. There are now almost 1.3 million ‘neets’ aged between 16 and 24, their number has increased by 15% since 1997. The failure to tap their potential undermines social cohesion, damages the economy and puts a growing strain on the exchequer. The report estimates the cost at £3.65 billion a year.

As we waste a generation’s potential we fail to address the shocking production of still more school leavers without basic skills. Through written questions I have uncovered that 45 thousand 16 year-olds leave school each year either functionally illiterate or innumerate – each one a likely new ‘neet’.These young lives have been damaged by an education system that fails to engage those with practical aptitudes.

Vocational qualifications often fail to harness and develop practical talents partly because there is no clear progression route from one vocational qualification to the next; equivalent to the academic route of GCSEs, ‘A’ levels and degrees.

The authors of a London School of Economics study in 2003 concluded that we have created a complex academic system of vocational qualifications because of a lack of consensus about what vocational education is actually for.

Genuine esteem can only be achieved if we appreciate the true value of practical learning. What vocational education should be about is providing a rigorous pathway for students who wish to acquire a skilled craft. It should be rooted in practical learning and the acquisition of the skills necessary in particular occupations.

The new 14-19 specialised diplomas represent a golden opportunity to provide such a pathway. In his final report Lord Leitch writes that they ‘must succeed’ but profound doubts are already being expressed about their implementation. There is a danger that the introduction of the first five diplomas next year is being rushed, limiting the opportunity for employer engagement in their design.

There are also fundamental concerns that the lack of clarity about the purpose of vocational education that has handicapped curriculum reform in the past may undermine the diplomas. In particular, fears that they will not contain sufficient practical learning to provide a meaningful step to acquiring a craft.

The Nuffield review of skills has warned that this emphasis on theoretical learning means that we may ‘once again be witnessing the process of ‘academic drift’ that occurred with both GNVQs and Advanced Vocational Certificates of Education (AVCEs).The Education Secretary has even got his apology in early by admitting that the diplomas ‘may go horribly wrong’. The absence of practical learning means there is a great danger that the diplomas will be too general in content to provide either a meaningful academic or vocational education. If this is the case then they will simply add to the current confusing array of qualifications and do nothing to provide the kind of clear pathway for vocational education we so desperately need.

If the new diplomas are to be a success then they must provide students with the opportunity to acquire genuine skills in the best environment. We must avoid the trap of teaching students in a classroom setting what it might be like to be an electrician or a mechanic. Barriers must be broken down between schools and FE colleges, schools alone simply do not have the facilities or the resources to deliver all 14 diplomas in practice. Genuine workplace experience should be a compulsory element of all diplomas – so students can be taught and inspired by experienced, skilled craftsmen.

To build a clear vocational path diplomas must be fully integrated with apprenticeships and higher vocational qualifications such as Foundation Degrees. If we can provide such a path then we can engage young people with practical talents and guide many of the ‘lost generation’ of ‘neets’ towards a brighter future and a fulfilling career.

John Hayes is Co-Chairman of The Cornerstone Group

The Lost Generation

This year the Learning and Skills Council will receive £11 billion pounds of public money, more than the Royal Navy, yet the Government is failing to improve the nation’s skills. Today there are 1.25 million young people aged 16-24 not in education, training or employment up 15% since 1997. While we waste a lost generation’s potential, we add to their number – 45,000 16-year-olds leave school each year functionally illiterate and/or innumerate.

Participation in further education, adult and community learning and work-based learning are all in decline. This week NIACE reported that there are half a million fewer adults in learning than a year ago. The proportion of adults currently learning or having done so in the last three years has fallen to just 41%.

No wonder the Government is failing when so much public money lost in a Kafkaesque bureaucracy. One study identified 9 layers of administration that a pound of public expenditure must pass through on its way from Whitehall to the learners themselves.

So concerned are the Government at their failure to tackle the skills crisis that they commissioned two high-level reviews into the sector. Sir Andrew Foster was asked to look at Further Education. His report recognised that FE colleges are stifled by regulation and strangled by red tape.  He recommended radical change for colleges and ‘less centralisation and moves to greater self-regulation’. Lord Sandy Leitch was asked to look at skills. Lord Leitch, like Sir Andrew Forster, recommended radical reform and an end to central planning which he argues has ‘a poor track record’.

Yet none of these recommendations are included in the FE and Training Bill which received its Second Reading in the Commons yesterday. It is bizarre, even by the standards of this Government, to ask for detailed studies and simultaneously introduce a Bill which pays no attention whatsoever to their reports.

At best the Bill is a wasted opportunity, at worst a regressive step, tightening bureaucrats’ suffocating grip on FE. Why on earth does the Government think that the Learning and Skills Council should be given sweeping new powers to sack college Principals, Governors and senior managers?

Britain’s future depends on a skills base built on the fulfilled potential of a new generation of craftsmen. That generation’s future is being jeopardised by the obstinate inaction of Ministers who should know better.

John Hayes is Co-Chairman of The Cornerstone Group

To read Edward’s latest article from yesterday’s Sunday Express click here.

This is purely my personal opinion. There is no corporate Cornerstone view 

Three issues feature today, all of which are key concerns for Cornerstone members.

1) Education: the continuing backlash over David Willetts’ speech. Cornerstone member Nadine Dorries (a member of the Party’s Public Services Improvement Policy Group) says: “We have spent months working on education, so why didn’t they wait until the policy group had presented its findings? Why did David bypass the parliamentary party and announce our policy to the CBI?” I couldn’t agree with her more. “They’re wrong”, she told the Daily Telegraph [Jonathan Isaby’s ‘Spy column’, p 6 today], “if they intend running the Conservative Party like Tony Blair ran the Labour Party.” Right again.

Just in case there was any lingering doubt about the advisability of the new approach, the Telegraph also reports today [p 6] that only 19% of “all those questioned” in a Yougov poll – including non-Conservative voters – are in favour of the system proposed by David Willetts (a mix of comprehensives and City Academies). And only 13 per cent of our voters back the idea.

But, as I have said before, the way this debate is being presented is false. The leadership must not caricature the Right as simply saying “Bring back grammar schools”. Those who share my views know that while grammars do help some poor children – and just because you do not qualify for free school meals does not make you stinking rich – they are only part of the answer. There are many other up-to-date ideas for helping children escape the ghetto of low-quality education. Vouchers are part of the picture as well. It is not the Right that is stuck in the past; by seeming to endorse the comprehensive principle, I fear the Party is embracing out-dated ideas which have now had their day.

Can anyone explain the thinking behind the Willetts speech? As Churchill once said of Russia “It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.

2) Abortion: Ann Winterton will introduce a Private Member’s Bill on June 5 which seeks to require both counselling for pregnant women considering abortion and a week’s ‘cooling-off’ period afterwards. [Catholic Herald, p. 2 today’s issue]. As she says “It is really important that people are not bounced into having an abortion because they are in a state of panic without considering alternatives and without alerting them to possible consequences to their physical and mental health. The alternative is that they can choose to have their babies. There are organisations”, she says, “which will provide support in every single way, including financial support…” Ann hopes that her bill will be the first stage in restricting the 1967 Abortion Act, which in practice allows abortion on demand in the first 24 weeks.The Bill would make doctors specify on notification forms whether an abortion had been permitted either on mental or physical grounds, instead of the ‘and/or’ approach now current. This would, according to pro-life groups, prevent ‘social’ abortions.

Ann points to a study in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry showing that previously mentally healthy women had a far higher risk of developing psychiatric illness after abortion than those not aborting.

I would certainly be minded to back her Bill, and would urge colleagues to give it serious consideration.

3) Europe: Blair has given Brown joint responsibility for government strategy on a revised EU Constitution. See the Telegraph [p5], which calls this a sign of “dual premiership”. Tactics are being devised in preparation for the summit of EU leaders in June.

Perhaps Brown’s – relative – Euroscepticism when compared to Blair is at least one crumb of comfort we can take from his now assured succession. But I hope that next year when we fulfil our pledge to withdraw from collaboration with the EPP we will signal a distinctive approach that will show who the real Eurosceptics are.

David Cameron has already offended Angela Merkel over this issue. I applaud him warmly for doing so. Blair has shown quite enough contempt for parliament already; now let us restore some respect to it.

Edward Leigh is Co-Chairman of The Cornerstone Group