Teachers' Pay (Hansard, 17 February 2000)

§ 7. Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone)
What recent representations he has received about the new teachers' pay arrangements; and if he will make a statement. [109136]

§ 11. Mr. Eric Illsley (Barnsley, Central)
If he will make a statement on the introduction of performance-related pay for teachers. [109141]

§ The Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. David Blunkett)
On 1 February, the School Teachers Review Body published its report, recommending a pay increase of 3.3 per cent. for all classroom teachers; continuance of the existing incremental scales through to the new threshold level; a £2,000 uplift for all those who go through the performance threshold; and a new incremental scale for those who have passed that threshold requirement, so that they are able to access salary increases up to £30,000.

§ Mr. Clapham
I hear what my right hon. Friend says, but how does he answer teachers in my constituency in Barnsley, who believe that the progressive measures that he has introduced—such as the new college for head teachers, better teacher training, 2,000 classroom assistants, and the building of more and better schools—have added to the opportunity and the context of achieving high standards in education, but who also believe that the introduction of performance threshold 1095 payments may well undermine morale, at a time when we are trying to achieve excellence in education? May I hasten to add that I have some sympathy for that view?

§ Mr. Blunkett
Let me say this to my very good colleagues from Barnsley—my hon. Friends the Members for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) and for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley). I used to teach in Barnsley. If I had told the coalfield community representatives I used to teach that they would receive an above-inflation pay increase; that, if they did their job well, they would receive £2,000; that, once they received the £2,000 uplift, they would enter a new incremental scale that most of those who work in manual and craft trades have never had; and that—when they had entered that incremental scale—they could earn up to £30,000, I would think that their morale would have improved. I should think that they would also wholeheartedly have welcomed that enormous boost in pay for teachers.

§ Mr. Illsley
As my right hon. Friend is aware, Barnsley is a low-income area, where GDP is 66 per cent. of the European average and is lower than that of Poland and of poorer countries in the European Union such as Portugal. Consequently, we have less parental engagement in matters such as book purchasing, a lower incidence of computer ownership and internet access and hence lower educational achievement. Will not teachers in Barnsley, when judged on the basis of pupil progress and attainment, be at a disadvantage because of that lower educational achievement, which has been caused by low incomes? Might not assessing teachers on that basis also make it more difficult for Barnsley to attract quality teachers who could take advantage of the performance pay proposals?

§ Mr. Blunkett
The answer to the first question is a resounding no. We have built prior attainment into the threshold requirements as an absolutely key issue, so that the point at which a teacher inherits a child will be taken into account in assessing progress. Every teacher who has entered the profession has done so for one reason only—to enhance their pupils' performance and achievement levels. Therefore—wherever they are and at whatever position they start—they will be rewarded on the progress that has been made with their pupils.
With the objective 1 status that the Government have obtained for South Yorkshire, it will be possible to ensure that we uplift not only economic activity and employment levels, but our communities' aspirations and expectations, so that we are able not only to attract the best teachers but to ensure that pupils and parents are committed to ensuring that our area of South Yorkshire does not remain in that position for the foreseeable future.

§ Mr. Phil Willis (Harrogate and Knaresborough)
It is a good day for Liberal Democrats: we have had an announcement that, as a result of our efforts in Scotland, tuition fees have been abolished; and in three of the most severely failing boroughs—Liverpool, Islington and Sheffield—the Liberal Democrats are sorting out the mess that has been made.
The Secretary of State will know that I have real reservations about performance-related pay. Does he agree that, if a performance-related pay scheme is to work effectively, money will have to be not only additional, but 1096 ring-fenced, and guaranteed to those who go through the threshold? We have guarantees in place for two years, but after that there are no more guarantees. Unless the Secretary of State is prepared to admit to the House today that the money will be ring-fenced, that every teacher will be guaranteed payments and that the payments will not come out of existing school budgets, the entire scheme will be a sham.

§ Mr. Blunkett
On the hon. Gentleman's first point, it is difficult to see how anyone in Scotland has gained, with 40 per cent. of students not paying fees in the first place and now having the non-fee deferred so that they have to pay after they have left university. That is a very interesting double somersault.
On the hon. Gentleman's second point, I can give an absolute guarantee that the programme that we have set up within the spending review for the additional £2,000 uplift will continue to be available on a ring-fenced basis. We will guarantee that any teacher going through the threshold will receive it.

§ Mrs. Theresa May (Maidenhead)
One reason why many teachers are worried about the new teachers' pay arrangements is their concern about where the money will come from in the long term. It is little wonder that they are worried, given that yet again this year the Government have failed to fund the basic teachers' pay award, despite all the Secretary of State's complacent claims about extra funding for local education authorities. Does the Secretary of State not accept that the reality is very different from the spin—that some local education authorities have received only superficial increases this year, and that that may very well give rise to real misunderstandings about their position?

§ Mr. Blunkett
I am very pleased that it is Maths Year 2000. If we subtract a pay increase of 3.3 per cent. from the 5.4 per cent. average increase and then add the £50 million from the Department, the standards fund, the ring-fenced funding for 20,000 teaching assistants and all the investment in the literacy and numeracy programmes, it is clear that the pay increase is perfectly affordable so long as authorities passport on the money that is being provided for education to their schools and ring-fence the additional resources that are being provided for the £2,000 uplift and the future incremental scale payment. None of that was introduced by the previous Government and it is all guaranteed by the present Government.

§ Mrs. May
I am sorry that the Secretary of State did not accept what I said because I was quoting his own words. In his letter of 8 December to the schoolteachers review body, he wrote: I hope that the STRB will bear in mind the considerable demands on schools and LEAs. Some authorities have superficial increases which may give rise to a misunderstanding. He went on to say that some authorities have increases which would make a pay award much greater than inflation very difficult to handle … There is real worry across the country". Those are the Secretary of State's own words. Is not the fact that an authority such as Sheffield has to cut school budgets in order to access Government funds the mathematics of the madhouse? The Government have failed to deliver on their election manifesto promise to 1097 increase the proportion of national income spent on education. They are failing to fund the teachers' pay award. It is just another demonstration that, on education funding, the Government are all mouth and no delivery.

§ Mr. Blunkett
I said in that letter that there could be a superficial misunderstanding and that is clearly the case. As I said a moment ago, we added in £50 million from my own Department, over and above the revenue support grant provided by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, to ensure that no authority would be unable to afford the teachers' pay increase. I lifted the match funding from the excellence in cities authorities, which happen to include Sheffield, and the £90 million that would otherwise have had to go into the teachers' pension fund requirement. All those measures have made the pay increase affordable.

§ Mr. Barry Jones (Alyn and Deeside)
Can my right hon. Friend promise us more teachers? Can he be absolutely certain that the large-scale extra moneys that he is making available for our schools are not being misdirected by councils? Does he accept that parents want more teachers in the classroom, but that there is a suspicion that some councils are not using the money for schools?

§ Mr. Blunkett
That is why we have taken decisive steps to ensure that the authorities pass resources on to schools. We are monitoring that requirement—we will report on it in the summer—in terms of the administrative hold-back and the passporting to schools. By September, we will have an additional 6,000 teachers in our schools, largely through the ring-fenced funding—over and above the revenue support grant—to implement our class size pledge.