
Before Labour entered office, few expected Bridget Phillipson to become one of the most contentious cabinet ministers. In opposition her policy priority had been expanding free childcare – a matter of cross-party consensus. But the Education Secretary’s school reforms have made her a bête noire of the right.
Michael Gove has likened Phillipson’s policies to “Rome’s approach to Carthage – a salting of the earth”; headteacher Katharine Birbalsingh has accused her of displaying a “Marxist outlook in every decision”; and the shadow education secretary Laura Trott has labelled her “our very own Miley Cyrus, swinging her wrecking ball”. Most strikingly, Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh, who was elected in 1997 and is close to cabinet ministers such as Pat McFadden and Wes Streeting, has warned that Phillipson is making a “huge mistake”.
The cause of the backlash – the scale of which surprised No 10 – is the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. This legislation will ensure that academies – which now account for 80 per cent of secondary schools and 40 per cent of primary schools – are required to teach the national curriculum, that they only employ those with qualified teacher status, and that they are subject to the national framework on teacher pay and conditions. It will also reverse the legal duty for all schools rated “inadequate” by Ofsted to become academies and allow councils to open new schools.
Phillipson stands accused of jeopardising the crowning achievement of the last Conservative government – England’s educational performance. The country has risen up the international Pisa league table for maths and reading, and outperformed Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
But Phillipson’s team reject this well-established narrative. The Pisa rankings, they say, owe more to others’ failure than England’s success. In reality, only 12 primary-school children in every class of 30 leave with a firm foundation in reading, writing and maths. A third of Year 11 students, meanwhile, fail to achieve a Grade 4 in English and maths. In areas such as Knowsley and Blackpool, the English and maths failure rates are as high as 60 per cent – a symptom of widening regional inequality.
Phillipson’s allies concede that the case for their reforms has not been made clearly enough – despite Labour’s landslide majority, her opponents have been able to set the terms of debate. But they believe their position is a fundamentally strong one. “We want a fight with the Tories about this, their record isn’t what they think it is,” a Phillipson source told me.
Some of the outcry against the Education Secretary reflects a sense of betrayal. Phillipson, who refused to serve on Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench – and critiqued his leadership at length in the New Statesman – was close to the Blairite Progressive Britain group. Her critics now accuse her of soft-left positioning – perhaps with a view to a future Labour leadership bid (teachers are a significant internal constituency).
Phillipson’s allies, unsurprisingly, reject this charge – and that of ideological inconsistency. “Blairism isn’t about preserving the status quo in aspic,” one said. “It’s about shaking up consensus where it doesn’t work for the most disadvantaged kids.” (Some of the media criticism of Phillipson, they believe, is motivated by class and her decision to impose VAT on private-school fees.)
They point to the backing of Blair’s first education secretary David Blunkett – whose mantra of “standards, not structures” Phillipson echoes – and the Tony Blair Institute’s submission to the Times Education Commission. The latter argued that by allowing almost all state schools to become academies, the Cameron government “lost the levelling-up dynamic of the previous academies programme”. It noted: “These new ‘academies’ lacked external sponsors or funding, and they generally made relatively little difference to school standards.” Indeed, recent research by the Local Government Association found 93 per cent of council-maintained schools were ranked “outstanding” or “good”, compared with 87 per cent of academies.
The case for Phillipson’s reforms, then, is that she is correcting an excessive bias against council-run schools – bending the stick to make it straight again. But even sympathisers have struggled to understand the rationale for the bill. Whether Phillipson can change this – and fast – will be one test of her success. The other will be whether her emphasis on standards is justified by results.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
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