Education inquirer-in-chief: Neil Carmichael MP, education select committee chair
Neil Puffett
Monday, August 3, 2015
Neil Puffett meets Neil Carmichael MP, chair of the education select committee.
Following his election as chair of the education select committee in June, Neil Carmichael's first act was to slam the government for its "feeble" response to the committee's inquiry into personal, social and health education (PSHE). The Conservative MP for Stroud, who was first elected to parliament in 2010, did not pull any punches in his claim that ministers "entirely sidestepped" the committee's recommendation to give statutory status to PSHE. Asked if the robust retort to government will be indicative of his personal style in his new role, Carmichael, who served on the committee under the previous chair Graham Stuart, tells CYP Now that he will be forthright when necessary.
"If I think something is wrong I will say so," he says. "I thought our (PSHE) report was well researched.
"There were some good recommendations and I thought the government's response was feeble. That was largely because it didn't really say anything about any of the recommendations we made."
Lack of action
The committee's call for PSHE to be made statutory was one of a number of headline recommendations that were not accepted or acted on by the coalition government. Recommendations to split Ofsted into separate social care and education inspectorates, to urgently change careers guidance delivery, and to end the practice of children placed in out-of-area residential care, are all yet to be acted on. Carmichael concedes that in terms of influencing policy, the committee must improve its track record.
"(In terms of) recommendations on policy ideas, I don't think we necessarily have had so much success," he says.
"There is sometimes a slow burn in these matters. But we did put issues on the agenda and we will in many cases keep pressing the points. It's certainly true that I would like to see us more at the cutting edge of policymaking so we can actually leave a lasting impact on the shape of the world of education.
"I think it's really important that we look at the issues that are on the agenda now and give the view of the education select committee."
Carmichael says he has already identified ways in which the committee can increase its influence.
"The strategy is all about planning ahead so we know what we are going to be doing and have a clear idea about the kind of areas of policy we want to develop," he says.
"It should be areas that are of relevance to the ongoing debates beyond the education select committee."
Increasing productivity
Carmichael highlights productivity as an area where the committee can make a difference, pointing to the fact that the UK is nearly 30 per cent less productive than the German economy. He wants to start a discussion about the specific skills young people require, as well as looking at the "interface" between education and work.
"Productivity is clearly a matter that has the interest and concern of a large number of MPs across the House of Commons," he says.
"We are therefore talking about something that people are really interested in.
"The government needs to act on productivity - it knows that. So do most of the other political parties. So we will be on fertile ground when we start making our recommendations, which will include something about skills, something about the interface between school, colleges and the world of work.
"I'm determined to make an impact where I think we can make an impact. That's all about choosing the areas where I think we can develop policies and push forward the boundaries of thinking."
He also believes that the committee can be more successful by working alongside other select committees, potentially through joint inquiries where departmental responsibilities overlap.
Carmichael freely admits that it was his interest in education - he was previously a school governor and a college governor - that motivated him to join the committee in the first place.
He is concise when asked for his reaction to a recent investigation by CYP Now, the National Children's Bureau and The Children's Society, which found that government funding for local authority early intervention services halved under the five years of coalition government from £3.18bn to £1.44bn.
"We haven't really done an inquiry on that and we haven't got one planned immediately," he says. "But I'm certainly very keen to hear more about that."
He is also limited in what he is able to say about the impact of funding cuts on services provided through children's centres.
"In my own constituency I haven't seen any evidence that services are being badly damaged," he says. "I think parents in my constituency can be absolutely confident in the standard of services and care in those centres.
"But obviously we have to keep a weather eye on what is happening elsewhere. One of the roles of the education select committee will be to do exactly that."
However, he does have some opinions on what a recently announced consultation on the future of children's centres, due to launch later this year, should examine.
"First of all it needs to look at what's needed," he says. "That's a question that has to be asked from time-to-time.
"I think there will be an issue about funding - that's always one of the first questions many ask. And also the question of training of people who are actually working in children's centres."
He describes child sexual exploitation as "absolutely outrageous". "We just really need to drill down on that one," he says.
"The recent report that suggests that police forces have not been dealing with it effectively is actually a cause for some real hard-headed thinking, and that's one of the things I intend to do."
He also has concerns about a lack of prosecutions on female genital mutilation (FGM). "That's something we need to tackle," he says.
"More people know about FGM than ever before, and that in itself acts as a kind of barrier to further FGM because we are aware of it.
"But there are still too many children being put through it and it is difficult to prosecute.
"We have got to think of ways of solving that particular problem."
He suggests that schools can do more to tackle the issue through pastoral care.
"When children are at risk in circumstances immediately outside of the school, the school can have some kind of knowledge or ability to see what's going on," he says.
In light of his developing understanding of wider children's services, it is perhaps unsurprising that Carmichael's four main priorities are overwhelmingly education-focused, with only child protection getting a look-in from wider children's services alongside the education-based issues of productivity, school governance, and the school curriculum. He concedes that the committee will require the help of the sector in determining some of its areas of work. Indeed, the committee is asking people to tweet their suggestions for key issues on which it should focus over the next five years, using the Twitter hashtag #closethegap.
Asked how government has fared overall in improving the lives of children and young people in the last five years, Carmichael believes it has done "very well".
"I think one of the big achievements of the last government was reducing youth unemployment. That's happened in my constituency and it's happened in virtually every other constituency I can think of.
"We have got economic growth, which we didn't have in 2010, and that means young people have good career expectations.
"The second thing is we have become a much more open, much more tolerant, society.
"I think the progress we have made in the last five years is good and I look forward to making even more progress in the next five years."
NEIL CARMICHAEL CV
- Carmichael was born in Northumberland, into a family associated with hill farming
- After studying politics at the University of Nottingham he went on to work in agriculture, focusing on breeding cattle, sheep farming and grassland farming
- He was first elected to parliament to represent the constituency of Stroud in Gloucestershire in 2010
- He was also a member of the environmental audit committee, and established two all-party parliamentary party groups - on governance and leadership in education, and vascular diseases
- His hobbies include renovating a Massey Ferguson tractor