SerpApi.Org
You might think it would be near-impossible to find a worse education secretary than Bridget Phillipson, rightly dubbed a “spiteful class warrior” by Kemi Badenoch.
But you would be wrong. Congratulations to Andy Burnham, who has looked through his 402 fellow Labour MPs and alighted on one who promises to continue the disaster of Phillipson’s two years in the role – and may even manage to surpass her.
Lucy Powell, the new Education Secretary, served as shadow education secretary between 2015 and 2016. That was when Labour was led by Jeremy Corbyn, under whom Powell was happy to serve. No wonder, when you see what she said and did in the role.
Powell’s views on education policy are identikit Labour from the period before Tony Blair, when the party at last started to champion school reform and the broad bipartisan agreement on the direction of policy began. That agreement led to a genuine turnaround in standards. Until, that is, 2024 and the arrival of Phillipson.
Now it is Powell’s role to turn her back on the past three decades of improvement and do her worst.
Powell was only in that role for nine months under Corbyn, but her key campaign was against academies. The Conservative government published a White Paper in March 2016 proposing that every school in England should become an academy by 2022. Powell led the parliamentary opposition, and the Government backed down on the deadline – a reversal she called “a humiliating climbdown for David Cameron and his education secretary”.
It was indeed that. But it was mainly a result of the vested interests of Tory shire-council opponents rather than Powell’s opposition. It was also the most pyrrhic of victories, given that fully 83 per cent of state schools are now academies (or free schools).
As for free schools, Powell was clear: “There will be no more free schools...” under Labour. And there have not been. In office, Phillipson not only refused to approve any new free schools but also cancelled the 28 planned new schools which were already under way, such as an Eton College-backed sixth form in Middlesbrough.
Powell’s approach followed the pre-Blair shibboleth of local councils overseeing school places and admissions. Even Powell realised that restoring full local education authority control couldn’t happen immediately, given the spread of academisation. But there is little doubt that she hankers after a return to the days of LEA-run schools.
In September 2015, she said: “There will be no more free schools and academy chains will be made accountable.” Academies have always been accountable, of course – but to parents and governors rather than to local councillors. In Labour-speak, accountability is a euphemism for local authority control. Powell demanded that councils regain “the ability to ensure sufficient places and fair admissions” and “the ability to intervene in any school that is failing”.
The Education Act 2011 forced state schools rated Inadequate by Ofsted to join a multi-academy trust, along with those with two consecutive Ofsted judgements below Good. As for Powell’s “fair admissions”: this is a Labour euphemism for “as it used to be”.
Now Powell is not the shadow but the actual secretary of state, with the power not just to demand disastrous changes but to implement them. Labour has already managed in two years under Phillipson to undo much of the good work of the past three decades. Worse is now to come.
