Isabel Hardman
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On today’s Week in Westminster, I interviewed Conservative chair of the Education Select Committee Robert Halfon and Labour peer Lord Adonis about what can be done to close that gap. Halfon has been calling for a ten-year plan for education, in the same way as Jeremy Hunt was able to secure a long-term funding settlement for the NHS when he was health secretary. Adonis knows a thing or two about big government programmes on education: he was involved in many of them under the Blair government.
Both argued that education would need to be one of the government’s priorities for the next few years if children are to have any chance. Neither were particularly gushing about the current Education Secretary Gavin Williamson. Whether or not Williamson is being fairly blamed for the chaos in his department over the past few months, it is clear that he does not have the political capital needed to pursue one of these big long-term programmes. Whoever takes over from him will need to be the sort of big political beast who can push the Prime Minister until schools have enough resources and support to close the gap. Education can’t be seen as a ministerial backwater from now on, far too much is at stake.
Because you read about department for education
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