Peter Fortune, MP, has warned that Labour's plans to strip schools of freedom over pay, curriculum, and staffing could cause school standards to slip across Bromley and Biggin Hill. He voted against Labour's controversial Schools Bill, warning it would "damage the future opportunities of young people".
The Government's proposals mean at least two schools in Bromley and Biggin Hill, where teachers are paid higher than national pay scales, could face pay cuts. Labour's proposals would also allow councils to force schools to expand — even if school leaders disagreed — and stop good schools from growing if they challenge weaker schools in the area. It would also stop academies from improving the curriculum, which has locally driven improvements in many schools.
In Parliament, Peter Fortune MP warned the Government's proposals were a backward step.
He said: "English education is a success story. We’ve trusted schools to get on with the job, and academies and new free schools enjoy the freedom to run themselves, pay teachers more, and improve their curriculum. Ending central and local government micro-management has put power into the hands of people who know best: school leaders and teachers. And it’s worked.
"Instead, the Government wants to wind the clocks back to empower Whitehall, not schools. This Government is so eager to be doom-mongers to justify their ideological policies that they risk wrecking a decade of progress."
In July 2024, Ofsted ranked 96% of schools in the constituency of Bromley and Biggin Hill as good or outstanding, with none marked as requiring improvement. Nationally, English education has soared up global rankings as standards improved over the previous decade. In the 2022 PISA league tables, England is ranked seventh best for maths and ninth for reading and science, up from 21st, 19th, and 11th in 2009, respectively.
Meanwhile, Scotland and Wales — where schools were not granted the same freedoms as England — have stagnated or slumped in global educational rankings. Wales ranks 27th and 28th for maths and reading, slumping to 29th for science. Scotland's maths and science rankings have collapsed to 25th for maths and 26th for science from 15th and 11th, respectively.
