UK government looks at ending Gove ban on councils opening new schools

Bridget Phillipson, UK education secretary, is looking at letting local councils open new schools for the first time in more than a decade, as she vowed to emulate the reforming “energy and purpose” of her Tory predecessor Michael Gove.

Phillipson is exploring ending the in effect 2011 ban on local councils opening new schools in England implemented by Gove, who favoured academies and free schools. 

But the Labour minister, in an interview with the Financial Times, said of Gove: “Agree or disagree there was a sense of energy and purpose and a clear sense of what he wanted to achieve. It’s hard not to admire that.”

Phillipson, a self-professed “shy girl” from a working class Wearside background who went on to Oxford university, says she wants to reform the education system to foster social mobility from early years to university.

Part of that strategy is to develop schools that children will actually attend. She says the country has an “absenteeism crisis” with one-in-five students persistently missing classes.

In a speech in Birmingham this week, she said she wanted to increase the provision of music, drama and sport alongside demanding academic excellence. She insists this is possible, even without extending the school day.

“This is not a manifesto for happy ignorance, nor is it a plan for miserable achievement,” she said. 

Phillipson said that the previous government had “tunnel vision” when it came to what a “good school looks like”, adding: “Where need arises for a new school, what’s important is the quality of the school, not the name above the door — I’m pragmatic about what that looks like.”

Officials confirmed that the education secretary was looking at allowing local councils to open new schools again after Gove introduced a “presumption” in favour of academies and free schools in the 2011 Education Act. 

Lifting the de facto ban would enable more flexibility in the system and ensure school places could be set up swiftly in the places they were most needed, the officials said.

Phillipson, speaking during a visit to a Birmingham academy primary school where students tended to goats and chickens, said her reforms would focus on three areas: children’s social care and special needs, higher education and early years.

A recurring issue raised during Phillipson’s Birmingham visit is what she calls the “crisis” in the way children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are treated. “The system is broken, it’s increasingly dysfunctional and parents have lost confidence,” she said.

She said she was determined to integrate more specialist provision into mainstream schools, in part by adding SEND inclusivity into Ofsted evaluations of schools, but also by using her capital budget to invest in the creation of more special education units in local schools.

The department received £6.7bn in Rachel Reeves’ Budget last month to spend on capital, a 19 per cent increase on this year.

Phillipson, who was brought up as an only child by her single mother in a Washington council house with no upstairs heating, says education and a nurturing home environment helped her reach Oxford university, where she read modern history and French.

She wants universities to carry on offering that path to social mobility, but says the institutions need to reform to ease a funding crisis.

This week she announced a one-year inflation-linked increase in tuition fees after an eight-year freeze — which she says was a “tough but necessary decision”.

“I’m worried about the financial sustainability of our universities.” Phillipson will set out a reform plan for the sector next year but warns that extra public money will be tight. “Change and investment in higher education has to be balanced against other education priorities too,” she said. “If we are to make the biggest difference in policy terms we know that’s in early years.”

She says university executive pay, often running into the hundreds of thousands of pounds, will have to be contained. “There should be more collaboration between institutions and further education,” she said. “There has been a squeeze right across the public sector. We expect efficiencies — a crackdown on wasteful spending and on executive pay.”

Phillipson confirmed that the Labour government would not reverse the previous Conservative administration’s in effect ban on foreign masters students bringing dependants with them on their student visas, a decision that will disappoint many universities.

“We’re not going to change that,” she said. “There is a balance we as a government have to strike in terms of overall migration policy in addition to what they as institutions might like.”

But she suggested the Starmer government would not seek to impose new restrictions on the foreign students who represent the financial lifeblood of most universities.

“International students are welcome in the UK,” she said. “We value the contribution they make not just in economic terms but soft power and the ability to make links around the world.”

Phillipson also said she was “desperately concerned” about the state of children’s social care in England, citing “the terrible outcomes for children, the massive amount of money that we’re spending as a country and the excess profiteering” by private providers that run about 80 per cent of residential children’s homes.

She said the government was looking at “legislative tools” to crack down on exploitative financial practices in the sector.

Phillipson, speaking in the Birmingham primary school’s “food cupboard” — a community resource for poorer families — said that, like Gove, she had several years shadowing the education brief to work out what she wanted to do in government.

Gove may be a hate figure for many in the educational establishment, but Phillipson said: “I hope like Michael Gove, I’ll have a decent run at it to make change happen. None of this is going to happen overnight.”