Former education secretary Sir Gavin Williamson and ex-health secretary Matt Hancock have been accused of showing “secret contempt” for teachers, after a set of leaked messages between the pair were revealed.
Sir Gavin Williamson accused teachers of looking for an “excuse” not to work during the Covid pandemic, according to the latest tranche of leaked messages from Matt Hancock published by the Daily Telegraph.
On 1 October 2020, Mr Hancock messaged Sir Gavin, who was education secretary at the time, to congratulate him on his decision to delay A-level exams for a few weeks.
“Cracking announcement today. What a bunch of absolute arses the teaching unions are,” the former health secretary wrote.
Sir Gavin responded: “I know they really really do just hate work.”
Earlier that year, in May, Sir Gavin messaged Mr Hancock asking for his help in securing personal protective equipment (PPE) for schools so they could not use it “as a reason not to open”.
He added: “All of them will but some will just want to say they can’t so they have an excuse to avoid having to teach, what joys!!!”
Exchange shows ‘secret contempt for teachers’
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said the exchange demonstrated “the chaos and duplicity at the heart of government”.
“How can any trust develop when the secret contempt for teachers and the teaching profession is laid bare like this,” he added.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the “sneering exchange” between two Cabinet ministers at a time of “the greatest national emergency since the Second World War shows an appalling lack of respect for teachers”.
“Education unions, including our union, worked incredibly hard to engage constructively with the government throughout the pandemic,” he added.
“We constantly had to sense-check and disentangle the reams of confused guidance they issued, and were often wrong-footed by bizarre policy decisions which were then followed by an inevitable U-turn.
It was an absolute shambles and the two individuals involved in these snide insults were at the heart of that shambles.”
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, called the messages a “disgrace” and “maybe show the way ministers actually talk about us behind our backs”.
“I think we have to bear that in mind when we’re thinking about our relations with them.
“We need them to be upfront and honest and straightforward, put offers on the table where we can see them,” he added.
Messages reveal dispute over schools reopening
Further leaked messages show Mr Hancock was involved in a bitter behind-the-scenes clash with Sir Gavin Williamson over moves to keep schools open during the Covid pandemic.
The paper highlighted an exchange between Mr Hancock and one of his aides from December 2020 after Sir Gavin persuaded Boris Johnson that schools in England should reopen as planned at the start of the January term.
Mr Hancock said they needed to fight a “rear-guard action” to prevent a “policy car crash” when children returned to the classrooms and started spreading the disease.
The latest messages feature an exchange between Mr Hancock and Emma Dean, a special adviser, during a Zoom meeting in which Sir Gavin convinced the prime minister the January reopening should go ahead despite concerns about the second Covid wave then gripping the country.
Ms Dean said the education secretary was “freaking out”, adding: “You can tell he isn’t being wholly rational. Just by his body language.”
Mr Hancock replied: “I’m having to turn the volume down.”
At the end of the meeting, Mr Hancock said: “I want to find a way, Gavin having won the day, of actually preventing a policy car crash when the kids spread the disease in January. And for that, we must now fight a rear-guard action.”
The Telegraph said the messages show he then contacted Dan Rosenfield, Mr Johnson’s chief of staff, to begin his attempt to have schools closed before children returned, providing him with his private email address.
In the event, on 4 January, after many younger children had returned to classes for a single day, Mr Johnson announced schools would close and exams would be cancelled amid a national lockdown. They did not reopen until 8 March.
In an article for The Telegraph, Sir Gavin said that he had considered quitting over the decision as he was so unhappy.
“Looking back now, I wonder whether I should have resigned at that point. I certainly thought long and deeply over whether I should have gone then. I just felt so personally upset about it,” he wrote.
