Nick Gibb is not finished. Just hours after his resignation as schools minister, it is this that he is keen to stress: when it comes to implementing the ideas he believes should dictate the education sector, he is not admitting defeat, nor does he believe his job to be complete.
“I will never cease to be deeply involved in education policy until I believe the job to be done,” he says, in an exclusive interview with Tes. “I will continue to talk to people in education about the things I believe the government needs to do.
“I am not giving up on education policy; I am just giving up on being a minister.”
Shock decision
Gibb admits he has been considering his next career move into an as-yet-undisclosed diplomatic role for more than a year.
“I have been having discussions with No 10 and the Foreign Office [for a year or more],” he reveals. “What crystalised it is: if I want to do it, now is the time to do it when there is a broader reshuffle, rather than having ministers leaving between now and the election, which I don’t think is very helpful.”
To many, the decision came as a shock. Such has been Gibb’s longevity at the Department for Education - and clear dedication to the brief - that he was widely expected to continue until the election. His success in areas such as phonics meant many thought he would survive any reshuffle.
And yet some close to him suspected that, with little power to implement change in the run up the election, he might go early rather than stagnate. They also suspected he would want to avoid being potentially embroiled in the anti-woke politics he is reported to dislike.
A conservative reformer
His departure marks the end of what is arguably the most influential stint as schools minister there has ever been, as detailed in our in-depth interview with him last year. The change during his time in office has been radical - the system is completely different from that of 2010, when he first came to office - but he doesn’t believe himself to be a “radical”.
“I see myself as a conservative, but a conservative reformer,” he clarifies. “What I want ministers to do regardless of the department is to go in and ask: what is the problem that needs to be solved? What caused that problem to occur? Find out, read, talk to people.
“I think that is a conservative approach, not a radical approach: finding out how things work and what you do to make them work. It is often the radicalism of others, the ideology of others, that has done the damage.
“It is the role of conservatives to root out damaging ideologies and replace that with what the evidence says is the right approach.”
‘I have opened the gates to the secret garden’
Critics have argued that the security of that evidence is more unstable than Gibb admits, and his use of it very selective. And while he has his supporters, as our interview last year showed, he has very vocal opponents to his tenure as schools minister, too. Does he have a message for those detractors?
“What I am very proud of is that I think I have facilitated a proper debate about education,” he answers. “A debate that only used to take place in the hallowed halls of education faculties at universities.
“I think I have helped facilitate challenge, discussion and debate, and I have opened the gates to the secret garden. And in that garden now are teachers - it is them leading the debate about curriculum content and teaching methods and pedagogy, and I don’t think that was happening before.
“We now have a proper debate within the profession, and that is one of the things I am most proud of.”
One of the biggest criticisms of his time in office has not been pedagogical, however, but around funding and the fact that schools have had to pick up the roles of various other public services that are too stretched to help young people.
On the latter, he admits there is a major issue.
“I absolutely agree that problems in other sectors - children’s mental health, for example - have no question had an impact on schools,” he says.
“If a teacher has a child with a mental health challenge, the teacher cannot book them an appointment in six months: they have to deal with that child that day. I do accept all those challenges that schools face - I know they are true and we need to work harder on that.”
Defending education funding decisions
On funding, though, he is more bullish. He believes that government always requires a compromise on where money is spent, that “someone at the centre has to make a call and [as a minister] you have to make your case as best you can”.
He is confident that he made that case and that education was funded properly within the confines of “tackling the deficit”, apart from in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 years - for which, he believes, the party paid the price.
“[Those years] led to problems in the 2017 election,” he explains, referring to the point at which education funding became a key issue.
Was he frustrated during that time?
“You just have to defend the decisions,” he responds. “Those decisions were not taken for capricious, idiotic reasoning - it was because we had a deficit to deal with.”
Next steps
Gibb is used to defending that line and facing the barrage of criticism that usually follows. He does not, however, tend to read other criticism about himself. Clearly, though, the job has worn him down.
“There comes a time when you feel you have to move on,” he says. “People underestimate how demanding this job is. It does take a toll.”
Looking back, does he think he would have stuck it out as long, caused as much debate and changed quite as much as he has if he had been given a different brief back in the late 2000s when in opposition?
“If I were doing housing, transport…I would take the same approach,” he concludes. “But I just happened to be very passionate about education.”
