Labour’s Bridget Phillipson began a speech setting out her party’s policies by praising the former education secretary and Conservative MP Michael Gove for his “sense of drive and energy”.
The shadow education secretary also said Mr Gove had “determination about education being central to national life,” but that those days are “now a distant past”.
Mr Gove oversaw major reforms to exams and the curriculum during his time as secretary of state for education between 2010 and 2014, often drawing criticism from teaching unions.
Speaking at the Centre for Social Justice in London this morning, Ms Phillipson also confirmed that Labour would legislate to ensure parents cannot avoid paying the proposed VAT on private school fees.
She used her keynote speech today to set out Labour’s vision for education, as well as reveal the party’s long-term plan to tackle the ongoing absence crisis.
And she reiterated that Labour would use artificial intelligence to spot trends in absence.
But she opened her address by praising the former education secretary’s “fresh eye”.
“The days when Michael Gove, for all our disagreements, brought a fresh eye, high expectations, new focus, are now the distant past,” Ms Phillipson said.
When questioned by the media about her “tribute” to Mr Gove, the shadow education secretary said: “What Michael Gove brought to education, for all of our disagreements about many of the approaches that he took, was a sense of energy and drive, and determination. About education being central to national life.”
The recent “merry-go-round” of education secretaries in recent years showed education was no longer a priority for the government, she said, pointing out that in the space of a year, there were five different education secretaries in post and another 11 people in ministerial roles at Sanctuary Buildings.
“I think it speaks to a wider truth about how far education has been deprioritised since Michael Gove’s time,” Ms Phillipson said.
Labour would legislate against private school tax loopholes
Ms Phillipson also revealed more about Labour’s plan to remove the VAT exemption on private school fees.
The shadow education secretary was asked whether VAT would be applied retrospectively, following suggestions that some parents wanted to avoid the tax by paying fees before Labour potentially took power.
“We would make sure that the legislation is drawn in such a way to ensure that avoidance can’t take place,” Ms Phillipson confirmed.
And she said that there was a “precedent” for this in 2010 when former Conservative chancellor George Osborne announced an increase in the standard rate of VAT, from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent from 4 January 2011.
Ms Phillipson said the party would “make sure legislation is drawn in such a way that it is effective in raising the money that we need to invest in our state schools”.
Parents ‘shouldn’t take children out of school for holidays’
Over the weekend, Ms Phillipson said that she did not think “ratcheting up fines and penalties” was the way to fix attendance. However, she qualified that today, saying that fines “do have to be a feature of the system”.
“Parents shouldn’t take their children out of school for holidays or birthdays, or for other non-essentials such as that,” she added.
Some 138,905 pupils were classed as “severely” absent in the 2022-23 autumn and spring terms combined - 26 per cent higher than the levels seen in the previous academic year (110,470) and well over double the numbers seen before the pandemic in 2018-19 (57,167).
In state primaries, secondaries and special schools, the number of half-day sessions missed owing to unauthorised holiday also rose year on year by more than two million.
