KEMI BADEONOCH: Labour is driven only by ideological fervour - it has no vision for our schools and universities

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If you want to predict a nation’s future, take a look at what the Department for Education is doing. 

The seeds of a country’s success or failure are sown many years before their effect becomes clear, and the principles underlying a government’s education policy often tell you more about what it is trying to achieve than the pronouncements it makes about the economy.

It’s why I’m worried. You should be too. This Labour government doesn’t appear to have any underlying philosophy for education.

Imposing VAT on private schools is a tax on aspiration. Labour is doing it even though it knows it will force some private schools to close, leading to overcrowded classes in state schools and leaving the taxpayer to pick up the tab. It’s the politics of envy and it won’t raise a penny.

Meanwhile, abolishing Ofsted ratings is against the principle of personal responsibility and the concept of parental choice in education, which Conservatives champion.

Labour’s claims that Ofsted ratings don’t work for parents is simply not true. Scrapping the ratings has been a long-standing request of the teaching unions, not parents.

This Labour government doesn’t appear to have any underlying philosophy for education, says Kemi Badenoch 

Kemi Badenoch today launches a blistering attack on Labour's 'destructive' education policy

One of the things the Tories got right in education was opening new free schools and academies, giving choice to parents and empowering headteachers.

The Michaela Community School in Wembley serves one of the most deprived areas in London, yet 50 per cent of their grades in this year’s GCSEs were 9s, compared to 5 per cent in the country overall.

Far from championing free schools like this and maintaining freedom of choice, Labour has already signalled it wants to reduce its number (another union demand).

Running the Education Department requires a keen interest in what works, starting from first principles.

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In Bridget Phillipson we have an Education Secretary who appears to have no intellectual curiosity whatsoever, just ideological fervour.

Ms Phillipson has already scrapped the Model History Curriculum, which Conservatives spent two years developing to counter the spread of divisive educational material following the Black Lives Matter protests.

Our new history curriculum was based on the principles of belonging and pride in one’s country, intended to show children, whatever their ancestry, a positive story of how Britain came to be and their place in it.

In contrast, the academic appointed by Ms Phillipson to review the entire curriculum is so out of touch with reality she thinks setting children by ability is ‘symbolic violence’. This is student politics that has no place in education.

Labour don’t believe in free speech principles. It’s cancelled the Free Speech Act, designed to protect academic freedom in our universities. 

There is a culture of intolerance muzzling students as well as well as lecturers in academia – but Labour simply don’t care.

But we Conservatives also have to recognise we didn’t get everything right. 

Abolishing Ofsted ratings is against the principle of personal responsibility and the concept of parental choice in education, says Kemi Badenoch 

Our plans for relationship education opened up our schools to activist campaign groups pushing radical information about sex, race and gender, teaching contested political ideas as if they were facts.

We allowed too many schools to teach white children that they should carry innate guilt for things done a century ago, that they had to let boys into the girls’ changing rooms, or that girls struggling with puberty could become a boy. 

Not in every school, but in too many. These all happened on our watch, if not with our consent.

I was one of the first ministers to realise what was happening. 

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In October 2020, I told Parliament that critical race theory had no place in our schools. That teachers shouldn’t be teaching a divisive ideology that sees my blackness as victimhood and their whiteness as oppression. 

That our curriculum does not need to be decolonised. As the Minister for Equalities, I ensured we published new guidance on relationship and sex education and on children questioning their gender. 

Guidance that gave parents full sight of what was being taught to their children – and banning age inappropriate or politicised content. Labour is still refusing to say whether it is keeping it.

When it comes to the future, as Conservatives we need to talk more about young people.

Education is one of the things that provides the inspiration that young people need to build a better future for our country. We have to give them that inspiration.

When we were in power, we talked endlessly about how we were going to crack down on pointless degrees and create more apprenticeships – but we never did.

We talked Right and governed Left. Now Labour is talking about raising tuition fees again, piling even more debt on young people.

These are the young people who got put in lockdown, while being told that politicians were having parties. 

These are the young people who were told their planet is going to burn. They’ve got tens of thousands of pounds of student debt, can’t buy a house and worry they’re never going to get a good job. Of course, they’re not voting for us. 

Of course, they’re angry. When did the Conservatives stop being the party of hope?

We need to change that. From education policy to the way we communicate, the Conservative Party needs to go back to our principles and renew our offer. Aspiration. Truth. Personal Responsibility. Choice. 

And most importantly: hope. I’m offering hope, not just more of the same.