Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con):...I will say this to
the Minister: well done. For the National Education Union to admit
that it was wrong was a feat of excellence. I thoroughly enjoyed it
and almost had it printed and put on my wall to celebrate. It
admitted that it was wrong that the testing would not work. Well,
it has worked really well. I saw it at first hand, both in the
local primary schools that I visited—Whitfield Valley Primary
Academy and St Margaret—which had form...Request free trial
(Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con):...I will say this to the
Minister: well done. For the National Education
Union to admit that it was wrong was a feat of excellence.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and almost had it printed and put on my
wall to celebrate. It admitted that it was wrong that the testing
would not work. Well, it has worked really well. I saw it at first
hand, both in the local primary schools that I visited—Whitfield
Valley Primary Academy and St Margaret—which had form groups coming
down and having the tests. It worked really smoothly and has given
confidence to staff and students. It has meant that those who are
asymptomatic are able to go home and therefore stop any spread.
That is really positive...
...My biggest criticism, however, is of the National
Education Union, which has been an absolute disgrace
throughout this crisis, to be quite frank. It has been more
interested in playing petty party politics than in getting schools
reopen and actually helping the people it is meant to serve, who
are children and teachers, all of whom wanted to be back in
school.
Dr Mary Bousted is on £180,000-plus a year. Kevin Courtney is
on over £200,000 a year—well above what the Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom earns. I have said it on my social media, I have
said it on radio interviews with Talk Radio, and I will say it in
this Westminster Hall debate so that it is a matter of record in
Hansard: they must resign with immediate effect. They have failed
the teaching profession. They have failed the children whom those
teachers are serving. They have damaged the reputation of the
profession and led to the impression that teachers somehow went
missing in this crisis, which could not be further from the
truth...
(Ilford
North) (Lab):...I want to address the points about exams.
Before I do that, I am afraid I have to start disagreeing with the
hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (). He
made a number of partisan attacks on the National Education
Union, which was not helpful...
...Whether it is the National Education
Union, the Association of School and College Leaders the
National Association of Head Teachers, NASUWT, the Voice section of
Community, Unite, Unison or the GMB, all of whom represent staff in
schools, they have tried to convey the concerns of their members in
a responsible way, to which we, as policy makers, should pay
attention. That does not mean that we always agree with them;
indeed, there have been points during the pandemic when we have not
been on the same page as the National Education Union and where the
unions have not been on the same page as each other. That is the
nature of representative trade unions representing the concerns of
their members...
(Ipswich) (Con):...I know that there is a bit of a
debate about the National Education Union, and I
have to say that I probably sympathise with the interpretation of
that particular issue by my hon. Friend the Member for
Stoke-on-Trent North (). This
has been an incredibly difficult situation for pupils, for
teachers, for schools and for the Government, and I think that at
various times the National Education Union could
have acted in a much more constructive way, but unfortunately it
has not. Because of that, I think it has made a difficult situation
even more difficult, and I think it has been motivated by political
point-scoring far too much. I sometimes question whether schools
would have been open at all over the last year if it had had its
way. They probably would have been closed, and they would still be
closed now...
...When it comes to teachers being prioritised for a vaccine,
I have to say that I was sympathetic to the arguments, particularly
before it became clear what a huge success our vaccination
programme is. I thought we just needed to get the schools open. If
doing that helps the situation, let us go down that route.
Publicly, I have sympathy for that view. I had one school in my
constituency approach me to say, “Look, logistically, we think we
can do it. We’ve got all the resources. If we can get the vaccine,
we think we can vaccinate all teaching staff in Suffolk within two
weeks.” I was open to working with that school. What was really
interesting is that this all ended up in the Mail on Sunday, and
there were some quotes in there from the NEU,
totally dismissing it.
Here is an example of people in the education sector wanting
to roll their sleeves up and say, “Right, let’s do this,” and just
being shot down by the NEU, which effectively said
that all teaching staff need both doses. That was my interpretation
of what it was saying. If it had had its way, there would not be
any schools open until every single member of the teaching staff
had had two doses—how long would that take?
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