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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well teaching is in crisis, as you just heard there, according to the Labour party.  They’ve released new figures today showing that more teachers than ever have quit the profession in the last year.  Well Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Lucy Powell joins me now from Manchester, a very good morning to you.  Now let’s clear this up as much as we can on the figures because the Conservatives say you are scaremongering, you’re talking about a figure of about 50,000 leaving the profession, they say there are now 13,100 more full-time equivalent teachers than in 2010.   

LUCY POWELL: Well our figures are correct and I think the head teachers and the unions that you’ve spoken to today will confirm that, that there are more teachers having left the profession in the last year than have joined.  The number of those leaving the profession, nearly 50,000, is the biggest number since records began.  If you ask any head teacher across the country, all will tell you that teacher recruitment is one of their biggest single concerns and even in somewhere like Manchester where I am today, and I’ll speak to many head teachers here, where we have high numbers of young graduates and high numbers of people going into teacher PGCEs and teacher courses, there is a problem here in Manchester but then when you get to places like coastal towns and rural parts of the country where it is much harder to attract teachers, the crisis there is absolutely acute and it is even a problem in places like Manchester but it is much worse in many of those coastal towns and rural parts of the country.

DM: Yes, it’s just to try to get to the heart of the matter though for people listening here because it seems to be in the territory of lies, damned lies and statistics because this again from the Conservatives, saying there are 3% more people due to start post-graduate teacher training than this time last year and you yourself used the words concerns and problems, that’s not a crisis.  You’re scaremongering.  

LUCY POWELL: I’m absolutely not scaremongering and it really is a crisis.  I mean the context to this is that we are seeing huge numbers of additional pupils coming into the system as well. They are in primary school at the moment, coming in to secondary schools where we are having to see many schools expanding, taking extra numbers so the figures of the additional number of teachers that we are going to need over the next three years for example is around 160,000 extra teachers on top of what we have at the moment so we are falling well short of that.  That is why we are seeing such big gaps in timetables and in teachers, particularly in those subjects that are so crucial to the future of our economy, in maths, English, science and modern foreign languages.

DM: Give us a prescription to put it right then, give us a prescription to cut the workload, increase the pay, cut down on the inspections, things like that.  

LUCY POWELL: Well I think the first thing that the government should be doing, and that’s why we are calling on them to do that today, is recognise that there is a problem.  As we say, they are in total denial that there is even a problem here, saying that the figures that we’re putting out are wrong.  There is a massive problem here so you’ve got to confront that problem and then you need a proper analysis about what’s causing it and I think it’s a range of issues.  Partly it’s about recruitment, we’re not attracting enough of those good graduates into the teaching profession; partly it’s about many thousands of teachers looking to leave the profession which is what we’re highlighting today, so we’ve got to look at how can we better work with teachers to make their jobs rewarding and make them want to stay in teaching because many of them actually enjoy teaching but there are aspects of the job that they haven’t been enjoying over the last few years and we’ve got to look at how we can attract people and continue to attract them by looking at pay and conditions and those sorts of issues as well.  I think it’s a very complex area but the starting point is recognise there is a problem, and there is now a huge problem in teacher recruitment, and let’s work with teachers to address some of the issues that they raise.  

DM: Okay and under Labour what kind of schools would they be teaching in?  As we all know, Jeremy Corbyn said during the leadership campaign no grammar schools, all grammars he said would become comprehensives and end the 11 Plus where it exists.  It exists in part in 36 local authorities and fully in 15 of them, it’s Labour policy that they would go?

LUCY POWELL: Well Labour policy remains that we are not going to open any more grammar schools, that’s something that the government are currently considering is that new grammar schools …

DM: But Mr Corbyn said, would the existing grammars go?    

LUCY POWELL:  … massive expansion of the grammar school system.   Labour policy is not to close existing grammar schools, we want the type of schools in the local area to be a choice for parents and local authorities, I want to devolve many of these decisions around schools to local areas so I can’t argue for that at the same time as giving out a diktat so Labour policy remains the same on grammar schools but what I will be fiercely contesting is any expansion of the grammar school system because if you look at the figures of what’s happening in grammar schools right now, less than 3% of students who attend the current grammar schools – and there are many as you just say, less than 3% of those are on free school meals, so these are not the bastions of social mobility that they once were maybe 30, 40 years ago and that’s why we will be fiercely contesting any measures to bring them back into existence.  

DM: Okay, you are allowed to have that disagreement with Jeremy Corbyn as we know.  Just on the leader, do you think he was right to go on some kind of holiday, it’s not precisely clear but he certainly didn’t attend his appointment to the Privy Council, do you think it was right not to go to see the Queen?

LUCY POWELL: Well I think he will go and see the Queen, I’m sure he will go and see the Queen.  I think it’s perfectly normal that when you are appointed to the Privy Council it takes some weeks to go to your first meeting. I think it took David Cameron when he was Leader of the Opposition three months to go to the first meeting and meet the Queen and do all of that so I think he probably has had quite a long summer and I don't know his holiday arrangements, that’s a matter for him but I’m sure that he will be going and he will be taking his full part in the Privy Council.  

DM: As an advisor to leaders, a former advisor to the last leader, would you recommend he does?

LUCY POWELL: I’m sure he will, I’m sure he will and I absolutely recommend that he does as well, yes.  

DM: Okay, one last question.  We’ve been talking about grammar schools, I wanted to ask you about private schools.  We know there are many within your party concerned about the charitable status that they have, would abolishing that be something on your agenda?

LUCY POWELL: Well we are going to look at all of these sorts of issues.  Some of the very best private schools have huge amounts of bursaries and work with their local communities to offer places to disadvantaged children and the use of their facilities to disadvantaged children.  Manchester Grammar School in my constituency is one such example but many other private schools don’t do that so we have to look at is it right that they get that sort of funding if they are not prepared to use their facilities for the local community or to ensure that they have places available to students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to go, they need to justify their charitable status.  As I say, many good private schools do that and many don’t so we’ll be looking at a range of issues like that because I think what’s absolutely critical at the moment, and we’re going to see that in the Comprehensive Spending Review coming up, is that investment in education is absolutely critical to the future of our country and the future of economy.  The Conservatives are about to slash the budgets of further education and of childcare in early years and that is something that I think is wrong for the country so we’ve got to look at we can get adequate funding into education, that’s critical.  

DM: Sorry, we’re out of time. Lucy Powell, thank you very much indeed.