Gove denies U-turn on school cuts

11 June 2011 Last updated at 15:43 GMT Michael Gove said he wanted to be sure services were providing value for money

The education secretary has denied making a U-turn after agreeing to review funding cuts for councils.

Michael Gove said they were "accelerating the pace of reform" and the review was needed because of the growth in academies.

Councils provide support services such as special needs education for state schools, but not academy schools.

Ministers had said the grant to provide such services would be cut by ?148m this year and ?265m next year.

In May, 23 councils threatened legal action saying the method used to calculate the cut breached guidelines.

'U-turn'

Mr Gove told the BBC some Labour local authorities were "a bit unhappy" about the pace of reform, but "the truth is at the moment we're actually providing funding to local authorities and to schools for the same service".

The education secretary said they had to make sure the taxpayer "is not paying twice".

Labour says the decision shows changes are being pushed through too quickly.

"This is the third time in a year that Michael Gove has had to U-turn under the threat of legal action," shadow education secretary Andy Burnham said.

"And the reason that it keeps happening is that he is railroading his policies through without proper consultation, without listening to parents, to teachers, to local councillors."

'Hideously complicated'

National Association of Head Teachers General Secretary Russell Hobby says funding formulas for schools are "hideously complicated".

"I think if we were charitable we'd be calling it a refinement of the policy here. The government's been moving at pace, in some cases rushing into things and I think then you find out that implementation is not as clear as you thought," he said.

"They've found that it's not as simple as cutting out the money that would have been spent on those schools when they become an academy."

But a spokesman for the Department of Education said it welcomed the opportunity to re-enter discussions with local authorities.

He said the need to review funding reflected the popularity of the academy programme.

According to the Department of Education website, 1,244 schools have applied to be an academy since June 2010 and 704 academies are in operation.

Reduced grant

Academies are outside of the local authority support structure, and receive no services from councils. Instead, they receive their funding directly from the government.

Once operating as an academy, the school receives the same per pupil funding as other state schools. However, it also gains control of a portion - up to 10% - of its budget which would previously have been held back by the local authority and used to provide services across the borough.

The Department for Education, through the local government settlement, said it was reducing the grant available to councils for support to schools to compensate for this.

The councils claim this cut has been calculated by deducting the amount it will cost individual academies to run those services themselves, rather than by the amount that councils will save by not providing them.

This, they argue, will leave them out of pocket and is against the government's own guidelines, known as the New Burdens Rules, on such matters.

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MP denies sex assault allegation

10 June 2011 Last updated at 21:54 GMT Andrew Bridgen became an MP at last year's general election MP Andrew Bridgen, arrested on suspicion of sexual assault, has said allegations against him are "wholly false".

The 46-year-old Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire was arrested on Thursday morning.

Mr Bridgen postponed his surgery at Whitwick Community Coffee Shop on Friday afternoon.

He has been bailed to a date in mid-July but the police stressed he had not been charged with any offence.

'Real hurt'

In a statement he said: "The allegations made against me are wholly false and without foundation. Fortunately, they are also demonstrably and provably false.

"I have been happy to co-operate fully with the police and I am completely confident that, after proper investigation, I will be fully exonerated.

Continue reading the main story

This assertion, which is demonstrably and provably untrue, is not supported by the facts, to which a witness exists, namely that I was at no time alone with this woman and that no such assault took place”

End Quote Andrew Bridgen MP "This has caused real hurt and distress to my friends and family, and must be a concern to my constituents.

"I am naturally angry that I have been targeted in this mischievous and damaging way, and I will be taking advice about this.

"But I would like to thank my constituents and colleagues for the many messages of support that I have received."

An earlier statement, issued on the MP's behalf said he was planning to stay away from his constituency.

It said: "Because of the high level of media interest, Mr Bridgen has decided to stay in London until at least next Friday and, as a result, regrettably, this afternoon's surgery at Whitwick Community Coffee Shop has been postponed."

'Witness exists'

The married father-of-two was arrested in central London in the early hours of Thursday.

The backbench MP and former Royal Marine, who entered Parliament last year, is accused of assaulting a 29-year-old woman, the BBC understands.

Later on Friday, he said a video featured in the media, which was said to show the woman phoning police shortly after the alleged incident, "offered nothing new".

He said: "The alleged content of this video offers nothing new, and merely repeats an assertion of which I am already aware.

"This assertion, which is demonstrably and provably untrue, is not supported by the facts, to which a witness exists, namely that I was at no time alone with this woman and that no such assault took place."

After training as an officer in the Royal Marines, he worked for his family's gardening business and set up a fruit and vegetable firm with his brother in 1988.

He won the marginal Leicestershire North West seat back from Labour in 2010 with a swing of nearly 12%, after the early death of Labour MP David Taylor.

In the Commons he is a member of the Regulatory Reform Select Committee.

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Giggs row MP denies flouting law

24 May 2011 Last updated at 16:02 GMT Mr Hemming named Ryan Giggs in the Commons John Hemming has denied accusations that he abused parliamentary privilege by naming the footballer at the centre of a super-injunctions row.

The Lib Dem MP argued he had not used privilege at all as he could have named Ryan Giggs outside the Commons - because his name was already public.

But Labour's John Cryer suggested it had been an "act of gross opportunism by a politician on an ego trip".

MPs are protected from prosecution over statements made in Parliament.

Birmingham Yardley MP Mr Hemming named Giggs on Monday as the footballer who had used a super-injunction to hide an alleged affair.

But some of his fellow parliamentarians have questioned whether it was an appropriate use of parliamentary privilege to expose a footballer.

'Above the law'

On Tuesday Labour's Stella Creasy asked Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg: "Could the deputy prime minister update the House on discussions he has had with government and party colleagues on the circumstances in which Parliamentarians should be above the rule of law?"

Mr Clegg replied: "I don't think anyone should be above the rule of law and if we don't like the law we should act as legislators to change the law and not flout it."

Labour MP Mr Cryer went further, telling MPs on Tuesday: "I think a lot of people in [the Commons] and outside find it very difficult to to see exactly what the public interest is in naming that footballer, apart from an act of gross opportunism by a politician on an ego trip."

He asked that the Speaker "reiterate the traditional attitudes of the House towards this kind of gross abuse of privilege".

Commons Speaker John Bercow rebuked Mr Hemming on Monday, telling him that "occasions such as this are occasions for raising the issues of principle involved, not seeking to flout for whatever purpose".

But on Tuesday, Mr Hemming denied he had used parliamentary privilege at all - arguing Giggs's name was already in the public domain, having been published on the internet, and that he would not have been prosecuted for contempt of court if he had named him outside Parliament.

"Privilege is an important issue and it does need to be used responsibly," he said.

"To have abused privilege I had to use it in the first instance, no one has evidenced to me the basis upon which it would have been contempt of court for me to make the speech I made yesterday (Monday) outside the House - and if it wasn't contempt of court outside the House it can not be an abuse of privilege."

'Judge and jury'

The footballer's lawyers have also obtained a High Court order asking Twitter to reveal details of users who had revealed his identity after thousands named him.

Mr Hemming has argued it was that move which prompted him to take action on Monday.

He told MPs he had a "long term concern about secrecy in court processes", adding he was concerned that legal action had been "kicked off against users of Twitter": "Someone should not be able to hide behind anonymity to take action against others."

But he admitted he had not seen the injunction in the Giggs case - Conservative MP Adam Afriyie asked him: "Why he thinks he is the judge and jury on whether or not certain people under court order should be named in this place?"

Mr Hemming is not the only Lib Dem to reveal details of injunctions in Parliament. Last week Lord Stoneham - acting on behalf of Lord Oakshott - also revealed details of the privacy order made in the Fred Goodwin case in the House of Lords.

Conservative backbencher Peter Bone, who told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "John Hemming has had a long history of campaigning against super injunctions and secrecy and if he feels he wants to do that then he has an absolute right - within the rules and regulations of the House of Commons."

But he noted that the Commons Speaker did "jump in and suggest he was a little more careful about what he said".

Last week the most senior judge in England and Wales, Lord Judge, questioned "whether it's a very good idea for our law makers to be flouting a court order just because they disagree with a court order, or for that matter, because they disagree with the law of privacy which Parliament has created".

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