Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said it was her job to ensure education “backed the agenda”.
Phillipson was asked a popular question: Rest leads politics A podcast hosted by former Labor spokesman Alastair Campbell and former Conservative minister Rory Stewart.
She spoke about why private schools need to cut their clothes, areas where she wants to emulate Michael Gove and what Labour's curriculum changes could entail.
Here's a compilation of the best bits…
Private schools must consider 'how the cloth is cut'
AC: What is your overall attitude toward private education?
BP: So I think parents can decide where to educate their children, including private schools. Personally, that's not a choice I can make. I believe in public education. My children go to public school.
As the Shadow Education Secretary, my focus when I go into government if I win the next election will be to raise standards in public schools. But to do that, you need to save up some money. And that's why I think it's the right decision to end the tax benefits that private schools enjoy.
RS: Would you like to live in a world without private schools?
If I were to start from scratch, I don't think I would start with selection within the school or selection across private schools.
But I think it's hard for parents to escape the need to choose where to educate their children. I don't think taxpayers should subsidize that choice.
RS: Are you thinking about how to support kids making that transition?
So I looked very carefully at the report prepared by the Institute for Public Finance on this policy. And they concluded that our policy would result in a net increase of £1.3 billion to £1.5 billion, which would take effect regardless of any changes as you have described.
They expect this policy to have little effect, but mainly because private schools have been raising tuition massively, year after year, exceeding inflation, and there has been no change in those numbers. And increasingly, they are moving out of the middle-class market.
When I was growing up, even in the Northeast, I knew people who went to private schools. I think you'd have a hard time finding a similar number of people in a similar situation right now. In part, that's because fees are much higher than they used to be.
Schools can absorb those costs. Schools can therefore choose how to price tuition and what level of provision they provide.
To be honest, there has been an arms race around capital spending, especially among many private schools. Public schools have made some really difficult choices in recent years, and I think private schools might want to consider how they cut the cloth.
In fact, we are in a situation where we are witnessing significant population decline across the country due to declining birth rates. I do not accept that large numbers of children will be out of school. But we are already facing a situation where schools are being consolidated and closed as the number of children coming through the school system declines.
RS: Having to change schools midway is a disruption. So it seems like a lot of the conversation is about finances and numbers, but not so much about the actual kids.
I have carefully observed that 93% of our country's children attend public schools. And I think this is the right thing to do. This is bringing enormous attention to a relatively small part of our school system.
And I think it's absolutely right to ask questions about the impact of policy. We made sure we considered all the implications, and we absolutely did.
But I want to make sure that the 93% of children in public schools have the teachers, support, and mental health services they need. And we will use that money to provide more teachers, more mental health support, and better training and development within the state system.
Getting an education supports my job ‘agenda’
AC: I did an interview. [former Labour education secretary] David Blunkett has recently been at the forefront of feeling that education has been pushed off the political agenda. Do you agree that education has gone down the political agenda and that we need to revitalize it?
BP: It's my job to get it back on the agenda. I think it's easier to do that in government than in opposition.
And when I look at the importance of education as a current issue, [19]After '97, the importance of education as an issue started to increase particularly when Labor was in government and they were doing a lot of work around schools and there were key moments when policy was announced. With the public.
Phillipson learned from Gove's 'focus and drive'
RS: What do you think was good and what was bad? [former education secretary] Michael Gove [former schools minister] Did Nick Gibb reform education?
BP: So what I want to say about Michael Gove in particular is that he brought real drive and determination. He was clear from the beginning what he wanted to do. He did it again and again.
And I believe there is a lesson there. They also captured evidence of what worked and developed it further.
So the Conservatives will be talking a lot about introducing phonics across schools. Of course, I also had this conversation with Nick Gibb and he gently pointed out that it was Labor who first started this and then continued it. I think this shows the benefit of continuity in policy-making in a field like education.
It was the Conservative Party that introduced the national curriculum. I think that was a good development. I think we need to reform the curriculum we have now.
But that focus and drive, I think, has enabled Michael to put education much more central to the work of the Conservative government than it might otherwise have been. And that's definitely the lesson I learned.
Creative curriculum issues in public schools
AC: Please tell us some changes you would like to see in the curriculum..
BP: I think there is a real problem with creativity in our public schools and the lack of access for our public school students to music, sports, art and drama. I don't think it should be the preserve of parents who can afford to pay extra for weekends or after school.
And I want to make that a really important part of the future curriculum. I also think we all have a strong focus on reading and phonics, and I support that. I especially forgot about early math.
So we focus on early maths, numeracy and ensuring our children have a strong foundation. We are falling behind as a country in that regard.