Outgoing Prime Minister condemns Paul Rowen MP over education

Date published: 27 June 2007

Tony Blair, used his final Prime Minister’s Question Time in the House of Commons today to condemn Rochdale’s Liberal Democrat MP for opposing educational reform which has seen GCSE results improve in the town.

Lib Dem MP Paul Rowen asked: "After 10 years of a Labour Government, why is the educational achievement of white British boys still so low?" And the Prime Minister responded: "It has gone up, of course, enormously over the past 10 years. One of the reasons why we now have the best results at the age of 11 for primary schools and the best results for GCSEs – in fact, in the Honourable Gentleman’s constituency there has been a remarkable increase in the numbers getting five good GCSEs over the past few years, and the best results at A-level – is the investment in our education system... if the Honourable Gentleman looked at education in his constituency, he would be hard put not to say that over the past 10 years it has got significantly better, precisely because of the investment that we put in and, if I may say so, the reform that he opposed."

Commenting on the Commons exchange Simon Danczuk, Rochdale’s Labour Parliamentary Candidate said: "Paul Rowen looked rather foolish today by trying to attack the Labour Government on education. Our town has seen record financial investment in education from our Labour Government – this has helped our youngsters dramatically improve their GCSE results since Labour came to power in 1997. Across the Borough those achieving five or more GCSE’s grade A to C has gone from 35.5% in 1997 to 50.3% in 2006. That’s a credit to the teachers and children involved, but also to our Labour Government who have made education a priority."

Mr Danczuk continued: "We’ve just seen our Labour Government offer over £150 million for "Building Schools for the Future’ and millions for a new state of the art Further Education College. I’m disappointed Mr Rowen is trying to use education as a political football in the town, though I can’t say I’m surprised following the Liberal Democrats handling of Balderstone School. Before the local elections they gave assurances that it would not close, and now the election is decided, they’ve decided to close it. Education is far too important for our town for the Lib Dem MP to try and use it as part of his political campaigning.

"I really do wish the Liberal Democrats and Mr Rowen could stop this constant attacking of our Labour Government and for at least once give credit where it is due. We’ve had some real educational improvement in the town, we need to celebrate that more and build upon it further."