Conservatives discuss their record at party conference

The Conservative party have held their annual conference in Birmingham, with the party’s leadership contest in full swing. Focus on that contest meant that, in common with most of his shadow cabinet colleagues, shadow education secretary Damian Hinds did not give a speech on the main conference stage. However, there were a number of education discussions at fringe events.

Talking to an event jointly organised by the NEU and the Conservative Education Society, Mr Hinds mounted a robust defence of the previous government’s record, saying he wouldn’t let Labour ‘trash’ the period from 2010 to 2024 when ‘brilliant teachers delivered brilliant results supported by our reforms’. Speaking about regrets from his time in government, where he was Education Secretary from 2018 to 2019, he said he wished he had been able to get ‘education funding on to a rational, long-term footing’, and hoped this could happen in future.

Meanwhile Gagan Mohindra, appointed as a shadow education minister following the general election, told a fringe event organised by the NASUWT that the previous government hadn’t done enough to fix the SEND crisis, despite having invested more money. He told attendees: ‘Yes we were fighting both the pandemic and the cost of living crisis and the rest of it, but actually the inability for politicians to step in when those most in need needed our support, I think is something we should hang our heads in shame and apologise for, and I’ll happily do that on stage today.’

Elsewhere at the conference, former schools minister Jonathan Gullis - who lost his seat at the recent general election - revealed he had been applying for education jobs but had been unsuccessful so far. He suggested lack of success could be down to his status as a former Conservative MP: ‘I do think, there’s a lot of schools that will see who I used to represent and maybe my views which they may not like and because of that, not because of what I can do as a teacher, but because of that I won’t even be given an interview.’

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