Science Teaching

Like others, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) on securing this important and engaging debate on science teaching. There is no greater champion of science in this House, and we have seen that not only today but through his work on the former Science and Technology Committee and now on the Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee. I shall comment later on some of the points that he made. We had excellent contributions from all the speakers. It is unfortunate that my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson) has had to go to a Public Bill Committee—I shall say one or two things in response to his comments shortly. I was taken with the engaging contribution of the hon. Member for North-East Milton Keynes (Mr. Lancaster). We all enjoyed hearing about the holes in his lawn, and I agree that it is a crying shame that every young person is not taught science in a fun and engaging way. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) thought that we were going in the right direction, and I share her desire and impatience for us to go further and faster. She thought that we needed to make teaching more attractive and spoke about teachers' pay. I hope that she has had a chance to see the ministerial statement on teachers' pay that we published at 9.30 this morning. It outlines the three-year settlement of 2.45, 2.3 and 2.3 per cent., which, according to the comments that I have seen to date, has been broadly welcomed by all but perhaps one of the teachers unions. Average teacher pay is up 19 per cent. in real terms over the past 10 years; for head teachers, it is up by more than 25 per cent. We have made some good progress on teachers' pay. Among his other comments, the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) spoke about his worries that top-up fees would have a detrimental impact on recruitment of science students in higher education. A provisional figure from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service for 2007-08 shows that, in comparison with the previous year, there have been increases in first-degree acceptances for physics of 10.3 per cent., for chemistry of 8.8 per cent., for biology of 3.3 per cent. and for mathematics of 9.2 per cent. I am sure that all Members who have shown their enthusiasm for science will welcome those significant increases. They follow the signs of recovery in A-level recruitment into physics, which I shall discuss later.