Education secretary Gavin Williamson was todaytold to show “more humility” over this summer’s GCSE and A-level grading fiasco.
With Mr Williamson facingquestions in the House of Commons over his role in the exam grading chaos, Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, said heshould “pray” that he doesn’t find himself in the same situation next summer.
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MsPhillips told MPs: “What I ask the secretary of state today is to give me confidence as a parent that I am not going to be faced in August next year with having to lobby for the change to be made, because another unfair system has been borne out on children who cannot afford to pay for their education, who could not afford to have computers in their homes.
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“So I wish that the minister would show more humility.
“I am the representative for Birmingham Yardley. I have a very eminent predecessor, the now Baroness [Morris] of Yardley [former education secretary Estelle Morris], and when she felt that she hadn’t done her very best, when she was in the position the secretary of state is in today, she said that the children and the schools and the teachers mattered more than her job.
“That is the kind of humility that I would expect from a government, and it is not one that I have seen.
“And all I can say is that in August next year he better pray that he doesn’t find himself in the same situation.”
Mr Williamsonagreed to release some of the correspondence between ministers and special advisers linked to the summer grading fiasco.
But the education secretary stopped short of agreeing to Labour’s demand for full disclosure, claiming this request “fundamentally undermines” the need for open discussions between ministers and officials when developing policy.
