08/09/2016 Newsnight

Grammar schools, faith schools -what's the Government really

If what Mrs May is planning is an expansion of today's

type of grammar school, then that will not

In fact, it will be a social mobility disaster.

We've got exclusive details of Theresa May's plan

to open new grammars, encourage new religious schools,

and to get universities and private schools involved

Also tonight, more revelations about the Commons committee split

over whether to block arms exports to Saudi Arabia.

We'll be joined by a senior MP from the committee charged

I mean, you can say, oh, isn't that a terrible thing.

The man has very strong control over a country.

It is a different system, and I don't happen

But certainly, in that system, he has been a leader more

than our president has been a leader.

As Donald Trump sings Putin's praises, and the polls tighten,

our commentators in the US pick out their standout campaign moments

And I'll be asking this writer and director

how he is remaking horror with his debut film,

set in Tehran, with not a female cliche in sight.

Earlier today Newsnight exclusively revealed that a new green paper,

is set to propose the opening of new grammar schools.

will also propose allowing further selection by faith,

and place requirements on universities and private schools

Our policy editor, Chris Cook, has had first sight of the paper,

would make selection a key factor in English education,

and a defining feature of Theresa May's leadership.

This is a pretty big deal. It is a very big deal, and a way to think of

it is, marking a moment when the Government change. It has been the

idea since 2007 that grammar schools don't work, and they kept saying

they were moving on from that. It is also intrusive into the private life

or private schools, which is a big change. It also intrudes into

universities, a game, a big change. Theresa May and universities don't

get on all that well. And finally, it shows a lack of nervousness about

faith schools, which Michael Gove was always prone to. Here is my

report. This week, the Government confirmed

its intentions over new grammar schools in England. Newsnight can

reveal it is part of a four pronged plan to improve social mobility, a

plan that is certain to attract controversy, not least because of

the research that has gone on into grammar schools. The evidence is

conclusive, that they do not improve social mobility. If you're just

looking at kids who are high attaining at primary school, about

40% of poor kids actually get into grammar schools, compared to about

two thirds of other kids. Poor kids actually stand much less chance of

getting into grammar school, even when they are performing well at

primary. The test for the Prime Minister, she is thinking about the

next generation of grammar schools, is, how can you avoid that form of

social selection, and in particular, returned to the bad old days when

there was great education for a few - excellent - and then second-rate

education for the many in secondary moderns. Newsnight has learned that

the Government's preferred way of opening new grammar schools is to

mandate them to take a proportion of their intake from advantageous --

disadvantaged as goals. They also want private schools and

universities to stop sponsoring academies. Finally, they want to

encourage new faith schools by encouraging religions to operate

schools where they select on the basis of religion. The remaining

grammar schools still have fans, particularly in Kent. Parents in

Kent as a whole C gamma scrolls and faith -based schools as engines of

opportunity and aspiration. So how good are Kent's schools? Let's show

a grasp of performance in schools are crossing. This shows attainments

in maths GCSE are crossing, starting with the poorest neighbourhoods on

the left, through to the richest neighbourhoods on far right. The

slide -- the line slopes upwards. How does Kent do? We can draw the

line in for Kent and Medway. Watch can see is, that line, first of all,

is below the line for the rest of England, so the school system is a

bit lower performing. You can also see that it is much more steep, so

poor children are further behind in Kent than they are in the rest of

England. The grammar advocates are right, though, that good

comprehensives tend to be nearer expensive places to live. If you

look at the earnings of people who grew up in grammar school areas

compared to similar comprehensive areas, you see that if you are a top

earner from a grammar school error, great, you will be earning 10% more

than a top earner from a comprehensive area, but from people

at the bottom of the income distribution, if you are a low

learner from a grammar school area, you are earning 35% less. It is

making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Can we do better? This is

footage from the popular charter school system in America. Each has a

number in what we would call a tombola. 20.

APPLAUSE Lottery is not everyone's favourite

way of doing things. They would prefer to have their child go to

their first choice school, but when schools are Rover scribed -- are

oversubscribed, you can't do that. It is a way of allocating scarce

Resorts is. Fixing admissions so that a school's intake represents

the whole area is one solution. -- scarce resources. When you have

poorer kids who are 35% less likely to be high income earners as adults

than less bright kids who come from wealthy backgrounds, that is a

failure in the state education system. It is a failure probably in

our society. Mrs Wright is -- Mrs May is right about the diagnosis.

The danger is that she is wrong about the prescription. The next few

weeks will be dominated by arguments about whether new grammar is likely

the old ones, about the virtue of faith schools, and about whether the

Government has the votes it needs to get its plans through Parliament. We

asked the Government for an interview, but they declined.

We're now joined by Neil Carmichael, Conservative Chair

This is big, isn't it? It is, it is a big change from what we expected a

few weeks ago. Last year and you said you supported the extension of

existing grammar schools but were against new ones, if that still your

position? Existing grammar schools can and should be extended if that's

what they want to do, and we have seen it happen already in Sevenoaks.

The question is about scale and speed, and it's also about the

fundamental issue of, is this going to help social mobility? Will it

actually deliver for 16, 17, 18-year-old children the right

opportunities? I'm not convinced it will. Let's go one now from talking

straightforwardly about grammar schools to talking about a really

massive change, and that is the movement of 50% intake to faith

schools to 100% thought that signals a complete change of direction for a

Conservative Government. It does. We were talking about that in the

education select committee earlier this week. Partly because we are

looking at what constitutes a good multi-academy trust, and this is

going to be very much part of the discussion. Your discussion centred

on the good mix rather than 100%? We have to focus on the quality of

teaching that happens in the classroom and the ability of

teachers to reach into those children who really need to be

helped in terms of social mobility, and I think that if we are always

talking about structure and not talking about what is happening in

the classroom, we sometimes miss the point. Argue uncomfortable with this

degree of selection? Selection is OK providing it is within a context of

a fair range of choice and is not a blunt at 11 plus system. I am

opposed to that. -- a blunt in 11 plus. And that children will be

fluid enough to move from one system to the other. It sounds like this is

not your kind of conservatism, what is being offered in the Green paper

that is coming out tomorrow, that you would like a much more mixed

approach. What matters is social mobility, and what also matters is

that we make the best use of the talent available in our country.

This will become more and more important as we move closer to

leaving the EU. It seems that this is very much Theresa May's view of

how she would like Conservative education to be. What do you believe

his/her motivation for this? I think she is right to be worried about

social mobility. I think she is absolutely right to want to give

every child an opportunity to get up the ladder, so to speak. I think

that the key is to make sure we have good schools all over the country so

that children can get to a good school, wherever they are. If the

final bill to be put before parliament looks a lot like this,

would you vote for it? I would be looking for certain things. One is a

holistic approach. I am interested in bringing in the Independent

schools. I think it is good for universities to have a role in this,

because education is a linear thing, not just blocks of this and blocks

of that. If it looked like this for your final vote, would you vote for

it? I want to emphasise that this is a consultation process. It will be a

Green paper. Theresa May says she looks at the evidence and then makes

a decision, and so will I. It sounds like you are undecided. This may not

pass without a majority. There is a political challenge there. It was

not in the manifesto, but it is something which the Prime Minister

is entitled to do as our new leader. I am as ambitious as she is in

making sure we have an education system fit for what we see as our

future - a modern Britain in a modern world. Thank you for joining

us. This week, Newsnight has exposed

extraordinary disputes within an influential

Parliamentary Committee over British arms

sales to Saudi Arabia where many civilians

have been bombed. Today, Crispin Blunt,

one of the key MPs on the committee, who appears to want to water down

key passages in the report, complained in Parliament

about the documents being leaked even calling for private

investigators to be called in. The draft report, revealed

by Newsnight on Tuesday, that weapons supplied by a British

company had been used to violate international humanitarian and human

rights laws in Yemen. Yesterday, we revealed that some

members of the committee attempting to water down

the language of the report. For example, in this

passage of the report, Crispin Blunt and John Spellar

wanted to downgrade the phrase "very serious evidence"

of human rights violations and to remove altogether a reference

to cluster munitions Today, we spoke to one

member of the committee who believes that

Britain may well have There is a very serious risk that

Britain is breaking its own laws, but the international treaties

which we are party to. about potential breaches

of humanitarian law where we may not be able

to sure that the arms

we are exporting are not going to be

used against civilians Crispin Blunt told

Parliament he was outraged the committee was unable

to deliberate on its report without it being

leaked to Newsnight. Newsnight reported

extracts of the amendments tabled by the right

honourable member and myself which can only have come

from the consolidated which was circulated to members

of the committee on Tuesday. of such deliberate

and repeated leaking of information Would you confirm that it

would not be open to the Privileges Committee

if it is referred to them to call in the police,

because it is not a criminal matter, on the services of private

investigators who have the capacity to interrogate

the electronic records, including deleted e-mails of potential sources

of this confidential and private consideration of select committees

in this instance of the greatest seriousness involving

life and death issues seriousness involving life and death

issues and the employment of tens Our political editor,

Nick Watt, is here. So, you have news

from that committee? We understand there was a bloody

meeting of arms export control committee last night, they were

bitterly divided over whether to say that British arms were used

unlawfully by the Saudis in that conflict in Yemen. There is absolute

fury. Every member of the four select committees that act as the

feeders to this export control committee have received e-mails

asking whether they were the source of the leak and I understand there

is a lot of chat about MPs saying, our e-mails and phone records going

to be trawled through? I managed to bump into the Middle East minister,

as he was heading back after a difficult week in Parliament,

interestingly he told me that the Saudi Foreign Minister told a

meeting of MPs yesterday at Westminster, 60 MPs, that yes, Saudi

Arabia has bombed schools in Yemen but crucially said they were being

used as munition dumps. But it was said that the Saudis have got to get

much better at explaining the situation is and crucially saying

that if there are allegations that international humanitarian law has

been broken, it is for the Saudis, in the first instance, to

investigate that, if Britain is unhappy, it will sanction an

independent international examination, and it was an error of

the government to say that it was Britain that does the first

investigation, in fact it is the Saudis.

Crispin Blunt is chair of the Foreign Affairs Select committee.

He is also a key member of the committee on arms export controls.

Good evening. You were very unhappy that we are talking about this, why?

The select committees, this is a rather peculiar select committee, it

is composed of four working together, but any select committee

going through the process of consideration for a report will

usually start off with a draft from one person uses the chair of the

committee, presenting a draft to his colleagues for consideration. --

from one person, usually the chair of the committee. Given the

circumstances of this committee, 44 members potentially, what you

presented last night and the night before was the opinion of one member

of that committee. Which had yet to have any discussion or consideration

by the rest of the committee, and then in those circumstances you

purported to put forward that this is the likely conclusion of the

committee, before any of the other 43 members have the opportunity to

make a contribution to the discussion about it. The way that

select committees work, there is often a discussion, sometimes around

drafted amendments drafted in, around how to get to a place where

generally select committees will agree conclusions. We made it clear

that it was a draft, we made it very clear. He certainly did not

contextualise it. I thought that we did say it was a draft. You said it

was a draft but but... But what did you do... What you did not explain

is that it is a draft from one person. Let me put it to you, you

would surely be the first to agree that there is a public interest in

all of this, if it is proved that Saudi Arabia has been... I would

hope... British weapons... ... Public interest... I would hope

there is a public interest in everything that select committees

are doing otherwise you would wonder why they are conducting enquiries,

the process by which select committees work to depend upon

within the committee people being able to have a discussion around the

issues concerned, and what we would normally... What would normally

happen, the practice my committee, would generally be that I would put

a draft report to the committee, I would have taken the trouble to have

a decent understanding of where the different members of my committee

stood on the issue and I would try to put forward a text which I

thought the committee was going to agree to, or one which was going to

command majority support. Then they have the opportunity, in informal

session, to have an informal discussion about the direction of

the report, informal discussion about the particular amendments to

it, you go through peoples considered amendments in detail. And

then, if there still remain disputes, formal proceedings of the

committee, recorded for everyone to see, if there are recorded votes,

where there are disagreements of opinion, it is all completely

transparent. Lets, let's am a let's look at... Let's look at this, we

will go to a graphic, you may probably have seen this, this is the

initial report: you change that to remove

allegations... And to include the targeting of civilian areas...

Serious discrepancies. You have said something that is completely

incorrect, you have said that I have changed that, I will not comment on

the proceedings of the committee because there is no way whether you

can know whether that was changed or not. INAUDIBLE QUESTION

I'm not going to comment on the internal proceedings... This report

is still in the process of consideration. It is now in the

public domain. The draft is in the public domain. You have put the

draft in the public domain, I am not going to be further party to that.

The agreed line from the committee is that for the purposes of you and

everyone else and the press, is the proper one, this is still being

considered, and there will be no further comment until this report.

Is it safe to say that the draft... Let me finish the question, is it

safe to say that the draft of the report, which we received, which

will broadcast on Tuesday night, which was pretty robust about

possible involvement of British made weapons in Saudi civilian targets,

do you demur from that? I do not, from the fact that you got hold of a

draft of... The issue here is one of process, what is the ability of

select committees to properly hold the government to account, and to be

able to have discussions between themselves. This is not just about

this issue, it is about every piece of work. 67 amendments... Is that

not... What that means... What that means... Kirsty, I am not... Kirsty,

I'm not discussing... I am not discussing, I'm not entitled to

discuss the workings of this enquiry, on this committee, it is

still being considered in private. Did you agree with the original

draft? Did you agree with the original draft? I'm not going to

answer that question, the point is, you, I do not think you improperly

obtained the material you got, but it was certainly improperly given to

you, the reason it is improper, and the reason... It is now in the

public... Surely the electorate has the right to know that there is a

serious disagreement in a key committee about whether British arms

are being used to target civilians in Saudi Arabia. We already know

from Nick Watt, that the Saudi Foreign Minister himself has said,

that schools had been hit. How select committees work is that the

chair put forward his draft, there is then the opportunity for all

members to put forward amendments, informally, have a discussion as a

committee, then you get to what is largely and usually can be a

completely agreed text, and then published unanimously, everyone

looks... Wait, what the collective view of the committee is. We are in

a situation now where the meeting last night. Kirsty, let me then it's

plain what happens if there is a disagreement, if at the end of this

there remains a formal disagreement between members of the committee

about the conclusions of the report, then there is a formal recorded

vote. Then people can see where people on the record... Let's be

quite clear... On the record, on the record. Lets be fair about what

happened last night, I have been told that you walked out because you

did not think you would get the amendment through, if you walked

out, the meeting would not be chorus, a vote would not be taken.

That betrays a misunderstanding of how this particular... Did you walk

out? There was not a vote? Whatever comes out of this particular

oversight of arms export control committee... Did you walk out? Did

you walk out of the committee? I'm not going to talk about a committee

process that is still under consideration. The suggestion is

that... The issue... The suggestion is that this report could not be

voted on because you walked out last night because you are unhappy that

your amendments did not get through, watering down this report, did not

get through. The reason why this is so serious is because select

committees are meant to work on a basis of trust, that the discussion

you have is not, during the course of the discussion, then subject

to... The contextualisation you put this in last night, meant that...

About 26,000 people have received... Crispin Blunt, please eff off...

Those kind of messages, they are a product of the contextualisation.

That you provided. It is completely improper. The way that the

information was given to you. Thank you very much, Crispin Blunt.

From now until the US presidential elections in November,

we'll be convening a pair of guests in America each week

to pick and discuss standout moments of the campaign,

as we try to divine the big issues on which the voters will finally

decide whether Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump

This week our guests are senior political correspondent

and former director of strategy for David Cameron,

now political commentator, Steve Hilton.

Good evening to the both of you, yet again, it has been pretty

extraordinary, this week, claim and counterclaim, great praise for

Vladimir Putin, from Donald Trump. First of all, what caught your

attention this week in the campaign? That commander-in-chief forum was

something else! It was full of all kinds of moments that would make you

question Donald Trump's usability for president. The moment I felt

stood out was not one of the more grandstanding ones, it was very

subtle, a female veteran who works with suicide prevention, she asked

about the issue, a terrible issue here in the United States. She said

something about how 20 veterans everyday commit suicide. Donald

Trump corrected her! I think that says about who he is as a person and

what he does and does not know about the militarist. -- the military. It

is almost impossible to conceive that this is happening in our

country. Actually, he was trying to be sympathetic, wasn't he. He

betrays that he does not know what the issue is, really, he keeps on

saying they need help, they need help, then he says something about

how they might be killing themselves over the long wait times, for

physical health issues, at the VA, and it is one thing to say that they

need help. That is a little condescending. All Americans need

help, all veterans need help. This suicide epidemic is an issue that

has to do with creating social networks, creating a better safety

net for these veterans. Steve, is the problem that this makes Donald

Trump sound glib, just another thing... Another thing that he can

toss out of the way. I think it is kind of marginal to the real appeal

that he has, which is precisely that he does not speak in the same

carefully crafted way that other politicians do. That is really the

source of his appeal. That has become evident this week. The polls

have tightened, this looks like a race that is essentially tied. He is

talking in a different language, he's saying things like, we must

keep this secret, how I am going to deal with the Middle East is

something you only find out if you make me president! LAUGHTER

There is an argument, which he has made directly, is that being

unpredictable in relation to foreign and security and defence policy is a

good idea, it is not a good idea to telegraph intention to your enemies

if you want to beat them. There is a kind of substantive argument

underlying that remark. I want to look at something that has dogged

Hillary Clinton, not through this campaign only, but also when she was

secretary of state, the issue of her health, she had an extended coughing

fit. I want to show you a little bit of that now.

Is there a serious issue about the way that people are reviewing both

candidates, but particularly Hillary Clinton, in terms of stamina? I am

sorry we had to watch that again. I think this is a sideshow issue, if

it is an issue at all. Millions of people saw that will stop people did

not see that a week ago she released a mental health plaque from that

dealt with suicide of veterans really directly and I haven't heard

anyone talk about that. There are issues we need to talk about, but

her health is pretty marginal. I get postnasal drip all the time. Maybe

that is what is going on with her. Donald Trump's doctor is also not

very... Made me confident about his health, but I would prefer to get

the issues. Steve Hilton, this is seized upon because of her past

health problems - is she healthy enough to be commander-in-chief? Not

only trumped by people in his campaign are feeding that out. I

agree with what we just heard about this. -- not just Donald Trump. One

of the things I admire about Hillary Clinton, not necessarily her

positions and policy platforms, but you can't deny that she is an

incredibly strong, tough resilient politician who has been there for

decades and is still there fighting for what she believes in. The notion

of a health problem, I agree, doesn't feel a serious part of the

campaign. Interesting that if you look at one statistic, it has been

227 days since Hillary Clinton held a press conference. What does that

say about the way she wants to campaign? I wonder if she held that

conference because she knocked it out of the park at the

commander-in-chief debate. She had momentum underneath. I am one of the

people who feels like our press corps doesn't necessarily do a great

job covering the presidential campaign when they have press

conferences. I think more conferences are better and she does

more of them. Whatever prompted this, I hope she does more. We can

do our part in the press to make this more about issues without her

having to give a press conference. If you were advising Hillary

Clinton, Steve, would you tell her to get in front of the press or stay

away? It is not to do with that but whether she has a message that

really mobilises people and persuade them that she would make a great

president. I think the problem right now for her is that she doesn't

really have that. Our only messages that she is not Donald Trump, and

that is not getting anyone sufficiently excited or engaged in

her campaign. Thank you both very much. Until next week, thank you.

Do horror films have a problem with women?

After all, they're hardly famous for feminist plots...

Weak women, mad women, women who fall over

Now a film is challenging these conventions.

It's the debut by British-based Iranian director Babak Anvari.

It was snapped up by Netflix when it premiered at Sundance this year

and it's about to open in cinemas here.

Under The Shadow is terrifying but starts as a social drama centred

on a woman and her young daughter who are all but confined

to their apartment in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war.

After a missile attack a demonic presence enters

Well, in a moment, I'll be talking to the director of Under the Shadows

and a feminist horror fan from the British Film Institute,

but first, we asked the veteran film critic Kim Newman to pick his top

The kitchen in the 1990s, popcorn on the stove, perhaps.

Here we meet the most literally disposable woman in horror films.

The Victim, the pretty girl terrorised and killed.

The woman who knew that there was a conspiracy to get her.

What have you done to it?! What have you done to its eyes?!

Another image of woman in horror, the Protective Mother,

fighting the monster for the life and soul of a child.

Here in Hammer's Dracula, we have the powerful archetype

of woman as vampire, as monster, as Femme Fatale.

Rural dereliction, here we encounter the final horror heroine,

the girl who outlasts all her friends and defeats the monster.

We're joined by the director of Under the Shadows, Babak Anvari,

and horror fan Anna Bogutskaya from the British Film Institute.

She is really here because she loves horror. Making this film, you took

as its basis in your childhood growing up under attack. Yes. I was

born in Iran during the Iran- Iraq war, right in the middle, and by the

time it ended, I was more or less the same age as the child in the

film, so it was basically tapping into all those memories, what I

remember from wartime. And being confined in a house, underground.

Yes, going downstairs, all of that. What was the spur to make this

horror, where the woman is the central protagonist and the saviour?

The spark of the idea came from the conversations I had with my mum,

because my dad is a doctor, a young doctor in the 80s, like the father

and a film, and he had to serve on the front line. My brother and I

have fears and night terrors, still do, and I was having a conversation,

and my mum blamed that on herself. She had anxieties. When you look at

those films there, you basically want to make a different kind of

film. You'll a different kind in what sense? Putting women in the

role of central protagonist who takes all the big decisions. The

feminist film. I didn't set out are set an agenda to write or direct a

feminist horror film, it just came naturally, because the main

protagonist is female. Anna, looking at your interest in horror, do you

see a difference between this and the majority? What I think is so

special about Babak 's film is that the centre role character -- central

character is deep, complex, and that is what makes it fascinating and

makes you engage. It is a slow burn horror. By the time the scares come

along, you are completely with them. She draws you in and you are on her

side. I wonder if in the genre there is a contradiction, or is it just

the way the genre has been prosecuted in the past that there is

a contradiction between horror films and feminist films? There is trouble

in the genre. There are always films that are very conflicted and don't

have the most positive portrayal of women, but actually, horror

audiences have notoriously been 50-50s but between men and women, so

the audience for horror films has always been equally female. I know

that Netflix snapped it up, and we are going to see it, the

psychological horror is on so many levels. It is about a woman and her

child, it is about existential danger, and it is about urban myths

about demons that will come and get you, and your mother is not able to

protect you. And herself doubt - can I protect this child? It is a

universal thing for all mothers at home. If women are re-big audience

for horror, what are they looking for? So many of the horror films of

the past do portray women as victims. Women don't particularly

want to see themselves as victims. In the video, it touched on it. The

final girl standing calls for the audience to identify with her

because the audience wants to survive. They won't identify with

the killer of the bad guy, but rather with the survivor. This film

does not take sides in the war, but I wonder if it will be able big hit

-- since it will be a big hit, what the view of the authorities in Iran

is. Women in Iran are notoriously much stronger than they are

portrayed, by and large, by outsiders. It is a big question to

ask the authorities, but it is not going to get a cinema release. I

think they usually have an issue with films being made about their

run outside Iran. It has a huge film industry. It's in the RC, it has

subtitles, but presumably they will be under the table somewhere. --

Farsi. We learned of the death of scar-

reggae pioneer Prince Buster. -- ska. Here in one of the first number

according is of him on film. This is Prince Buster performing. This song

is Wash, Wash. # Don't You Hear Me

# Wash, Wash # Yeah,

The Weather Is Unsettled Over The Next Few