Kit Malthouse 'thrilled and really excited by the prospect' of being Education Secretary

North West Hampshire MP Kit Malthouse has said that as the new Education Secretary, his job is to be a “demanding friend to teachers on behalf of children”.

Mr Malthouse took his place in Prime Minister Liz Truss’s newly formed cabinet when he was appointed Secretary of State for Education on September 6.

Speaking to the Newbury Weekly News this week, he explained his feelings about the new post, what he plans to achieve in it, and how he will approach his dual role of cabinet member and constituency MP.

The MP said he is “thrilled and really excited by the prospect” of fulfilling his duty as Education Secretary.

He added: “When the Prime Minister asked me to do this job I was completely thrilled, and although we had the sad period of mourning the death of the Queen, the first month or so has been fantastic.

“The officials have been great and everybody’s very positive.

“We’re building upon a story of success. Whatever people think of the last 10 to 12 years, the one big area of success has been education. Schools have been transformed over the last decade or so.

“But, there’s still a hell of a lot to do to bring everybody up to the standard of the best.”

Mr Malthouse acknowledged the huge importance of his new job, noting that the Department for Education is the third highest spending department in government, and how he now looks after 10 to 11 million children, and tens of thousands of teachers.

Although he hasn’t named any specific policies he hopes to implement, he did say that he will be “leaning in hard on the academisation programme”.

The government has a target of getting all schools into multi-academy trusts by the end of the decade in a hope of raising standards of teaching across the country.

Mr Malthouse explained: “I know that there are hundreds of thousands of teachers out there that are doing a fantastic job every day, who are working hard on behalf of their children, but it’s my job to be impatient for improvement.

“We’ve got about 700,000 kids who are still in schools that have had two requires improvement Ofsted ratings on the trot.

“Helping schools to drive that number down, working with multi-academy trusts and local education authorities to really work alongside teachers to get standards up; that’s where we are going to be impatient.”

Speaking on balancing his new role with his MP duties, Mr Malthouse said: “All ministers have this job of juggling the two and I have a great team in the office who help me with that.

“I’ve been a minister now for five years, and hopefully it adds to my ability to get things done, as well as being a good constituency MP.”