Question: You've called for 17,500 new teachers. Why not find out exactly what the shortage is and then enable the schools to fill the vacancies themselves?

Phil Willis: First of all we looked at the secondary situation and calculated the 5,000 extra teachers which was based on where we were in 1997 - to bring the pupil-teacher ratio back to where they were in 1997. So 5,000 meets that pledge which we feel is a fairly reasonable starting point, given the current trickle of people actually coming into the system.

In terms of the 12,500 if you actually look at our pledge for class sizes in primary schools of an average of 25, that actually takes somewhere in the region of 5,500 into there and the rest are made up entirely of the lowering of class sizes, of the lowering of the student population which is growing through on the demographic trends. So the whole of our proposals are very very clear, very well costed and actually meet real situations.

Question: What are you going to do about retaining existing teachers?

Phil Willis: First of all is the issue of bureaucracy. Now unlike the Tories who are just going to create more bureaucracy with free schools because they're going to have other things heaped upon them. We have said, first of all we would stop all national targets and we want to have a single target for each child - there would be statutory obligation for each school to show improvement for each child, which is what schools should be there to do. What parents want to see is what happens to their child, not somebody else's child in another part of Britain.

Question: Doesn't that require basic national tests?

Phil Willis: We certainly support testing at year six, it supports base line assessments because we think that you're going to have to have base line assessments to be able to show instrumental improvement. But containing that within the school, for the start if you're in a primary school, gets rid of the whole business of these abominations of testing at the end of year one - which is heaping stress not only on the children but also on the staff, and distorting the education system.

Secondly, if you're in a secondary school and you look at what we're proposing of class sizes averaging 25, that immediately reduces not only the stress level on teachers, but gives them an opportunity to spend more time with each child. If you also look at our proposal to put in a class room assistant into all Key Stage One classes, again that creates a pupil:adult ratio which is incredibly advantagous and again supports teachers in that set up. And finally, if you look at the two hours preparation time for all primary teachers, you then end up with a situation where you are creating quality working conditions for staff. And if you talk to teachers - in fact even the NUT survey says they're not leaving because of pay, they're leaving because they're absolutely harassed to death.

Question: Would you continue performance related pay then?

Phil Willis: I certainly would not. We've made that absolutely clear in the manifesto that performance related pay, which I think even the government regards as being a farce, in terms of the bureaucracy that it has created, in terms of preparing for performance related pay, the time wasted by head teachers in actually assessing it, and the £35 million it costs to actually inspect it in terms of Cambridge Education Associates, and CFBT. We would strip that out and we would use the money which is going into performance related pay to have salary steps. The first of which would be after three years, which is based on continuous professional development. In other words, if you increase your professional confidence, which is to the advantage of the kids and school, then that qualifies you to an increase in pay - not this farcical exercise that we're going through at the moment in terms of performance related pay and threshold payments.

Question: What would you do to weed out inefficient and incompetent teachers?

Phil Willis: Well that burden has got to be put back slap where it belongs, and that's in the schools with head teachers and governors.

Question: Have they got the powers to do that though?

Phil Willis: Well they have to be given the powers to do that. I mean I was a practising head for 20 years and very seldom did I come across a teacher who could not be improved, given proper service development, guidance, help and support. But occasionally there was a colleague who, quite frankly, should not have been in the school. And on that occasion, I would have liked to have the power to be able to deal with that. And I wasn't. And we would give heads the power to do that, provided, of course, that it is within the normal safe guards given to teachers.

Question: You said you'd reform the school inspection system. Why?

Phil Willis: Well because I think all the evidence shows that if you look back at the history of OFSTED, that what it's achieved, which is certainly to bring in a rigorous inspection of schools - and we have no problem with that at all - schools need to be inspected, parents and indeed society needs to know that, having put billions into an education system, that it's working efficiently and effectively. What we're wanting to see is OFSTED moving now having established base lines in all its schools and with a proper frame work, to become a developmental tool so it's not just there to criticise and to form a hit squad, but to ensure that it is part and parcel of a continuous positive development within our schools. And that is a sort of role that Mike Tomlinson has made very very strong noises about and it's exactly the sort of tool that good companies want to see. No longer do you find in British business, or global business, companies wanting to name and shame poor employee performance - they're wanting incremental improvements all the time. Total quality management is what we're wanting to see from OFSTED and they should be inspecting that and developing it in our schools.

Question: You talked about more funding, support for teachers and reforming the inspection system. What do you want from teachers in return?

Phil Willis: Well what we want from teachers is for them to accept their statutory responsibility for every child in their charge should improve year on year, and where it doesn't there has to be an open and honest way of assessing why that isn't happening.

Question: Do you think there is at the moment?

Phil Willis: I don't think there is. I think at the moment, schools are dancing to a tune which has been set by the DfEE, down at Westminster or down at Sanctuary House rather than in the school itself. The priorities in many primary schools is not how many you can get at level four at the end of Key Stage Two. The priority for some primary schools could be how you manage children of exceptional ability, and in others it may well be those who have massive problems in numeracy and literacy, even at the end of Key Stage Two. But there is no recognition, in the present system, of the effort that goes in by countless numbers of teachers, and indeed parents, to support children who've got learning difficulties in our schools. If they don't get to level four, they're quite frankly not part of the statistics.

Question: What's your big idea for schools?

Phil Willis: Our big idea for schools is really quite simple, and it's matched in our commitment during this campaign. It's that every child, every school, every teacher, and every student matters. We're not interested, as the Tories are, in education for some, an elite. We're not interested as the Government increasingly is, of having specialist schools and the rest being bog-standard.

Question: Are you opposed to specialist schools?

Phil Willis: No we want every school to be a specialist school. We want that same half a million pounds to be available for every secondary school in the land. We reject entirely that you should have a quota on specialist schools. My goodness, if this is good enough, this is the big idea, if this is what we're trying to be, well let's make sure that every single school can aspire to be a specialist school.

Question: What new powers would you give to teachers to tackle misbehaviour in the classroom - would you give more powers to expel pupils?

Phil Willis: No I would not. There is no doubt that heads in particular need to have greater powers to be able to exclude those students who are causing extreme behavioural problems. I think we went far too far, particularly when David Blunkett announced he wanted a quota to reduce exclusions. We rejected that notion. But what you do in terms of dealing with challenging and difficult behaviour are two things: I've not met a child yet with challenging and difficult behaviour who did not in fact hate himself as much as he hated everyone around him. And raising esteem in a school does not happen if you simply throw every one out into sin bins. I support the government's view that you put in house pupil development organisation where students can be suspended from the normal curriculum, can be then picked up by units within their schools rather than kicking them out onto the streets or into sin bins. I think that's a very very positive way forward. But you must also have a whole supporting structure. We have to look at the whole curriculum for 13-18 year olds, which at the moment is grammarian in the way it has developed since 1988. So curriculum is important. Class size is important but more than that, we really do have to be able to support our teachers and give them the sorts of curriculum and class size which enables them to get to know pupils, to work with pupils and to support pupils.

Question: You said you'd abolish tuition fees. Does this mean students will never have to make a contribution to their higher education?

Phil Willis: Not at all. We would abolish tuition fees. We would, however, restore grants for the poorest of students - under the Scottish Cubie style arrangement. And what we've said is that when students graduate from university, they would pay an endowment back into the system which would support the next load of students in terms of their grants and student support. But the idea of putting a tuition fee at the gates of every university, at the gates of learning, is something which we feel is totally abhorrent in a liberal society.

Question: Universities in the UK say there's a current shortfall of £900 million pounds. How would you meet that shortfall?

Phil Willis: Well we've made it clear that we'd put £750 million from our penny on the income tax to support higher education. We would do it in terms of, yes removing the students' tuition fee and paying that directly from taxation into those universities. We would not have the blanket expansion which Tony Blair wants until we can improve the quality.

Question: So when do you think that expansion could take place?

Phil Willis: Well once you've improved the quality I think that is the time to expand. But you expand not to a quota, you expand according to student need. And the great need in our society, and it's amazing that the Tories have a manifesto which doesn't mention it, is in fact in further education, at level three. It's those students going up to GNVQ3, NVQ3 and A Level of which we are still seeing far too many students drop out at the age of 16 and never go back into learning. That's where our priorities are, that's where Claus Moser said our priority was, that's where Chris Haskins' task force said the priority was, and we want to see that addressed as a priority before we start having a blanket expansion of higher education.

Question: The NUT's Doug McAvoy described David Blunkett as one of the best Secretaries of State that we've ever had. Would you go along with that?

Phil Willis: I think David Blunkett has been an outstanding Secretary of State, in terms of the way he has worked, and the commitment he's had to education. My problem lies with some of the ideas that David Blunkett has peddled over the last four years. I think it was an abomination to introduce tuition fees for undergraduates, I think that his target obsession in mainstream schools has been misguided, but I would not criticise, nor would I deflect from the fact, that I feel that David Blunkett will go down as one of the most notable of Secretaries of State but who's squandered the opportunities that he was given.