Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

One of the purposes of the phonics check, which we introduced in 2012, is to identify early on those children who are still struggling with the basic reading skill of decoding. We expect schools to focus their resources on helping those children, which is why they retake the check at the end of year 2 to ensure that no child slips through the net. As a result of our policy on reading and the introduction of the phonics check in 2012, 102,000 six-year-olds are today reading more effectively than they would otherwise have done had Labour stayed in office.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Given that two secondary academies in my constituency have recently been judged inadequate by Ofsted—one having previously been judged as outstanding, the other as good—the Secretary of State will understand that many of those parents would like to see her working closely and quickly with those schools to get them back to where they need to be. What action is she going to take to ensure that those children in Stockport and in Tameside receive the life chances they deserve?

[Nicky Morgan]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that a good education is exactly that: it is all about enhancing the life chances of all the young people at those schools. If he wants to let us have the names of those schools, I am of course happy to follow the issue up with DFE officials and the regional schools commissioner, as well as working with the heads directly.

Apprenticeships

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

rose—

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Umunna]

I will give way to—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his one intervention. I will come on to deal with pay and the 2 million figure he gives, but first I will give way to my hon. Friend.

[Andrew Gwynne]

May I thank my hon. Friend for the support that he and the Labour Front-Bench team gave to my private Member’s Bill in the previous Session? The Government talked it out, and does he not think that that was a wasted opportunity, because for every £1 million of capital investment in public procurement, we could have secured an additional apprenticeship?

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. I congratulated him at the time on his Bill, and we should continue to remind this House of the efforts that were made then and the wasted opportunity to which he refers. The reason he introduced that Bill was clearly because he read the OECD’s review of vocational education and training, which found that few countries achieve strong engagement in vocational education and training without a strong apprenticeship system. Now, that will not automatically happen on its own. Government must play an active role, not in a top-down, command-control fashion, but by using their convening power in an enterprising, entrepreneurial way, working in partnership with business to address the problem and to increase productivity. Before I explain how we aim to achieve that and consider what the Government have done during this Parliament, when I will touch on that 2 million figure, I want to say something about our record, because I am sure it will be referred to.

I accept that when Labour left office there was an outstanding need to increase the number and improve the quality of apprenticeships in our country, but before Government Members get too excited, I should say that it would be wrong to claim we did not make any progress. In government, we more than quadrupled the number of apprenticeship starts from a woeful 65,000 under the previous Major Government in 1996-1997 to 280,000 starts in our final year in office. Apprenticeships were simply not on the radar when we entered office; they were very much on the radar when we left office. We used the weight of government to begin the culture change we need. So from the 2012 Olympics to Building Schools for the Future projects up and down the country, we linked the creation of apprenticeships to public procurement across a number of Departments. We set up a dedicated National Apprenticeship Service to support and expand apprenticeships. I speak to many young people who tell me that they were signposted to the apprenticeship they are now doing by visiting the service’s website. Of course, it was also Labour in government that established national apprenticeship week in 2008, and the week is now an annual event in the national calendar. I am proud of our record. I am proud that this Labour party rescued apprenticeships from the scrapheap.



The current Government have sought to build on the foundations we put in place. They say that since we left office they have overseen the creation of 2 million new apprenticeship starts, and the hon. Member for Gloucester referred to those. I do not think there is any point boasting about numbers if the apprenticeships are not of sufficient quality. I will come to that in a moment, but first let us look at their claimed numbers. How many of the 2 million apprenticeships are really new apprenticeships and how many have emerged as a result of rebadging—in other words, re-labelling existing work a person is already doing in the workplace as an apprenticeship? A very large proportion of additional apprenticeship places created by this Government have come in the post-25 age brackets. The largest percentage rise in apprenticeships under this Government has actually been among the over-60s, where the increase has been 520%. According to the 2014 apprenticeship pay survey, 93% of adult apprentices already worked for their existing employer before starting their apprenticeship. That would suggest that many existing training schemes, such as those delivered under the old Train to Gain programme, have simply been rebadged and re-labelled as apprenticeships.

That is the situation on apprenticeships for adults. The shortage is perhaps most acute among young people, so what is happening to apprenticeship starts there? The number of 19 to 24-year-olds starting an apprenticeship has fallen by more than 6,000 in the past year. In fact, the number of 19 to 24 apprenticeship starts is currently falling in every single region outside London. Overall, the share of apprentices who are under 25 has fallen from 84% in 2009-10 to 64%, and the share of apprentices who are under 19 has fallen from 43% in the last year of the Labour Government to 28% under this one. So the simple fact is this: for all the boasts, there has been some jiggery-pokery with the numbers. The bottom line is that we need many more apprenticeships and we need to raise employer demand for them. Half our large employers do not offer any apprenticeships at all in Britain today—that is totally unacceptable. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), the shadow skills Minister, has said previously, when it is harder to get an apprenticeship with Jaguar Land Rover than it is to get into an Oxford college, it is pretty obvious that more needs to be done.

The numbers are one thing, but I said that I would say something about quality. In most other northern European countries apprenticeships are level 3 qualifications lasting between two and five years, and they include at least one day a week of off-the-job learning, as well as significant on-the-job training. In England, most of the growth of apprenticeships in recent years has been at a level that would simply not be recognised in those countries. Just 35% of our apprenticeships are at level 3 or above, and just 2% are at level 4. In fact, according to the Department’s own figures, published in its apprenticeship pay survey, one in five apprentices does not even receive any formal training at the moment. The figure increases to almost a quarter of those in the 19 to 24 age bracket, who are not being properly trained. If we truly want to ensure more parity of esteem between the academic and the non-academic—between the way people view university degrees and the way they view these types of vocational and technical qualifications—how can we hope to do that when they are not of sufficiently good quality? We have got to raise standards. Even where apprentices are receiving training, far too many of them are still not receiving the appropriate minimum wage—15% are paid below the appropriate national minimum wage, with the figure rising to 20% for 19 to 20-year-olds.

I will come on to address how we intend to encourage more private sector employers to provide more and better quality apprenticeships appropriate to their needs, but surely government, as one of the biggest employers in the country, should be setting an example, both in recruiting as many apprentices as possible and in providing good-quality apprenticeships. The civil service apprenticeship scheme hired just 200 apprentices in 2014. That is 200 out of more than 400,000 civil servants, which is just not good enough. Never mind the Departments themselves, Government should be doing more in this area. They should use their clout as a procurer of goods and services to get more employers in the private sector to provide apprenticeships.

Our Labour colleagues in local government have already been leading the way in utilising procurement to boost apprenticeship numbers. Newham, Knowsley, Sheffield and Manchester have all developed strategies to use procurement contracts to create apprenticeship opportunities for young people locally. Central Government should do the same, as those opportunities are simply not happening to the degree and on the scale required.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is right. There is a German model that seems to work for that country, and Austria is another example. Their approach is different from ours, but it has given them consistently high levels of skills in manufacturing industries, in particular. We should learn from that. There is an element of compulsion and levying that we have moved away from in the UK. However, I am certainly happy to learn from Germany on this and other things.

[Andrew Gwynne]

There are also some very good examples here in England. May I commend to the Secretary of State the work of Labour-controlled Tameside council, which covers part of my constituency and which has established a local apprenticeship company from which SMEs can draw down apprentices, even though the local authority is running the company?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, I believe there are lot of good models of that kind, and I commend the one that the hon. Gentleman mentions.

That leads on to another issue that the shadow Business Secretary raised—devolution and how we capture decision making to a local level. He is right that we should have as much devolution as possible. That is what we are trying to do through the city deals and the local deals. There are many good models. Leeds is one, and Manchester is also getting off the ground. Sheffield is pioneering a lot of the local-level commissioning of apprenticeships that is particularly good for getting through to SMEs.

Devolution is not simply about local government or LEPs. One thing we had to do when I came into office was strip away some of the bureaucracy governing further education colleges as leading providers. We had to simplify greatly a very bureaucratic top-down system. Devolution is also about devolving to companies, and one of our major initiatives—employer ownership schemes and the trailblazers, which set industry-level standards—has reduced bureaucracy for small companies and helped them at industry level to formulate standards that they can use. Devolution is not just about local government.

Electoral Registration

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for confirming the point that I was seeking to make a short while ago.

There is some good news. Many people out there are not prepared to put up with this inequality. I pay tribute to all those involved in registering people to vote—it is a tough job, but critical—from local authority electoral registration officers to political party activists of all parties pounding the pavements, and from the NUS to HOPE not hate, Operation Black Vote and our trade unions, who tirelessly work to get people registered. I also pay tribute to the Daily Mirror’s No Vote No Voice campaign, getting its readers and their families and friends registered to vote.

In particular, I want to pay tribute to and thank Bite the Ballot, the architects of tomorrow’s national voter registration day. Anyone who has been involved in one of their sessions with young people cannot fail to be impressed by the infectious enthusiasm of Mike Sani and his team. It is a real pity that the Prime Minister chose to snub their leaders’ debate, although it is perhaps indicative of how some in the ruling classes view younger voters.

To complicate matters further, the whole way we go about registering to vote is undergoing a fundamental change. Yes, it was the last Government who, in 2009, legislated to introduce individual electoral registration. That legislation was shaped by the experiences in Northern Ireland—when they moved to IER, there was an 11% fall in the numbers registered, so to counter that a transition period was put in place for long enough to prevent a repeat. Safeguards were also put in place at key milestones to check against any deterioration in the completeness of the register. Colleagues on both sides of the House welcomed that careful and considerate approach to moving to IER.

The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), now Madam Deputy Speaker, who in those days spoke for the Conservative party, said:

“I am very pleased to have the opportunity to put it on the record once and for all that we agree with the Government that the accuracy, comprehensiveness and integrity of the register and of the system is paramount. That is one of the reasons why we will not oppose the timetable the Minister has suggested this evening.”

The then Liberal Democrat spokesman said:

“I do not think that anybody was suggesting that the timetable be artificially shortened, or that any risk be taken with the comprehensiveness of the register.”—[Official Report, 13 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 108-12.]

After the last general election, the coalition, in its arrogance, decided to rip up the cross-party approach supported by all sides in the previous Parliament. The coalition agreement contained a commitment to

“speeding up the implementation of individual voter registration”,

and the Government introduced the reckless Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, which removed the voluntary phase and instead introduced compulsory individual electoral registration from July 2014.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. He correctly predicted the drop-off in the electoral register, and the scrapping of the voluntary arrangement in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 is the root cause of these problems. Does he share my concern that the loss of those electors will lead to the long-term deterioration of the electoral register?

[Sadiq Khan]

Absolutely. Having fewer and fewer people taking part in elections is a bad thing for all of us. The Government’s justification for getting rid of the voluntary phase was that it would save money, but it is right to remind the House that we warned that speeding up the process and stripping out the key safeguards was gambling with the completeness of the electoral register. We were not alone. Similar warnings were voiced by experts, academics, the Electoral Reform Society and the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who is in his place. We take no satisfaction in saying, “We told you so.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

As the hon. Lady mentioned, Ofsted published a report this morning on The Durham free school, and I was very concerned to find that the children had been let down by a catalogue of failures, as reported. Because I do not think there is any imminent prospect of improvement, the regional schools commissioner has today written to the school, informing it of the decision to terminate the funding agreement. I am happy, of course, for there to be a further discussion—if not with me, with one of my ministerial colleagues—about the information that can be made available. There may be some issues of confidentiality or sensitivity, but I will of course endeavour to keep Members updated.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will know that in 2013-14, her Department spent £328 million on oversight of academy schools, yet the National Audit Office said that her Department still does not know enough about school-level governance. Does she think that is good enough, and what is she going to do about it?

[Nicky Morgan]

We do not agree with the National Audit Office conclusions. We take a close interest in the way all academies and free schools are run and governed, and we of course work with local authorities in respect of maintained schools. We want all children to have access to a good local school, and I think it important to note that since 2010, 1 million more children are in good and outstanding schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful for that question. There is already an Oxford, Cambridge and Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, or OCR, GCSE qualification called “Religious Studies GCSE (B): Philosophy and Applied Ethics”. The philosophy of religion will feature in the new revised religious studies GCSEs. There are also post-16 level 3 qualifications in critical thinking and philosophy. There is significant choice in schools for students wishing to study philosophy.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The National Audit Office has raised concerns about the DFE’s accounts relating to the academies programme. The NAO qualified signing off the DFE’s accounts, given uncertainties and errors. What has the Secretary of State done to ensure that these serious financial irregularities have been addressed by her Department?

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman will know that qualifications to accounts do not necessarily equal the same as the severe financial irregularities to which he appears to allude. I hold regular conversation updates with the permanent secretary and officials to look at the status of the Department’s financial statements.

Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

That is an interesting point, but it is a matter for the Church. The Bill seeks to affect the process by which female bishops can enter the House of Lords, but the question of which female bishops occupy which position is a matter for the Church. I agree with the hon. Lady’s sentiment that women have waited for this for a long time.

The remaining 21 bishops take their seats on the basis of seniority. When a vacancy occurs, it is filled by the longest-serving bishop, and that is why we have the Bill before us today. Clearly, the present seniority rules mean that it would be many years before a female bishop would be eligible to sit in the House of Lords. In consequence, the Archbishop of Canterbury, after consultation the Lords Spiritual and others, requested on behalf of the Church of England that amendments be made to the arrangements under the Bishoprics Act 1878 to enable female bishops to enter the House of Lords sooner than they would under the current rules.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

As a Stockport Member of Parliament, I was delighted when Rev. Libby Lane was appointed Bishop of Stockport. However, she is a suffragan bishop and will therefore have no automatic right to take a seat in the other place. What assessment has the Minister made of the Church of England’s ability to appoint women bishops to represent dioceses, so that they will become eligible to sit in the other place?

[Mr Gyimah]

The length of time involved will be a matter for the Church. The Bill, which could come into effect by the end of this Parliament, would mean that whenever a vacancy occurred in the House of Lords, a female bishop occupying a diocesan seat would be able to leapfrog the next male bishop in line. So we could see the first female bishop in the House of Lords as early as the start of the next Parliament, but the question of who that will be is a matter for the Church. I shall say more about that later.

The arrangements that the Bill will put in place will last for 10 years, by which time it is expected that there will be a pool of both male and female bishops. This is therefore a temporary arrangement that will sunset at the end of that 10-year period, by which time it is anticipated that the issue it is intended to address will have ceased to exist.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I accept what the Minister says about introducing measures to allow women bishops to leapfrog others so that they can be appointed to the House of Lords, and I appreciate that individual appointments are a matter for the Church, but what assessment has he made of the number of bishops in the Church of England who are coming up for retirement? That assessment could be useful in informing us about the appointment of women diocesan bishops.

[Mr Gyimah]

It is not for the Government to make such an assessment, but we believe that the 10-year period will allow enough time for the Church to appoint a sufficient number of women as diocesan bishops and that, once they have become eligible for appointment to the House of Lords, they will be able to fill those positions as and when they become available. However, that is a matter for the Church, and the Bill has been put together in consultation with the Church, which will ultimately control the number of bishops. Ten years is seen as sufficient time in which to enable the Lords Spiritual to reflect the number of women bishops.

--- Later in debate ---

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the Bill in front of us today. Indeed, I think we can all appreciate that it is a direct consequence of the decision by the General Synod of the Church of England on 17 November 2014 to allow women bishops. It is worth paying tribute to it once again for passing that legislation. It is something for which many of us have argued for many years. Indeed, in making the arguments to have women bishops, we often employed the exhortation that we should have women represented in all aspects of public life in this country, and at all levels of decision making, including at very senior levels not only in the Church but in Parliament as well.

This Bill is very much to be welcomed. But it is, none the less, worth taking just a few minutes to explore why we need a measure that will speed up the ability of women bishops to sit as Lords Spiritual in the other place. We know that the existing system of appointment of bishops to sit as Lords Spiritual is prescribed by the Bishoprics Act 1878.

Under the terms of the Act, the number of Lords Spiritual is fixed at 26, five of whom automatically receive writs of summons to attend the House of Lords on the basis of the diocesan see that they occupy. As we heard earlier, these ex officio sees are Canterbury, York, London, Durham and Winchester. I shall come back to them in a moment. When a vacancy arises the remaining 21 are issued with writs of summons on the basis of seniority, which means their length of tenure as a diocesan bishop. The bishops of 40 Church of England diocesan sees are eligible to be Lords Spiritual. That means that at any one time there can be up to 26 diocesan bishops in the Lords and up to 14 outside the Lords awaiting a seat. Places become vacant as bishops leave office, usually through retirement. By law, diocesan bishops have to retire at 70. The waiting time obviously varies according to the rate of turnover and can be anything between four and seven years.

A bishop is unable separately to resign his membership of the House of Lords and therefore cannot create a vacancy in that way. There is also no provision for a bishop to opt to forgo entitlement to a writ of summons on reaching the top of the list. So, were the arrangements under the Bishoprics Act 1878 to be left unchanged, it would take some years before a newly appointed female diocesan bishop became sufficiently senior to take her place in the House of Lords.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Of course, it is important that we introduce this measure so that senior women bishops in the Church of England can take their rightful place in the other place. It was interesting to hear the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) use the example of the Bishop of Lincoln as the next in line to be appointed to the other place. It is now incumbent on the Church of England to appoint women diocesan bishops because otherwise that would still be the case.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and I am sure that people from the Church who are listening today will take it on board. I certainly hope that they will.

I was saying that a newly appointed female diocesan bishop would have had to wait her turn to take up a seat in the House of Lords unless she were appointed to one of the five ex officio sees. I hope that when vacancies arise for bishops in those areas, the Church will consider appointing a woman. That definitely affects my constituency. I should say that we have recently got a new bishop in Durham and I am not trying in any way to push him out of the door, as he is doing an excellent job, but when the time comes for him to retire I hope that a woman bishop will be on our agenda.

There are likely to be some female diocesans, as there are some male diocesans, for whom membership of the Lords becomes a significant part of their ministry. Without the Bill, a woman appointed as a diocesan bishop would effectively join the back of the queue to get into the House of Lords. As I have said, at anticipated rates of retirement it could take up to seven years for the first female diocesan bishops to get into the Lords, a period that could cover the lifetime of the next Parliament. That would create an anomaly whereby women were actively and visibly involved as bishops in all aspects of the Church’s national ministry except as Members of the Bishops’ Bench in the other place.

Whether and how the system should be adjusted was the subject of discussions by the Lords Spiritual and the House of Bishops in consultation with women holding senior office in the Church. There was a widespread acknowledgement that the House of Lords had been denied the contribution of female Lords Spiritual and that this deficit should be tackled as soon as possible. The Archbishop of Canterbury, to his great credit, was involved in these consultations and made a specific request of Ministers. The effect of that is before us today.

The changes being proposed with the backing of the bishops have broad cross-party support and reflect a desire both in and outside the Church to see women represented in those places where the Church exercises its national public ministry. That is in the interests not just of the Church, but of Parliament, and we do not want any part of Parliament not to have adequate gender representation. The Bill makes time-limited provision for vacancies among the 21 Lords Spiritual places, which are normally filled by seniority, to be filled as they arise by eligible female bishops if there are any available at that point. This is to be done for a period of 10 years. It is hoped that the most eligible female bishop at any time would fill a vacancy in preference to the most senior eligible male bishop. Ten years is the length of two Parliaments and it is not far from the average period in office of a diocesan bishop.

If there were no eligible female bishops at the time a vacancy arose, male bishops would continue to enter the Lords in accordance with the arrangements under the Bishoprics Act 1878 for determining seniority of precedence. After the end of the period, the provision made by the Bill would come to an end and the current arrangements under the 1878 Act would be restored.

The Bill, as a number of speakers have commented, has the merit of simplicity. The issue has been taken up by WATCH. A recent e-mail to me from WATCH suggested that this was a straightforward measure. It does not aim to set a quota or even to change the seniority principle permanently. It is not proposed that we should introduce a permanent rule prioritising the admission of women bishops over men. The measure is introduced temporarily for the length of two Parliaments to allow women to reach a critical mass on the Benches of the Lords Spiritual. By the time the provision expires, the hope is that sufficient numbers of women will have reached sufficient levels of seniority and that an extension of the provision will be unnecessary. However, I suggest to the Minister that we should seek a review of the measure and of the sunset clause if, a couple of Parliaments down the line, there is not adequate representation of women on the Benches of the Lords Spiritual. In that case the measure might need to be extended or another measure put in place.

My constituent, Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, the vicar of Belmont and Pittington in Durham, is the vice-chair of WATCH. The role of that organisation was very effectively outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). My constituent has written to me stressing that the measure was proposed by the bishops themselves, in consultation with women in the Church. It was based on consensus about how to take the matter forward. She points out that this is a constitutional rather than a religious matter, and that the House of Lords and the House of Bishops both wished to see women represented as soon as possible among their number on the Bench of Bishops. That was the impetus behind the Bill.

My constituent says that it is

“very clear, in the public outcry that followed the disastrous ‘no’ vote in General Synod in November 2012, that the vast majority of the British public wish to see women fully represented at all levels of our decision making as soon as possible”,

and she goes on to say:

“The convention that bishops are appointed to the bench of bishops in the Lords is simply that—a convention—and is of course inherently discriminatory in the changed situation that we now have where women can now be appointed as diocesan bishops. Any arrangements that rely on time served discriminate against those who were not permitted, until now, to gain the necessary years of service. This legislation is therefore a short-term remedy for a long-term injustice: it is not ‘positive discrimination’ but a partial redress of the results of historic discrimination.”

She urges all Members to support the Bill, and I hope they do.

Paediatric First Aid

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mark Hunter]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Again, I could not agree more. I think that everybody, once they have focused on the issue, starts to appreciate that there is a significant difference between having a general qualification in first aid and having a qualification in paediatric first aid, which by the very nature of the fact that it involves dealing with small children—in this case, Millie was only nine months old—is rather more specialist. However, parents would naturally assume—I think we all would—that if they are placing their child in a nursery, the nursery would be covered.

The hon. Gentleman is also right to say that tribute must be paid to the Thompsons; after such a terribly tragic experience, they have made something positive through Millie’s Trust, which is creating a legacy in Millie’s memory. I will say more about that legacy later.

I will go back to the point I was making about the CCTV coverage. Millie’s parents have stated that it was obvious from that footage that when Millie was being taken out to the ambulance she was “like a rag doll” and they believe that at that point she should have been receiving CPR.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and of course he is right to highlight these issues here in the Palace of Westminster today. However, this tragic incident not only highlights the failures in the nursery system—that is, the lack of paediatric first aid training—but the fact that until recently the ambulance services were not compelled to have the appropriate paediatric equipment in their ambulances. If one good thing has come out of the Millie’s Trust campaign, it is that the North West Ambulance Service has now pledged to ensure that all its ambulances have the appropriate paediatric equipment.

[Mark Hunter]

Again, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and he is absolutely right. I will come on to the point about how the North West Ambulance Service has responded to this case in the positive way that he has indicated.

On the day in question, Millie was being fed by the supervisor of the nursery, who had worked in child care for some 20 years; she was an experienced person. Yet, when this tragic incident happened, Millie received no treatment from the supervisor, because she was not trained in paediatric first aid. Instead, she handed Millie to another member of staff.

After Millie had received the slaps to her back, she was left in the arms of someone who was trained in first aid at work, not paediatric first aid. That should not have been the case. Sadly, of the two paediatric first-aiders at the nursery, one chose not to be involved and went to look after the other children while the second administered the back slaps and then left the building, through the nursery grounds, and went to the main road to wait for the ambulance. This should never have happened. The paediatric-trained first-aider should not have left Millie’s side until the paramedics arrived.

I will outline the treatment that Millie should have received and what should have happened at that point in time. Millie, as I said, received a few back slaps and was then held in a non-paediatric-trained first aider’s arms for around 10 minutes. On arrival, the paramedics immediately began standard choking treatment for a baby. By this point, it was tragically too late and Millie’s heart had stopped beating.

In a statement from the nursery, it was stated that one of the untrained staff members finger-swept Millie’s mouth, which all guidelines and all paediatric first aid courses state is the wrong thing to do. The treatment for a choking baby, as outlined on the NHS Choices website, is as follows:

“A baby who is choking will be distressed and may be unable to cry, cough or breathe.

Lie the baby face down along your forearm or thigh, with their head low. Support their head.

Give up to five firm slaps to the baby’s back between the shoulder blades with the heel of your hand. (The heel is between the palm of your hand and your wrist.)

Stop after each slap to check if the blockage has cleared. Look inside the baby’s mouth and remove any obvious blockage. Do not poke your fingers into the baby’s mouth unless you can see and reach the blockage. You may push it further in.

If the airway is still blocked, give up to five chest thrusts.

Stop after each thrust to check if the blockage has cleared.

If the baby’s airway is still blocked after three cycles of back slaps and chest thrusts, you should: dial 999 for an ambulance immediately. Do not leave the baby—take him or her with you to the phone; continue with the cycles of back slaps and chest thrusts until help arrives.

In babies under one year old”—

remember that Millie was under one year old—

“chest thrusts are used in an emergency to clear a blockage from their airway. Important: do not use abdominal thrusts with babies under one year old.

Lie the baby along your forearm on their back, with their head low. Support their back and head.

Give up to five chest thrusts. Using two fingers, push inwards and upwards (towards the head) against the baby’s breastbone, one finger’s breadth below the nipple line.

Check if the blockage has cleared after each thrust, by looking inside the baby’s mouth and removing any obvious blockage.”

Again,

“Do not poke your fingers into the baby’s mouth unless you can see and reach the blockage as you may push it further in.”

This is standard choking advice and every paediatric first aid course teaches these guidelines, which means that the staff involved that day should have given a statement as I just stated it.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Banks]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that valid point. I shall come to that matter later in my speech when I talk about the changes that have happened over recent years, and perhaps decades, and try to illustrate why prompt payment has become so important.

Let me return to what I was saying about people trying to get their payment on time, and whether they win the argument and risk losing the customer in the process. There does not seem to be much incentive for small businesses to utilise their right against late payers, because just 10% of businesses have even considered doing so. I have been in private business all my working life, having set up my own business in 1986. I can tell this House that late payments are the biggest curse small businesses face: people striving, working hard and going out to sell their wares but then struggling to get paid. As I said, that part of the bargain is not being upheld.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head, because this is not a small problem for small businesses—it is a big problem. Is he aware of research by BACS showing that 60% of British small businesses have said that late payment is a problem for them?

[Gordon Banks]

Yes, I am aware of that research, and late payment is a major problem. It is not just a transient major problem, but a constant one, week to week. I have lain in bed at night worrying whether the cheque was going to come in so that I could pay the wages of my staff. That is not a position that any business should be put in, and certainly not because of late payments.

A small business, perhaps a new one trying to establish itself, often finds a degree of comfort in dealing with a larger, perhaps household, name in its business sphere. The saying in my sector is, “You know your money is safe with so and so.” It may be safe but it may also be in their bank all the time and not yours.

We also need to consider the credibility that comes from working with such a customer and the possible opportunities, arising from volume increases, for small business suppliers to be able to renegotiate rates from their suppliers. In my experience, those will more often than not be larger companies. So the small business can find itself sandwiched between a large business customer and a large business supplier, perhaps a multinational company, and being strung out at one end and wrung out at the other. These multinational companies, understandably, have strict credit limits and they will be very quick to stop supply if they are not being paid within 30 days. Within a limited period of time they will remove the small business’s credit facilities, so damaging its credit rating, and reducing its access to key products and, in effect, its ability to pay the bill for which the multinational is awaiting payment.

As we know, the reason for late payment in these cases is often that a large customer fails to keep its side of the deal. I wish to draw the House’s attention to an experience I have encountered a number of times, where large multinationals have been pressing for payment within 30 days for a commodity sold by them to my business and yet that commodity has been sold to another division of the same company and it has no intention of paying within 30 days. Even within the same organisation we may have the supplier pressing for payment within 30 days, the product having been sold to another division in the same company as the supplier and yet it not upholding its part of the bargain and being prepared to pay in 30 days—it just strings you out. So the company wants its money in but does not want to pay the money out. That is just not good enough. The current system of being able to charge interest, at the supplier’s instigation, or being able to apply a debt recovery cost is not adequate and we have to improve these experiences.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I am certainly happy to congratulate any authority that itself takes on apprentices. We all need to set an example in all parts of Government and indeed in this House, as many Members are doing. Of course I would be happy to meet my right hon. Friend. I hope that he will welcome the traineeships programme, which was introduced by this Government specifically to provide people in that age group with a stepping stone to an apprenticeship or to a job.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Despite the Minister’s opening statement, fewer than one in 10 employers in England offer apprenticeships, which must surely be improved upon. Labour will ensure that all public sector contracts worth more than £1 million require the contractor to take on apprentices. That was the subject of my private Member’s Bill, which, sadly, was blocked by Ministers. Why do Ministers not wake up, smell the coffee and realise that that is the best bang for the buck of public procurement contracts?

[Nick Boles]

Well, of course I am sure that the hon. Gentleman meant to congratulate the Government on our fantastic achievement in creating far more apprenticeships. They are real apprenticeships—those that involve a job and last more than 12 months—unlike the ones that his Government produced. He is right that we need many more employers, public and private, to want to create apprenticeships. The way to do that is not to force them to do so, but to make it attractive to them to do so. That is why we are introducing new incentives through the apprenticeship grant, and why we are putting employers in charge of the standard of an apprenticeship so that they know it will be useful to them and not just some bureaucratic tick box.

Repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

There are many good ideas that were not in our manifesto; it is important that we, as politicians, are able to adapt and to reflect the times.

It is not the case that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was introduced simply to maintain the coalition. The previous system, whereby prerogative power was exercised over a democratic process for political advantage, served the wrong interests. Imagine Gordon Brown sitting in Downing street in 2007 chewing his fingernails and trying to decide whether that was the right time to call an election so that he could have another five years in government.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The Minister means “the right hon. Gentleman”.

[Mr Gyimah]

I meant to say “the right hon. Gentleman”. I stand corrected.

By setting out the general election timetable in legislation, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act removes a Prime Minister’s power to call a general election. Removing that power from the Executive and giving it to Parliament enhances the transparency of our democratic system and represents a significant surrender of political power. Fixed-term Parliaments also provide a number of practical benefits to both Parliament and the Government. They provide greater certainty and continuity and enhance long-term legislative and financial planning, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North said. They also afford greater political stability by giving future Governments foreseeable terms.

Some of the arguments that we have heard against fixed-term Parliaments are that they are inflexible, that they were conceived in a hurry and that the consequences were not fully thought through. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone. It is also argued that fixed terms prevent a Government from ending and Parliament from dissolving when they reach their natural end, when it would be most beneficial for a new Government to take the reins. But as I have said, there are benefits to stability, certainty and transparency, and to those inside and outside Government being able to plan.

The question of flexibility has been raised in the context of the Scottish referendum and the need to change the timing of the next general election. Under the Act, the Prime Minister of the day is able to lay an order before both Houses to extend the date of a general election by a maximum of two months to deal with unexpected developments, although they must spell out their reasons for taking that step. The Act also provides for early elections to be called if a motion is agreed by at least two thirds of the House or without Division, or if a motion of no confidence is passed and no alternative Government are confirmed by the House of Commons within 14 days. I do not believe that that limits voter choice.

Prior to the Act, a party could change its leader midway through a Parliament and that new leader would become Prime Minister. In that situation, the new Prime Minister would be under no obligation to call a general election for five years. Under the terms of the Act, however, the leader could still go to the country, although a vote in the House in favour of so doing would require a two-thirds majority. It is unlikely that the Opposition would withhold their support, for reasons of political consensus.

National Minimum Wage

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and in my constituency I have seen the stress, upset and angst caused by the bedroom tax, causing people to have to leave an area in which many of them have grown up and love so much. My hon. Friend is right: the bedroom tax shows the instincts of our different parties.

Although we are, of course, proud to have established the national minimum wage, which helped to end exploitation and extreme low pay, it did not end low pay per se. Under this Government working people have experienced their wages dropping by an average of more than £1,600 a year. The 1 October rise in the minimum wage is the first real-terms increase during this Parliament, and it is still 4.1% below its 2008 peak and just 2p above its equivalent value in 2005. Therefore, if we are elected next year, our goal will be to halve the number of people on low pay in our country. To achieve that, we need the minimum wage to evolve to address the broader problem of low pay, which is the purpose of the motion.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

We need that proposal, but we also need effective enforcement of the national minimum wage. Is my hon. Friend appalled, as I am, to learn that as many as 300,000 people in this country are still being paid below the national minimum wage and yet, in the past four years, there have been only two prosecutions?

[Mr Umunna]

I am appalled by that. My hon. Friend is right to mention enforcement. I will come to that, but I pay tribute to his work—I have been to his constituency—on ensuring that those who work hard get a decent day’s pay, in addition to his work on training and apprenticeships, which he has talked about a lot.