A-level Reform

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Today’s statement will encourage students to take up subjects by giving them much more in-depth knowledge of those subjects and more time to study and learn, rather than having them feel that they are constantly examined between the ages of 16 and 18. At the moment in our examination system, we have tests at 11 and examinations at 16, 17 and 18. That is a very unbalanced system. I think that a system that encourages teaching, learning and in-depth study will be really attractive to students.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Having attended one of the poorest-performing schools in one of the poorest-performing authorities in the country, before going on to study A-level and then teaching the subject that I studied at A-level at both AS and A-level, I can confirm that there was certainly a diminishing of that qualification over the time I went from studying to teaching it. However, there is still a place for AS-levels and I am pleased to hear my hon. Friend acknowledge that. Can she tell us a little more about her vision for the AS-level qualification?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are keen to encourage more breadth at A-level. We want to see the development of high-quality AS-levels that students can study over one or two years. They will have the same content level as A-levels, but half the breadth. We are also developing new qualifications—we are asking other people to look at those—such as a mid-level maths qualification, which will enable students who do not want to do a full maths A-level to go on to do that instead. In addition, we are encouraging extended project qualifications, so that students in sciences and arts can demonstrate extended writing as well. It is part of our intention to encourage greater breadth, particularly so that students doing sciences get more opportunities to do extended writing and students doing arts and social sciences are able to study maths.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman, who will be aware that a bidding round is being considered and that announcements will be made in the spring.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Despite improvements in recent years, educational attainment in North Lincolnshire is still not where we would like it to be. May I urge the Minister to do everything he can to ensure that the UTC application for Scunthorpe progresses?

[Mr Laws]

We note carefully hon. Members’ representations about UTC applications in their areas. Obviously, I cannot comment on individual applications under consideration, but we note his support.

Personal, Social, Health and Financial Education

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Amber Rudd]

That is certainly something that the Government and the Department should consider. Different schools have different ethoses and different values—some are Church schools, for example—and it is perfectly reasonable for schools with different attitudes, values and religions to have different approaches. My plea, however, is that they have an approach, and in too many cases they simply do not. We must ensure, therefore, that, as has been said, teachers have the proper training to give the good relationship guidance that is so important.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

As it is looking less and less likely that there will be enough time for me to speak, I just want to say that one of the problems with the workload agreement, which the previous Government introduced for very good reasons, is that in many schools PSHE lessons are not delivered by trained teachers but by teaching assistants.

[Amber Rudd]

I understand that training in citizenship, which is a compulsory part of PSHE, is popular with teachers and is receiving proper training attention from them.

Briefly, as I want to give other Members a chance to speak, I want to say that there are many ways in which the Department could approach this matter. Citizenship is already a compulsory part of PSHE. What greater gift for our young people, and how better to make them the best citizens we can, than to make them emotionally secure and confident young men and women, able to develop their own relationships? If we do not do that, we let our young people down.

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[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Robertson, for ensuring that, once again, my prediction did not come true.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles—[Interruption.]. I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley)—it is all the wrong the side of the Pennines for me—on securing this debate on an important subject. I declare something of an interest, having previously been a secondary school teacher and having delivered PSHE and, indeed, the more general pastoral care that comes with being a form tutor.

I first came across PSHE when I was a pupil in the 1980s, when it was introduced as PSD, as I think we called it in my school. The problem from the start with PSD was that people did not really know what it was. I remember that it was delivered by my form tutor, who used to say that PSD was a waste of time for all of us and that it was an opportunity for us to catch up on homework and for him to carry on doing his paintings—he was an art teacher, so that was acceptable. We were not delivered a great deal, apart from photocopied sheets on various subjects that took about five minutes out of a half-hour or 45-minute lesson.

PSHE has had an image problem from the start; indeed, there is still a problem today. I chaired last year’s inquiry by the all-party group on financial education for young people, and we took evidence from young people themselves. We invited them into an evidence session, and one of the questions I asked was, “What is your perception of PSHE?” to which one of the kids—sorry, that is a very local way of describing young people—described PSHE as a bit of a doss. That is still the perception in some schools, because it is delivered variously across the country.

There are some good and some bad examples. Part of that comes down to schools being under competing pressures. A challenging school might be so busy trying to work its way up the league tables and to address all the other problems that come with teaching in a challenging environment that, sometimes, things such as PSHE fall by the wayside and are not a particular priority because they are not examined. Unless something is examined or contributes to a school’s performance in the league table, focus naturally goes elsewhere.

I do not particularly remember the PSHE element of my postgraduate certificate in education, so I concur with some of the points about teacher training.

I noted the speech of my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), who made a couple of political points, and I will respond with a couple of political points. First, due to the workload agreement, PSHE was hived off to teaching assistants. At one school I taught at in her constituency, PSHE was hived off to cover supervisors.

Secondly, teaching and learning responsibility was added in to the pay scale, meaning that teachers received extra salary for teaching and learning responsibilities, not pastoral responsibilities. In many schools, pastoral responsibilities were removed altogether from classroom teachers. Teachers lost their form classes and no longer had a registration group, which meant they no longer taught PSHE. So PSHE and the pastoral side ended up being delivered by people who were not qualified or trained teachers. I have some pretty bad examples of that because, to protect my classroom, I used to sit in on a PSHE lesson delivered by a teaching assistant while I did my planning. I have some horror stories, which I will not go into today, of how that was delivered.

We must recognise that the pastoral side of being a teacher is much more than just delivering PSHE. We also need to understand that many of the issues that we are addressing today will come out at other times in the school curriculum; they will come out just because a schoolteacher is there and is around school. Kids come in to speak to teachers at the end of the day. We also need to understand that, beyond PSHE, schools take on board many other projects. We used to have a whole-day “Prison! Me! No Way!” programme to which the whole school was committed. Similarly, we had our own teenage pregnancy programme.

I have only a minute left, and perhaps not even that, but I want to make two pitches. First, this is an important debate and there is a position in the curriculum for such teaching. One of the all-party group’s proposals was to make financial education cross-curricular, linking with maths, and we could do that with other areas of the PSHE curriculum. That would increase the value of PSHE in schools by helping to support other parts of the curriculum. We produced a list of recommendations on financial education and met the Minister to discuss them.

Secondly, a constituent of mine, Susan Eastwood, produced a book on employability skills, which she wants to see delivered in schools because she feels many schools are failing to deliver them. I will end there, despite having a great deal more to say.

Examination Reform

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

All those issues are, of course, part of our consideration following the consultation. We have already made the decision, at the time that we made the announcement on the EBCs, to move back the start date so that they will not start being taught until September 2015. We will ensure that the timetable for delivery is achievable.

As part of the accountability consultation, we will consider floor standards and incentives to take high-value qualifications. We will also consider appropriate incentives for schools to teach all their students well, rather than focusing only on students near the C/D borderline.

Let me now turn to some of the specific issues that have been raised during the consultation. The Secretary of State and I are determined that these new, more rigorous qualifications will meet the needs of the vast majority of students who are currently served by the GCSE. The reforms and improvements to education that we are making will enable more students to operate at a higher level—that is exactly their point—and, as exams become more rigorous, we will equip students to clear that higher bar. So there is absolutely no reason to believe that there will be a substantial change in the proportion of students achieving a good pass. Indeed, our clear aim is that, over time, a higher proportion of children will secure a good pass.

The consultation has shown that there is an understandable concern that we should continue to give strong support to many subjects that are not part of the EBC core subjects of English, maths, science, history, geography and languages. The Chairman of the Select Committee has raised that point today. I want to make it absolutely clear to all Members that the Department for Education remains fully committed to ensuring that pupils receive a well-rounded education, with high-quality music, art and design, drama and dance all playing an important part.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The Minister has referred to the uptake of foreign language studies on a number of occasions. The reality is that most schools have been ditching the subjects that children might have wanted to study, simply to comply with the Ebacc requirements. Where is he going to find room in the school timetable, after the Ebacc subjects have been accommodated, for the teaching of all those subjects that he has just mentioned?

[Mr Laws]

First, we have made a deliberate decision to keep up to 30% of the school timetable available for the teaching of non-EBC subjects. Secondly, I think my hon. Friend is being rather generous about the reasons for the massive decline in the study of subjects such as modern languages. That happened because schools and others had an incentive to encourage students to go for the qualifications that were easier to pass, even if they were not right for their education and future progression. That is exactly why we are addressing those issues in our reforms.

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[Mr Gibb]

I do not disagree with that at all. Creative education and partnerships can be motivational for young people. The creative subjects are very important for all students in all schools, and vocational subjects can be very important motivators for some students. However, I think that we should take a reality check when talking about the EBacc. It includes English, maths and science—all of which are already compulsory for students aged up to 16, as they were under the last Labour Government—and languages, which were compulsory for students aged up to 16 until the disastrous decision in 2004 to make them compulsory only for those aged up to 14. So we are only talking about a humanity, namely history or geography, and one subject cannot drive out all the other optional subjects that young people can study up to the age of 16. I think that those on the other side of the debate are exaggerating the consequences. I also think that it is important to reverse the decline in the number of students taking history and geography, and very important to reverse the decline in the number of those taking modern languages.

[Andrew Percy]

I think the point that my hon. Friend is missing is that the study of foreign languages or humanities—subjects that I used to teach—is not always desirable. We should go back to the question of what is best for the child, which is a child-centred education. That means not compelling children to study subjects that will be of absolutely no use to them in the future.

[Mr Gibb]

I must disagree with my hon. Friend. In 2000, nearly eight out of 10 young people were taking a modern language GCSE, and all children were studying a modern language up to that point. Their intellectual development will have benefited from the study of that subject, even if it did not result in a qualification.

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[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I do not have an iPad to quote Dickens from, but I do have a couple of bits of paper with some notes on. I have drawn them up from my time and experience, limited though it may be as I am so young, of being in the classroom, both as a pupil and a teacher. I enter the debate on the EBacc with some trepidation, because the last time I did this I was described in a national newspaper as a “left-wing Conservative”, which contrasted somewhat with a description of me on Twitter this weekend as a “right-wing Tory who should be taken outside and shot”. That had not been posted by a constituent, I hasten to add.

As many people have said, the previous Government certainly achieved some great progress in education and in standards in this country. However, at the end of their 13 years in power an awful lot had not been achieved and some great challenges had not yet been responded to. I wish to describe one thing that I saw in the classroom at that time. All Governments find, sadly, that the teaching profession feels that every Secretary of State is, “The worst Secretary of State we have ever had”—until the next one. We used to hear that all the time, but that was largely because the goalposts were continuously changed. The measures were continuously changed and, as happens with all Governments, we ended up focused entirely on the league tables. The one thing they did do was create an inspection regime that punished schools for happening to be in deprived areas. I did not find that the inspection regime helped teachers; it seemed to be more designed to catch teachers out.

We cannot deny that in terms of literacy and numeracy there is something seriously wrong in this country. A lot of employers say to me, “We get young people coming to us who have bits of paper that say that they have reached certain standards in English and maths, but when we put them into the workplace we find that they are nowhere near those standards.” So clearly something is going wrong. When I was teaching we had what I used to call the great GNVQ fiddle. I got a lot of stick for it because I was also a member of the city council at the time. League tables were being fiddled through vocational qualifications and through equivalencies. I saw that in one of my schools, where young people were not actually given a choice and were instead told that they were going to undertake certain GNVQs because we knew the impact that that would have on our league table position. I recall champagne corks being popped on the front steps of the Guildhall in Hull when we had a 600% increase—a 1,000% increase in some schools—in standards. Schools with some of the most challenging catchment areas that had had terrible results in the past were, suddenly, overtaking schools in the neighbouring authority; much more middle-class schools, which had far less pressure on them and had previously achieved much greater results, were suddenly being overtaken, all on the back of the great GNVQ fiddle. Of course, as soon as the league table measures changed and the gold standard was introduced, the schools in challenging areas, sadly, plummeted back down to the bottom of the league tables.

Something had to be done about modular exams, because they have contributed to a slip in standards. So I support a lot of the thrust of where the Government are heading. However, one issue I have a big problem with is the implementation of the EBacc. We are told that a lot of the elements of it are not going to be compulsory, but the reality is that in the teaching profession schools teach to whatever the measure is. The measure will become the EBacc, as it is becoming already. So there will not be this space available—

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend considered what would happen if we were to abolish league tables—[Interruption.] We can do that. What would happen if we then gave the power to head teachers?

[Andrew Percy]

I have considered that, but, sadly, I do not have an answer, as league tables are probably a necessary evil. We need to be able to judge schools against one another. We can play about in terms of how we measure them, but we will end up with a league table. The league table will exist in any case, in the form of a school’s reputation locally, if nothing else. So there always has to be some form of measure. The sadness of the situation is that we put so much emphasis on the league table position when it comes to inspection regimes and all the rest of it, and we sometimes forget about what we are actually achieving for our children.

As I was saying, the EBacc will become, in most schools, the standard by which schools are judged against one another. The theory is all fine, and I have heard talk in the past about how everybody should have access to an Eton education. That is a fantastic theory, but it misses the point that although we want everybody from everywhere to have access to an Eton education, it is not always going to be the desirable or necessary route for every young person. I have nothing against providing that as an option, but it is not suitable for everybody. Sadly, schools are ditching subjects that young people may have chosen to do in the past and students are being forced on to foreign languages and even on to doing subjects such as history, which I used to teach. Perhaps in two and a half years’ time I will be delighted that there is increased demand for humanities teachers. Perhaps the Secretary of State has produced a post-political career employment plan for me, but it would not be appropriate for every young person with whom I have come into contact over the years to take my subject. They will not get anything from it. It is not of any value to them in the future.

Among the guff and nonsense in Every Child Matters, the previous Government talked a lot about a child-centred education, and I would like us in this debate to get back to that. We have talked a great deal about what Government want to see. We have talked about what parents want to see. We have talked somewhat about what employers want to see. But at the centre of all this should be what is best for a particular child. For some children, delivering the EBacc and giving them access to it will be appropriate, but for others that is simply not the case.

When we talk about providing an Eton-style education for everybody, we forget the immense challenges that many of our schools face in delivering. I have nothing against foreign languages, for example. I am learning one myself, with less success than I would like. [Interruption.] I am learning Hebrew, with not a great deal of success. Delivering a foreign language in the school that I used to teach in was incredibly hard. Our young people would go home to parents who would say to them, “Why are you learning a foreign language? What’s the point of learning that sort of muck?” They were not going back to a nice middle-class home. A lot of the kids who I used to teach were not Tarquin and Fluella, who would be driven off to a gîte in France every year where they could practise their French, or where they would be told by their parents the importance of doing that. We have to factor into the discussion the child’s background and the possibility that they will not have support at home.

We are, in effect, setting some children up to fail by forcing them on to a subject that they will not get support with at home, that they do not need in the future or for the basis—

[Mr Gibb]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s speech. I respect his experience and I respect him as a Member of the House, but I am alarmed by what he is saying. Our schools have to be able to redress the background that those children have and make up for the lack of support at home in the school. That is what we must do and what this Government must achieve if they are to close the attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds.

[Andrew Percy]

I could not agree more, but we will set young people to fail if we force them down a route on which they will not be supported. In education it is not as simple as saying, “This is the curriculum offered at Eton—the gold standard. This is what we must offer in this school. If the teachers just worked a little harder and if everyone tried a bit harder, we would get the same outcomes.” We would not and we have to understand and accept that. We have to move beyond the theory of what would be lovely to deliver, and deal with the reality of what is deliverable in our schools. I question, as I have already, whether some of these subjects were desirable or necessary for the young people I used to teach and for the employment that they wished to go into.

I have another example. We have just got agreement for a studio school in Goole, with support from the Secretary of State, who came and saw Goole high school at the time. The vision there is to deliver a completely different style of curriculum and to say to young people, “Make the choice at 14 whether to attend the studio school.” The model we have is that there will be a grammar school stream, which will be the academic school, there will be the studio school and there will be a smaller vocational school for the most challenging children. We want them to divide at 14 into those different routes, according to what will be best for them in the future. The problem that we will have if the EBacc becomes the gold standard is that attracting children to the studio school will become incredibly hard because it will look as though it is the lesser choice, compared with the school that will be offering the EBacc. It conflicts a little with the statements and policies that we have had on studio schools, as though we were saying that the studio schools can offer certain subjects, but the gold standard will be the EBacc, which they will not be able to offer.

I like the idea of the technical baccalaureate. I do not care whether it is Labour’s idea or the junior Minister has taken it up as the Government’s idea. It has some merit and I hope we will pursue it.

On measuring, one thing we should measure better is where a child ends up. Never mind measuring the bits of paper; where is a young person in five, six or even 10 years’ time? Then we can make a better assessment whether the education system has provided for them, rather than measuring where they are at 16 or 18.

I am trying not to be too critical because I support much of the thrust of the policy. Certainly, academic rigour is necessary in certain subjects, where they are appropriate for the young person. The one plea that I would make, which is often made by the profession, is that when we get through this, we must have in our schools a period of stability so that everybody—parents, young people and the teaching profession—knows where they are.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I know from my own time in the classroom how important digital media resources can be in helping to deliver first-class lessons, but too many schools in my constituency are unable to access fast enough broadband speeds. May I urge my hon. Friend to take up the mantle of schools on the Isle of Axholme, in particular, to ensure that our broadband delivery plans are rolled out as quickly as possible?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that high-speed broadband is important so that students can access the best-quality teaching materials from around the world. That is why, as a Government, we are pursuing high-speed broadband across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I certainly shall. Hackney has an exemplary record of educational improvement, and when there are inconsistencies such as this, we must look at the evidence to work out what has happened.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), I recently met head teachers from North Lincolnshire. Despite an improvement in results in the area this year, they were still concerned about this year’s marking, particularly in the case of pupils who would have found it easier to get an A in January than they did in the summer examinations. Will my right hon. Friend consider the concerns about the situation that will be expressed in a letter from my hon. Friend and me?

[Michael Gove]

I certainly shall. As we all know, the hon. Gentleman is a teacher with extensive experience of working in some of the toughest schools. I am glad that there has been an improvement in academic results in North Lincolnshire, but yes, there are continuing question marks over the quality of marking at GCSE.

Exam Reform

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Monday 17th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for arguing that we should take a less belligerent tone, but I could not help feeling that those remarks would have been better addressed to his Front Benchers rather than ours. It is in that spirit that we will work with others to identify best practice internationally. [Interruption.] I think we have had another outbreak of belligerence from some of the more rumbustious elements on the Opposition Front Bench. Of course we are happy to work with the profession, hence the period of consultation on which we are now embarking, but we want to make sure that it is informed by evidence, and the evidence is that the highest-performing jurisdictions ensure that there is an academic core that students follow to the age of 16. There is growing concern in other countries that premature specialisation at the age of 14 actually condemns some students to a lower place in a two-tier system that perpetuates the social division that I know the hon. Gentleman and I want to end.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I know from my time in the classroom that there is no doubt that the exam system has been undermined, with young people forced on to courses for the benefit of the school. However, I say to my right hon. Friend that there is a place for coursework in examinations, particularly in history and geography, the subjects I used to teach. In addition, some pupils simply do not test well because they are not supported at home in the same way that more privileged children may be. What will my right hon. Friend do to support those young people, generally from poorer backgrounds, who struggle with exams?

[Michael Gove]

I was talking this morning to the head teacher of Burlington Danes academy, Sally Coates—[Interruption.] She is embracing these reforms, as most enlightened head teachers are, and I suggest that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) have a word with her before it is too late and his position leaves him even more exposed in the educational world. The point she made to me is that, contrary to my hon. Friend’s suggestion, coursework and controlled assessment often work to the benefit of middle-class students, whose parents can better support them, and actually the form of examinations we are putting forward is better designed to support students from poorer backgrounds to show what they can do, rather than simply to show what their parents have achieved.

Higher and Further Education

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The principle that those who benefit should pay a contribution towards their degree is absolutely right and one we support, but we believe that paying for higher education should be a partnership between the individual student who benefits and the taxpayer, who also benefits greatly from those going into higher education.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The hon. Lady might recall that I voted against tuition fees, and I am saddened that some of the things we warned about have come to fruition, but I struggle to understand why the income level of £65,000 has been chosen. How would that be funded, and when would the interest rates come in? If someone drops below that income level, would they fall back down? Can she also explain why the Labour party defends retaining child benefit for people on £65,000 but wants to land them with a higher interest rate on their student loans?

[Shabana Mahmood]

Our proposal that the Government should reduce the headline level of tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000 is an alternative measure that they could introduce right now, paid for by not going ahead with the corporation tax cut for the banks. It would be a way for the Government to send a message to the country that they will support future generations of students, rather than saddle them with ever higher levels of debt. As for those earning £65,000 or more, that reflects earnings in each and every year of their working lives. All we are asking is that the wealthiest 10% of graduates pay a little more towards the cost of higher education in order to reduce the costs for those elsewhere.

Financial Education

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. That was part of the evidence that we considered, but that was a rather simplistic description of what happened in the wash-up. That was not a stand-alone issue, and we referred to that in the report.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

We did indeed look at that issue but was it not the case that we were not convinced from the start about simply putting financial education into PSHE? We wanted to discuss examinations and mathematics and all the rest of it, which is why we have come up with a solution that I think is much better than that offered before the election.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Absolutely. It was important to include that as part of the evidence, but as we are about to set out in our recommendations, it was not the conclusion that we came to.

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[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate and I am pleased to see that so many Members have attended, particularly on the Government side of the Chamber, and especially on a day on which there is a one-line Whip and, apparently, a by-election. It is good to have so many people here to debate this important issue. I am also pleased to follow both the Minister and the shadow Minister. I thank the Minister, in particular, for his warm words about our report and for the assurances he has given us about the role it will play in the curriculum review. I also thank the shadow Minister for his warm words, although I think he was trying to push at the edges of political point-scoring—

[Kevin Brennan]

It is my job.

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[Andrew Percy]

Alas, perhaps it is. I must say, however, that I will not be able to match the exchange of Shakespearian quotes between the two Front Benchers—

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

The bard from Brigg.

[Andrew Percy]

I am certainly not, as my hon. Friend interjects, the bard from Brigg. It is not going to happen, alas.

To return to the report, I thank the Minister for meeting me and my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) shortly before its publication. The Minister will recall that I said that if the Government did not take it seriously, I might well end up dousing myself in petrol and setting myself on fire, but I will not have to make that protest any more, not least because I cannot afford the petrol at the current prices and because we have had a positive response.

I thank all my friends on both sides of the House who sat on our inquiry. They included my hon. Friends the Members for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) and the hon. Member for Darlington (Mrs Chapman), as well as myself and my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon. It was a thoroughly valuable experience and I think we all enjoyed taking part in a cross-party inquiry on such an important issue. Because we conducted it in the way we did, on Select Committee terms and by hearing evidence, I think we all felt that the hours we spent doing that were probably some of our most valuable since getting elected. One can wonder whether a lot that goes on in here is having any impact or making any difference, particularly in some people’s cases, but on this issue we all felt that the experience was valuable and that we were engaged in something important.

Some hon. Members will have read our report, which is very comprehensive. I am not allowed to use props so I shall not hold it up. As can be seen from the executive summary, we have recommended that this subject should form part of the national curriculum. We want it to be compulsory across schools, and I shall say something about the mechanics of that in a moment. It is important to get some statistics into the debate about why this is so important. As people who have read our executive summary will have seen, it states that, according to a learndirect study:

“Two-thirds of people in the UK feel too confused to make the right choices about their money and more than a third say they don’t have the right skills to properly manage their cash.”

Sadly, we have seen higher and higher levels of insolvency in recent years, and we know that personal debt levels have exploded in the past 10 or 15 years.

I am not part of the generation about whom my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon spoke. I am part of the generation after, having got on the housing market only last year but with considerable debts, which I have spoken about before. I am not one of those who will see the big increases in house prices that will take care of all those nasty credit card debts.

Let me explain why I got involved in all this. It has been a good partnership with my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon because he is extremely financially competent, as anyone who knows him will know. Having shared a flat with him, along with another of our hon. Friends, I can certainly attest to his competency in all things financial—and perhaps to his being frugal as well. I am the antithesis of that, having made some incredibly bad financial decisions when I left school and went to university, including getting on the conveyor belt of credit card debt while at university and getting student loans even though that was the year before tuition fees came in. So I left university with an awful lot of debt and then did two years of postgraduate study, which I funded myself, which meant getting into even more debt. I am still paying off those debts today, and I do not mind the education side of them—it is all those other lifestyle debts that one builds up on credit cards that I am still lumbered with to this day.

It has been good to have a partnership of two people with different experiences of managing their debt looking at this issue. I was proud to be in the top set of my comprehensive school in Hull. I was quite bright and managed to get a GCSE in maths at grade C although I have always struggled with maths. I got good A-levels, a degree and postgraduate qualifications but I am still completely and utterly incapable of working out interest payments, APR and all the rest of it. I could not tell you what I pay in mortgage interest, Mr Deputy Speaker—I just pay up every month. I suppose I am an example of the people we have talked about and at whom the report is aimed. This is not moralising about debt. We have been very clear: this is not about saying that people should not get into debt or about educating people never to get into debt; it is about providing people with appropriate skills.

[Kevin Brennan]

Is the hon. Gentleman at all worried that he has put his name to a report that includes a recommendation that would bar him from teaching in a primary school?

[Andrew Percy]

I understand that that would not be applied retrospectively—and a very sound recommendation it is on those terms. I shall come on to that in a moment, because I taught in a primary school the year before I was elected, and I had to teach maths. That experience has led me to the conclusion that we should absolutely ensure that primary school teachers have better maths qualifications. Although I did not do them a disservice, the children I taught would have benefited from being taught by somebody who had not struggled with maths as I did. I managed to scrape a GCSE C grade. That is why we have supported the minimum grade of B for primary school teachers.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon outlined most of our recommendations and stole quite a lot of my speech in the process. He also talked about the inquiry process and stole my three bullet points on that too. I have been left with something to say, however. It is important to remind ourselves why this subject is so important. A lot of the research that we looked at in preparing the report was quite frightening. The situation out there is even worse than I expected. Research by EdComs in June 2009 found that by the time children reach the age of 17, more than half of them are or have already been in debt. A YouGov survey in 2008 found that 70% of 18 to 24-year-olds were already in debt. As we have heard, with tuition fees and the way life is today, that figure will not go down any time soon.

A survey by M&S Money found that some 14 to 18-year-olds are given no help with basic money matters by their parents. Indeed, 19% of parents have never discussed with teenagers how to spend money, and 32% have yet to discuss how to budget or even describe what a budget is. Most telling of all is the report compiled in March this year by Credit Action which found that a lack of financial education has cost Brits nearly £250 million in bank charges and penalties alone. I know that we are all grateful to Martin Lewis for helping us to get our money back in those matters.

The lack of financial education is a growing problem. We seem to be sending young people out into the world, which is increasingly financially complex, without providing them with the skills they need. I support the Government’s drive to reduce burdens on schools, to slim down the curriculum and to mandate less to schools, but in that process we must never allow ourselves to scale down to the extent that we remove the basic capabilities that we expect our young people to have when they leave school. Our view is that the financial education component should be a key measure.

I listened to the shadow Minister’s comments about PSHE. We gave some consideration to that. One of the big fights in our inquiry, not only between panel members but between those who gave evidence to us, was about whether financial education should just sit in PSHE. As a former practitioner who was expected to deliver PSHE, I felt strongly that it was not suitable, not least because it is not examined. As the hon. Gentleman, as a former teacher, will know, and indeed as head teachers told us during the inquiry, if a subject is not examined, schools do not necessarily accord it the importance they should.

For three years, I taught in a very difficult school in Hull, in one of the most deprived catchments in the country. I had to deliver PSHE, but we had so many other pressures on us to raise standards, such as working with grade C-D borderline kids so that in the next year’s league tables we would do a little better and would not be picked out by the local media as the worst-performing school. In better-performing—dare I say it?—more middle-class schools, teachers may be able to indulge themselves a little more in developing the PSHE curriculum because they do not have quite the same pressures on them. However, I am afraid that in a lot of schools, despite the professionalism of teachers, the subject often takes a back seat. When the Arun Youth Council and My Money Young Advisers came to give evidence, I asked one young person, “What do you think of PSHE?” His response was, “Well, it’s a bit of a doss.” Sadly, that is the situation in a lot of schools. Some fantastic work is being done across the country in PSHE, and we were provided with evidence of that and told about it by other young people. Although PSHE is important and must be part of the solution, we concluded that financial education had to be examined so that schools place the necessary emphasis on it.

We made it clear that there should be a financial education element within maths that can be clearly defined and packaged to young people. It is not simply a case of putting in a few questions that look like they are about financial education, as the shadow Minister said. It is about packaging a lot of the education and skills that are already there and saying clearly to young people, “This is financial education, and this is why we are doing it.” We can also help to improve the importance placed on PSHE, which is already taught in schools, because it will be used to support the drive for standards in mathematics. I think that that provides a real opportunity to raise the profile and importance of PSHE across the country.

I will give a couple of examples from our report to demonstrate this. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon said, we did not want to come up with a wishy-washy report that said it would be easy to have financial education, knock on the Minister’s door and have him say, “Thank you very much. It looks lovely, but I am afraid that it’s not going to happen.” Therefore, we have tried to work in the direction of Government policy and to provide practical solutions.

Members who have looked at the report will have seen that on page 38 we demonstrate clearly where in the maths curriculum the financial education elements can fit nicely—we are grateful for the help we had from mathematicians. Those have been split into three headings: money and transactions; risk and reward; and financial landscape. The money and transactions elements includes being able to do compound interest calculations with a calculator or spreadsheet, to set up a spreadsheet to do calculations involving percentages and to use foreign exchange rate information to make calculations. For financial landscape, the competencies include the ability to do reverse percentage calculations and to work out an inflation rate for a given time period, which is very important and something we hear a lot about. That involves real maths skills, not wishy-washy stuff at all.

That can be supported over in the PSHE curriculum by talking to young people about the products that they might have to make choices about. For example, we can talk to them about managing money, budgeting, the subjective issues of risk and reward and what is right for them in particular situations. That is not something we felt could fit easily into one or other area, which is why the solution we have come up with is deliverable within the current curriculum without putting extra pressures on schools.

One of the recommendations that has been referred to is that of having a co-ordinator on this in schools, and that should be someone from the senior leadership team within the school. That is important, because one of the big drivers when I first started teaching in the early 2000s was the drive towards more cross-curricular working, and it happened for a bit and then we lost focus on it. Having someone at a sufficiently senior level within the school to drive that cross-curricular agenda and link the two subjects is important, and the educational professionals who came to speak to us were very supportive of that approach.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend raises an important point about the leadership coming from within schools, but does he agree that there might also be a role for the private sector and financial institutions to lend their support to make pragmatic advice available?

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend must have been reading my notes over my shoulder, because that is exactly the point I was about to move on to. I will be brief, because I know that other Members wish to speak. We took a lot of evidence from financial institutions and banks, and one of the challenges we set out for them in the report relates to training. It would be pointless if I went in to deliver financial education to any of my pupils, because I am not financially competent, so there is an issue of training. But we have identified that role as one that financial institutions could work on more closely. They do a lot already, and anybody who knows Barclays will have seen its money skills programme. I visited Barclays in my constituency recently, and through the fantastic Sobriety Project it was doing some excellent work with Goole high school students who are at risk of exclusion and with vulnerable young people in the town.

Nationwide has a programme, and so does Capital One. I do not want to risk missing out any institutions, but many are already engaged in financial education, so we have set them the challenge of coming together, getting their resources kitemarked and perhaps being co-ordinated by a charity. Financial institutions have a real role to play in supporting such education in the curriculum, and in helping to develop the training to which my hon. Friend refers.

I am aware that many other Members wish to speak, but I shall just mention a couple of other organisations that support our proposal, as they should be read into the record if nothing else. First, and most importantly, there is one in my constituency. After the report came out, I was inundated with e-mails from various organisations, one of which I received from one of the two credit unions in my constituency, Hull and East Yorkshire Credit Union, to which I think the shadow Minister referred. It informs me that it would very much like to support our campaign on financial education, because it is very much in line with the ethics and objects of its movement.

Nationwide contacted us to say that

“the report looks very comprehensive and is something Nationwide very much welcomes.”

The Money Advice Service issued a statement to

“welcome the APPG on Financial Education & Young People’s report on Financial Education and the Curriculum.”

We were congratulated by the Scout Association, which also has an interest in the area, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales

“call on MPs to back the introduction of mandatory financial education during Thursday’s debate.”

So there is a lot of support from a range of institutions and organisations.

Finally, I emphasise again that our proposal is not about watering down the curriculum, nor is it a wishy-washy thing with which to moralise about debt. It is about real maths skills; about using real-life experiences such as phone contracts, student tuition fees, mortgages or whatever to support the drive for standards, about which we are all passionate and we know the Minister is absolutely passionate; and it is about ensuring that young people enter this complex financial world with the skills to make better decisions than I, and many other people who have gone before them, have made.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I am delighted to follow my near neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce).

Like many others who have spoken, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) and his colleagues not only on securing the debate, but on their continual hard work, the pressure that they have put on the Government, and the publicity that they have secured—including the use of Martin Lewis to press home the importance of the issue. The launch of the all-party group on financial education for young people attracted more than 200 Members of Parliament, and it is now the largest of the all-party groups. I congratulate it on its report on financial education, which was released this week and which deals comprehensively with the subject.

I do not wish to be labelled a grumpy old man—I am sure, though, that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) will soon label me one—but I must refer back to when I was a lad.

[Andrew Percy]

It was in black and white then.

[Andrew Bingham]

Yes, it was.

I remember my late father taking me to Williams and Glyn’s bank to open my first bank account and my walking out proudly with my Williams and Glyn’s plastic piggy bank, which I suspect I still have somewhere and is probably worth a lot on eBay. They say that servicemen can always remember their Army number; I can still remember my bank account number from that day.

When I came of age, there were few temptations for somebody my age to acquire extra funds or credit. In those days, it was the bank or it was nothing. Credit cards were unavailable without a parent or guardian to guarantee it and wages were paid in cash. Consequently, we lived in a pay-as-you-go world—to coin a modern-day phrase. We were not educated in financial matters in school in the 1970s, because there was not the multitude of financial opportunities—and, indeed, pitfalls—available to young people today.

When I refer to young people, I do not refer exclusively to school leavers but to those who left school a few years ago, have built up savings and are now plunging into the world of credit or embarking on the next stage of their life—getting their first mortgage or signing a tenancy agreement—and who require financial knowledge to navigate these potentially treacherous waters.

When people turn on the television today, read the newspaper, surf the internet or look at magazines, they are bombarded with adverts offering them cheap money, easy money and, in some cases, apparently free money. In fact, some claim that it is possible to borrow enough money to get completely out of debt. When we pick up the Sunday newspapers, out drop a multitude of pieces of paper, one of which is usually advertising cheap money.

Borrowing money is inevitable, and we all have to borrow at some point in our lives, whether for a mortgage or whatever, but it is important to do it prudently—a word from the past—and sensibly. To do that, people need to understand what these companies are offering, to read beyond the quick, snappy headline and to make an informed decision. To do all that, they need to understand finance, the methods by which it can be obtained, the cost of that finance, the conditions attached and, more importantly, the short and long-term consequences of failure to adhere to those conditions.

Not only must young people contend with this wealth of advertising and pressure, but they live in a very different world from that of their predecessors in my generation and that of many in the House. As has been alluded to, they have phone contracts, credit cards, payday loans, tuition fees, store cards—the list goes on and on. These are all things that are part of modern-day life but which were either unheard of or unavailable in days gone by. Added to that, there are many alluring ways of paying for luxury goods—televisions, holidays and so on—that appear to be completely free of any credit charge yet are full of pitfalls buried in the small print.

How many people realise, when they buy a television on a buy now, pay later deal, that if they miss the payment date, they are automatically locked into a three-year finance agreement potentially on an annual percentage rate that can be more than 20% and perhaps as much as 30%? Indeed, how many actually understand what APR really is?

And how many people understand the pitfalls when they get older and decide to buy a car? A car might be advertised with low monthly payments—“You can have this car for £159 a month”, the advert might read. However, it might not explain until the small print that at the end of the term the person will not own the car, because a significant final amount will still be outstanding—balloon payments, they are sometimes called—and that, if unpaid, they will have to give the car back and have nothing to show for it.

We live in a world where peer pressure exerts a huge influence, especially on young people, to have the latest mobile phone, trainers or designer clothing. It matters very much to young people and it drives their shopping habits. When that is coupled with the myriad easy ways to pay, we have a cocktail of debt and ensuing misery.

Financial education will not stop that—after all, people will always want to buy goods; the economy depends on it—but I believe that financial education will do several things. First, it will enable people to tell whether a deal is as good as it seems. There is an old adage: “If it looks too good to be true, then it usually is.” Financial education will enable young people to ascertain whether a deal is good or not, and see what the total potential cost is of the iconic item that they feel desperate to own. Being armed with that knowledge might not prevent them from buying that item, but they will I hope make a rational, informed decision and ask themselves whether they need it and whether they can really afford it. In the long term, that will spare people much misery, as well as the further consequences that excessive debt can have for people personally and for their families. As was said earlier—by an hon. Gentleman who is no longer in his place—that knowledge will also enable people to make decisions about savings. This is not all about debt: it is about savings, investments and pensions. On the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, we are looking at auto-enrolment and how to judge one pension against another. That is another story, but having informed financial knowledge and advice could help people to make better decisions about such matters.

Several years ago I produced an e-book, which was designed to plug into a computer. It was called “Living On Your Own” and was aimed at students leaving home to go to university and living away from their families for the first time. It dealt with all the issues that many of us take for granted: council tax, rent, utility bills, registering with a local GP and so on. It even had some easy-cook, healthy recipes. The book also contained an interactive budget planner, in which students could enter all their incomings and outgoings, and which gave a figure for how much money they had left at the end of the week or month. If they were overdrawn, the figure went red. We gave the e-book away to students—I think we gave away 200—and those who got back to me said that the most useful thing in it was the budget planner, because it showed them in simple, stark terms whether they were living within their means or beyond them.

There is a further implication of our young people not having the level of financial literacy they need when they leave education. Those young people are the next generation of our wealth generators, entrepreneurs and business builders. They are the people we will look to in five, 10 or even 20 years to build businesses, create jobs and grow the economy. We cannot expect them to be able to do that successfully if we do not give them the tools they need while they are being educated. Anyone who goes to the bank for an overdraft or business loan has to have a business plan and know how best to make the money work so that their business can survive. If we do not get this right, we will not have those people and we will pay the price later.

When I was at school, we did subjects such as metalwork and woodwork. I can turn on a lathe and wooden lathe—

[Andrew Percy]

Show-off!

[Andrew Bingham]

It is not a question of showing off: my hon. Friend never saw the results. In fact, my mother still has the table lamp that I made at school in woodwork to this very day—

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy]

French.

[Andrew Bingham]

I wouldn’t go that far.

Education moves to fit the world it provides for. I fully support today’s motion, as education needs to move again to suit the financial jungle that is the world in which we operate today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) has just said, it is difficult to think of anything original to say at this stage of the proceedings, so I shall be mercifully brief. I must start with the obligatory fawning to my hon. Friends the Members for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) for the genuinely outstanding work they have done on the all-party group. The way that group has grown is not just impressive but phenomenal. In double-quick time it has brought to the British Parliament an issue that matters so much and about which so many people are genuinely bothered. The report and the depth of the analysis and work the group has done are already helping to stimulate debate here and more widely—and will do so further.

Today’s debate is not about approving every line in the report. I would have loved to remind the shadow Minister, if he were here, that the motion does not say that there should be compulsory financial education in free schools and academies or that it should be part of the national curriculum in primary schools. The key phrase in the motion is:

“That this House…believes that the country has a duty to equip its young people properly through education to make informed financial decisions”.

I could not agree more.

I shall not go into examples of the problems that we have all seen when people have come into our surgeries or when we have met people. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) has mentioned that some people, astonishingly, think that a high APR must be better than a low APR because it is a bigger number. These things would be funny if they were not so tragic. When we hear about them, our natural reaction is to say, “If we get them young and educate them, we will sort out all these problems.” There is, of course, as it says in the motion, a great advantage to equipping people with the capability to make smart financial decisions. There can also be a more immediate benefit, to which the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) alluded. If teachers get kids to bring in material—junk mail—that they have received at home, and they discuss it, messages can then get back to home, so there will be a beneficial impact even in the shorter term.

Even better than telling, of course, is doing, through schemes such as junior savers clubs. I was a member of the Abbey National junior savers. It used to have gold, silver and bronze; I only ever made bronze, but there you are. We have savings clubs in schools, and I pay tribute to credit unions in particular, although others do this as well, which run schemes in schools, often with parent volunteers and schoolchildren helping to manage them. That is another great way to pick up experience.

I have an issue with PSHE, however. It sometimes feels as though the answer to any social problem in this country is another module in PSHE. That is true whether the problem is that people are too fat or that people are too thin, or whether it is teenage pregnancy. Whatever it might be, we do it in PSHE. There are limitations to PSHE. When one mentions it to teachers, their response is not one that can be written down because it is just a groan. As a general rule, teachers do not like doing PSHE lessons. Although the report of the all-party group says “only 45%” of teachers in the survey had taught personal financial education, I have to say that that struck me as an extraordinarily large number. Almost half the teaching population has taken on the teaching of that subject. I think it unlikely that they are all experts in that area.

In PSHE in general, and this applies also to financial education, there is naturally a reliance on off-the-shelf—or more likely, these days, off-the-net—lesson plans and on input from third parties. Although I accept that the banks and building societies who take part do so with responsibility and do not use it as a way to ram home their brands, there is an element of indirect marketing. It certainly gets the message out there that there is a massive range of financial products, including ones that can get people into debt.

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend’s points are exactly those that we identified during the inquiry and support the argument for putting financial education into PSHE to support maths and raise the profile of PSHE. He is quite right: a lot of the stuff that is used is photocopied hand-outs. That is not teaching a subject properly. If we link PSHE with maths, we can raise its profile and the standards of the teaching and lesson plans.

[Damian Hinds]

I recognise the point, and the report stimulates such debates, but I do not agree.

People mean different things when they talk about financial education. There is a whole continuum. If we talk about pure financial education, as opposed to a mathematical way of approaching it, there are two key dangers. The first I call the redundancy danger, and the second is the ubiquity danger. None of us did financial education at school, and although some people have great financial problems, not everybody does, and it is perfectly possible for somebody to get through life without the benefit of that education. Had we done financial education, we would have learned about cheques, clearing houses and endowment mortgages, and, spreading it out to the wider economy, the public sector borrowing requirement and sterling M3. None of that would be of particular relevance today. We would not have learned about debit cards and payday loans because, to all intents and purposes, they did not exist at that time. There is a real danger that although we think we are equipping people with skills, by focusing too much on financial services, as opposed to the underpinning principles, that education may become redundant.

[Andrew Percy]

It is true that the world does not stand still, but does my hon. Friend agree that if we give young people the ability to understand what is available now, we give them the skills to be able to understand products as they develop and move on into the future?

[Damian Hinds]

I cannot do geometry in a written speech without slides. I would be more tempted to go for the underlying principles, which could enable people to understand the things that used to be there and the things that will be there tomorrow.

The second danger is ubiquity. Already, on the television and the internet, when kids are at home or out, everywhere there are messages about debt. There is a danger that introducing discussion of specific financial services too early in schools might contribute to that feeling by normalising and legitimising the idea that everyone uses such products.

As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole, the key things are the tools, and I think that we agree on that but perhaps differ on how best to use them. To my mind, the key tools and principles that help inform financial decisions are mathematics, but not mathematics on its own. There is also a big element of personal responsibility, common sense and some of the maxims to which my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) referred. Make no mistake: young people do not learn common sense, wisdom and personal responsibility simply by turning up to PSHE. It is a much wider issue. I would welcome more emphasis on practical mathematics at GCSE, especially at foundation level, although it applies to both levels.

I am pleased to say that I have an original point to make. We also now have an opportunity post-16, because raising the participation age to 18 means that more young people who have perhaps not passed GCSE maths could, if we are to follow the guidance in the Wolf report, be encouraged to keep up maths and English. We need new, innovative, creative and engaging ways of taking on maths, and this would certainly be one of those. I thought that the sample questions that my hon. Friends who constructed the report included in it illustrated very well the practical ways we could use the maths curriculum.

The introduction of these concepts into mathematics is no panacea. The hon. Member for Makerfield and I agree on many things related to debt and personal finance, but I completely disagreed with her today when she implied that there was no element of personal irresponsibility in being over-indebted. There are of course times when it is purely a matter of a change in circumstances and completely unpredictable, but there is also a major issue of responsibility. She was right to say that there are broader concerns about regulation and too-easy access to credit that we must also address. The reason we need to address those concerns, even if we did financial education perfectly, is that in that market, alarmingly, the basic laws of economics, such as the way competition works and the assumption that consumers will be rational, frequently do not apply.

I congratulate the members of the all-party group again on the report that stimulated the debate. My view is that I would say no to adding more to PSHE and specifying exactly how these things should be done at a younger and younger age, but I would say yes on the need to refocus GCSE maths and to find new and creative ways to teach practical maths at 16-plus. I would also say yes to not being afraid to say that people must take responsibility, which is also a good thing to teach in school.

Children’s Access to Parents

Andrew Percy Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I am delighted to have secured this important debate. Week in, week out, our constituency surgeries are all too often full of parents who are struggling to see, have contact with or have access to their children. Evidence suggests that around 3 million children in the United Kingdom live apart from a parent, and 1 million of them have no contact with the non-resident parent three years after separation.

In recent years, the number of court applications, and the number of backlogged cases in the system, have increased. In 2005, there were 110,330 court applications, compared with 122,330 in 2010. The CAFCASS—Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service—case load has also been growing: in 2007-08 there were 39,432 cases, but in 2010-11 there were 43,759. A massive delay in family court cases is not in the best interests of children or parents.

Although the numbers of court applications and cases in the CAFCASS backlog look slightly better than last year, they are still far too high and I suggest that mediation would be a faster and better way forward. Mediation is cheaper at £752 per case compared with £1,682 for full court proceedings, and on average it takes 110 days, while court cases take 435 days. Some 95% of mediations are complete within nine months, while only 70% of court cases are over within 18 months.

In such circumstances, time is of the essence to provide stability for the child and their parents, and to ensure the protection of the child’s welfare and that there is closure and a settlement regarding how they will be looked after, with arrangements for parental contact and access. It is important that such situations are dealt with quickly, and from paragraph 115 onwards the Norgrove report promotes mediation, which is to be welcomed. My only caveat, however, is that the report goes on to state that if people do not like the results of mediation, they should still be able to apply to the courts. I do not agree; one needs closure as soon as possible, and parents who are busy arguing with one another should not be allowed further bites of the cherry.

A key issue is the right of children to see their parents following a separation. It is not an issue of dads’ rights, or fathers’ rights, or about those of the mother; it is about the fundamental and basic rights of the child. I believe that child welfare is best served by ensuring that children know and have a relationship with both parents after separation. Too often, parents sink their children’s rights in a sea of acrimony when they split up, which must be fundamentally wrong.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. He is right to say that such cases should be about the rights of the child, but does he agree that those rights also extend to a child’s right to see their grandparents?

[Charlie Elphicke]

The right of grandparents to see their grandchildren is important, although not, I hasten to add, in the teeth of the unity of both parents if the grandparents are, shall we say, of the more interfering busybody variety who destabilise families. In general terms, however, a relationship between a child and their grandparents is positive and should be encouraged. It is not good if one parent who has custody of the child tries to frustrates that relationship, just as they should not try to frustrate the non-resident parent. My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate of grandparents’ rights, and once again he makes a powerful and forceful point. If there is acrimony between families, it is flatly wrong for parents to inflict their mutual loathing, which too often exists in a relationship breakdown, on the child.

In its conclusions in paragraph 109, the Norgrove report states:

“The child’s welfare should be the court’s paramount consideration, as required by the Children Act 1989. No change should be made that might compromise this principle. Accordingly, no legislation should be introduced that creates or risks creating the perception that there is a parental right to substantially shared or equal time for both parents. For that reason and taking account of further evidence we also do not recommend a change canvassed in our interim report that legislation might state the importance to the child of a meaningful relationship with both parents after their separation where this is safe. While true, and indeed a principle that guides court decisions, we have concluded that this would do more harm than good.”

The most important words are,

“no legislation should be introduced that creates or risks creating the perception that there is a parental right to substantially shared or equal time for both parents.”

The difficulty with the report is that it confuses the issue of time with that of an emotional bond. An emotional bond—love and affection—is not about the amount of time spent with someone. A person could have a best friend from university they have not seen for years. When they next meet, however, the friendship will pick up as if it had been only five minutes and that is because a relationship exists. The person may not have spent much time with their friend over the intervening years, but they know and have a relationship with them. That, in essence, is what we must ensure for our children, because they have the right to know both their parents and to have a relationship, reasonable access and contact with them following a separation.

The Norgrove report has confused those two issues. A relationship is not about time but about that bond, that sharing between parent and child, and the love and affection that goes with it. A clear social message needs to be sent out, which is why I have tabled the Children (Access to Parents) Bill, and why I secured this debate. A relationship is not about the amount of time spent together but about the bond created, and that lies at the heart of my case.

We need action because 1 million children do not see both their parents. Society has changed and is still changing, and social change means that over the past few decades, both parents have become more actively engaged than was previously the case. One study showed that parental involvement by fathers rose 200% between 1974 and 2000, and the change in work patterns seen over recent decades suggests that there is more joint parenting. According to research that I requested from the House of Commons Library, the number of men in part-time work has risen from about 500,000 in 1985 to 2 million today, while the number of partnered mothers in work rose from 52% in 1986 to 71% in 2010. That suggests that parents are sharing work and bringing up their children, and all of us, particularly the younger Members of the House, know that the work-life balance includes more juggling and sharing of parenting and parental responsibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Ms Osborne. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), who has expressed the feelings of millions of people throughout the country in what he has said. As ever, his speech contained an enormous amount of research and interesting facts.

I will speak for only a minute or so, because other hon. Members want to speak. I want to talk about just two things. First, there is a father in my constituency of Harlow, Mr Colin Riches, whose children have been denied access to him. It is a tragic case, which shows why the law must change. Secondly—this relates to what my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) has said—I am campaigning on behalf of the Grandparents’ Association, whose headquarters is in my constituency. We are asking for children to have the legal right to letterbox access to their grandparents. Put simply, that is the right to send and receive cards at birthdays and Christmas.

I have worked with Mr Colin Riches to table an e-petition—No. 23102—and I have raised his case many times in Parliament with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and others. The crux of his e-petition is this:

“Shared parenting should become the natural position in the UK. It’s in the best interest of the child. The law should be there to protect children’s relationships with both parents. It needs to show children that both their parents are treated with equality. So that children who have been cared for by both parents and grandparents do not suffer the pain of a living bereavement.”

I welcome the fact that the Government are looking into this matter, most recently through the family justice review, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Dover. That review was a ratchet in the right direction, because it accepted this point:

“More should be done to allow children to have a voice in proceedings.”

However, although I welcome some of the review’s contents, it does not go nearly far enough to help families such as that of Colin Riches.

I have had a very positive letter from the Minister—by chance, it arrived today—regarding my constituent, Mr Riches. In that letter, the Minister mentions that the review stops short of recommending a change in the law, because of the risk that a change could both encourage litigation and compromise the key principle of the Children Act 1989. As has been said, however, the law is clearly balanced too far in one direction—it is weighted against fathers and grandparents—and we need a change in the law to redress the balance.

I am nevertheless grateful to the Minister for his sympathetic response to my letter. He says that the Government will

“explore possible options for strengthening the expectation that both of a child’s parents should continue to be involved with the child’s care, post-separation”.

Will the Minister meet me and Mr Riches to discuss these issues more fully?

Secondly, I want briefly to ask the Minister about the work of the Grandparents’ Association. Last Thursday, I joined my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole at No. 10 Downing street to hand in a petition with more than 7,000 names calling for children to have the right to letterbox access to their grandparents—the right to send and receive cards on special occasions. That is a very small but symbolic thing, especially in the run-up to Christmas. Sadly, throughout Britain today, thousands of children are denied any access to their grandparents, even on birthdays and during the holiday season, which is often caused by family conflict.

Again, to be fair, the Government are considering the issue. I had a very positive response from the Leader of the House last week, when I raised the matter at business questions, but if the Minister could give a clear commitment to examine the issue, it would be hugely welcomed by grandparents in my constituency, the Grandparents’ Association and millions of grandparents up and down the land. It would be a tiny gesture, but it could transform the lives of many families. Ultimately, this is about the right of children to know who their family are and to have a chance to communicate with them. In the context of what the Government are doing to support the family, surely that is the right thing to do. Both the issues that I have raised fit with what we said in opposition, so I very much hope that we will be able to do something in the months and years ahead.

[Andrew Percy]

rose—

[Sandra Osborne (in the Chair)]

Order. Not all hon. Members have given notice that they want to speak. I am sure that they will want the Minister to have adequate time to respond.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I apologise for that, Ms Osborne. I will make this an extended intervention. I just want to agree with the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who delivered the petition to No. 10 Downing street, and to give two quick examples from my constituency. I have two ongoing cases of constituents who have lost access to their grandchildren. In the first case, that was, very sadly, through the death of the daughter. In the second case, it was through a daughter’s new relationship with someone who exercised considerable influence over her. Consequently, the children left the country before legal processes could be put in place by the grandparent. I have met my hon. Friend the Minister to discuss this matter before, and I would welcome an opportunity to discuss it with him again. Those of us who are campaigning for grandparents’ rights fully accept the rights of parents, but at the end of the day this is about the rights of children, and those rights should extend to including grandparents. I hope that the Minister will meet us—I will end there, having taken less than a minute.