Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I recognise the situation that the hon. Gentleman describes as the situation of a few years ago. Fortunately, a record number of girls are studying triple science at GCSE and a record number of girls are studying physics. That does not mean that there is not more to do for the Government in sorting out the problems that were left behind. We must ensure that people are given inspiration and mentoring through careers guidance, which was not available in the past. We must promote the highest-quality careers to boys and girls, and ensure that everybody knows how to fulfil their potential.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate the Government on their work in the STEM sector, and particularly in engineering. How many women have finished engineering apprenticeships and how many girls go on to gain a job in engineering? Will the Minister join me in recognising that women engineers are climbing to the top of the tree, since we have had a female president of the Institution of Civil Engineers?

[Matthew Hancock]

I will. A very high proportion of those who go into apprenticeships, and STEM apprenticeships in particular, stay on in a job or continue into a higher-quality apprenticeship. That progression is one reason why apprenticeships are such a valued institution.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

We have announced a £2 million tourism support package, from which Plymouth will benefit. Local workshops and drop-in clinics will deliver practical help on the ground for tourism businesses, alongside a focused marketing campaign to boost trade for Easter and the early summer. VisitBritain is providing a promotional push abroad to encourage visitors from overseas, and I can tell my hon. Friend that it is working in partnership with Brittany Ferries on a £10 million campaign to promote the south-west more generally.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that small businesses will be excluded from the Flood Re insurance scheme, and that that will have an impact on their future reinsurance and excess premiums?

[Michael Fallon]

The Flood Re scheme is there to help some of the hardest-to-insure areas, but most business insurance is already priced to risk, unlike household insurance, in which cross-subsidies apply. However, I will certainly look again at the point my hon. Friend has raised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Willott]

The Government are doing quite a lot to ensure that women entrepreneurs have access to finance, and it sounds as though the hon. Lady’s constituent is a very good example of that. The Government Equalities Office offers child care grants to men and women, but primarily to women, who want to set up businesses in that particular area. The Government also support the Aspire fund, which aims to get equity into businesses run by women. The Start-Up Loans Company has offered 12,500 start-up loans and well over a third of them have gone to women to help them set up businesses that I hope will be as successful as that run by the hon. Lady’s constituent.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating those women in rural businesses, primarily farms? Women are the backbone of the farming community and have taken the opportunity to diversify locally. Examples include Shepherds Purse cheese makers, Get Ahead Hats and countless other business opportunities for women.

[Jenny Willott]

The hon. Lady highlights some extremely important businesses, and similar examples can be found across the whole of the UK and in a lot of our rural areas. Women are extremely good at identifying new opportunities to diversify businesses in more remote areas. They are often incredibly business savvy and can make a real success of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. In fact, during the past year the number of tablets in secondary schools has gone up by 50%, and the number in primary schools has more than doubled, while we also have a special capital fund for colleges to fund such IT. However, this is about more than physical resources; it is about changing the way teaching is done to make the best use of this tool to drive up standards.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

It is important that I draw to the House’s attention the fact that Ofsted, the Government’s school inspectorate, has changed its guidance to clarify the vital importance of not favouring one style of teaching over any other. In the most recent guidance that Ofsted has issued, it stresses that inspectors must not give the impression that Ofsted favours a particular teaching style.

I use the opportunity that you have given me at the Dispatch Box, Mr Speaker, to emphasise that point in order to stress to all teachers that we want them to deploy their creativity, skill and intelligence to raise standards for all children, and not to stick to any outdated rubric in doing so.

[Miss McIntosh]

I welcome the Government review of less well-funded local education authorities, such as North Yorkshire, but there is a very urgent problem with transport for 16 to 18-year-olds attending sixth-form or higher education colleges. Will the Secretary of State address that problem as urgently as possible?

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Yes, the REACH regulations are among the 30 recently highlighted by the EU business taskforce. As my hon. Friend knows, we are working hard to reduce the burden of those regulations.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to support small businesses.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to support small businesses.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

We are doing more than ever to support small business. More than 10,000 StartUp loans have been drawn down since the scheme’s launch in September 2012. Over the past year, UK Trade & Investment has helped 32,000 businesses to export, the growth accelerator scheme has supported 10,000 small businesses and the regional growth fund has helped a further 3,200.

[Miss McIntosh]

I shall support small businesses in Helmsley this Saturday. Will the Secretary of State use his good offices to encourage the local enterprise partnership for North Yorkshire to make funds available to improve the A64 corridor, because its safety record and its terrible congestion are holding back growth for all businesses along its route?

[Vince Cable]

I will certainly make sure that the local enterprise partnership is aware of my hon. Friend’s priorities. In relation to small business Saturday, I praise the activities that she is undertaking in Helmsley. That council is one of 25 that will offer free parking that day, and I hope that a few more will sign up to that in the next 48 hours. I shall be in Twickenham to support my small businesses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

There are certainly serious issues at the Al-Madinah free school, as we all acknowledge, but it is important to put them in context. Of the first 24 free schools to be inspected, 75% were good or better, whereas in the first tranche of new local authority schools set up in the same period, only half reached that quality threshold. It is also important to recognise that the local authority in Derby has a poor record of helping to challenge underperforming schools, and that outside providers such as Barry Day of Greenwood Dale have done far more to improve education in Derby than the local authority has ever done.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Primary schools in rural communities face special challenges. In our recent report on rural communities, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee urged Ministers to give back to local authorities the flexibility to spend the most on those primary schools in the greatest need. Can we have that flexibility back?

[Michael Gove]

There is flexibility in the current approach. There is a lump sum attached to every school that ensures that smaller schools that are doing a great job can continue to provide high-quality education for children in rural areas, but the changes we are making to introduce a national fair funding formula will go even further to meet my hon. Friend’s concerns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

What we are seeing is a continuing increase in the number of overseas students applying to come to study in Britain. We all make it clear whenever we visit overseas markets that there is no cap on the number of legitimate overseas students coming to Britain; they are very warmly welcome.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I understand that in 2014-15 the local LEP is going to have a sizeable budget to distribute for infrastructure. Will the relevant Minister explain how we can access that budget and what the criteria will be?

[Michael Fallon]

Local enterprise partnerships have been invited to submit their growth plans not simply for the first year of devolved budgets, which is 2015-16, but for the expenditure of structural funds—both regional funds and social funds—from July next year for the next seven-year period. We will examine each of the local growth funds and work with individual LEPs on particular growth deals to suit each area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I spent the best part of a decade working in the family courts on exactly these sorts of cases, and many people, including myself, value the independent voice that the guardian gives to children who are in care. We know from the public law outline, which has recently been updated, that since the publication of our Children and Families Bill the length of care proceedings has already fallen from 56 to 42 weeks and that the quality of the reporting from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service has continued to improve, as has its timeliness. I will listen to what the hon. Lady has to say about the role of the guardians, but at the moment I believe they play an extremely important role.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I am aware that the Government are trying to reduce the length of the court proceedings for care orders, but is my hon. Friend mindful of the fact that when a parent wishes to maintain custody of the child and there are circumstances that the court has to investigate, the case will take as long as it takes?

[Mr Timpson]

Our reforms to the family courts system do nothing to undermine the discretion of the judiciary in ensuring that cases are considered justly. No decision is made without the best interests of the child being at the forefront of their minds and that will continue to be the case. I reassure my hon. Friend that the issue that she raises has been very much addressed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

Such systems rely on the industry to be able to update them. The industry is looking at and working on that. We have credit reference agencies, which work well in many of the credit markets, but the real-time issue that the hon. Lady raises is a genuine one and more difficult to set up than the systems in place. We are encouraging the industry to address that, because it will help to improve affordability assessments.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Is this issue not also about the level of household debt—households running into debt and not knowing how to manage a household budget? Much more information should be available to take people away from payday lenders.

[Jo Swinson]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. We are introducing financial education in schools, which is an important development to make sure that people have the tools to make decisions, but it is also important to note that half of the people who take out a payday loan are already showing signs of financial stress. So although we need to tackle the problems of payday lending, we also need to tackle the problems that get people there in the first place, and make sure that they have good access to the free and confidential debt advice available. I encourage anyone in financial difficulty to seek help sooner rather than later.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Rather than writing eloquent questions and reading them out with the rounded vowels of a public school educated champion of vocational education, I suggest that the hon. Gentleman concentrate on what the Government have done. I also suggest that he refer back to the wonderful Westminster Hall debate, held with the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk, in which the hon. Gentleman acknowledged that under the previous Government vocational education was not good enough, that there were far too many low standard courses, and that the Wolf report and the Richard review have been the two best pieces of work on vocational and technical education undertaken in the past 25 years. If he looked back at what he said then, he would face a dilemma: does he eat the words he uttered in Westminster Hall, or does he acknowledge that the question he has just asked was nonsense from start to finish?

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the likely effect of his funding proposals on rural schools.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Supporting successful rural schools is an important principle of our funding reforms. My Department has just concluded a review of funding arrangements for 2013-14, which included visits to North Yorkshire and several other rural authorities.

[Miss McIntosh]

Does the Minister accept that the pupil premium has not worked its way through to rural schools in perhaps the way he had hoped, and will he join me in helping North Yorkshire council to put in place fairer funding for rural schools, particularly those with many service children?