Teaching Quality
Baroness Primarolo Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend on the Front Bench was accused of lying. Is it right for the Secretary of State to accuse him of lying?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I most certainly did not hear that, and I would have done. As far as I can see, there is a dispute with regard to the accuracy of each Member’s interpretation of the said advert, but the Secretary of State most definitely did not accuse the hon. Gentleman of lying. He has put very forcefully exactly why he is of the view that he is with regard to the said advert. I am afraid that that is not a point of order.
Tristram Hunt
I had hoped at this point in my speech to unite both sides of the House by quoting the words of Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, who said:
“I would expect all teachers in my schools to be qualified.”
However, after last Friday’s remarkable briefing war by the Department for Education against Her Majesty’s chief inspector, I realise that he is not the unifying force that he might once have been. The achievement of qualified teacher status is not on its own a guarantee of teaching excellence; it is merely a starting point. We need to look at new ways of getting the best candidates into the teaching profession and the best teachers into underperforming schools.
Tristram Hunt
I am decreasingly surprised by the absence of the Schools Minister. When anything tricky comes up in public policy, we have a rather small cohort of Ministers from the Department for Education. As we can see from the amendment to the motion, they are in a neither fish nor fowl place on this.
The CBI has welcomed our policy. Katja Hall said:
“we need to create a culture where teachers are continually developed in the classroom to support them raising standards in schools. A licence system deserves serious consideration”.
From Brett Wigdortz of Teach First to the leading teaching trade unions to Russell Hobby of the National Association of Head Teachers, there is clear engagement and support for the idea. Even the Secretary of State’s old employer, The Times—before he spurned it for the Daily Mail group—has called the policy “courageous and correct”. I would hope for similar support from the coalition parties today.
The Opposition’s call is simply put in the first sentence of the motion: no education system can outperform the quality of its teachers. So instead of the relentless energy spent on endless structural reform, instead of the confused tinkering with the curriculum, instead of telling teachers how to teach chunking or whether they should use exercise books or not, our policy is altogether more ambitious—to work towards a world-class teacher in every classroom. I hope that Government Members will join us this afternoon in supporting the motion.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I have to inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
Chris Skidmore
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In his speech, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) said that the head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, was specifically opposed to the use of unqualified teachers. Yet in an article in The Daily Telegraph on 9 December 2013—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman wishes to speak in this debate and he is already putting his arguments on the record. Perhaps he will be a little more patient. That is not a point of order. It is a point of debate and he can make it when it is his turn. I call the Secretary of State.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. When a Member sits down, as the Secretary of State has just done, is that not the end of their speech?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Alas, Mr Brennan, you are not in the Chair today. [Interruption.] You can sit down, Secretary of State, because I can deal with this. Secretary of State, sit down! This is a serious debate and it would help me enormously if Members behaved within the conventions and rules of the House. Do not shout at each other. Do not try to help me out—I have a Clerk who will do that, should I need it. The Secretary of State has not concluded his speech and he should not sit down until he has.
Michael Fabricant
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Might I be allowed to bring you an apple?
Madam Deputy Speaker
No. As the hon. Gentleman well knows, the conventions of the House do not allow us to accept presents or to eat in the Chamber.
Michael Gove
My point was a serious one. I have given the shadow Secretary of State and everyone on the Opposition Front Bench the opportunity to correct the record. I hope that we will hear no more of the South Leeds academy and its policy of hiring unqualified teachers, taking advantage of a policy change that we made, because I have had the opportunity, thanks to your generosity, Madam Deputy Speaker, to make it entirely clear that he was—inadvertently, I am sure—in error, notwithstanding the fact that I reminded him of the facts.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Would Members like to sit down? I have been in this House for a very long time. In all that time—since 1987—it has been the convention that, when the Speaker is on their feet, Members resume their seats. It helps proceedings enormously.
There is a six-minute time limit on all Back-Bench speeches, starting now.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I, too, have been in the House a very long time, Madam Deputy Speaker. The conventions are what they are. [Laughter.] I respect all of them. They make this a charming place to work.
I am speaking in favour of the Opposition motion, but I will try to be reasonably balanced. My 10 years as Chairman of the Education Committee or whatever it was called taught me that we have made a lot of sound and fury about the differences between the Conservatives and Labour over the years, but an awful lot joins us together in policy development over the period.
I say to the Secretary of State that the debate is an important one. I have a great deal of respect for him, but his speech exemplified the Walter Mitty attitude he puts over to the world. I know that, in his heart and in his brain, he loves education and the job of Secretary of State, and that he is passionate about driving standards up. However, the way in which he often puts his case in the House and outside drives everyone mad. He spoke for more than 20 minutes, and I tried not to make an unhelpful intervention. There were lots of party political jibes and counter-jibes. A lot of people out there who are interested in education want Government and Opposition Members to address the issues. They want us to say, “Look. There are important challenges. Together, we can get it right.” I am getting to the age at which I am intolerant of the argy-bargy that goes on in such debates. On today’s performance, the Secretary of State was the one who lowered the tone—I say that even though I respect him.
Let us concentrate on the quality of teaching. There is a great deal of stuff out there on the priorities. I still go to more schools than most Members of Parliament. My great hobby and passion is going to schools and assessing them. When I became Chairman of the Committee, I did not know how to read a school. Only when I did my first inquiry into primary education did I learn. Really good experts took me into schools and said, “This is how you read a school. This is how you can be conned by the up-front presentation.” I got a kind of Ofsted inspector’s short course on ascertaining the quality of a school and have gained a lot of experience.
There is a lot of codology. I assure hon. Members that they can go to schools where somebody on the staff will say awful things such as, “You realise that we can’t teach here. We’re just social workers.” It drives me mad when they say that. The fact is that all good teachers look at the child holistically. Many of a child’s barriers to learning are found in a bad home environment or the lack of the English language. Children have a complex range of challenges to surmount to learn.
Another thing people say is, “What do you expect us to do with the children in an area like this one?” They suggest that, because there is a great deal of poverty and deprivation, children cannot be taught. One of the great things about Sir Michael Wilshaw as a chief inspector is his ability to say, “When someone says that to you, look to the school.” He can say to the head teacher and staff, “Funnily enough, there is a school not far from here”—it could even be on the other side of the country—“with exactly the same social composition in the neighbourhood. It is doing so much better than you. What is the reason for that?” That is why I am a great admirer of Sir Michael Wilshaw. I hoped that the Secretary of State, in his speech today, would have said what had happened last week to make a modest man, who I have known for a long time and who ran one of the best academies in the country, so angry as to accuse the Department for Education of briefing against him. It has been said outside this House, but I have not heard the Secretary of State explain why the chief inspector was driven to make that statement in The Sunday Times.
We depend on the inspectorate to drive up standards. It is key to knowing the quality of teaching in our land. If we do not have an inspector and an inspectorate that does the job properly we are in trouble. The inspectorate is not perfect. I think it is well led at the moment: the chief inspector is excellent and he has a core team. He still struggles with something that I think goes back to 1972, which is that many people believe that Ofsted inspectors are independently trained within Ofsted. They are actually—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. To allow every hon. Member who wishes to speak to do so, the time limit will be reduced to five minutes, although it may be necessary to review that later. I call Nic Dakin.
Small Businesses
Baroness Primarolo Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Before I call the mover of the motion, a large number of Members want to speak in this afternoon’s debates, so in this first debate there will be a six-minute limit on all contributions after the mover has spoken. I am sure that Anne Marie Morris will bear that in mind as she opens the debate.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I have to inform the House that we have another debate this afternoon and we are running out of time. The Minister and the shadow Minister need to be on their feet by 25 past 3. I am going to set a time limit of five minutes and I ask the remaining Members to make sure they share that fairly among themselves. If they do not do so, somebody will not get to speak. In other words, if there are lots of interventions, somebody will fall off the end of today’s speaking list.
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm whether it is still Labour’s policy to increase corporation tax?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before the shadow Minister answers the Minister, will they please remember that I will stop the debate at 3.45 pm? If the Minister is still on his feet at that point, he will lose the time, because we will have to start the next debate.
Toby Perkins
Our policy is well known, but I will go through it at length in a moment.
The hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) spoke for only five minutes, but he was wrong about just about everything he said. I will give two examples. He said that businesses want an EU referendum, but very few businesses are telling me that. He extolled the virtues of the arbitrary one-in, two-out red tape challenge and seemed to think that the Government have a good record on red tape, but he was unable to name any of their innovations that have made a difference.
The hon. Member for Rugby made an incredibly significant point about the importance of sales skills. I am sure he will be delighted to know that the Labour party is undertaking a large programme—headed by Kate Walsh, formerly of “The Apprentice”—on the importance of sales skills, and we will report on its work shortly.
The hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) focused broadly on the importance of small firms. The hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) was absolutely correct to say that the UK is right at the forefront of those places where it is easiest to set up a small business. The World Bank said that Britain was the fourth easiest place to set up a business in 2010.
I do not want to focus on the Government’s failures, but on the successful moves that a future Labour Government will make. We are considering the future of vital small firms, and Labour has the answers to their questions. The cost of living crisis for small firms is taking many of them to the brink, but Labour’s pledge to freeze energy prices until 2017 would save the average British small business £5,000. Hon. Members will be shocked to learn that business rates have risen by £1,500 a year on average under this Government, and that they face a further hike in April 2014.
To answer the Minister’s question, Labour proposes not to take forward the Government’s planned 1% corporation tax cut for 80,000 large firms, but instead to use all the money to cut the business rate bills of 1.5 million small firms. In a week of U-turns, it would be incredibly—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman has now had 10 minutes. This is a Back-Bench debate, and it will be followed by another Back-Bench debate. I want him to conclude in his current sentence, so that I can call the Minister, who will also have 10 minutes.
Toby Perkins
I will, Madam Deputy Speaker. On a range of issues from micro-business support to the need for Government to provide the necessary skills, small businesses are saying that the Government have more work to do. Labour is responding to that call from small businesses, and our message to them is, “We know how vital you are, and we are right behind you.”
Child Care
Baroness Primarolo Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I am changing the time limit for the last two speeches in order to start the wind-ups at 10 past 4. The time limit is now six minutes.
Qualified Teachers
Baroness Primarolo Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Interventions must be brief, however important the point might be to the person who is making it.
Michael Gove
I know that the hon. Gentleman is interested in splits, because he embodies one. He is a one-man walking split-generating machine. On the one hand, he is determined to remove schools from the hands of local authorities, whereas on the other he wants to impose them on them.
I fear that one thing the hon. Gentleman does not appreciate is the fact that academies and free schools face a greater degree of scrutiny than local authority schools. He has argued that we need local authority oversight because the current regime is not enough, but is he aware that academies face an annual audit from the Education Funding Agency? They must have independently audited financial accounts. They must appoint an accounting officer who has personal responsibility to the National Audit Office and, through that office, to Parliament. Those accounts must have a regularity opinion from external auditors that sets out how regularity over income and expenditure has been obtained. Free schools must also undergo their own financial management evaluation, which is counter-checked by the Education Funding Agency. That is regulation.
What about local authorities, by contrast? The National Audit Office has said:
“Local authorities do not publish systematic data to demonstrate how they are monitoring schools’ financial management and that they are intervening where necessary.”
There we have it: academies are properly regulated whereas local authority schools are not, according to the National Audit Office, regulated with anything like the same degree of intensity.
As laid out in the academies financial handbook, if there is any problem with their finances academies must ensure that they comply with the financial notice to improve and seek consent to any non-routine financial transaction. Local authorities, of course, have similar powers to suspend delegated financial functions, but there is no central record of their doing so in local authority schools, whereas there are many records and examples of academies and free schools being subject to precisely the sort of regulatory oversight that local authority schools lack. For that reason, academies and free schools are better regulated and better protected.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central mentioned one particular free school, the Al-Madinah free school, and there were certainly grievous problems there. However, that is just one school with problems; a number of local authority schools, unfortunately, also have the same ranking from Ofsted and have been graded as 4—inadequate—in every conceivable area. He has not mentioned them because he is entirely selective in his use of evidence. He has not mentioned Hawthorn primary school, Oakhill primary school, Newtown primary school, Doncaster Road primary school, St John’s primary school, Stanhope primary school, Long Cross primary school, Wellfield, Roydon, Rosebrook or a number of others. He has not done so because his selective use of evidence has been designed to discredit a programme under which, just a few weeks ago, he said he would put rocket boosters. The problem, I am afraid, is that those rocket boosters have blown up in his face.
As a historian, the hon. Gentleman should know that excessive reliance on just one source leads to errors. Of course, there have been other historians whose selective reading of evidence has allowed them to make a splash at times in the past, such as Hugh Trevor-Roper, for one, with the Hitler diaries. But although he caused a stir, he also sacrificed his credibility permanently. That is what the hon. Gentleman has done by refusing to acknowledge the brilliant record of free schools overall. He has refused to acknowledge that 50% of new local authority schools have been rated good or outstanding in the latest Ofsted ranking, whereas 75% of free schools have been ranked good or outstanding. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that where it counts, free schools are outperforming local authority schools.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before the Secretary of State replies to that intervention, may I gently remind him that the Speaker asked for brief opening speeches? There are many Members on both sides of the House who want to participate, so I am sure he is keeping that in mind as he comes to the conclusion of his speech.
Michael Gove
I am bearing that in mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I thought it was important that the House was acquainted with evidence, there being a distinct lack of it in the speech from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central.
One of the things that I wanted to stress is that if the Labour policy is enacted, that will mean that there are people currently teaching in the state sector in academies and free schools who will lose their jobs—people like Anita Zarska, who is a chemistry teacher at the new East London science school, who has a PhD in molecular biology. She would lose her job. Howard Bowden, a graduate of Trinity Cambridge, the same college as the hon. Gentleman went to, is teaching at Batley grammar and has won national awards for teaching. He would lose his job. Jane Macbride at Priory community school in Weston-super-Mare, former head of an Asda sales team, who teaches—appropriately enough—business studies would lose her job.
In the week when we have discovered, as the Sharon Shoesmith case shows, that when Labour politicians start sacking people in a knee-jerk fashion, the courts can intervene and cost the taxpayer thousands, has the hon. Gentleman consulted his lawyers? Is his policy compliant with the European convention on human rights? Will he ensure that those outstanding teachers who are in our schools now will not be sacked arbitrarily as a result of a policy drawn up simply to appease the teaching unions? The consequence of his policy would be to sack them.
The consequence of the hon. Gentleman’s policy would also be that independent schools that have joined the state sector through our free school programme would be barred from opening their doors, as the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) wants, to every student who wants to join them—schools such as Chetwynde in Barrow, Liverpool college in Liverpool, King’s school in Tynemouth, all of them independent schools and all with teachers who do not have QTS. All of them would be barred from opening their doors to every child as a result of Labour policy.
What of the contribution of outstanding head teachers from the independent sector who are also helping state schools? What about Richard Cairns of Brighton college, who set up the London Academy of Excellence? What about Stephen Spurr, the head teacher of Westminster school, who is opening a new free school with Harris to help the poorest children? Neither of those has QTS. Both of them are outstanding. Both of them would be barred from helping poorer children under the hon. Gentleman’s policy.
The policy of the Labour party in the past prevented many intellectually gifted educators from helping children in need because those people were imprisoned in ivory towers. Take a chap I know called Tristram. Tristram was an Oxbridge man; he had a top degree; he was universally lauded by everyone in his field. He was a celebrated media figure. [Interruption.] No, I am not talking about the hon. Gentleman. I am talking about Tristram Jones-Parry. I know the hon. Gentleman thinks it is all about him, but this is not about him. It is about the children who will be denied the chance to get a fantastic education because Tristram Jones-Parry, who has a Cambridge degree in mathematics, was barred from teaching in state schools under Labour and is able to teach in state schools under our policy.
As a result of our policy, we now have support from Richard Cairns, the headmaster of Brighton college, the best independent school in the country. Katy Ricks, the head teacher of Sevenoaks, has said that recruiting staff, the job of any head teacher, is quite simply about getting the best possible person for the job. FASNA, the organisation that represents those teachers who are most keen on freedom and autonomy in driving up standards, says that head teachers should be trusted to hire the right people for the job.
Everyone who knows anything about how to improve state education, everyone who backs greater autonomy, backs our Government’s policy. The one person who does not, unfortunately, is the hon. Gentleman. He benefited from great teaching at his private school. It allowed him, as we heard, to make it to Cambridge, but he would deny that teaching to poor children. He got to Cambridge with the help of men and women who did not have QTS, but who had a great degree and a passion for learning, and now he wants to deny that same opportunity to poor children. He knows directly what great teaching in an independent school is and he says that poor children should never have the opportunity to enjoy the same privileges as he did.
It is the same old Labour party—“Do as I say, not as I do”—a Labour party willing to pull up the ladder from the next generation, a Labour party that has benefited from all the advantages that money can buy and then, when the poor come knocking on the door, saying, “Liberate us from ignorance,” says, “Sorry, no. We’re with the unions. We are not on your side.” It is shameless and that is why I hope everyone on the Government Benches will vote against the Opposition motion.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. There are a large number of Members who want to take part in the debate. We are starting with a time limit of five minutes each. It will be necessary to reduce it if everybody is to get in.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I wondered why Mr Stuart looked startled when I called him to speak, and now I realise that it was because I should have called an Opposition Member. To correct my error, I will now call two Opposition Members before returning to alternating speakers.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. It is very disruptive to have people shouting across the Chamber, particularly from the Government Benches. Those Members may wish to be called in the debate, and if this behaviour persists, they might find that we run out of time before they get called.
Simon Wright
No, I am coming to the end of my comments.
I would have welcomed the opportunity to support the amendment on the Order Paper. It would have given the House the opportunity to acknowledge the fact—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The amendment has not been selected, so the hon. Gentleman cannot refer to it.
Simon Wright
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given that I do not have the opportunity to refer to the amendment, I will not take part in the Division.
Stephen Metcalfe
I agree 100%. We need to be open and transparent about who has what qualifications and we must ensure that there is a rigorous and robust inspection regime, but the motion would exclude Stephen Hawking from even offering to teach a class. He would not be allowed to teach a—[Interruption.] He would not be allowed to teach because he would not have—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. We are going to have a bit of command and control here. The command from me is that Members are to stop shouting across the Chamber when somebody is speaking. If they want to intervene, they should do so. The control is that if they persist in shouting, they will not be called in this debate.
Stephen Metcalfe
I apologise for responding, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The motion would prevent Stephen Hawking from offering himself as a teacher, unless he got QTS or said that he was studying for it. It would prevent Jessica Ennis from teaching PE, Damien Hirst from teaching art and the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) from teaching history. We should consider all the people who might have something to offer our students, but who would be excluded unless they put themselves forward for QTS. I accept that experience and achievement in themselves do not make for a good teacher and that we must never compromise standards, but equally, experience and achievement do not make somebody a bad teacher.
We need excellent, well-qualified, dedicated, respected and inspirational teachers, but let us not exclude all those who are exactly that just because they have not acquired QTS. If we do, we will fail not only ourselves, but the very people on whom we should be focused: the students.
Deaf Children and Young People
Baroness Primarolo Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. We are short of time this afternoon, as Members will be aware. The debate has to finish by 5 o’clock. I will not impose a time limit at this stage but will wait to see how we proceed. I ask Members not to make long speeches. Hopefully they will be about eight minutes long, but 10 minutes is the maximum, including interventions. I hope that everybody will be able to participate in this important debate.
Adult Literacy and Numeracy
Baroness Primarolo Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. A senior member of the Government party in the other place said live on television at lunchtime that he believed that Royal Mail was significantly undervalued. Given that Royal Mail will enter the stock market system tomorrow and that taxpayers are set to lose out on anything from hundreds of millions to billions of pounds, is there any mechanism by which we could bring the Minister or Secretary of State to the House to explain to the public why the undervaluing of Royal Mail could lose the taxpayer millions?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
That is not a point of order for the Chair, as there is no mechanism by which the Chair can decide Government business on the Floor of the House. I hesitate to suggest that the hon. Gentleman should write to the Minister, although there are Members on the Treasury Bench who have heard his comments. I am sorry to have to disappoint him by saying that that is not within the power of the Chair.
EU-US Trade and Investment Agreement
Baroness Primarolo Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before the right hon. Gentleman quotes President Obama, I would gently remind him that he has been speaking for 20 minutes and I will have to set a time limit on Back-Bench contributions in this debate, so I would be grateful if he began to bring his comments to a conclusion.
John Healey
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I will indeed. I think I have spoken for probably not quite 15 minutes, given the interventions I have taken, but I am conscious of what you have said.
When President Obama was with our Prime Minister in Washington in mid-May, he put it very delicately:
“I think the UK’s participation in the EU is an expression of its influence and its role in the world, as well as, obviously, a very important economic partnership.”
However, his officials were much blunter. They made it clear that there would be little appetite in Washington and no deal for Britain if it left the European Union. I have already said to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) that some of the research suggests that European countries that are not part of the European Union would lose out most in the event of such an agreement.
However, this agreement must be well regulated and command public confidence. It will not and cannot be a deal done in the diplomatic backrooms, because Congress and, now, the European Parliament must approve the terms of any agreement. The European Parliament has already shown its mettle in rejecting the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement that was recently negotiated, including with Japan, Australia, Canada and the US. Unanimity, and not just a qualified majority, may well be needed in the Council of Ministers to approve some parts of any future agreement in, say trade in services, intellectual property, foreign direct investment and anything to do with social, education or health services. There is also a case for expecting any agreement to involve mixed competences. In other words, there could be a contestable case that member states, rather than the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, will have to ratify any elements of such an agreement dealing with, for instance, intellectual property, transport or investor-state dispute mechanisms.
Let me begin to wind up. There are four things that the Government could do to help to secure a successful, well negotiated agreement that commands wide support. First, they should swallow hard, accept that we are in the hands of the European Union and throw their weight behind the Commission’s negotiators. That means—I say this to the Minister—no public criticism, no freelance discussions with the US and no distancing ourselves from the deal while it is being negotiated.
Secondly, the Government should map and publish the jobs linked to foreign direct investment and exports in every area of Britain. The US does that on a state-by-state basis for every member of Congress and every Senator. Even the British embassy in Washington, together with the CBI, has produced a state-by-state analysis of the jobs there that are linked to exports to the UK. Surely we can do that for ourselves in Britain as well.
Thirdly, the Government should deal with the fears that will arise during negotiations that could derail public or parliamentary support for the agreement. These include concerns about the NHS being opened up to big US health care companies and concerns about employment, consumer or environmental standards being weakened. There might also be concerns about the investor-state dispute system—even though the EU and the US have long established traditions and well proven systems of due process, the rule of law and respect for property rights—particularly when an ISDS is being abused in the way that Veolia, the French company, is abusing the system in trying to sue the Egyptian Government for raising the national minimum wage.
Fourthly, the Government should make the process open and transparent to the public and Parliament. In the US and the European Parliament, the negotiators are holding briefing sessions—in the Parliament and with the Parliament—before and after each set of negotiations. They are also doing that with wider interest groups and making public some of the position papers as they go into the negotiations. I would like much more formal reporting and accountability of the UK Government to Parliament on EU matters. Other countries, such as Germany, Portugal and Denmark, have formal legal agreements with their Governments and Parliaments covering negotiation mandates, the provision of documents, and notification and reporting arrangements. It would help to build wider confidence in, and strong democratic influence on, our involvement in the European Union if we followed that sort of model. We can start on this European trade and investment agreement.
Today we are at the start of the negotiations on what could be a groundbreaking US-EU trade deal. We are at the start of the debates that this House will have and the scrutiny that we must offer of the Government’s contribution to those debates. This is the first such debate but—I hope and expect—certainly not the last.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Given the number of Members who wish to participate, the time limit will be seven minutes, but it might be necessary to review that as we progress through the debate.
Careers Advice in Schools
Baroness Primarolo Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
If you could take 10 minutes, Mr Birtwistle, I think we will be able to get the other speakers in.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend, coming as he does from my home town of Burnley, for securing the debate. With engineering and manufacturing companies reporting recruiting difficulties because of skills shortages and too few students choosing to study engineering and manufacturing, does he agree with the North West Business Leadership Team’s recent report, “Skills for Industry”, that the creation of a single, signposted point of contact to aid recruitment into these fields—a recognised organisation for employers offering jobs, and for students and their careers advisers who are interested in applying to do engineering and manufacturing—is urgently needed?
Madam Deputy Speaker
This debate ends at 10 pm. I would like interventions to be brief and to follow the courtesies and convention by being relevant to the point being made by the hon. Member at the moment the intervention occurs. We will then get everyone in.
Gordon Birtwistle
I have read that report and I agree entirely with my hon. Friend.
The Paris air show took place recently and it is a fantastically successful showcase for the British aerospace industry. We are a small country, but we are second in the world for aerospace manufacture. I spoke to Martin Wright, the chief executive of the North West Aerospace Alliance. I said, “You must be absolutely delighted with what has happened at the Paris air show, with Rolls-Royce and Airbus getting big orders.” He said, “Yes, we are absolutely delighted, but we have a major problem: the capacity is full. We cannot produce the product we are selling at the Paris air show.” When I asked him why, he said, “Well, there are plenty of companies doing it, but the problem is they come up against a brick wall of skills shortages.” As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) said, the skills shortages happening now are of major concern to business, but even worse are those that will happen in future. We need to resolve that problem.
Children and Families Bill
Baroness Primarolo Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Neil Carmichael
My hon. Friend is making an outstanding speech on a critical issue. I want to reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on the importance of access to national facilities, because we must not localise provision at the expense of national organisations. Ruskin Mill in my constituency, and the National Star College in my county, provide expertise that we do not necessarily find elsewhere that is critical to young people’s futures. I want to put down a strong marker that we should ensure that national facilities are not put at risk through the funding—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. We are drifting now. Interventions are supposed to be short points that are relevant to the speech at the time they are made. If Members want to contribute, they can. The hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) has had the floor for some time, and other hon. Members wish to speak in this important debate. Despite his generosity in giving way, I am sure he is probably coming towards the end of what he wishes to say in this part of the debate.
Mr Buckland
I am extremely grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Your exhortation allows me to move on to the other amendments in my name, which I will deal with as expeditiously as I can.
Amendments 40 to 43 deal with young people over 18. The extension of legal protections for young people with SEN up to 25, which is at the heart of the Bill, is warmly welcome. However, the Bill states a number of times that local authorities “must have regard to” a young person’s age when making decisions on the support they receive after they are 18. We understand that the extension of provision to 25 does not create a blanket right to education for all young people with SEN, but we are concerned that the current drafting could give another get-out to local authorities, which could use the fact that a young person was over 18 to deny them support. Therefore, I suggest the removal of the phrase
“must have regard to his or her age”
to avoid that unintentional consequence.
Amendment 44 relates to the duty of health commissioners. As I have said, I welcome that extension, which is a significant improvement, and which breaks the problem of the silo effect on education and health care plans. However, in the amendment, I am asking whether the provision goes far enough. Clause 37(2)(d) places a duty on local authorities to include in the plans health provision that is “reasonably required” by a child or young person. With clever lawyers, arguments could arise over the meaning of “reasonably”. We should therefore delete that word.
Clause 37(2)(d) also states that health services that must be included in the EHC plan must be linked to the
“learning difficulties and disabilities which result in”
the special educational needs of
“the child or young person.”
In other words, the health provision must be linked to the specific impairment that has resulted in the child or young person being considered to have SEN. If the health need is not specifically linked, it does not need to be included. The danger is that limiting the requirement could result in confusion and, bluntly, injustice. For example, if a child with Down’s syndrome has a related heart condition, health provision needed to support their medical needs would need to be included in the EHC plan. However, if a child with Down’s syndrome has chronic asthma, which is unrelated to their Down’s and does not result in the SEN, there is no requirement to include the medical need in the plan. Such a distinction works against the Government’s intention to create a co-ordinated system. Once again, energy is being wasted on arguments about what is related to the special need. Let us try to cut the Gordian knot and deal with the issue in a straightforward way that does not create confusion and the potential for litigation.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Before the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) gets to his feet again I have to say that he has now been speaking for 32 minutes. Other Members wish to speak, so I hope he will draw his remarks to a conclusion soon—in the next 60 seconds—so we can move on to other contributions to this important debate.
Mr Buckland
I bear your strictures seriously, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I pray in aid remarks I have made in the past on the importance of the accountability of the local offer, and echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West on clause 69. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to redouble his efforts with the Ministry of Justice, so that clause 69 is expunged from the Bill when it returns to this House.
May I very briefly mention new clause 21, which is part of this group? It relates to the duty to ensure that there is inclusion for children and young people. That must not just be a comfortable word that we in this place all use—it has to mean something. In transforming local services, we must stop making an assumption, even for children and young people in special schools, that there will not be times when they will want to access mainstream services. I should add that a large number of children with special needs currently enjoy mainstream education with appropriate support. We need to underpin the spectrum of provision, whether in the form of education or other local provisions, which is why I commend new clause 21, which was tabled with my colleagues on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the hon. Members for Aberavon (Dr Francis) and for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma).
I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to address the House at some length. I apologise for that, but this is an important Bill. We have got to get it right.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Before I call the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), may I remind him that we have a very short period left and that I need to leave a few minutes for the Minister?
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I would like to speak briefly to amendments Nos 5, 6, 7 and 8, which seek to introduce greater flexibility and understanding of the 26-week target for care proceedings. Nobody in this place would deny that that target is very helpful and we hope that, in most cases, we will be able to meet it. But we know—for example from the Norgrove report—that, on average, cases take up to 61 weeks: 48 weeks in family court proceedings. The Justice Committee, of which I am a member, held an inquiry into the operation of family courts. In its evidence to us, Barnardo’s made the point:
“Two months of delay in making decisions in the best interest of a child equates to 1% of childhood that cannot be restored.”
For this reason, both the all-party group on child protection and the Justice Committee welcomed the Government’s aim of reducing unnecessary delay in the care system.
Care must be taken with regard to the target as well. Clause 14 provides the starting point for courts in setting a time for cases; proceedings should come to an end within 26 weeks, as I mentioned. But there is some ambiguity as to when courts should deem an extension appropriate. As the College of Social Work and the Family Rights Group have argued, there is a genuine risk that the proposed 26-week limit could result in too much focus on procedure and not enough on the welfare of the child.
The vast majority of cases will be concluded within six months, but deciding on permanent options can take longer for some children, not always due to problems with the court process or unnecessary delay. Social workers will attest that situations can change in the course of proceedings; for example, when relatives present themselves as possible carers late in the process. The Family Rights Group has pointed out that, under the new limit, if family members are late in offering themselves as carers there may well not be enough time for the relevant assessments to be carried out.
Equally, placing a child with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins or other siblings can reinforce aspects of a child’s identity. In many cases, however, relatives will be reluctant to offer this option if they think that there is still a chance that the child will be able to be returned to his or her parents.
I anticipate that Government Members will point out that the safeguard for granting extensions to cases is robust enough to allow for complications to be ironed out. Sadly, I have it on good evidence that judges are, in some cases, already imposing a 26-week deadline on proceedings even before the limit has been introduced. It is crucial that time considerations do not supersede the welfare of the child concerned. What is more, some intervention programmes take longer than 26 weeks due to parents undergoing treatment for substance misuse issues and similar problems. The pilot boroughs—Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster, and Kensington and Chelsea—have estimated that 25 to 30 per cent. of all cases will take longer than the 26-week limit.
Intensive family programmes, such as the NSPCC’s infant and family team, are another example. The programme was developed in the United States and is now being piloted in the United Kingdom. A four-year evaluation of the programme in the US showed improved outcomes for children and adults in all groups that undertook the programme. I will be unable to address that point as fully as I should like in the time allotted, but one of the motivations behind the amendments I am speaking to—by the way, I am hugely indebted to the NSPCC for its assistance in this matter—is that some cases should be exempted from the limit from the outset. Although the Bill as drafted would allow for incremental eight-week extensions, practitioners in the field have warned that they would need to know at the beginning of proceedings how much time they have to work with the family, in order to secure the best possible outcome.
Equally worryingly, practitioners warn that social workers could be deterred from seeking extensions other than in highly exceptional circumstances, as the “specific justification” test in clause 14(7) may be perceived as a barrier in borderline cases. That is why amendment 5 would allow courts to exempt certain cases from the 26-week limit from the very start of proceedings if evidence relating to a planned intervention or programme requiring a longer period was presented to the court, or if the court considered it necessary to permit additional time to safeguard the child’s welfare.
Amendments 7 and 8 relate to clause 17, which introduces significant reforms to the way in which courts scrutinise care plans. I do not have time to go into the context; all I would say is that I, too, am disappointed that our time is limited today. These are very important matters. I have skimmed through what I was going to say—I am grateful that I was able to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker—and I know that the NSPCC and many other organisations will be bitterly disappointed that we have had to truncate such important debates in this way.
Examination Reform
Baroness Primarolo Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Bill Esterson
While the debate rages in front of me, I want to check—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I say to Mr Brennan and the Secretary of State that that is enough. Let us hear the intervention from the hon. Gentleman.
Bill Esterson
I thought the Secretary of State was giving another of his famous soliloquies in his team meetings, which we heard about this morning.
What is the view of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) on the role of assessments within qualifications and the balance between that and end-of-year exams, because that is one key change in the EBCs proposed by the Secretary of State?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The wind-ups need to start at 3.40 pm. In order to fit in the last two Back-Bench speakers, I am changing the time limit to five minutes. I am dividing the time equally between the two speakers. I call Neil Carmichael.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am perfectly happy to give up my five minutes so that my hon. Friend can speak for 10 minutes.
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) will not get 10 minutes; he will get eight, as that has been the time limit. It is very gracious of the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) to withdraw; I thank him for that.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) for that gesture, although I am not going to speak for what must now be only seven and a half minutes.
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman does not have to speak for eight minutes—if he does not, there will simply be longer wind-ups—but he should get on with it.
Neil Carmichael
First, I want to pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on beliefs and experience. We all have beliefs and some of us have had experience as well. One of my sharpest experiences was that of marking examinations taken by undergraduates who displayed an innate intelligence but not necessarily a huge ability to communicate. We should all think about that during the course of this debate, because it is important that communication skills and mathematics should be embedded as early as possible.
My second point is that there is much more continuity between those on the two Front Benches than might first be supposed. That came to my attention when I was reading Lord Adonis’s recent book on education. He has paved the way for some of the changes that we are continuing—