Education Regulations and Faith Schools
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh
I absolutely agree. I mentioned the thousands of Church of England and Roman Catholic schools. I do not think that there is any evidence that any of those schools are creating Christian jihadists. I have six children, and they have attended faith schools in the state and private sectors. The thought that any of those primary schools in the maintained sector, whether Catholic or Anglican, is teaching intolerance is completely absurd.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
The hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) mentioned the importance of understanding other faiths. Is that not the critical factor? We should all understand other faiths and schools should teach an understanding of other faiths, but that is very different from promoting other faiths in a faith school.
Sir Edward Leigh
Absolutely. The cornerstone—may I dare use that word?—of faith schools is that they start from their own religion, and what do all of the great world religions teach? They teach understanding, tolerance and love of God and neighbour, so nobody should be teaching intolerance.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
This debate is vital, because dedicated teachers in faith schools across the country are deeply worried. Reports of the approach taken by inspectors, as described by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), in applying these schools standards and regulations has generated such concern that in my view Ministers have a duty to step in to clarify the confusion and allay teachers’ fears.
A constituent wrote to me, saying that the school and early years funding regulations
“will cause many early years providers with faith links to be excluded, or to compromise their teaching for fear of being excluded from receiving funding”.
In response, an Education Minister wrote:
“The Government…does not believe that it is appropriate to fund early years settings that teach creationism as evidence-based scientific fact… Nurseries continue to be free to tell creation stories, provided that they do not assert that these are scientifically based”.
What exactly does that mean? A nursery school teacher reading the Biblical account of creation has to say to her three-year-olds, “But children, this is not being taught as evidence-based scientific fact.” That is absolutely ridiculous. The concern is, however, that for fear of contravening the Department’s requirements, teachers are feeling pressurised into the safer option—as they see it—of not teaching the creation story or any other aspects of the Bible.
Another confusion concerns the application of the spiritual, moral, social and cultural standards. The Department states:
“It is not necessary for schools…to ‘promote’ teachings, beliefs or opinions that conflict with their own”.
It is important that the Minister confirms that at the Dispatch Box and that there is no requirement to promote other faiths. What is required is actively to promote mutual respect and tolerance of those with other faiths and beliefs. It is the freedom to follow other religions and a respect for that freedom that we should promote. It is entirely right that we should respect other people, including those with other beliefs, and to respect their right to hold those beliefs, but this is being conflated with a requirement to respect all other beliefs, which is quite a different thing altogether.
I respect Scientologists, but I do not respect Scientology. This confusion is very real. It appears in inspectors’ minds. Her Majesty’s chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, wrote of schools teaching “respect for…various faiths”, making no distinction between the believers and the beliefs. I understand that a Jewish Ofsted inspector has said that Ofsted wants to clamp down on schools that
“don’t conform to their ideology”.
Will the Minister confirm that it is not the intention that the standards should discriminate against any religion or undermine religious freedoms, because that appears to be exactly what is happening?
That brings us to yet another cause of confusion mentioned already: what exactly are British values? The Department’s consultation on British values—such a major issue—was hurried, mainly over the school summer holiday period, and inadequate. To then require the active promotion of those values by teachers is presumptuous and has contributed to the current confusion. The Church of England, in its response to the consultation on independent schools regulations, expressed concern that there had not been a sufficiently broad public consultation to inform the definition of British values and remains of the view that they are inadequately expressed and that broad public debate is still required. Ministers need to act on such concerns expressed by the Church of England, which oversees almost 5,000 church schools, both primary and secondary.
Another source of confusion that has been mentioned surrounds the phrase “age-appropriate”, with reference to Ofsted inspectors’ questions. We hear of different head teachers reporting pupils variously feeling
“bullied into answering inspectors’ questions”,
distressed, “traumatised and ashamed”, and “uncomfortable and upset”. As we have heard, a girl in year 11 felt “threatened about our religion”. It is a rich irony that, if that is the case, the inspectors’ approach contravenes the very recommendation to respect people that these standards extol. Far from promoting British values, these standards seem to be undermining them.
A fundamental British value stated in the standard is “individual liberty”, yet a teacher from an Orthodox Christian school, whom I have known for more than 20 years, wrote to me to point out that
“there are issues of erosion of…freedom”
here.
Ministers need to step in and clarify what questions are and are not suitable for inspectors to ask young children, and how this issue should be approached, so that young people of different faiths can feel comfortable about living out their faiths in today’s diverse society.
Will the Minister confirm that he and his colleagues will look towards giving clear direction to Ofsted inspectors on these and other issues of concern to ensure that common sense prevails, to clarify what teachers in faith schools can expect when being inspected and to ensure that teachers’ ability to work according to their religious ethos is protected, so that the Department’s statement that
“it is not necessary for schools or individuals to ‘promote’ teachings, beliefs or opinions that conflict with their own”
is made a reality and not just rhetoric?
Sir David Amess
Yes, that is absolutely what I am saying.
A leaked internal Department for Education document shows that there has been a significant breakdown in trust between the DFE and Ofsted over this issue. The document describes Ofsted’s controversial drive to carry out British values inspections, and accuses the regulator of sending “confused and mixed messages”. However, the Government put the British values agenda in place and they have been quick to say that complaints about inappropriate questions are a matter for Ofsted, apparently without taking any steps to rein in the regulator. There are therefore questions for the Minister to answer today, and I am sure that we are anxious to leave him plenty of time to deal with them.
The Secretary of State sent a letter to colleagues stating:
“The changes we are making were first outlined in a letter to the Education Select Committee by Lord Nash in March of this year. In that letter, Lord Nash explained that the rationale was: ‘to tighten up the standards on pupil welfare to improve safeguarding, and the standards on spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils to strengthen the barriers to extremism’.”
The letter went on to state:
“The Prime Minister’s Extremism Task Force was clear in its December 2013 report that ‘Islamist extremism…is a distinct ideology which should not be confused with traditional religious practice’—but the vague school standards allow Ofsted to treat social conservatives as extremists.”
That is absolutely ridiculous.
The Secretary of State also told us that there are
“twin aims that lie at the heart of the reforms.
The most significant change strengthens the reference to fundamental British values, requiring schools not only to ‘respect’ but to actively promote them. This gives force to a policy first set out by my predecessor in response to events in Birmingham.
The fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs are not new.
They were defined in the Government’s Prevent Strategy in 2011”.
However, the Secretary of State also said:
“The new standards, which require the active promotion of British values, mark a dramatic change in education policy. The previous standards simply required respect for British values and made no mention of the Equality Act 2010…
No pupil should be made to feel inferior to others because of their background. This has long been a central tenet of British education. But it is of course also essential to protect freedom of speech and it is in no way true to suggest that these changes would fetter the views of individual teachers or censor the discussion of relevant matters. A teacher who, for instance, disagrees with same-sex marriage because of their Christian faith will not be prevented from expressing that view by these changes any more than they would now.”
Fiona Bruce
My hon. Friend has spoken about the changes in these standards, but what has been an important change is that the Secretary of State now has power to take regulatory action where a school is in breach of these requirements. That is why it is so important that we seek clarification and that the Minister gives it, because the repercussions on a school if it is in breach of these standards, in the inspector’s view, are devastating.
Sir David Amess
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s advice, and I am sure the whole House will reflect on what she has said. Let me return to what I was saying before she intervened. The letter continued:
“The experience in Orthodox Jewish schools has been that inspectors were actively hostile to traditional Jewish beliefs about marriage held by children and staff.”
That is absolutely shocking.
In conclusion, I believe that tolerance and inclusion are some of the most important British values, but the way in which they are passed on to young pupils should not be imposed on schools. Ofsted needs to cease making unannounced inspections on our brilliant, wonderful faith schools, and stop questioning pupils in a way that is not considered age-appropriate by parents.
Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs Grant
I do not accept anything that the hon. Gentleman has just said. I am determined to set up this expert group of supporters, which is about to be launched. We have members, we have a chair, with whom I had a meeting very recently, and the hon. Gentleman will hear announcements very soon. The group itself will consider ownership, debt and all the various issues that are likely to be of concern to fans.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Clonter Opera theatre in Congleton has produced highly professional productions for 40 years as well as educational events. Last month, I enjoyed an excellent production of Gounod’s “Faust”, which transferred to London. However, despite strong local support, the future of Clonter is now in question. Will the Minister meet me and Clonter to discuss how support can be obtained to ensure it continues to make its unique contribution to arts in the north for many years to come?
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
5. What recent progress she has made on encouraging women to set up their own businesses.
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Nicky Morgan)
Women are central to our plans to create economic growth. We have introduced new measures to support those who want to start up or grow their business, for example through StartUp loans or the new enterprise allowance, both of which are seeing very good take-up by women. We have also appointed the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) as the Government’s women’s enterprise champion to advise on what more can be done to support women entrepreneurs.
Nicky Morgan
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Emma Sutor on the success of her company, and the many women following suit and setting up their own businesses. As well as running companies, women such as Emma have an important part to play as inspirational role models for tomorrow’s entrepreneurs. I encourage other women to consider accessing our Government schemes. It is also right to point out that we are on track to meet the Prime Minister’s pledge to be the first Government in modern history to reduce the overall cost of domestic regulation on business, rather than increase it.
Fiona Bruce
Many women set up as freelancers in order to benefit from the flexibility that provides. However, a recent report has shown that there is a disincentive in the tax system for freelance entrepreneurs to invest in new skills and that, over time, that means the skills of the self-employed are not updated in line with those of the employed. Will the Minister agree to look into that, perhaps with Treasury colleagues, to see how that disincentive can be removed?
Nicky Morgan
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing to my attention the “Going it Alone” report by Demos on the implications of the growth of self-employment. The Government recognise the importance of developing the skills of female entrepreneurs, something the Women’s Business Council has also highlighted to us. She will understand that it is not my role to write taxation policy, but I will be happy to discuss it further with Treasury colleagues.
Vocational Qualifications
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Matthew Hancock
The hon. Gentleman makes a point that needs to be addressed. The system we inherited had a lot of short-term apprenticeships, but we have introduced a minimum of a year for apprenticeships and are driving up the quality. I think those measures have cross-party support, but it is certainly true that we have had to improve on the 2010 apprenticeship scheme.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s statement. Will he join me in congratulating Ann Webb, head of Eaton Bank academy in my constituency, on holding an apprenticeship event last Friday, which I was pleased to attend, that directly promoted to students opportunities for, and the importance of, apprenticeships? Will he encourage other schools to follow that innovative lead?
Matthew Hancock
I certainly commend such action to promote apprenticeships as an option, alongside higher education, for young people. It is undoubtedly true that, while university is right for some people, it is not right for everybody. Giving people options that can also lead them to further higher study is valuable. In the law, for example, someone can become a fully qualified solicitor through an apprenticeship that is equivalent to post-degree level study. It is very important that such options are made available to young people.
Teaching Quality
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I want to highlight four issues that explain why I am against the Opposition motion. The first is that inspirational teachers come to the classroom through many routes, and sometimes the most unconventional backgrounds can be the most inspiring to pupils. The second is the importance of trusting and empowering heads to be the leaders they are appointed to be under the “use them or lose them” principle. Third is the importance of embracing working and learning in today’s global environment, and fourth is the critical need to bridge the worlds of education and industry if we are to compete successfully in that global race.
I like to think that, like me, every child who goes through education has a truly inspirational teacher who has an influence on them for the rest of their life. For me, it was the lady who taught me German during my final years at school. There were four of us in our A-level class. She was a truly remarkable woman and I learned as much from her about character as about language. Being German, she could convey the language well, but what was truly remarkable about her—it is fitting to mention this this week as we remember the holocaust—was that, as we understood it, she and her father had helped Jewish children to escape from Germany to Britain during the second world war, and then had to leave the country. That gave her an understanding, which she conveyed through language and literature, of compassion and common humanity, of endurance and perseverance, of selflessness and humility, and of the right priorities for life. I have never forgotten. She taught me that no insignificant person has ever been born, that every individual has the capacity to make a remarkable difference, and that we should all strive to do so. When she arrived in this country, she had no relevant qualifications for teaching here. She had the life she had lived, which was worth far more than any paper certificate when she was teaching us.
That brings me to my second point—giving heads the discretion to appoint the best staff for their school and allowing them the freedom to exercise leadership in the role entrusted to them. For almost 20 years, I was governor of a small inner-city independent faith school in one of the most deprived areas of Salford. It was started as a home school by an inspirational teacher, who found other parents asking her to take in their children. She took on a building—the Victorian building where the first ragged school in Manchester was housed. She taught those children and led many of them to become doctors, teachers and other professionals.
When she needed a physics teacher, she found one from somewhere—someone who had retired or someone from business. She did similar with music teachers and teachers of many other subjects. She provided a special education in a small class environment. Most of the children would never have flourished had they gone to schools elsewhere in the city. They needed that individual help and support. Her dedication enthused and pervaded the whole school. To have inhibited her from exercising that initiative and from appointing staff of her choice would have been a travesty and a tragic waste of her leadership skills.
Thirdly, we talk about working, living and competing in a global environment, and about preparing our young people for that. In that case, we must pay more than lip service. Increasingly, many of our school leavers travel abroad to get a business degree from Maastricht, or for a soccer scholarship at James Madison in the USA. A large number of those people will feel led to pass on the benefit of their training to younger children. Why should they not do so following the example of the qualified football coach employed by St Mary’s Church of England primary school at Dilwyn, who was appointed to teach PE at key stages 1 and 2; the professional actor appointed by Langley free school in Slough as a drama teacher; or the professional singer appointed there to teach music?
Chris Skidmore
That is the nub of the argument. Slapping on QTS as a compulsory requirement will put off many people from a variety of professions from entering teaching, which would be a tragedy.
Fiona Bruce
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and in that connection, I want to talk about the importance of strengthening the relationship of the educational environment we provide for young people with the world of work, which is critical if we are to give young people sufficient information for them to make the right career decisions. In order to do so, they need to make an early choice of subjects and to have inspirational teachers who understand the world of work and have experience of it.
Stephen McPartland
Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to reduce the gap between education and employment, and focus more on employability, so that we can reduce youth unemployment?
Fiona Bruce
That is exactly the point I am making. We must bridge that divide. Connecting children from the start of secondary school or even earlier with people who have been involved in the world of work, who can inform, encourage and inspire them, is what we need.
Many teachers come from backgrounds that children would never otherwise have an opportunity to understand. On the bridging of the cultural divide between education and the industrial world, a former leader of an Asda sales team is teaching business studies at Priory community school in Weston-super-Mare and is head of upper school. He is bringing the world of work right into the classroom.
Bridging education and industry is key. It would be wrong to inhibit schools that are intent on appointing enthusiastic teaching staff with knowledge of the world of work simply because they lack a piece of paper headed “QTS”.
Strengthening Couple Relationships
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) on securing this important debate.
I speak from the perspective that supporting stronger relationships is a public health issue. The importance of relationships in preventing disease and in prolonging life, health and well-being is becoming increasingly recognised, not only for partners in a relationship, but for their children, their wider family and the community at large.
The scale of the problem of relationship breakdown is such that we cannot put it into the “too difficult” category. Government have to act and treat it as a public health issue. The public health outcomes framework should make explicit mention of family and relationship factors. In particular, we need to be concerned about the impact of family breakdown on those in more deprived households. Relationship breakdown affects them more than others, and the outcome for the children can be disproportionately serious.
According to a recent YouGov survey for the Prince’s Trust of 2,161 young people aged 16 to 25, 21% of the children in poor homes said that no one had ever told them, “I love you.” Those results show that young people from deprived homes where there are not necessarily functioning and strong relationship standards are significantly more likely to face symptoms of mental illness, including suicidal thoughts, feelings of self-loathing and panic attacks. Young people who grow up in poverty are also twice as likely to believe that no one cares about them—22% expressed such a view compared with a figure of 10% for the wider youth population. The tragedy is that many young people are growing up today in households where they have no role models for strong relationships.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
My constituency of Belfast North, which is one of the most deprived in the United Kingdom, bears testimony to what the hon. Lady is saying. Great work is being done by local groups on relationship support, but does she agree that part of this issue is the need to take away the stigma attached to going for help about relationships? There needs to be more education to ensure that people feel comfortable about coming forward.
Fiona Bruce
I agree entirely and hope to come on to that issue.
Professor Scott Stanley has talked about the perfect storm that is brewing with
“an ever greater amount of family instability”
and has said that for young people the problems are going to be pronounced. He says:
“Attachment is an unalterable, important human need and reality, and how attachment systems form in individuals really matters”
for their future health and well-being. He also argues that:
“The cultural systems and structures that always have helped couples clarify, form, and maintain strong commitments have been steadily eroding”—
most notably, the sense that marriage and childbearing inherently belong together, which makes ongoing stability more likely than not.
The nature and extent of the problem we are up against have all the hallmarks of a public health emergency. The Office for National Statistics recently found that people’s personal relationships, mental health and overall sense of well-being are all intimately bound up with each other. But the stakes are even higher than that: in many cases it is about life and death. A huge review of 148 studies, with almost one third of a million participants, that looked at how social relationships influence the risk of mortality showed that people with stronger social relationships have an incredible 50% increased likelihood of survival when compared with those with poor or insufficient social relationships.
I want to give credit to Dr Samantha Callan of the Centre for Social Justice for drawing many of these issues to my attention. She argues that the influence of social relationships on risk of mortality is comparable with risk factors such as smoking, and exceeds many well-known risk factors such as obesity and physical inactivity.
Other potential public health issues are isolation and loneliness. The absence of loving relationships of any sort is bad for health and is linked with increased risk of cardio-vascular disease, diabetes, stroke, obesity and death. One of my constituents has written to me to say that it is absolutely critical that the new health and wellbeing boards take into account the issue of loneliness and focus on how they can improve relationship support, bearing in mind the impact that loneliness is having on our older generation.
Studies on the impact of relationship difficulties suggest that improving couple relationships has the potential to reduce alcohol misuse. Recent studies focusing on metabolic syndrome suggest that obesity, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and poor blood sugar metabolism, all of which increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes and stroke, are other mechanisms by which poor marital adjustment increases poor health outcomes for women.
There is also the issue of obesity among children. Children who are raised by parents who have what is called an authoritative—not an authoritarian—parenting style apparently eat more healthily, are more physically active and have a lower body mass index than children raised under other parenting styles, such as authoritarian, permissive, indulgent, uninvolved or neglectful. Reports say that marital dissatisfaction results in more authoritarian and less authoritative parenting. In other words, there is a vicious cycle. The quality of the parental relationship has a significant bearing on children’s health. The sad fact is that disadvantaged children suffer the most.
If a focus on relationships has the potential to deliver significant public health gains, how do we realise those gains? Certainly, building stronger relationships requires encouraging couples to build on good habits and to reduce bad ones. We should encourage and support proposals within plans such as the “Let’s Stick Together” programme developed by Care for the Family, which talks about avoiding negative habits. Often the issue is skills, which can be developed. Such skills include being responsive or even enthusiastic about what a partner is saying, expressing feelings of warmth and affection, managing conflict, communicating well and preserving a friendship, as well as learning how to perceive and demonstrate commitment and deal constructively with misunderstandings. All those skills can be learned, and learning them is critical when people have had no role models.
We also need preventive relationship education, web-based support and specialist counselling and therapeutic services—prevention rather than cure. Could we not move some of the millions of pounds that Relate receives to work at the outset of relationships instead of using the money to deal with the fallout and damage at the end?
The CEO of the Fatherhood Institute, Adrienne Burgess, has said:
“Encouraging parents to both take a lot of responsibility for looking after the child…and earning is a great way to help couples become real team parents. When they do this child rearing brings them together and means they are less likely to split up.”
On maternity services, Adrienne Burgess has argued:
“Increasing the potential for both of them to be involved is a really simple way to help strengthen couple relationships.”
To return to my point about the elderly, loneliness has significant links to a range of chronic conditions, including high blood pressure and depression, and increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by over 60%. On average, 10% of the population aged over 65 is chronically lonely, which means that they feel lonely all or most of the time. It is vital that the health implications of this issue are recognised by those making decisions about local health priorities. The proportion of elderly people in our population is increasing. Many of them live alone due to relationship breakdown. Helping them to sustain partner relationships, with the mutual support that such relationships can provide in later life, could carry major personal and public health benefits.
The Relationships Foundation has described strong relationships as a national asset that we should preserve and strengthen. The social capital of families and communities is a sustainable bedrock not only of our national wealth but of our well-being. Stronger relationships between couples mean that those couples can then provide strength and support up and down generations, across families and out into communities. That is a national resource that we must nurture and cultivate, and that we ignore at our peril.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure, Mr Streeter, to serve under your chairmanship. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) for securing this important debate, and I look forward to the Minister’s response; I am sure he will bring common sense and sensitivity to it.
It goes without saying that the family is the backbone of our society. As I am sure many hon. Members have experienced, when couple relationships are turbulent, it shows in other aspects of the couple’s lives. Several studies show that those who are married or in stable relationships live longer lives and require medical assistance from the state less frequently. Couple, family and social relationships may act as a shock absorber in supporting people through life changes, such as becoming a parent, retirement or family bereavement, but for many the relationship itself may need support during, after and even before such events. That is why it is vital that when things go wrong in relationships, there are organisations to turn to that offer affordable support and guidance.
One such organisation operating in my constituency is Relate, which offers counselling services to couples, or those in complex relationships, which are now more common, as relationships and family structures are evolving all the time. Without Relate, many in relationships would not be able to afford the appropriate counselling; Relate has been able to subsidise its support, making it accessible to everyone, not just the well-off. Last year, it gave bursaries to more than 1,400 people.
I was alarmed last year when the director of Relate Derby and Southern Derbyshire contacted me to say that Derby city council had told it that it would reduce funding further. It looks as though Derbyshire county council will follow suit. In fact, it is expected that in time there will be no funding whatever from the two councils. The squeeze on funding has resulted in a 30% reduction in Relate staff numbers in the area. That means that the charity is finding it difficult to cope with the increasing demand for all its services.
Local changes to funding structures mean that many central initiatives could be undermined. Relate Derby and Southern Derbyshire is on the precipice of substantial cuts in funding that will mean a reduction in the provision of services, which will be felt by hundreds of vulnerable clients. Without regular grants from Derby city council and Derbyshire county council, funding for Relate services in the area increasingly comes from spot purchasing, which means that the charity experiences peaks in demand without the core funding to ensure that staffing levels are sufficient to meet that demand. The other issue with spot funding is that it generates an increase in administration costs for Relate. That has already had a knock-on effect on its provision of additional services. It is considering no longer accepting further requests. Children and young people in other groups will be all the poorer if they are unable to access the excellent services of our local Relate.
Relate Derby and Southern Derbyshire is well known for its work with people with Asperger’s syndrome and their families. Relate offers live chat, e-mail and webcam counselling, which can be more suitable for different client groups, such as those with Asperger’s. That counselling might well disappear if no money can be found, even though the demand is even greater this year. Last year, Relate helped more than 250 families in the area in which there were people with Asperger’s. It is clear that the withdrawal of funding by Derby city council and the county council, and the change to funding structures for services, will have a profound and negative effect on the number of referrals that Relate can deal with and the ongoing support it can offer to stakeholders.
Jeopardising the provision of subsidised counselling has an impact not only on the relationships of the couples and families who need it, but on the police force, the health service, social services, the school system, the courts and the economy as a whole. As has been said, a report by the Relationships Foundation estimated that the total cost to the economy of relationship breakdown was some £46 billion. That is perhaps not surprising when one considers that those who have experienced the breakdown of a relationship often have poorer employment outcomes and poorer physical and mental health.
The consequences of conflict in the home are even more keenly felt by children; those who experience such situations typically have poorer outcomes in the classroom. Domestic violence is a substantial issue for a number of Relate’s clients. In fact, 23% of all those referred by the two councils are victims of domestic violence, but only 4% of those had reported the abuse and violence to any other agency. Relate is doing an incredibly valuable service that other agencies seem unable to do. It goes without saying that it is in the Government’s interest to ensure that affordable counselling is accessible.
While I am extremely pleased by the Government’s commitment to keeping families together—demonstrated by their £30 million investment in relationship support bodies over the life of this Parliament—there is still more to be done to support organisations such as Relate Derby and Southern Derbyshire, which provides incredible value for money and great expertise for local families. The Government should further promote the importance of relationships by requiring local authorities to recognise family relationships as a core responsibility, and ensure that they do not continue to be overlooked in favour of other priorities in local government funding decisions.
Fiona Bruce
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does she agree that local authorities should be required to measure levels of family breakdown in their locality? Family breakdown is a recognised index of social deprivation and a key driver of social disadvantage.
Pauline Latham
My hon. Friend makes a substantial point. If local authorities did that, they would have more information to go on, instead of just cutting funding without thinking about the consequences. The health and wellbeing boards could help fund some of the work done by organisations such as Relate; that would help. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) for raising this deeply important subject, and for stoically being here despite his heavy cold.
Like all those who contributed this afternoon, I believe that strong and stable families are the backbone of a strong and stable society—the key to ensuring that children grow up in a loving environment and develop into healthy and fulfilled adults. That is why the Government have invested significantly in supporting families and couple relationships, as well as the institution of marriage—because we understand the crucial role that the family plays in providing a foundation for a child’s development and success in later life. I saw that for myself in my own personal and professional life before coming to Parliament, so I need no persuading of the merits of a strong, stable and loving family environment in bringing about a better society.
Although the view that I have set out is based partly on what we know intrinsically works, and the values that help to improve and enhance lives, we also know from research that happy relationships lead to better physical and emotional well-being for all involved. The fact is that the quality of the relationship between parents is strongly linked to positive parenting and better outcomes for children. Family stability is key for children. Sustained parental relationships are associated with a range of positive childhood, adolescent and adult outcomes, including in respect of cognitive development, education—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State himself said that in his speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research in 2008—better job prospects and less propensity to commit crime, as well as in relation to health. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) raised important points about how health outcomes could be improved with the right support for relationships, and measures that we know help to achieve that. I will take away her comments about the health outcomes framework and the role of the health and wellbeing board, and I will discuss the matter with Ministers in the Department of Health to ensure that it is properly considered as those aspects of the health system develop further.
On attachment, which is a vital part of understanding whether a relationship is positive or not, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will for the first time produce guidelines on what constitutes a secure attachment, which will be an extremely useful addition. Conflict between parents is detrimental to children’s outcomes, hence the high priority we are giving to supporting all couple relationships, particularly those of people who are married. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot told us, evidence shows us that the children of married parents do better than those of cohabiting parents, particularly on measures of social and emotional development at the ages of three and five. We need to ensure that all under-fives receive the best possible support, so such evidence is important.
Centre for Social Justice reports, which many hon. Members have brought with them, have starkly illustrated the considerable emotional, social and economic costs associated with the breakdown of families. As my hon. Friends the Members for Aldershot and for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) have reminded us, those costs amount to an astonishing £46 billion a year, which is not far off the total annual budget for educating all our children.
Important life events, including the transition to parenthood, relocation or changes in employment, can contribute to relationship stress. We must do what we can to encourage couples to take up support at an earlier stage—the early prevention that hon. Members have mentioned in this debate—to ensure that they get through difficult events in their lives. My time at the family Bar has shown me the devastating consequences of not doing so, not only for adults but, perhaps even more importantly, for any children involved. To bring that about, and by virtue of the strong prime ministerial steer, the Government have committed £30 million over the spending review period from 2011 to 2015, which puts funding for relationship support on a much more stable long-term footing. That gives us greater encouragement that we can get couples to use relationship support services.
The Department is funding a range of providers to deliver relationship support services, including one that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) highlighted: the Parents as Partners evidence-based intervention programme delivered by Family Action, which works with couples who are particularly likely to face relationship stress or be at risk of relationship breakdown. There is also a series of campaigns and culture change messages aimed at employers, new parents and young people to raise awareness and encourage them to seek help on relationships. There is training for early years workers and managers, to help them to encourage positive relationships between parents, and to engage better with fathers, in particular, on relationships and parenting. The public policy agenda is being developed—a point made by my hon. Friend—through the formation of the Relationships Alliance, which I know he has been instrumental in helping to bring together.
I take on board the point that my hon. Friend made about the need to scale up some of those excellent services, and the Relationships Alliance is well placed to help achieve that. In my ongoing discussions with the alliance—I am meeting representatives next week—I am sure that that will be on the agenda. All those valuable services are provided by expert organisations. Many hon. Members have praised the work done by such organisations, which include Relate, Marriage Care, the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships and OnePlusOne. Those four organisations, which launched the Relationships Alliance in the House of Commons in November, will be key in helping to establish a much more coherent and cohesive message on what is available to those who need support.
Fiona Bruce
I thank the Minister for his constructive personal concern and his comments so far. We have heard today that the issue straddles many different areas: education, local government, the criminal justice system and health and well-being. Would it not be helpful to appoint a dedicated Minister to tackle this issue? Care for the Family has said that it feels as though there is no one in government waking up every morning thinking about this key social policy as a priority. After all that we have heard today, should not there be?
Mr Timpson
As the Minister with responsibility for children and families, I have sympathy with the need to raise the issue across Government and to ensure that all Departments play an active role in establishing what works and delivering it, but as my hon. Friend will acknowledge, I am not in a position to start appointing new Ministers or Departments. Forums are available to bring the topic together across Government; in particular, the social justice committee, which is chaired by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has a strong interest in the subject and is well placed to hold such cross-government discussions.
We are doing a significant amount to support families but we must recognise that, sadly, parents separate. When that happens, it can be a difficult time in which families need support on a range of issues. That is why we are improving the information, advice and support available to separated parents outside the court system to help them focus on their children’s needs and to agree workable arrangements for post-separation parenting. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) rightly said, the Children and Families Bill, which is currently in the other place, includes provision to highlight the importance of a child having a relationship with both parents following family breakdown, provided that to do so is safe and in the child’s best interests. The welfare of the individual child must be the court’s paramount consideration, but, subject to that, the parental involvement clause requires courts to presume that the child’s welfare is furthered by the involvement of each parent who can be safely involved. By making clear the basis on which the court makes those decisions, that provision is intended to encourage parents to reach agreement themselves about their child’s care without recourse to the court.
Child Care
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
All parents want the best for their child’s early years. They want a safe, stimulating and secure environment, an environment that provides the best possible foundation for the child’s future success at school and in life. I do not think we should forget that, for many parents, that means early years at home with mother or father; but for many others who, like me, are working full or part time, it means relying on child care. What we all want is the best-quality child care, which will promote the best possible development for our children in those early years. It is not just parents who are committed to that; the Government are absolutely committed to supporting families by providing quality child care, to meeting the costs of that care, and, importantly, to meeting parents’ need for flexible child care choices in an era of increasingly flexible work.
I speak from considerable experience. During my working life, I have probably accessed every possible type of child care: a small private nursery, a pre-school nursery attached to my son’s state school, a childminder, family support, after-school clubs and breakfast clubs—and dad helped. I received wonderful support from friends, neighbours, and families whom I knew from church. However, I knew what it took to make that work for my children: it took an enormous amount of co-ordination. Without the network of support that I was fortunate enough to have, many families struggle. That is why it is so important for us to give as much support as we can to families and parents who want to work.
Fiona Mactaggart
One of the sources of that kind of family support, which a quarter of families depend on, is grannies or grandparents. I am sad that we have not heard in this debate about how we are going to help working grandmothers cope. There was a study by a building society a couple of years ago which pointed out that grandparents save the taxpayer about £4,000 a year through every piece of child care they offer.
Fiona Bruce
The hon. Lady is absolutely right, and we should pay tribute to grandparents. I was very fortunate in having four wonderful grandparents without whom I could not have developed the business I did develop in those early years, when I could not have afforded the quality of child care that I could, perhaps, have afforded in later years. It is important that we strengthen family life, and I will come on to talk about some of the initiatives we need to put in place to support family life more widely. Many people cannot access that in their locality, however.
Harriett Baldwin
I am sure my hon. Friend will support this Government’s extension of the right to request to all employees, so that, for example, the grandparents the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) referred to are able to take time off, perhaps for child care responsibilities.
Fiona Bruce
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point because I was going to discuss the extensive provision that this Government are promoting for flexible working. As an employer, I have been able to accommodate some of the flexibility young mothers need, even when they perhaps just want to start work at 9.15 rather than 9. That can make an enormous difference to family life by enabling there to be good care and a good start to the day for very young children.
I was very fortunate that when my two boys were young we had a wonderful childminder, who is still very much a friend of the family. They still refer to her as “Auntie Pam.” Auntie Pam cared for my boys for two days a week. It is a tragedy that between 1996 and 2010 under the previous Government the number of childminders —the number of auntie Pams—dropped from 103,000 to 57,000. This Government are addressing that.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this Government’s policy of introducing childminder agencies will enable better support to be given to childminders, so many of whom say they left the industry because of the burden of regulation and the lack of support for their profession?
Fiona Bruce
That is absolutely right, and I am glad to have this chance to put on record that it is a profession that deserves respect. Many childminders do not want the burdens of having to set up and run their own business. They do not want to have the burdens of complying with regulations and training requirements; they simply want to care for children. Let us release them and set them free to do that by supporting this new initiative of childminder agencies that the Government are setting up.
Fiona Bruce
I am going to make some progress now; I have taken several interventions.
The Government’s childminder agency initiative is an excellent step, not least because it will mean that families will have a local resource that they can access to find a childminder they can have confidence in—a childminder who has been through the appropriate training, and who is from an agency that they know is maintaining proper standards. The agencies will also provide for occasions when the childminder falls ill, which can cause a great deal of stress to parents; there will be additional cover to provide someone else at short notice when they need that.
The Government’s provisions to build up the number of childminders should be supported, therefore, and the agencies will also help to promote take-up of Government funding for two to four-year-olds. At present fewer than 10% of childminders are funded through Government funding. I am sure that a lot of early-year place provision is being missed out as a result of that.
I support the Government’s proposals. They will enable childminders to concentrate on delivering high-quality education and care, which is what they want to do, and not be driven out of their profession simply because they do not want to face the regulations and red tape they have had to deal with until now. They will be able to benchmark themselves against the highest standards. They will be able to access the new framework of training and support and ongoing improvement, and concentrate on giving the best provision to families.
We should remind ourselves of the support that the Government are giving families in meeting the costs of child care. Some 70% of the child care costs of those on tax credits are covered by the Government and an additional £200 million of support for lower-income families will be available within universal credit from April 2016, to take the proportion to 85%. Parents of all three and four-year-olds can access free child care. As we have heard, the Government have increased early education for three and four-year-olds from 12.5 hours a week to 15 hours a week so that what amounted to 475 hours a year of free child care in September 2010 now increases to 570 hours a year. I certainly would have greatly appreciated that when my boys were younger.
The Government are extending the offer of 15 hours a week of early education to two-year-olds from low-income families, which will benefit about 260,000 two-year-olds from September 2014, costing £760 million a year by the end of this Parliament. Just four weeks into this Government’s scheme that offers free child care to the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, 92,000 children are already benefiting, which is a huge increase on the 20,000 two-year-olds who accessed early education in 2010. Looking at share of GDP, this Government are spending £5 billion on early-years child care and are spending more than 40% above the OECD average on child care for children under three.
The early-intervention grant replaces a number of centrally directed grants in supporting services for children and young people and families. It has allowed local authorities greater flexibility and freedom at the local level. I want to highlight some of the ways the local authorities in my area have used that funding to support a wide range of services for children, young people and families. There is targeted mental health support for young children through the charity Visyon in my constituency, of which I am a patron, and additional support is being given for fostering and adoption—and I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), my constituency neighbour, who has done excellent work in increasing take-up in Cheshire. There is also the funding for such projects as Let’s Stick Together run by Care For The Family.
Andrea Leadsom
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is so much better that the money that was previously ring-fenced for individual projects can now be used on proper early-years intervention?
Fiona Bruce
I do, because the key to all this is flexibility and choice, and that is what this Government are providing. They are providing flexibility in the way that money is used and flexibility and choice for parents in deciding how to care for their children.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow that at times very personal speech from the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), but I want to pick up on one thing she said, which I think caused a little concern on the Opposition Benches. She talked about regulation of childminders in a way that gave us—and people watching on television, I suspect—the impression that all such regulation is a bad thing. Surely she is not suggesting that, for example, CRB checks should not be done. I caution Members on the Government Benches about the language they sometimes use in talking about regulation, as it can give a wholly misleading impression.
Fiona Bruce
Speaking as someone who has started and who runs a small business, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it is often extremely difficult to know what the regulations are. The fear of non-compliance can deter many people from starting a business in the first place. The agencies will give childminders reassurance that they are complying with the regulations. That is the big difference.
John Woodcock
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I am sure that everyone on both sides of the House agrees on the need to cut unnecessary regulation, but I stand by the point I made.
It is a pleasure for me to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who marked his return to the House with an impassioned speech. The increased relaxation that being in the House of Commons can provide to someone who is the father of two very young children has immediately given him a boost, and he brought that into his speech today.
When the cost of child care rockets, something has to give. For some, it is the opportunity to work, but those mums and dads who choose to stay in work try hard to ensure that they are the ones who bear the brunt of the cuts. They often stop going out, and they hold off from buying things for themselves that, in happier times, they would not think twice about buying. I should like Members to listen to one of the testimonies given to the Furness Poverty Commission, a body that I set up to look into the increasing deprivation in Barrow-in-Furness. A 34-year-old mother from my constituency told the commissioners that she was
“constantly worrying if the bills are all going to be paid, sometimes not having money for food, not ever being able to afford to get away anywhere, not being able to afford to secure your home, broken locks, no insurance…having to sell things to afford Christmas and not to be able to afford heating.”
Stories such as hers are all too common in Furness and right across the country.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak in the debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock). It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who gave us the great news that his wife had recently given birth to a beautiful daughter.
It was also interesting to listen to the beginning of the debate. I thought that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) was able to truss up like a turkey the shadow Education Secretary, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), by putting up a good defence of the Government’s record and exposing the issues involved. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I can assure the House that the jokes do not get better than that.
Of course, child care is an issue not only for mothers; both parents should and do play a full role in the care of their children. They, and people without children, such as me, recognise that access to good quality child care is key. We should also celebrate the fact that more women are working than ever before.
Fiona Bruce
Should we not also honour and celebrate those mothers who decide to stay at home throughout their children’s childhoods and commit to caring for them personally?
Dr Coffey
I fully recognise that, too. What matters is that we should be allowing people to choose what they do. It is right to say that we should not condemn people who decide not to work in an external job and to focus their time on caring for their children at home.
The Minister referred to a number of cases where there has been concern about statistics being bandied about. Everyone in this House, however, would agree that one of the worst situations for a parent is when they need emergency child care, as occurs when teachers go on strike and parents are left trying to get time off work. It would be welcome if Labour Members condemned the decision of teaching unions to go on strike at irregular intervals, so that we can make sure that children are in school. The Minister referred to the fact that we are starting to remove red tape, so no longer will schools have to have a separate Ofsted registration when they cater for children under three years of age—that is to be welcomed. We are also dealing with aspects of planning and other requirements that restrict schools and deter them from facilitating child care provision outside the core school hours. It is important that we make it as straightforward as possible for existing school buildings to be used, be it by the school or not. I understand the wraparound guarantee to which the Opposition refer but, as has been pointed out, no extra funding is being provided for that—indeed, Opposition Members suggest that the funding has already been built into the formula grant.
One thing that does matter is having extra flexibility and choice. I also appreciate the commendation made by Ministers to ensure that schools do not just keep contracting their opening hours, as that, too, causes problems for parents trying to juggle work with getting their children to school. Some schools in my constituency have tried to do that and were still not listening after a consultation. Fortunately, however, when I sent them their communications from the Secretary of State, they realised that they should, of course, be considering the wider issues for working families. So I am glad that in the particular school I am thinking about the decision was reversed by the governing body.
Let me deal with other aspects of removing red tape or increasing the number of places. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) eloquently referred to the issue of childminder agencies, which will be introduced. That is a good innovation to allow more people to put themselves forward to offer child care, and that is very welcome. In addition, childminders who are rated “good” and “outstanding” will be able to be funded directly from Government, as opposed to the money being routed through the local council. That is a good step forward and, again, it removes the administration or other extra bureaucracy that stops government funding —we must remember that more than £5 billion is being spent by this Government on early years education and child care.
Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
I shall be happy to write to the hon. Lady with the number of deregistrations, but overall there are more businesses being created than are being closed. We have, I think, 400,000 more new businesses than we started with two and half years ago.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
T8. What steps are the Government taking to address skills gaps, create jobs and increase productivity by improving the information given in schools about vocational job opportunities, particularly local ones?
Matthew Hancock
We are making the skills system more rigorous and responsive to need, but schools have a duty to secure careers advice. I want that advice to be inspirational and impartial, and to include more mentoring, especially from people who have real jobs, so that we can help each child to reach their potential.
Deaf Children and Young People
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I support what the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) has said in this debate and, as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on deafness, I thank him for his dedicated work as its chair.
I am proud to have a deaf-aware nursery in my constituency, which is based at the New Life church in Congleton. It has been running for 25 years and caters for able children, as well as for children with needs, such as those with deafness or autism, and it will soon have a child with Down’s syndrome. For the past five years, it has been managed by Margaret Sanders, a special educational needs co-ordinator with a passion for inclusion who has worked hard to ensure that the nursery goes the extra mile to provide support for deaf children in an extra special way. However, such early-years provision should not only be available when one inspirational individual is backed by committed community support, such as that provided by New Life. The nursery also works closely with specialist organisations such as the teachers of the deaf.
Justine Heathcote, the mother of a profoundly deaf three-year-old girl who attends the nursery, has shared some of her experiences with me. Her daughter was diagnosed as deaf just after birth. It was a traumatic time for the family. Justine says generously that her family have received excellent support and care from the nursery and the local authority. Crucially, that included her daughter being given a teacher of the deaf immediately. I ask the Minister to do all that he can to ensure that that always happens. A family must be given the appropriate support straight away, either at birth or on diagnosis. I have heard that in some cases it takes 10 years from when hearing starts to deteriorate before a clear diagnosis is made.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend welcome the measures in the Children and Families Bill, as I do, to create care plans for people that go from nought to 24 years of age?
Fiona Bruce
I very much welcome that, because it is crucial that families can plan ahead from the earliest possible moment of childhood.
I was greatly encouraged to hear from Justine that her daughter got such excellent support, but I am aware that that is not universally available across the country. I ask the Minister to make an assessment of the varying standard of support across the country. One small example, which is important for Justine’s family, concerns her daughter’s hearing aids, which require four batteries a day. When they run out, Justine has a one-hour round trip to a hospital to collect them, yet in a neighbouring area, rechargeable batteries for hearing aids are available.
Another difficulty for some families concerns getting a statement of educational needs for their child. One highly experienced teacher of the deaf, Liz Gwynn, has spent many years liaising with local authorities. She told me—quite bluntly—that the reason for the delay or lack of statement is often that,
“local authorities don’t want to commit to the financial implications of a Statement.”
That cannot be right.
The one-to-one support provided by a teacher of the deaf in my council of Cheshire East is greatly appreciated, but it amounts to only one hour a week. Ideally, every deaf child and their family needs much more support and time. A teacher of the deaf plays a critical role in a child’s development because they advise on whether the child is accessing the curriculum properly and adequately, on that child’s language development and how they are hearing through hearing aids or cochlear implants, and on whether they need a radio aid to help them. Such teachers can act as an intermediary between the child or family and the school, in addition to helping set targets for development and providing strategies and ideas for accessing lessons. All hon. Members will agree that that cannot be done in one hour a week.
In Cheshire East there is a ratio of one teacher of the deaf to every 45 children—a phenomenal challenge for those teachers. I struggle to see how a teacher of the deaf can support that number of children and their families, let alone even more, yet I understand that in some parts of the country there is even less support for deaf children.
The availability of care for deaf children and young people should not be a postcode lottery. The National Deaf Children’s Society reports that some families with a deaf child are fighting that issue by moving to a different area, which is surely unacceptable. There are examples of good practice and expertise across the country, and better sharing of support across local authorities and support networks would be beneficial. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell the House whether there are any plans to share best practice across authorities and promote a more collaborative approach.
The exemplary nursery in my constituency, to which I referred, aims to maximise the individual potential of each child, but it is placed in a dilemma. When a child who has received that much-needed support—designed to raise their attainment levels in the early years to those of their non-deaf peers—moves to primary school, they are assessed. If they are assessed to be above a certain level, any one-to-one support that the child previously received, or which they may need in future, is withdrawn, and they begin primary school without it. What should the nursery do? Should it support the child to develop to the maximum level possible and risk that one-to-one support being withdrawn when they go to primary school? Withdrawal of such support would undoubtedly result in the child falling back and not continuing to flourish to the same degree that they need and for which the nursery has given them a head start. If we believe that every child should have the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential, surely that must be the case for the more vulnerable children in our society.
If a parent wants their child to go to a mainstream school in later years, it is crucial for support to be established at the start and to continue throughout the child’s early years. Liz Gwynn explains:
“In a big class with a ratio of 15 pupils to one staff member, or even thirty to one, it is very easy for a deaf child to be overlooked, especially if they aren’t a behavioural issue. They can appear to be understanding, but when questioned often haven’t a clue and get by by copying what others are doing.”
Such a situation can result in low self-esteem and lack of confidence. That is the “stolen future” that the National Deaf Children’s Society is raising awareness of, and I commend its work with local groups and parents around the country. I encourage the Minister to support those groups and ensure that all families have access to them. Will he review the assessment procedure for deaf children and young people, not just when they enter school, but when they move to another educational establishment for the first time, so as to determine appropriate individual provision for that child or young person? Sign language is critical, yet 81% of parents with deaf children never learn how to fully communicate with their child through that.
Justine, to whom I have referred, says she managed to get funding for level 1, but was unable to get funding for level 2, which she took at her own expense of £400. Level 3, at £1,000, is simply too expensive for the family. Will the Minister consider what duties can be placed on local authorities to provide sign language support for families?
As we have heard, deafness itself is not a learning disability, but we can do so much more to ensure that the attainment of deaf children and young people does not continue to fall worryingly behind that of their non-deaf peers.
Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Vince Cable
Yes, we are doing just that. I spoke on Monday about that question in the general context of trusted business. We are, indeed, looking at the insolvency provisions. We are looking at insolvency practitioners’ fees, at some of the potential conflicts of interest that arise in that industry and at the regulatory framework.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
T6. Small businesses in Congleton and across the country struggle with the burden of regulations from Brussels. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the work of the business-led taskforce on EU regulation, which he is chairing?
Michael Fallon
Yes, the Prime Minister and I met the taskforce last week, and I will be meeting it again tomorrow. We have issued a call for evidence, which gives companies large and small the opportunity to provide us with concrete examples of European rules and regulations, including new proposals, that pose unnecessary barriers to the growth of British businesses and need reform. I encourage all hon. Members to ask businesses in their constituencies to submit examples and evidence to the taskforce.
Careers Advice in Schools
Fiona Bruce Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of careers advice in schools for 12 to 16 year olds.
I will do my best to keep to 10 minutes, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for putting this subject forward for debate today. One of the main reasons that I wanted this subject to come before the House was so that I could set out the business reasons for careers advice. There is a major boom in manufacturing that is being put in doubt by a lack of skills and the age profile of the people working in the industry. I will provide some statistics relating to my constituency of Burnley. Cities Outlook 2013 placed Burnley 10th in the country for private sector job growth: growth of 3.5% in the past 18 months against an average of 1%. That is a remarkable recovery, and it happened because we are a manufacturing town. Burnley has climbed 16 places to 22nd out of 63 UK cities in the recovery from recession, and is rated as No. 1 out of 63 cities for the proportion of jobs in manufacturing. We are one of the top manufacturing towns in the country.
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 entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. That young lady in Blackpool was an absolute star. She and a group of young people sat round a table with me, and half of them were young ladies. They were all working at BAE Systems producing Typhoon jets, the finest and fastest jets anywhere in the world. They showed my how they fitted the enormous engines into the aeroplanes and how they wired them up for their missile systems. I was proud of what they did, and I was proud of them for doing it.
The problem is: can we afford to take these extra measures? I agree with the Government when they say that we have to chop back revenue spending. We have to cut the deficit, but this would be investment spending. We have to invest in the young people of the future. That might cost a little, but we will get a return on that investment year after year. Basically, we cannot afford not to do this. We have to be able to afford to do it; otherwise, our young people will be out of work, our industries will be bereft of quality staff and the skills will disappear as older men and women leave their jobs. I asked the biggest company in Burnley about the age profile of its skilled engineers who screw together the thrust reversers that fit on the back of the Trent jet engines that Rolls-Royce makes. I was told that their average age was 47. In another 20 years, those guys will have gone. Who will replace them? At the moment, there are very few people who could do so. We have to get on with it.
Fiona Bruce
Is my hon. Friend aware that the same applies to electrical engineering? Dutton’s in Middlewich in my constituency is having to fly in engineers from Europe and Ireland to supplement the skills that it can find here.
Gordon Birtwistle
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. This is happening in every business. It is happening not only in mechanical engineering but in electrical engineering and construction engineering.
We need to train young people for the future, and that starts with careers advice at school. We need to show young people what is available, what they need to do and how they can get involved with the appropriate industries. The Minister is a young woman and she knows what is going on in the world. I am confident that she will take this on board. I hope that she understands that careers advice for young people is an investment that this Government have to make.