Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

16. What recent steps he has taken to encourage business start-ups; and if he will make a statement.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

19. What recent steps he has taken to encourage business start-ups; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

There were almost 500,000 start-ups last year—the highest number since records began in 1997, up from 360,000 in 2010. We are helping to encourage business start-ups by providing advice and financial support, and confidence that the Government will pay their way.

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely. I too have visited a Peter Jones academy, and they are a brilliant new innovation. The new start-up loans provide finance and support for young entrepreneurs to help them get a start, and we need to do all that we can to support people who want to start up businesses.

[Graham Evans]

In addition to making it easier for people to start up their own business, what steps are the Government taking through the tax system to encourage investment in small business?

Apprenticeships

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I am very pleased to have a chance to speak in this debate, which is very timely given the recent focus on youth unemployment. Like my hon. Friends the Members for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) and for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), I left school with few qualifications. I did not go to university, and I spent a wee while as an unemployed person. That is why I believe that apprenticeships are so important. They are a vital weapon in combating youth unemployment. We have all seen that the youth unemployment figures have risen to over 1 million for the first time. Opposition Members have, in their own charming way, tried to make out that the coalition Government somehow invented youth unemployment and that this problem appeared from nowhere on 11 May 2010. As ever, they display impressive amnesia about their own 13 years in office.

The truth is that youth unemployment sky-rocketed by 40% under Labour. That massive increase took place entirely after 2004. That fact must be greatly puzzling to many Opposition Members. For the largest part of that period, the UK enjoyed strong economic growth, so a lack of jobs cannot explain it; the “evil Tories” were not in office, so they cannot be blamed; and we all know that it could not possibly be the Labour party’s fault. So what could possibly have gone wrong?

The root causes of the unprecedented increase in youth unemployment are many and complex, and if we are to address the problem, we must consider them all carefully and take smart, targeted measures. It will not do just to repeat the vague mantra that “we need to invest in young people”. Many Opposition Members are fond of doing that, but although it might make them feel better, it does not achieve anything.

It is no coincidence that the dramatic increase in youth unemployment began in the same year that the European Union was enlarged to include eastern Europe. This was the biggest ever expansion in the history of the EU and, despite numerous warnings at the time, the Labour Government decided against having transitional immigration controls. The consequences have been significant. After all, how can a 16-year-old with a blank CV and no training compete in the jobs market alongside 30-something migrants with lengthy work experience? Why would employers take on the risk, costs and effort to train school leavers who have no way of demonstrating they are reliable, ahead of older migrants who are already trained and have a CV demonstrating a strong work ethic? That question illustrates why apprenticeships are absolutely essential in tackling youth employment.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning on the passion and expertise he has brought to the job. The record number of people starting and completing apprenticeships is testament to his hard work. It makes me proud to support this Government, and I applaud the work they are doing on apprenticeships. I am delighted that the Government are going further, by making it even easier for businesses to take on apprentices by slashing red tape, creating cash incentives for small firms to take on apprentices for the first time, and giving businesses direct access to huge levels of public investment. Those are all very welcome measures.

Apprenticeships are not just important to the apprentices who benefit directly from them. They benefit everyone. They help ensure that our workforce is equipped with the necessary skills to enable us to compete in this era of globalisation. They are an essential ingredient in the Government’s efforts to rebalance the economy away from the City of London and towards manufacturing in places like Northwich and Runcorn. I am particularly delighted that in the past year there has been a 71% increase in new apprenticeships in my constituency.

All this progress is very encouraging, but there remains so much more to do. The challenge is to ensure that apprenticeships directly benefit those young people who are hardest to reach: those living in severely deprived areas, who may have grown up in a family where nobody has had work for several generations and whose opportunities have been far too limited for far too long. I know that the Government take that challenge seriously and are treating it as a priority. We need to drive up standards in all our schools, radically reform the welfare system, control immigration, cut red tape and rebalance our economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

14. When he plans to publish his innovation and research strategy.

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

With permission, Mr Speaker, I propose to answer this question with question 13—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Willetts]

Indeed, and I believe that my hon. Friend’s proposal was for a biotech company that collected virgin female fruit flies, which I am sure was an excellent example of curiosity-driven research. I can confirm that we are bringing back the Smart awards scheme on a nationwide basis, properly financed.

[Graham Evans]

Fostering research and innovation is absolutely essential to growth and to rebalancing our economy, and I am proud that the Government are doing so much to support Daresbury science innovation campus in my constituency, including the announcement of a new enterprise zone. Can the Minister outline what support will be provided for small and medium-sized businesses in this area?

[Mr Willetts]

I recognise the strong support that my hon. Friend gives Daresbury, which I visited with him only a couple of months ago. Indeed, we will put more funding into Daresbury because of its excellent role in national computing infrastructure, and we will support small businesses in particular through the infrastructure and innovation plan that we have launched today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

14. What steps he is taking to support manufacturing.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

15. What steps he is taking to support manufacturing.

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

As part of rebalancing the British economy, we are taking steps to support manufacturing in the UK by encouraging high levels of business, innovation, investment, exports and technical skills. I set out our strategy for achieving that in a talk to Policy Exchange yesterday.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

Yes, we are fighting a historical trend, because, under the previous Government, and certainly over the past decade, manufacturing contracted as a share of the economy more rapidly than in any other western country and we lost a third of the work force. We have to retrieve that, and one of the main ways of doing so is through promoting innovation. The first innovation centre, as my colleague rightly points out, is the manufacturing technology innovation centre, which has seven campuses. Composites is one of those core technologies being developed, which I very much welcome.

[Graham Evans]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we are effectively to support manufacturing, we need to ensure that our future work force have the necessary skills? Will he join me in welcoming the approval of Sandymoor free school in my constituency, which is receiving support from the nearby Daresbury science and innovation campus and which will help to achieve this goal?

[Vince Cable]

Skills are obviously critical, and no doubt my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning will say more about the big increase in the number of apprenticeships shortly. I am sure that the school in my hon. Friend’s constituency will contribute to this at an early stage of development. Apprentices are a real success story and we are certainly going to build on it.

New Schools

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

As ever, I am grateful for the constructive tone taken by the hon. Gentleman. I have long admired his bipartisanship. I should point out that those PFI contracts were signed by the previous Government. However, I shall refrain from criticising the Ministers responsible for signing them, and instead seek to work with him to ensure that children in that particularly important part of Nottinghamshire receive the support that they deserve.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend and the parents of Sandymoor on the announcement of the new free school there. The Sandymoor free school will provide a rigorous science-based education to all children, from whatever background, which will produce the engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs that this country needs to pay its way in the world.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. I am convinced that the emphasis on science in so many of the free school applications is exactly what a 21st century education system needs.

Vocational Education

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend has been a fantastic campaigner for rigour in state education, and she is right that, as Professor Wolf points out, many qualifications were mis-sold to students on the basis that they would lead to progression. The right hon. Member for Leigh talked about students being coerced into courses that were not appropriate for them. We know that employers and universities welcome the courses in the English baccalaureate, but some of the courses that had an inflated value in league tables in the past, under the Government of whom he was a part, were not valued by employers or by higher or further education institutions.

My hon. Friend also made a point about GCSEs and A-levels. We are working with Ofqual to make sure that every GCSE awarding body is appropriately rigorous, and we will work with universities to ensure that A-levels are even stronger.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that focusing narrowly on one measure of school performance, particularly five A* to C grades for GCSE—I personally insist on those including maths and English—creates perverse incentives for schools and encourages them to focus on borderline C and D grade students to the detriment of other students?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. Ultimately there will never be a single perfect accountability measure. The one he mentioned on floor standards has helped us to raise attainment in schools, but one measure does not fit all. I therefore welcome his support for developing a more sophisticated way of analysing attainment, so that students with lower ability but real commitment can be recognised, and in particular so that schools that take students with low levels of previous attainment and transform their outlooks can be properly recognised and applauded.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

I believe that the whole point of the big society is to give people the permission and the support to engage in their local community and to show responsibility. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members supported something that plays to the best traditions of our country.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

T9. I have mentioned in the House before my constituency’s excellent Daresbury science and innovation campus, which really is a world-class centre for hi-tech entrepreneurship. Daresbury recently bid for a share of the £1.4 million regional growth fund. Can the Minister assure me that that bid will be looked upon favourably?

[Mr Willetts]

I am aware of the strengths of that excellent campus, and I am sorry that business in the House meant that I was not able to visit the other day, as I had hoped. I will visit very soon. Of course, there have been many bids for the regional growth fund, but in that way or in others I hope that we can continue to support my hon. Friend’s facility.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Secretary of State will resume his seat. We are moving on to the next question.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

4. What plans he has to improve vocational education; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

The Government are keen to make significant improvements to vocational education, its organisation, funding and target audience—for example, through university technical colleges. Professor Alison Wolf has been commissioned to produce a report which will be published in spring 2011 and her findings will inform our determination to reinvigorate vocational education.

[Graham Evans]

How will the Government boost the number of apprentices and ensure that those who complete their training will get the status and recognition that they deserve?

[Mr Hayes]

It was Dr. Johnson who said that a lack of manual dexterity constitutes a form of ignorance. The Government are determined to boost the number of apprenticeships, which is why we have put in place funding for 75,000 more adult apprenticeships and 30,000 more apprenticeships for young people. Today, in The Times—I know you will have seen it, Mr Speaker; others may not have done—we have for the first time celebrated the achievements of those who achieved higher apprenticeships in 2010. This ensures that apprentices and all those who aspire to and achieve vocational qualifications get the status and recognition that they deserve.

Disadvantaged Children

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I join right hon. and hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this important and welcome debate. I also join colleagues in welcoming the reports of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), which was published yesterday. I could not agree more with them, nor with hon. Members’ remarks this afternoon, on the crucial importance of the early years. It is good to see this subject receiving so much attention, not only in those reports, but in other reports that have been published in recent weeks. This week, the charity Family Action published “Born Broke”, and just before Christmas, we had the important UNICEF report “The children left behind”.

I warmly welcome and strongly endorse many of the suggestions in the reports of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North. It is absolutely right that we need to be proactive in addressing the needs of disadvantaged children, and that we should intervene early. It is absolutely right that what happens in the home affects what happens at school. It is right that we should secure access to quality services and programmes for children and families, and I welcome what my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead has said about the importance of putting children’s centres at the heart of the support that we offer disadvantaged children and their families. I welcome the proposal for local child poverty commissions. It is right and sensible that we track a range of outcome indicators so that we can ensure that children improve their life chances across the spectrum of outcomes.

The early years are crucial, but investing in them will not be enough on its own. We need to sustain the investment right through the child’s life, otherwise the good effects of the additional investment in the early years will fade. I am concerned that we must keep our attention on addressing income poverty and inequality. There is so much evidence that adequate family incomes are crucial to children’s outcomes. The UNICEF report that I mentioned highlights that the UK suffers from relatively poor outcomes across a range of indicators compared with other countries. That relates to our position at the lower end of the inequality spectrum. Our children are raised in a much more unequal country than those with more successful child outcomes.

Money is important, as right hon. and hon. Members have said, and it is actually quite easy to understand why—it is about what money can buy. Parents who cannot afford the rent on decent housing will find it difficult to provide a quiet space for children to do homework. It may also mean that they are forced into overcrowded and unsuitable accommodation, where children cannot grow up safe and healthy. The lack of an adequate income to afford a decent diet will harm children’s health and well-being and limit their ability to learn. Poorer families lack the means to ensure that their children can participate fully in their schooling and education. They may not be able to participate in extra-curricular activities or secure the equipment, books and computers that would help to improve their learning.

Parents who are forced to take a series of inadequately paid and unstable short-term jobs will find it difficult to secure adequate income from employment. If we are interested in improving children’s outcomes, we have to improve family income, too. Money is not separate from what enables children to do well; it is integral to their success. A continuing policy of income redistribution must therefore be at the heart of our strategy for improving children’s outcomes.

I wish to say a little about the provision of services for parents and children who face particular disadvantages and have a high level of need. As Family Action has stated in the report to which I referred earlier, the best solution for most children is to keep them with their families and support those families to do their best in bringing up their kids. Poor parenting and poverty are not necessarily linked. In the vast majority of cases, poor parents are as desperate as any others to do the very best for their children and to provide them with a loving family background and a stable home life.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Lady, and I should like to share an experience with her. When I was about to be a father for the first time, I went to parental classes on childbirth and on how I could help my wife in the first few weeks afterwards, and things that I could do physically to help. Perhaps it was a missed opportunity that there was no explanation for new fathers and mothers of what they could do to bring up their child well and do the most positive things possible for them. The classes were about the health and well-being of the child in the early weeks and months, not about how to be a good parent. Perhaps we should introduce lessons involving such matters for new fathers and mothers.

Royal Mail Privatisation

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I too congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) on securing this important debate. We both have rural constituencies that contain islands, and post offices are important in such rural communities.

Post offices are important in the communities they serve. No other retail outlet has such a range of shops that cover the rural parts of the country to the same extent as the post office network. Post offices provide an important social function and assist vulnerable people with help and advice. I am pleased that the Government have recognised that by making a big investment in the post office network, and I am delighted by the guarantee of a no closure programme, which is a complete reverse from the position of the previous Government. During the previous Parliament, debates such as this happened practically every fortnight as hon. Members tried to stop post offices being closed. This debate takes place in a completely different atmosphere as we have a Government who recognise the importance of post offices and back that up with investment.

For post offices to stay open, not having a closure programme is not enough. It is essential that as small businesses, post offices remain profitable for the sub-postmaster or sub-postmistress. Changing lifestyles mean that what was once one of the core businesses of post offices—people taking their pension book to collect their pension—is no longer so important. When people retire, they are more likely to have their pension paid directly into their bank account, as that is what currently happens to the vast majority of people of working age. Therefore, it is inevitable that business will decline. One postmaster put it to me succinctly when he said, “Many of my customers are dying off.” When people retire they do not collect their pension at the post office to the same extent, and that service must be replaced by other Government work.

It is essential that Departments, the devolved Administrations, local government and public bodies give work to post offices. Otherwise, in the long term we will see a gradual decline. There is no immediate threat to post offices, but unless the Government provide commitments to more work, in 10 or 20 years’ time we will see the gradual decline of post offices.

I am pleased to note the Government’s stated policy of giving more work to post offices, but it is vitally important that every Department follows that policy with action. Often, giving a contract to the Post Office will cost more than giving it to another provider, but that is because of the social benefits of post offices. Post office staff will take time to explain things to vulnerable people and give them help and advice that they would not often get in a supermarket or filling station. One can imagine the impatient queue at a filling station if people wanted to pay for their petrol but the assistant was taking time to give advice to an elderly person. Such advice is provided in a post office, but I cannot see it happening to the same extent in a filling station or supermarket. I hope that Departments will not be tempted to save money from their budgets by taking contracts from the Post Office.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says but when it comes to the crunch, sometimes a local post office will close, no matter how unfortunate that is. One of the biggest areas of growth is in supermarkets, whether metro stores or small stores. If a new supermarket contains a post office, would that not keep some of the services, even if they are in a supermarket?

[Mr Reid]

I agree with my hon. Friend; there is no problem with a post office being located in a supermarket and I was not saying that was a bad idea. My point is that a different type of outlet—PayPoint, for example—could be in a filling station but not in a dedicated post office that is part of a supermarket or filling station. In such situations, a person will not receive the same help and advice as they would in a post office located in a supermarket. I have no problem with a post office being located in another outlet—in my constituency, almost every post office is within a shop, filling station or supermarket. However, I would be concerned if the contract for benefit cheques was given to PayPoint, for example, because if an elderly person is in the same queue as people who are waiting to pay for their petrol, they might not receive the same quality of advice and help. A post office in another outlet is great, but if the facilities are simply part of that other outlet they will not offer the same social benefits to the customer.

The benefit cheque contract of the Department for Work and Pensions is for paying pensions and benefits to vulnerable people who are considered unable to use the Post Office card account. That contract was put out for renewal by the previous Government and I understand that the Post Office and PayPoint have bid for it. I hope that once the DWP has weighed up all the factors involved, including social factors and access criteria, it will keep the contract with the Post Office. PayPoint has a large number of outlets, including in my constituency, but nearly all those outlets are in towns and it does not have the same coverage throughout rural areas and islands as the Post Office.

If the contract were taken away from the Post Office and given to PayPoint, it would mean that on several of the islands in my constituency, there would be nowhere for people to cash the cheques. Also, in the rural areas of north Argyll, there would be nowhere for people to cash their cheques, because although there are plenty of PayPoint outlets in Oban, once people go outside Oban, they have to go all the way to Ballachulish or Inveraray to find another PayPoint outlet. It is therefore very important both for social reasons and for access reasons that the contract remains with the Post Office. I hope that the Minister will go away from today’s debate and knock on the door of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to tell him just that.