Learning outside the Classroom

Debate between Jim Shannon and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Not that educated!

[Mr Sheerman]

I am being barracked: the comment “Not that educated” is coming from behind me.

I have been involved in the issue of out-of-school learning for a very long time. I had a very good run as Chair of the variously named Education Committee—it had a number of names, including the Children, Schools and Families Committee. Indeed, the Minister who will answer this short debate was a brilliant member of the Select Committee. We had great fun working together on a lively Committee.

I became somewhat obsessed with out-of-school learning, for two reasons. When one is Chair of a Select Committee of that kind, it is one’s job to visit as many schools as possible, in all parts of the country and at every level. In those days, we covered topics ranging from pre-school learning and nurseries right through to further education, apprenticeships and higher education, so it was a wide-ranging brief. However, when I got to schools, particularly in the primary and secondary sectors, I found that those schools that had the ability to take children outside the classroom transformed young people’s lives. All the research that has now been done on the issue shows that. A report that we did goes back 10 years. We did not have so much research evidence, but since that report came out 10 years ago from the Education Committee, we have been able to conduct research to show just how much young people are stimulated by getting outside the classroom and particularly into the countryside, and I became passionate about getting children out of the classroom and giving them an experience.

One of the wonderful things about getting a class of 30 kids out of the classroom is that we can do wonderful things for them and with them. Let me describe what all the research showed when we did our first inquiry. We have a treasury in London and in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales because we have free museums—what a wonderful treasury, what a wonderful learning experience. But tragically, when we delved into who among our children goes to those museums, we found the following. We found that more middle-class children went to them with their parents regularly. Going to them is a wonderful experience. Now, in London and Leeds, there are all-night stays in museums. That is an incredibly innovative and fun thing to do—sleep-ins at the museum, sleeping with dinosaurs. What a wonderful experience. However, all the research showed that more ordinary kids, from more ordinary, less affluent homes, did not go to the free museums—not even the free museums.

If the people from a less privileged background did go to the free museums, they went with their school. All the research showed what we needed to do if we wanted to reach out to all the children in this country, not just the more privileged—and I do not mean 5% or 10%, but something more like 60%. A very high percentage of kids living in this country, in our towns and cities and in the countryside, do not visit those wonderful museums unless their school takes them out of school to do that. They do not do it, or certainly they do it in lesser numbers and on fewer occasions, so I became dedicated to the view that it should happen.

Then I mixed up one passion with another. I do not know whether I should be indiscreet, when we are getting close to the general election, about falling in love with someone—it might get in the popular press—but I fell in love with John Clare, the English poet. He has been dead a long time: he lived from 1793 to 1864. When I went to school, I had the privilege of having a wonderful teacher who loved John Clare and imparted some of that enthusiasm to me, and I became dedicated to John Clare and giving him a wider audience.

When John Clare was alive, he had only 100 poems in print. The special thing about John Clare is that he was not a posh vicar or a Member of the House of Lords, as many poets were. He was an ordinary working man; he was called the Northamptonshire peasant poet. He was a day labourer, a farm labourer, and his father was a farm labourer; they threshed together in the village of Helpston. However, John Clare went to a dame school and learned to read and write, and after he left school at 12, he never stopped reading and writing. He briefly became popular in the Victorian period, when rustic poetry was popular, and 100 of his poems were in print when he died.

Then, in the 1960s, a treasury of wonderful poetry by John Clare was found. We think that his mental challenge was that he was bipolar. He could have been treated easily these days, but he was bipolar. The well-wishing people who looked after him put him in the Northampton general asylum. He was there for many years—he lived until his early 70s—and we discovered in the 1960s that he had been writing and writing and writing, even better poetry than the poetry that he had already published. One thousand of his poems are now in print, and more are being published.

Then I had the strange fortune of my eldest daughter marrying an academic who happened to be a John Clare scholar, from Cambridge University. He is now senior tutor at Fitzwilliam College and he has written a book about John Clare. I do not know how this happened, but I became the chairman of the John Clare Trust; I bought John Clare’s house; and we raised £3 million to turn John Clare’s cottage into a centre for children to visit. It is for everyone to visit, but we have a particular campaign called Every Child’s Right to the Countryside. I have seen the work that we and other people in the same field have done transform the lives of children; their lives are transformed by going to the countryside. One does not have to love poetry, art, music or what I often called—all my daughters studied English at famous universities—arty-farty people. They do not like that, but you know what I mean, Mr Paisley. I am a social scientist, trained at the London School of Economics in economics, so I can sometimes be disparaging about some of the more literary pursuits.

However, I know that if we take a child into the countryside and use technology, innovation, science or any subject under the sun, we can transform the experience of that child in that environment. Of course, John Clare writes about the woods and hedgerows and the plants and animals of our country, many of which are now very challenged in terms of their very existence. What we found in our work, which we did in partnership with others, was that if we want our country to have a countryside and our people to love it, they must visit it. Our secret—but not very secret—mission is to get people in this country, especially new generations of young people, to come to the countryside to learn and to really find their spark. I come across so many people in this country, even my own constituents in Huddersfield, who would benefit from that. I am sure that other hon. Members feel the same.

[Jim Shannon]

It is always nice to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley—I think this may be the second or third time.

The hon. Gentleman raised those who wish young people to see and be involved with the countryside. I am very aware that in Northern Ireland we have under-achievement by Protestant males because they are not academically inclined, but their disposition might be towards the countryside. One organisation that has enabled those people at least to achieve something from a physical point of view is the Prince’s Trust. Has he had any opportunity to work with the Prince’s Trust to enable people who are not academically inclined to look towards the countryside, because they might find a job and perhaps a realisation of what they could do there?

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Gentleman reminds me that we are not talking about an exclusive society of brethren. There are a lot of us, including the Scouts, the Prince’s Trust and lots of other wonderful organisations. The wonderful chief executive of the National Trust came to visit John Clare’s cottage in Helpston only a month ago. We need to work with the National Trust and all the organisations that can offer wonderful destinations to more and more schools. I would be wrong not to mention the Institute for Outdoor Learning, whose chief executive Andy Robinson was very helpful as soon as he heard that I had secured this debate. There are a lot of organisations out there.

All the research shows that it is good for children to come to the countryside. It shows the real improvement in academic subjects, as well as in achievement across the board, from getting children out for a day in the countryside, a museum or somewhere they can get a different perspective on their learning.

Huddersfield Royal Infirmary

Debate between Jim Shannon and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Jason McCartney) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff), who have eloquently made the case and saved me from spending an awful lot of time going into the detail. However, I must repeat some of the narrative. Mr Speaker often, I think, verges a little on ageism when he points out how long I have been in the House of Commons, but it does mean that I have a long memory and I know the narrative of what has happened in health provision in my part of the world. That is always difficult for Ministers.

I noticed that this Minister, when asked whether he had visited Huddersfield, looked down at his papers rather intently. I do not blame him for that—there are parts of England that I have yet to visit—but Huddersfield is an absolute gem of a place. It nestles in the Pennines. I once had an American student who said, “I’ve found out the difference between Lancashire and Yorkshire—you’ve got the Pyrenees between you.” I said, “A lot of people in Yorkshire wish it was the Pyrenees; actually, it’s the Pennines.” That is a slightly humorous remark, but the fact is that it is a very hilly area; conditions can be very difficult. We see the special signs up in bad weather. Can we go over the tops? Often the conditions are such that we cannot. Very close to us, it is very hilly, with very difficult road networks. There is not much flat land. We were looking for industrial investment. You and I, Mr Pritchard, care very much about the manufacturing sector, and when people are trying to attract new businesses, they are all the time looking for flat land. We do not have any flat land; that is the truth. It is very difficult to find a flat space in our part of the world. It is difficult terrain.

What is nice about this debate is that from both sides of the Chamber we are making it clear that we do not want to beggar our neighbour. We want good health provision throughout our area. Good health provision is what motivates all of us. We want the highest-quality health provision. However, we do want accountable delivery of health provision. Many of us feel that the old system had its imperfections and the new system has its imperfections. Both the hon. Member for Colne Valley and my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury talked about the PFI. I have a long knowledge of PFIs. When I was chairing the Select Committee on Education, PFIs were used, as you know, Mr Pritchard, for much school building. I learnt over many years of controversy over PFIs that one cannot dislike PFIs on principle, but one can be against bad PFIs and in favour of good PFIs. I think that that is the truth of the matter.

There is a lot of evidence that some of the health PFIs were entered into with a rather amateur group of people representing the health trusts. That is the only explanation if we are to be kind to those people who made the arrangements. They were dealing with some pretty clever people—leading consultancies and people who really knew their stuff from the City of London. A senior professor said to me that some of the people sitting on the other side of the table were not as sharp as they could have been. They may have been local accountants and solicitors or the local management team, and perhaps they did not see quite how much the PFI was going to cost them over the number of years for which it was to run. That is the context.

A particularly worrying PFI was agreed for the Calderdale hospital in Halifax. There were two trusts in those days: the Halifax trust and the Huddersfield trust. The Huddersfield trust was always very well managed and had plenty of reserves, but when Halifax and Calderdale ran into trouble, we were pushed by the then Department to merge with the trust that was limping rather. People may remember this. We did merge, because we did believe in a good health service for all the people in our part of Kirklees and in Calderdale. That is the history; now we have to bring ourselves up to date.

There is a new dilemma, and I do not want to make it party political, but the urgent question on national health service finances yesterday did point to the fact that up and down the country a number of trusts are in serious financial trouble. Until comparatively recently, our health trust was in pretty good shape. Only comparatively recently did we suddenly have some real financial challenges. The Minister will be very familiar with this dilemma. On the one hand, we are being asked to make savings, efficiencies—4% every year—in order to maintain a good record with all the organisations that look at our health provision. On the one hand, there is that pressure for greater efficiency and saving money, but at the same time on our patch we have this PFI that is a great drain. On the other hand, we have what is a pretty old hospital in modern terms. I was once with Harold Wilson in the hospital when I was a very young MP. He had come up, and we were waiting for the top brass to come down and guide us. He said, “Barry, I don’t think I’ve ever been here before,” and behind him was a great marble stone that said, “Opened by Harold Wilson in 1965”.

The hospital is a classic early 1960s building. Some of us love some of the 1960s buildings. There are some that we cherish, such as the Barbican. Many people hate the hospital; I quite like it. There is a kind of brutalism that one likes. However, a lot of 1960s building was a little bit below par. We have on the one hand a hospital PFI that is very expensive and on the other a local hospital that is getting old. It has been invested in over the years. A great deal of investment has gone in, but I am told that a conservative estimate is that at least £200 million would be needed really to get it back on track. That is a great pressure on local health provision.

All of us across the parties in our area—local councillors have also been very active in the campaign—understand that we want the best possible healthcare for all the people on our patch. I know that the Minister is not so familiar with our part of the world. Not only is it hilly but it has a very mixed population. A lot of wealthy people live on our patch. There are a lot of middle-class people and a lot of people who are more challenged in terms of their income. It is a very mixed area, and that is the beauty of it. It is not boring; it is in every sense a vibrant area. I recently challenged the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills to come to Huddersfield and have a decent suit made of fine Huddersfield worsted; we still make the finest worsted in the world. Indeed, Mr Speaker is now also coming to Huddersfield to have a fine worsted suit made. I see you looking interested, Mr Pritchard—the invitation could be extended.

The fact is that, were there not so much contest between the smaller towns, the area might have had the name “Greater Huddersfield”. It is a city—one of the biggest urban conglomerations in the country—but people, especially outsiders, do not realise that because we have broken it up into different names. Kirklees is vast, which means that there are great healthcare challenges. Put that together with our difficult geography and an interesting history, and we face real challenges. We want the Minister to be open-minded and to enter into a discussion to find a way to get the very best result for the people of our area.

I shall be quite blunt about my resistance to CCGs. I wanted to be independent in assessing PFIs, and I said that there had been good PFIs and poor PFIs. There are also good CCGs and not so good CCGs, and I am not impressed by the quality and leadership of my local CCG. Although I have some resistance to CCGs, the general model is not a difficult one. I chair the all-party parliamentary group on management, so I am keen on good management in the health service and outside. Sometimes I see doctors managing CCGs; management is not part of any medical course I know of. We would not expect it to be. We train doctors to be good clinicians and good GPs, not to be managers. Some CCGs have real difficulties because they lack quality management.

There has been a failure of management in our local CCG when it comes to a proper, rational assessment of where we are now and how we can get the best possible healthcare in our area, taking into account all the difficult pieces of information that I have mentioned, including an ageing hospital that needs investment, a newish hospital that was built under a PFI, and difficult communications. I ask the Minister to look very carefully at what has been going on in our locality and to get the whole situation appraised carefully, independently and objectively.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I understand that this is an issue for the A&E in Huddersfield, but the hon. Gentleman mentioned getting other advice. In Northern Ireland, the Minister has set up a new panel to look at the whole health service and how best to take it forward in an area of financial restraint. Does he agree—I suspect that he does—that it is time to share those ideas across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? Thereby, we can all learn together.

[Mr Sheerman]

I very much welcome that information, which relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox). She said that there was no clear, strategic plan for the broader area of West Yorkshire. West Yorkshire is very close to Barnsley on one boundary. On another, it goes a long way right up the valley to where a very large number of people live in places such as Todmorden, where a bridge was recently affected by floods. Those places are in strong Manchester commuting territory. The area is vast and complex, and I cannot remember a proper evaluation across the piece, rather than an assessment that just carved out one bit of territory and looked into that very carefully.

I do not want to go through how many people are enraged, but they include—I read in the Huddersfield Examiner—Sir Patrick Stewart. Until recently, he was the chancellor of Huddersfield University, which was university of the year last year. He sends, from Hollywood, his solidarity with the people of Huddersfield on the issue of keeping the A&E department open.

On 11 March this year, we celebrate the centenary of the birth of Harold Wilson—a great man and a great Prime Minister—who was born in Huddersfield. When I used to drive him around Huddersfield, we would pass the old further education college, which was the old, old Huddersfield hospital, and he always said, “My appendix is in there.” The area has a great history. Please, in this special year, let us listen to the voices of the people of Huddersfield and Halifax, and get this right. At the moment, the suggestion of closing A&E in Huddersfield is not right, nor is the suggestion that Halifax is the only alternative. Personally, I think that there is a scheme by which we could keep both A&E departments open. My request to the Minister is: get that rigorous, independent, thoughtful appraisal of what the hell is going on, and get it right.