Education Act 1996 (Travelling Families)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Richard Graham

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is right. He understands his own showmen community in Nuneaton so well. What has changed is the way in which remote education can take place successfully. Currently, children with travelling parents are registered with one school in the UK and they keep their place when on the move. The school sets work, which is completed on the road and sent back via a laptop with a mobile internet connection, and the children rejoin the school on their return. This is considered effective and efficient by both the parents and the schools involved. Over recent years there has been a consistent rise in the number of pupils taking GCSEs within the showmen community. These are the children who have benefited most from vast improvements made to distance learning with the help of technology, as my hon. Friend pointed out.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that those children are meeting the high educational standards that children in Gloucester are meeting? Is that what he is trying to achieve for all the families involved?

[Richard Graham]

It is fair to say that the educational achievements of all communities vary from place to place. Showmen are a community spread across the whole of the United Kingdom in 10 different regions. I do not have precise statistics for their educational achievements. It is one of the issues that I will mention before finishing my speech, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to, but he is right to raise the question.

Over the past few months I have created an online petition which has attracted almost 4,000 signatures, all opposing a repeal of section 444(6), and innumerable, often moving e-mails from around the country. I hope the Minister will not mind if I quote briefly from a handful of them. This is from James Breeze:

“Being a showman was a massive complement to my formal education. Can you think of a more stimulating environment for a child to live in? How things work? The value of service? The value of money? Social interactions? The list is endless.”

He goes on to talk about his nine GCSEs at A to C level, four A-levels, a 2:1 degree from Durham university and postgraduate diploma from Leeds Metropolitan university. He is now working in a significant role in a multinational company, managing a large team. He comments:

“This reinforces my view that a showman’s life combined with education as it is now gives the best life skills.”

In similar vein, Morgan Robinson comments in an e-mail:

“I come from a travelling showman background and as such have had to spend many weeks away from school in the summer months…I never fell behind, and in some circumstances, I was actually ahead by the time I got back to school!”

He lists his A-levels and GCSEs, and his chemistry degree course at the university of Warwick. He says:

“My hopes for after my degree is to get a job as an intellectual property lawyer”.

There are several such e-mails. I shall finish them with e-mails from two sisters based in Gloucester, Zoe and Olivia Sheldon. Zoe wrote:

“As a young showperson I have relied on this Act”—

section 444(6)—

“all of my school life. From the age of 4 my parents removed me from my base school…to travel with the fair for 6 months of the year.”

She continues:

“I was successful in gaining a place at Ribston Hall Grammar School for girls at the age of 11 and went on to achieve 11 GCSEs A* to C grades. My sister Olivia, also a student at Ribston, is now studying with the open university to achieve an English degree.”

Zoe finishes:

“The education of young showpeople is reliant on this Act and its abolition would result in the needless break-up of showmen families and cause a loss in the traditional showmen culture as it would force showmen children to be brought up outside of the showman way of life.”

Zoe’s older sister Olivia wrote:

“my sister and I are not isolated cases. I have several cousins and friends who completed/are undertaking University Degrees after having a similar educational background to mine. Among the Showman Community we are hearing more and more news of great educational achievements…Travelling Funfares can move vast distances to get to their next event and are sometimes only in a town for a couple of days, making the suggestion of registering at a different school at each location inconceivable and even detrimental to the education of Showpeople…such an education was imposed on some elder relatives of mine who found it ‘confusing’ as different schools were doing different subjects at different times. The end result was a poor education.”

She goes on to comment about the importance of forming long-term friendships at one school—people who know showpeople’s children when they come back from their travelling.

I met one or two of their older relations on Alney island, who described to me what it was like moving from school to school, in one case being forced to sit in the corner with a book while everyone else was learning. I cannot believe that that is what the Minister would wish to see among our children today.

I am conscious that time is moving on and we all wish to hear from the Minister. I also had a moving letter from Charlotte Barltrop, who worked in a circus for 10 years before getting a degree in theatre and professional practice at the university of Coventry. She now runs her own business teaching circus skills. She wrote:

“All my achievements wouldn’t have been possible if…I was not educated as a child and…was not able to travel whilst gaining this early education. The skills I learned as a child, both in and out of the classroom, are what has enabled me to have such an amazing career”.

I believe that the Minister’s response to the consultation will be published before long, but not, I hope, before she and the Minister for Schools, who shares responsibility for the response, consider carefully the case for the following constructive suggestions. First, we should make arrangements to measure the education results of different showmen groups as a separate entity from the GRT community on which the consultation has been based. Secondly, I encourage the Minister for Schools to meet me and others, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), interested in the case of the showmen, and to visit Kingsholm primary school in Gloucester to see how achievement and remote learning can be combined. Thirdly, and above all, we should exempt the travelling showmen and circus communities from any repeal of section 444(6). That would be a pragmatic, practical and appropriate way to ensure that the lives of some 24,000 travelling showpeople are not unintentionally and dramatically damaged by the Minister’s admirable focus on driving up educational results.

I am grateful to the guild, its representatives, the other associations, my own constituents, and many around the country who have committed their time to sending e-mails and messages of support and information.

Dementia Services (Gloucestershire)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Richard Graham

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

In the dementia debate in the House a fortnight ago, sadly I was tail-end Charlie and time prevented me from contributing a Gloucestershire perspective, so I am very grateful for this opportunity to put that right. I am also very grateful to the Minister for coming to Westminster Hall this afternoon.

Dementia can be an emotional topic. In that earlier debate, many Members—mostly female Members—from all parties in the House talked about the very human side to the disease. It was a reminder that we are no more and no less than a reflection of those we serve; a mirror of the human sadness and strength that are part of the disease of dementia. Perhaps it is not given to men to be as open or as eloquent as women in discussing our experience of family suffering. However, I will embarrass my father briefly, for he looked after my mother at home through many years of dementia. And after my mother’s death, when I said that I could not have done what he had done, my father replied quietly, “You never know what you can do until you have to.” It falls to our generation to “have to” do something about dementia, before we too—one in four of us, including one in four of us in Westminster Hall today—are overtaken by this disease.

In Gloucestershire—an ageing shire—the need is even more pressing. So there are three areas that I would be grateful to hear my hon. Friend the Minister’s views about in this brief debate, and two on which I would like to share our practice in Gloucestershire. Then I will finish by issuing an invitation.

The first area is research. It is good that Government research expenditure has doubled, and that the Aricept brand of new drug can delay the speed at which the disease spreads. However, although that is valuable—not least for giving families a chance to plan—Aricept may not work for much more than a year. Furthermore, although the Government have recently invested £22 million in research into 21 new products, can my hon. Friend the Minister confirm that it may be years before we know if any of them are successful? Since the goal of a cure is such a precious one—way beyond even the estimated heavy financial cost of treating sufferers, which is about £19 billion a year—can he also say if any drug development is close to the stage where the NHS could really financially back its development? On this issue, surely everyone would love to see science and Government working together to back a winner.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I will intervene, if for no other reason than to give the hon. Gentleman a chance to catch his breath.

In Northern Ireland, dementia diagnosis is at 63%, which is well above other parts of the UK. The support services are not as high; in other parts of the UK, support services are much higher than they are in Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is time there should be a UK strategy that takes all the diagnosis and support services together, and that develops a strategy not only for Gloucestershire but for Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK?

Adoption

Debate between Jim Shannon and Richard Graham

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I think that we all agree that we have to set targets that meet the need. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he represents Strangford, my old hunting ground. On the difficulties for those who wish to adopt or who have adopted, does he agree with my constituents, Mr and Mrs James, who told me the other day that, as people who have adopted children, had they known what they would have to go through, they probably would not have done so? Moreover, Mr and Mrs Nash told me that they did not know about the difficulties that they would have in relation to education or about the hidden trauma of the children whom they adopted—it was waiting to come out, but they did not get the same support as children in care. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with them that, if we could overcome those difficulties, we would be able to raise the rates of those who are adopted—in Gloucestershire, only 27 out of 500 children in care are adopted—and that the problem would be much less grave?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. I wholeheartedly agree with him and think that every other Member present does, too.

I am conscious of the time, so I will come to a conclusion. I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has indicated that he is keen and anxious for a time scale of six months. If that is to happen, we will need more than a verbal commitment. I want action. It would be good to see that happen.

Finally, I am concerned that, in some, not all, cases, it is as though Christian families are interrogated about their ethics and morality, their homes, and their desire to adopt. In some cases, Christians, Christian families and Christian parents are being penalised because of their beliefs, but we cannot pass by what they have to offer. Those potential parents wish to adopt and we have a list of young children who seek adoptive parents. The answer is simple—let us put the two together and do it right.

Apprenticeships (Small Businesses)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Richard Graham

Thursday 9th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I am sure that the Minister will have noted that point and will come back on it in due course.

Developing the themes of our debate today, we now have to consider the obstacles that small businesses face in taking on apprentices. I have touched on the two key areas of bureaucracy and cost. On bureaucracy, the challenge for those of us who want to promote apprenticeships is that there are so many different ways of taking on apprentices. For example, it is generally the case that the training costs for 16 to 18-year-olds are entirely funded by the Government and those for 19 to 24-year-olds are half-funded by the Government. Members will find in their own constituencies that we have training providers who will provide certain training courses for 19 to 24-year-olds entirely free of charge. On the one hand, that gives the 19 to 24-year-olds a competitive advantage, and on the other, it offers to small businesses the opportunity to take on a slightly more experienced individual at a lower cost than might be the case normally.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned two schemes—I think that one of them was for 16 to 24-year-olds and that the other was for 24 to 27-year-olds—but some people lose their jobs and have to retrain. Does he not think that opportunities should be given to those who want to diversify into other jobs? Should they not be given apprenticeships as well, even if they are past those ages?

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point about the ways in which we can get people back into work. The Work programme is starting this week. I am sure that he is already in touch with both the contractors and sub-contractors in his own constituency. Working closely with those who are rolling out the Work programme offers the best chances of getting older people back into the workplace. What we are really talking about today is apprenticeships that are focused specifically on the 16-to-24 age group. I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s general point, but I think that it ranges wider than today’s debate, although the Minister might want to comment on that.

I will return to the obstacles for small businesses and quote from the NAS in Gloucestershire, which works with hundreds of SMEs on a daily basis. We know that the definition of an SME can include businesses that, on a constituency basis, are really quite large. Companies employing 250 employees are big employers as far as I am concerned, but they are categorised as SMEs. One of the challenges for the NAS, which is resourced by one representative per county, is to engage with the small businesses that we are discussing today, which would technically be called micro-businesses. I do not use the term “micro” because I do not think that companies enjoy being called “micro”—they do not relate to that word. We are talking today predominantly about companies with fewer than 12 employees.

The NAS in Gloucestershire has spoken to more than 15,000 small businesses in the past five months. That is an astonishing achievement, and I pay tribute to its hard work in spreading its tentacles so widely among small businesses in our county. Its experience has shown that it has been able to spread the word about apprenticeships and their role.

As hon. Members have said, the role of the media and further education colleges has also been critical in spreading the word, but it can be very difficult to reach businesses of the size that we are discussing today. Many people

“simply don’t have the time to come out of their businesses”

to attend events. Such companies—often one man, one woman or a family working together—do not have the sort of people who typically sit on the committees of their local Federation of Small Businesses. We are fortunate if we can persuade them to come to an event, a lunch or a supper to discuss topical issues.

There are some breakfast clubs for very small businesses—I have certainly been to them, as have other hon. Members. They are quite good at doing business-to-business with each other, but the process of filling in forms, searching on websites, discussing with training providers and working out whether to go to the further education college or a more specialist training provider is quite time-consuming for people who are dealing with customers minute by minute in their shops.

To try to ensure that very small businesses get the opportunities to incorporate apprenticeships into their companies, the Department and the NAS are therefore supporting projects among group training associations and apprenticeship training agencies. In response to a letter that I wrote him, the Minister highlighted that

“recently, Group Training Association and Apprenticeship Training Agency models have been proving successful in making it easier for small business to take on apprentices.”

I hope that the Minister will share some examples of those successes with us, whether they are geographical or sectoral, and share with us how we can help him to promote GTA and ATA models in our own constituencies, as a way of helping small businesses to overcome the apparent obstacle of administration.

It is true, for example, that the South West Apprenticeship Company in my own constituency is able to provide the legal ownership of apprentices taken on by small businesses should there be future employment law concerns with an apprentice who has not worked out. Many of us will know that the business of finding the right apprentice is the single most important thing and often a very hard thing for a small company to do. As far as employment law is concerned, ownership of the apprenticeship is with the training provider, which can be enormously helpful to small businesses.

The next stage covers what sort of carrots might be offered to very small businesses as part of the incentive to take on an apprentice. I start from the presumption that if we were all able to persuade half the small companies in our constituencies to take on one apprentice each, we would have solved the youth unemployment problem in this country by that step alone. The opportunity, if we were able to seize it, would be enormous. The goal would be considerable, so how can we get closer to achieving it? We could consider two or three things, the first of which is to provide a financial incentive. In March 2010, there was an apprenticeship grant for employer scheme—AGE—which gave a straightforward cash amount of £2,500 to employers taking on their first apprentice. As a result of that incentive, which was offered for a limited period of three months, 5,000 unemployed 16 to 17-year-olds were taken on during that time.

It is right to ask ourselves whether that incentive was entirely motivated by a long-term solution for youth unemployment or by a short-term concern to keep teenagers off the unemployment statistics in the run-up to a general election. It is also right to ask whether cash incentives for taking on a first apprentice, without necessarily a time commitment on how long that apprentice will work, will always generate good long-term results, or whether that is a very short-term way to enhance small business profitability without necessarily leading on to career opportunities for 16 to 17-year-olds, but it is something on which perhaps the Minister might comment today.

A slightly different thought offered to me by the chairman of the FSB in Gloucester was to look at ways to subsidise apprentices over a three-year period. For example, when a company takes on an apprentice for the first time, a percentage of the amount paid by the employer could be reimbursed by the Government at the end of the first year. A smaller amount would be reimbursed in the second year, and in the third year all the cost would be absorbed by the company. That is a slightly different and more interesting model to look at, were the Government able to offer financial compensation for some of the employment costs of taking on new apprentices for small businesses.

Other ways to help small businesses to take on apprentices could be considered. One of them could be to rationalise the training costs for 18 to 24-year-olds as well as 16 to 18-year-olds. The Government have previously differentiated between the two age groups on the basis that getting people started is the most important thing and that, by the time people are 19 to 24, they should have more experience and more maturity to offer employers. But we know that that is not always the case. Some 19-year-olds and older people might still need considerable investment of time and effort by very small businesses to bring them to a stage where they can contribute to the growth of that company. The cost of that investment in time is as important to the smallest companies as the financial cost of paying apprentices for however many hours a week they are employed.