Petrol and Diesel

Debate between Jim Shannon and Robert Halfon

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. That matter is an important part of my argument.

On the August rise, the Automobile Association says that a 3p rise in petrol prices will switch £1.8 million a day out of the economy and into petrol costs, draining money away from high streets. At the same time, a report by the respected Centre for Economics and Business Research shows that cutting duty by 2.5p would create 175,000 new jobs. The RAC Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies—both very respected—show that revenues from motoring taxes are set to collapse by between £10 billion and £13 billion a year over the next decade, as people are driven off the roads by economising on fuel. That is why I urge the Government to think again.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the very good campaign that he has carried out on this issue. We all appreciate it. With our fuel costs rising and it costing more to fill a car or heat a home than to buy groceries, does the hon. Gentleman feel that now is the time for a windfall tax on the oil companies that are making exorbitant profits?

[Robert Halfon]

Yes, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for his incredible support all through this argument. I recognise that there is no magic money tree, so to cut prices at the pump the Government need seriously to consider another windfall tax on the oil companies, not necessarily on North sea production but on the companies as a whole.

Not enough emphasis is put on my second point which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) says, is that we need competitiveness in the oil market. Not only the Government but businesses and the oil companies have a responsibility. There are four complaints. The first is that pump prices are always quick to rise, but that it feels as though a court order is needed to get them down. Evidence shows that from May to August 2011, oil prices fell by about 5.5%, adjusting for exchange rates, but petrol and diesel prices stayed high, falling by only 1.5%.

The second complaint—the debate comes in the wake of this—is about the OFT’s interim decision not to investigate the UK oil market, despite a dossier of evidence from Brian Madderson, who represents the UK’s independent forecourts, which shows that British motorists are being fleeced and that oil firms active in the UK are under formal investigation by the Federal Cartel Office in Germany as a result of similar complaints.

University Technical Colleges

Debate between Jim Shannon and Robert Halfon

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I think that my remarks later will address some of his points.

Thanks largely to my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, and the Minister of State, Department for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), the Government have increased the number of apprentices to a record level this year—up 50% to 442,700, with increases at all levels and age groups. However, we are starting from a low base. In 2009 there were about 11 apprentices for every 1,000 workers. In France that figure was 17, in Austria 33, in Australia 39, and in Germany 40. In 2009 our young people were four times worse off for apprenticeships than young people in Germany.

Considering that the Berlin wall fell only 20 years ago, that is deeply shocking and shows just how uncompetitive the UK economy has become. For years Germany reaped the benefits of its skills policy and a culture that valued apprentices and gave prestige to vocational learning. Germany built up its manufacturing and high-tech industry while we lost out, not only under the previous Government but, honestly, during the 1990s. I agree with the analysis of Lord Baker, who was one of our finest Education Secretaries and was, in many ways, the forefather of the UTC movement, along with the late Ron Dearing. Lord Baker wrote in the Yorkshire Post in 2008:

“One thing our country has missed out on is good vocational schools. Several attempts have been made since the 1870s, but they have generally fallen by the wayside. The 1944 Butler Education Act established three types of school—grammar, secondary modern and technical, but the first to disappear was the technical school as it had become”—

to quote the Latin—

“‘infra-dig’. Ironically, this English pattern was adopted by Germany in 1945 and became very successful: their youngsters who attend technical schools acquire skills in engineering, construction, manufacturing and design. Germany’s technical schools today have more applicants than their grammar schools and Germany produces several times the number of qualified technicians than the UK.”

We simply cannot afford to keep producing generation after generation of rootless university graduates with purely academic qualifications who lack the skills that industry needs.

What are UTCs, and why will they succeed where other attempts have failed? As Lords Baker and Adonis said when first proposing the UTC model, we need a vocational route that is rigorous, attractive and as prestigious as the best academic routes. That simply does not exist in our current schools system. As the Prime Minister put it recently, the expansion of UTCs will be

“the next great poverty-busting structural change we need…offering first-class technical skills to those turned off by purely academic study.”

However, the key reform is that major local employers, especially in manufacturing and industry, will help to write the curriculum, which has never been tried before. As the recent schools White Paper said:

“Pupils at the JCB Academy in…Staffordshire, will study a curriculum designed to produce the engineers and business leaders of the future…They will complete engineering tasks that have been set by JCB and other Academy partners including Rolls-Royce, Toyota and Network Rail.”

Early results are positive. They prove that UTCs are an instrument of social justice, as well as economic efficiency. At the JCB academy, for example, students wear business suits. There are reports that truancy has been reduced significantly and GCSE results, particularly in the core subjects of English and Maths, have massively improved.

As Lord Baker said a few weeks ago,

“10,000 students are now set to attend University Technical Colleges by 2015”.

That means 10,000 fewer youngsters on the dole, and 10,000 more students learning the high-tech skills of the future to support British industry, manufacturing, and growth.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

We are fortunate in Northern Ireland to have technical colleges—the South Eastern Regional college campus in Newtownards is an example—that give young people exactly what the hon. Gentleman is referring to: an opportunity to train, build their confidence and get a job outside, or be directed towards one. I encourage him to look up the South Eastern Regional college website to see exactly what he hopes to achieve in action.

[Robert Halfon]

I would be delighted to look at that website, and I would like to study it more, because it is good to see successful examples in action.

So far, 18 new UTCs have received support from the Education Secretary, with 13 announced last month, and 130 companies are supporting them, which I think is a record in industrial investment. For the past three years the Baker Dearing Educational Trust has worked with the Department for Education, the private sector, universities and further education colleges to build the network. The Chancellor has doubled the funding for UTCs and found money for at least 24. The Opposition always go on about cuts and the legacy of youth unemployment—left by the last Government, as I have mentioned—but we are talking about a concrete investment of at least £150 million, with more funds levered in from the private sector, to tackle that very issue. This is not small beer.