Start-up Loans

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Yes, I will take a special interest in ensuring that the Isle of Wight has access to the scheme. Many of the partners through which it is delivered are regional, but there are many national partners and much of it can be done online. I am sure that broadband internet is readily available on the Isle of Wight. If it is not, it soon will be. I will take a special interest in how many loans are taken up on the Isle of Wight.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

This is welcome news, especially as the start-up businesses have gone on to employ a further 10,000 people. To build on that, what more can be done to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit within the education system to equip the next generation of young entrepreneurs?

[Matthew Hancock]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for adding to the statistics at my disposal. He is a doughty campaigner for enterprise in the education system. One of the main purposes of bringing together the skills and enterprise briefs is to ensure that the education system reflects and prepares people for the world of employment and enterprise. That is very close to my heart and I look forward to working with him to make it happen more.

Adult Literacy and Numeracy

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), who covered all the great work that Unionlearn has done. I have asked to see that first hand in my constituency, but I have not yet had a reply to my request.

It is also a pleasure to follow excellent and thoughtful speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) and the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). I also wish to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), who has done some exceptional work in this area. Indeed, I was surprised by her calm, measured and constructive manner, when I would have struggled to hold back my anger at the fact that one in six adults is financially illiterate. The OECD figures are a disgrace, and we have robbed people of opportunity. We all have drivers of our politics—the issues that motivate us to do what we do—and this is one of my core drivers.

I went to a school that was bottom of the league tables and many of my friends were robbed of opportunities in life. As Members of Parliament we see from our casework people in real distress, arguably through no fault of their own but because they are simply not equipped to deal with the challenges that life throws up. My wife volunteered for two years at a job club and found people were not equipped to get jobs to give them opportunities in life.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one area in which numeracy has an incredible impact on people’s lives is that of payday loans at 1,400% from Wonga and various other companies? When people do not have the faintest idea what that means, they get into huge financial difficulties which cause great misery. If they were numerate, they would understand exactly why they should not take out loans at those exorbitant rates.

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is a brilliant intervention with fortune-telling skills, as that is exactly what I was about to say. Numeracy is not just about applying for jobs—it is about confidence, about being a savvy consumer and about dealing with things such as payday lending. We have had several debates on this and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) will also touch on that issue—although to be fair, most Treasury Ministers would struggle to calculate the APR on payday lending. We live in a complex world with marketing messages, and my hon. Friend and I are working on a paper at the moment about how consumers are not empowered. The markets are in control because consumers are not equipped to make the right decisions.

I want to talk about three areas in which we have opportunities to help people—financial education, work in schools and using libraries as hubs. On financial education, we have had an exceptionally successful cross-party campaign—235 MPs signed up—and I am delighted that as of September 2014 it will be a core part of the national curriculum. The key driver behind the campaign was the fact that 91% of people who get into financial difficulties say, “If only I had known better.” My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport pointed out that 50% of adults struggle with even primary maths skills, so it is no wonder that people get into financial difficulty. The campaign focused on four strands—schools, further education, higher education and the crucial vulnerable group, work on which is led by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). That group is crucial because although we are bringing in the changes in schools, further education and higher education, some people will still slip through the net. The report will be published in the next couple of weeks and will contain important points for the Government to take up, so that we can ensure that the most vulnerable people are not missed out.

I am a big fan of the school reforms, which will drive up standards and include making grammar and spelling important in all exams; making mental arithmetic more important in primary schools; restricting the use of calculators; and upgrading maths in the curriculum. I was a maths fan in school, but I was in the minority, even though maths is incredibly important. The pupil premium is providing schools with opportunities to target resources to those most in need.

I had an inspiring visit to Seven Fields school in my constituency. As I have mentioned in previous debates, I had the honour of the Minister for Schools coming to visit after I had set out just how good the school is. To put it in context, it is in one of the top 5% most deprived areas and it was formerly a failing school. To give credit to the previous Government, money was provided to rebuild the school, which was the beginning of the process, but the fundamental changes came from the school reforms, which gave its inspirational head teacher the ability to make a real difference. Some 70% of the children are on the pupil premium and that money has been used—now that the class sizes have been almost halved to 17—to work with the community to get volunteers to come in and read one on one with the children. That has been done by providing a free Sunday roast on Wednesdays to the Penhill luncheon club, who work one on one with the children on reading and numeracy. It makes a huge difference.

Lately resources have been diverted to the nursery because, as the head teacher told the Minister for Schools and me, some of the children coming through have simply been abandoned in front of the television. Not only can they not walk, they have not even reached the first stages of crawling. They literally have to start again. When the children arrive at the school, they are 18 months behind the national average, but by the time they finish, they have caught up—giving those children opportunity.

Huge effort is put into selecting the best, most ambitious teachers, who want to go the extra mile to make a difference. We all know from our own time in schools how teachers who make the extra effort can make a huge difference. The school also provides a constructive and positive environment, including children taking their shoes off and treating it like their own homes. They also have opportunities to make visits beyond school to do things that they would not otherwise have the chance to do.

The head teacher still has a wish list of things that would make a difference. She feels that school holidays undo the great work that is done. Some of the children are upset that they will not be able to come into school. Before teachers start thinking that I am advocating a 52-week term, I should say that the idea is to open up the schools in holidays for summer camps on sport, literacy or numeracy, or for the Scouts and other volunteer organisations to use. PFI schools often have expensive charges for outside groups, which removes the opportunity for constructive work. The head teacher thinks that some of the children benefit from the almost family environment in the school, and should perhaps be held back beyond primary school age—perhaps up to 14 or when they are in a position to go to the local FE college or start an apprenticeship—because they need that sort of environment, perhaps because of their family background. As they go off to the traditional secondary schools, the influences and temptations away from the right path prove too great without family support—and the school can be a substitute for that.

The final, and perhaps contentious, item is the need for performance-related pay for teachers. My father was a teacher, as were my grandmother and grandfather, and many of my friends are teachers. We need to provide incentives for the very best teachers who make a real difference to people. I do not see why they should not be rewarded financially, because in any other profession they would be.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I wish to explore how the hon. Gentleman thinks that would work in practice. My son is doing a GCSE in business studies with two different teachers. If one is good and one is bad, how would we work out who got the pay rise and who got the sack?

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is a good point, and the key is that I would not do that, because I am a politician and what do I know? It would be the head teachers who decided. We should entrust them to run schools like any other organisation. The head teacher at this school was waxing lyrical about the inspirational teachers with extra enthusiasm and energy, and she should have absolute freedom to ensure that she has the very best teachers for those children from very challenging backgrounds who do not have the luxury of private education and who rely on this single chance in life.

The parents also need to be engaged. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport mentioned the role of parents. The school I am talking about has parental contracts. If parents want their child to go to the school, they have to play their part and engage with the school, to ensure that it is not only in school hours that the children benefit from the opportunities provided

I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on libraries, and I think libraries have a big role to play in adult literacy, which might simply be by opening up the doors to volunteer groups in the evenings and when the library is closed. The summer reading challenge has made a huge difference in getting children to read six books over the summer, when previously they might not have read a single book—look at the number of adults who have not read a book in the last 12 months. Perhaps jobcentres could utilise the libraries to provide opportunities, even for those who need to start from scratch. I have advocated in other debates that we should open up school sports facilities for free to organisations that provide constructive, energetic activities for young people, and a similar principle could be applied to libraries.

The situation is a disgrace. We have to show urgency in our attempts to make a difference. People have one chance in life and, as all hon. Members will make clear, they are being robbed of it. That is a desperately poor situation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

The second statement is simply wrong. The overwhelming majority of free schools are in areas of basic need. On the first question, I would be very happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss his specific proposal. We want to be as pragmatic and helpful as possible to councils that face these pressures.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Following the recent Public Accounts Committee report, it is clear to me that we have pressure on primary school places because Labour was obsessed with building landlocked expensive private finance initiative schools and decided to remove a quarter of a million primary school places during a baby boom. What is the quickest way for local communities to respond?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that from 2003 onwards, the Office for National Statistics was pointing to one of the biggest increases in the birth rate for many generations. Those who are now on the Government Benches were warning the Labour Government that there would be a real crisis in primary school places. In spite of that, 200,000 places were removed between 2003 and 2010. Labour Members will be pleased to know that almost all the 200,000 places have been replaced by this coalition Government.

Pupil Premium

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

What is very encouraging—the head teacher of the primary school that the Deputy Prime Minister and I visited this morning spoke to us about it—is that many schools nowadays are not simply sitting back and waiting for parents to engage and shrugging their shoulders when they do not. Many of the best schools in the most deprived communities are going out to engage with reluctant parents and they often have considerable success in persuading those parents that education is important for their young children’s future. This can be a way of engaging parents who might not have had good educational experiences themselves, potentially enriching their own lives by contact with the school. I would encourage head teachers and teachers with parents of the type that my hon. Friend describes to visit some of the schools that are doing this work very well, as I think they could learn a tremendous amount from them.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

It was a great pleasure to welcome the Schools Minister on his visit to Seven Fields primary school. The school’s transformation was due to a combination of inspirational leadership, greater freedoms and the pupil premium. How should we share this best practice so that all schools can benefit from today’s announcement?

[Mr Laws]

It was a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency and he was quite right when he wrote to me to highlight the fantastic achievements of this school, which sits in a disadvantaged community and could easily be languishing and struggling, but actually sets incredibly high aspirations, showing that it is possible for schools to deliver. The Government have recently started to publish tables of similar schools, where we look at schools with a similar composition of pupils and look at their performance against other similar schools. That process should encourage schools across the country that are not performing well to look at other schools with a similar intake that are doing a lot better, perhaps visiting them, talking to teachers and finding out what works. This type of school-to-school improvement should be enhanced by the additional measure of information that we are publishing.

National Curriculum

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely central point. Every country that teaches history well insists on the history of its own nation being taught. Even the progressive Administration in Holyrood make a point of stressing the importance of Scottish history—I can see the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), for the Scottish National party, nodding—from which other things flow. I recognise that all nations should in this respect, if in few others, emulate what Alex Salmond has done.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I am delighted at the inclusion of financial education and computer programming, both of which are essential skills for our children. Does the Secretary of State believe that they will also help to encourage young children to engage in traditional mathematics, through real-life work and tangible examples?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the key things about his successful campaign on financial education is that he always made it clear that it was about reinforcing the importance of rigour in mathematics, not simply meeting the needs of a vocal lobby outside. The way he ran the campaign is a model of how a Back Bencher can shape the education of millions for the better.

Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is a new departure for Members on the Treasury Bench to subcontract ministerial visits to their parents. Who knows what else is in store?

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

5. What consideration he has given to including life-saving skills in the physical education curriculum.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

Our proposals for the new national curriculum were published for consultation earlier this year. They are based on the principle that the national curriculum should set out a body of essential knowledge that children should be expected to acquire in key subjects. We are considering the consultation responses, and considering the inclusion of life-saving skills.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I am conscious that we do not wish to be too prescriptive, but just two hours of training could enable help to be provided to those suffering the 60,000 cardiac arrests that take place outside hospital each year and give a real, tangible skill to those who wish to go into the sports and leisure industry.

Girls and ICT Careers

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution and welcome the bringing of her direct experience of computer programming to this debate. She is absolutely right. I shall explain in the remainder of my speech the wide range of issues that need to be addressed if we are to overcome this disparity. We really need a positive approach and champions for it across the whole of government.

When I started my degree, 12% of my fellow electrical engineering students were women. That was almost 30 years ago. It sounds like a very long time, and it is indeed depressingly long. The most depressing thing of all, however, is that although women now make up 43% of GPs, 41% of solicitors and even 22% of Members of Parliament—a third in the Labour party, I should add—the proportion of female engineering students has not increased at all. That is scandalous. In computer science, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) may well know, the figures are getting worse. The proportion of computing A-levels taken by women went down from 12% in 2004 to 8% in 2011. There is only one girl for every 11 boys in the average UK A-level computing class. We should imagine how it feels to be that girl.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing a debate on this incredibly important subject. In the specific part of the video games industry, only 17% of staff are females and the industry is crying out for more. What we really need is role models to inspire the next generation and address that imbalance.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. It is certainly the case that the video games industry is a modern one; one would hope that it would be reflective of society, including those who play games, but it is not. I shall show a little later that the figures I have for females in the video games industry are even worse than the hon. Gentleman’s 17%.

At the same time, half of the UK’s co-educational state schools send no girls at all to sit A-level physics. In 2012, 2,400 female students from the UK went on to full-time undergraduate computer courses, as opposed to over 15,000 men. Between 2001 and 2011, the percentage of technology jobs held by women declined from 22% to 17%. My figures show that only 6% of those who work in ICT in the UK games industry are women, despite the fact that they make up 50% of those who play the games.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) for raising this important subject and respect her experience in the sector. It is a crucial area for the economy, and one where we need to increase the number of people, particularly women, who have relevant IT skills.

Earlier today I attended a “hackathon” event at Facebook headquarters, where 80 talented young coders from around the world were developing applications for social learning, and I am pleased to say that there was a good representation of young women there. Organisations such as Facebook are doing an enormous amount of good work with schools to inspire young people to take up careers in IT, but let us be honest: we have a long-standing problem with computer science in this country and with the number of women studying it.

As the hon. Lady will be aware, under the previous Government the proportion of women taking computing A-levels fell from 12% to 8% as a proportion between 2004 and 2011. The current situation is indeed poor. For A-level computer studies in 2012, only 255 of the 3,420 entrants—just 7.5%—were girls, which represents a decline of three quarters over the past 10 years. There is a similar problem with physics, as 6,500 girls took physics A-level in 2012, which is only 21% of the total cohort, and the situation has remained static over the past 10 years. The number of girls studying maths A-level has doubled over the past 10 years, but the situation is not as positive for further maths, which is very important for STEM subjects at university. Some 3,700 girls took further maths in 2012, which is only 30% of the cohort.

As the hon. Lady pointed out, the situation is very different in other countries, particularly emerging economies, which have seen their share of women studying computer science and engineering increase drastically. In India the proportion of female undergraduates has doubled, and in Malaysia technical jobs are dominated by women. As she pointed out, 26 April is international girls in ICT day, which is very important. The Government think that the situation has to change.

A lot has changed in IT since I used to program BASIC at school in the 1990s. There has been a technology revolution. Technology affects every area of our lives and so many different jobs. It has changed the way we do politics and business and so many things about how we deliver public services. A sound knowledge of how ICT works and of the underlying architecture of computing is important for everybody, whether they are looking to get into motor manufacturing, politics or any area of commerce. It is a universal skill that we all need, and all young people will need it. It is a very important part of our curriculum developments. That is why we are reforming the ICT curriculum. We disapplied the existing curriculum because it was not fit for purpose.

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is an incredibly important point, because when I visit representatives of the UK games industry, they say time and again that graduates simply are not equipped with the necessary skills and almost have to start again, and that more often than not it is easier to import labour from abroad, which is creating further barriers to females and males in this country who could play an important part in this growing economy.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point and agree with it. Our new computing curriculum is very different, because it is not just about how to use the software and programmes, but about getting young people coding from a very early age and understanding the architecture of computing.

Apprenticeships

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey), who made an excellent speech.

Apprenticeships are working for business and more young people are taking up apprenticeships in Worcestershire than ever before. In that context, I warmly welcome the start of another national apprenticeship week. Like many other MPs, I have employed an apprentice to work with me in my constituency office, and I will be meeting local employers in my constituency this week to discuss how we can strengthen the roll-out of apprenticeships, widen participation by businesses in supporting them, and continue to drive up quality for employers and apprentices alike.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I know that my hon. Friend is a real advocate of apprenticeships. One of the ideas I hope he will push in that forum and with Ministers is to use the mailing of business rates. We already pay for those to go to every business every year. Simply inserting a leaflet setting out the benefits of apprenticeships would provide a real boost, and would serve to open the window for many other businesses and future apprentices.

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend comes up with an intriguing, and very creative, suggestion, and I am sure Ministers will respond to it in due course.

Although I welcome the fact that the Opposition have chosen apprenticeships as the topic for this debate, and I particularly welcome their support for the excellent report from the BIS Committee, which I was proud to join shortly after its inquiry into apprenticeships, I am afraid that their motion is very narrow and self-congratulatory and misses most of the important recommendations of that report, as the Committee Chair eloquently explained in his excellent speech.

As a proud member of the all-party group on apprenticeships, I have met a wide range of employers who want to take on apprentices and who value the opportunity to have people earn while they learn. I have also met some enormously impressive young people from all over the country who are undertaking apprenticeships and who recognise the huge opportunity they offer. It is very easy for a debate such as this to be dominated by statistics, and I am sure other Members will introduce plenty of them into the debate, but the overall story is undoubtedly one of strong growth under the coalition Government. A big rise in the number of apprenticeships in Worcester helps to explain the sharp fall in youth unemployment, which today is around 18% lower than it was at the time of the general election, and down more than a quarter since its peak under Labour.

However, I want to focus on quality, not just quantity, and on people, not just numbers. Suffice it to say, I welcome the fact that the numbers keep rising, which is testament to the Government’s commitment on apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are often seen as the first step in a career, but it is important to recognise where they can lead. We should see them not just as a route into the lower end of the jobs market, which they have sometimes been misrepresented as in the past.

When I look at local manufacturers in my constituency, I see that many of the bosses are former apprentices. Both the current and previous managing directors at Worcester Bosch, the biggest private sector employer in Worcester, started out as apprentices. In smaller local engineering firms, one reason why the bosses and owner-managers are so passionate about making today’s apprenticeships work is that they started their careers in old-fashioned apprenticeships.

We should not see apprenticeships as an end in themselves, but as a conduit into learning about work, good careers and wider opportunities. For many young people, staying in school or college until 18 or going to university are not necessarily enticing prospects. Some of the brightest young people can be disengaged from classroom study by the time they reach 16 and many would relish the challenge of being able to learn in the workplace.

In the past, apprenticeships served generations well as a means of entry into work, particularly in the manufacturing sector, but with the number of apprenticeships increasing across the advanced manufacturing, cyber, computer and service industries, I believe that they can serve the current generation of school leavers even better. Many young people are better suited to learning in the workplace, rather than the classroom, and will thrive best given the opportunity to succeed, work hard and learn in a working environment. I am glad that apprenticeships now offer a progression that can take people right up to degree level and provide an alternative route to that valuable level of qualification.

I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister say that apprenticeships should be seen as the “new normal”. In order for that to remain the case in the long term, however, we need to make some changes. We need to get the message through, as the Select Committee Chair has shown strongly, to all those in our education system who provide careers advice that apprenticeships are here to stay. I was shocked to hear from apprentices at BAE Systems that many of them, who had achieved that gold-standard apprenticeship, had been actively discouraged from applying for it by their teachers. My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle), who unfortunately is not in the Chamber, has previously given the appalling example of one candidate whose teacher tore up their application for an apprenticeship with that fantastic employer because they did not want to see them “wasted there.” I have seen some of the outstanding facilities available to those apprentices.

Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is a very good question from the hon. Lady. One of the things that we have done is disapply the existing information and communications technology curriculum that we inherited from the previous Government, which was not appropriate, was out of date and ensured that students did not acquire the skills they need. We now have a new curriculum and we are working with industry, including Microsoft, in order to ensure that that new curriculum teaches children the coding skills required. I had the opportunity on Friday to see a school in my own constituency doing just that.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people, I welcome the proposed inclusion of financial education in the maths and citizenship curricula. What more needs to be done during the consultation period to make sure that we deliver on our duty to equip the next generation of consumers to make informed and savvy financial decisions?

Life-saving Skills in Schools

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing the debate on a subject that I know she is passionate about. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), as we have been pushing on this collectively for some time. I feel that we are making some progress.

The debate is essential, because we are talking about creating the next generation of life-savers. Let me use some cold, hard statistics to reinforce that point. Some 60,000 people a year will have a cardiac arrest. The survival rates in this country are disgracefully low—between 2% and 12%—which means that approximately 55,000 people a year will die from a cardiac arrest. About half of those are, in theory, able to get help through the ambulance service, but on average it takes approximately 6 to 12 minutes for an emergency ambulance to reach a critically ill patient. For every minute that passes, the chance of survival falls by 10%. However, if CPR is given immediately, survival rates increase threefold. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot said, we really cannot do any worse by leaving somebody in that position.

The great shame is that most people are simply not able to help. For about half of the 60,000, there are witnesses on hand who could help, but most either do not have the skills or lack the confidence even to try something. By training and educating individuals, we can radically alter the situation. I have heard horrific stories of crowds gathering round, with no one willing to step in. Thankfully, the evidence clearly shows that, with training, lay people can overcome the psychological barriers and manage the patient until more advanced and experienced personnel arrive.

Those are the cold, hard statistics, but I was in such a position with my own father. When I was 12, my father collapsed. My attempts to help were, at best, muddled, and passers-by then helped. We all rely on people having that confidence to go and make a difference. Sadly, my father was one of those statistics who did not survive. We will never know, had we all been equipped with the skills, what difference that would have made.

What we are asking for would take only 0.2% of the school year. It takes less than two hours to train a young person fully in emergency life-saving skills. To put that into context, that is the equivalent of one PE lesson. I am conscious that schools Ministers are for ever lobbied by campaigns saying, “This would be very important for the national curriculum.” I am as guilty as any MP for asking for financial education, basic cookery skills and a variety of other campaigns. However, we are trying to be helpful; we would be happy if such training were included in PSHE, as long as it was a mandatory part of it. It could go into biology, as one understands how the breathing system and the heart works. It could go into PE lessons, especially given the number of sports therapists we would like to encourage. We are not proud—as long as we can get it in somewhere.

We are told that there is a limit to the amount of time available in the national curriculum, yet we find time for every school to practise fire drills. They are important, but 60,000 people a year having a cardiac arrest is certainly up there with fire drills. We could take the training in assemblies. If we really are struggling with the school curriculum, then there are always driving lessons, because all young people want to take lessons—we are trying to be as helpful as we possibly can be.

The training is straightforward. At a recent meeting of the all-party group on heart disease, I and all of my staff took part, and it was a breeze—it was pretty impressive for us for it to be a breeze. The training can be broken into three levels and even the most basic form of training can make a difference. For example, the body has enough oxygen in the blood so that even basic compression CPR is sufficient for 15 minutes. Crucially, these skills will remain with people for the rest of their lives. We will create a new generation of life-savers and they can pass their skills on, so it is a win-win situation. We have the evidence that it will work. It will allow us to change the prognosis of this devastating condition and save thousands of lives a year.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot made great play of international comparisons, talking about the improvements in France, Denmark, Norway and Seattle. The cold, hard statistics show that, where such training is compulsory, survival rates are not 2% to 12% but 52%. That means that an extra 15,000 lives a year would be saved.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that children would thoroughly enjoy learning emergency life-saving in school? Instead of sitting in the classroom reading books, they would be getting involved; it is hands-on. They would enjoy it, and learn quickly, too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend has been a good supporter of our ongoing campaign, and his question leads me on to my next point.

This idea has huge public support. According to a British Heart Foundation survey, 86% of teachers think that ELS should be part of the national curriculum—we have the opportunity to get teachers’ support—and 78% of children want to be taught how to save someone’s life in an emergency, which touches on my hon. Friend’s point. Furthermore, 70% of parents thought that children should be taught ELS at school.

Following Fabrice Muamba’s cardiac arrest and with the help of a campaign by The Sun, which we all supported, more than 100,000 people signed the e-petition—it is one of the few that quickly racked up the 100,000 signatures. I was delighted to read today that, although Fabrice Muamba thought his football career was over, he has said he will review that decision in two years, if his heart rate settles. That would be a fantastic achievement. He was technically dead for more than 70 minutes, but, because of ELS, he survived, and he has gone on to get married. That is a testament to the difference it can make.

In conclusion, ELS would make a real difference to survival rates. Training takes less than two hours, and the skills remain for life. Through education empowerment, a new generation of life-savers will be created, saving thousands of lives a year. I hope that we can make this a compulsory element of children’s education and create an army of life-savers with the confidence and skills to save a life.