Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside and Northumberland Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2019

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests as a Newcastle city councillor and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

For an area such as the north-east with high levels of unemployment, enhancing the availability of adult education is an important objective. The more our residents acquire skills and education, the greater will be their confidence and that of employers in the region or contemplating investing in it.

It is a matter of regret that this order is confined to the three North of Tyne authorities, given in particular the proximity of Gateshead and South Tyneside—that is not a choice of government; it is unfortunately a factor in the local government world of the north-east. Ideally, the authority should include the whole north-east region, sharing as it does many of the same needs, not least given the likely impact of Brexit should we be unfortunate enough to suffer the Prime Minister’s resolve to leave without the deal that he purports to be pursuing.

The current adult education budget for the authorities concerned is £22.7 million. Do the Government envisage increasing that budget and, if so, by how much and over what period? How does it compare per capita with other combined authorities or other individual local authorities providing adult education?

The North of Tyne Combined Authority intends to use the opportunity to make its own decisions in targeting resources and providing its residents,

“with the skills, education and confidence to benefit from the opportunities that will follow”.

Drawing on the adult education budget, it aims to drive up educational standards by working with post-16 pupils and skills and training providers, and it sees it contributing to the north-east strategic plan and the local industrial strategy.

The combined authority has developed a strategic skills plan and is engaging with the providers of adult education. It has declared its expectation that providers will develop the curriculum and support they offer and focus on learning progression. The combined authority would like to see the Government go further, with a commitment to devolve other functions, especially an educational achievement challenge for the area, as exemplified in London between and 2003 and 2011. Perhaps the noble Lord will indicate whether that is something he would regard as worth pursuing.

The combined authority also seeks greater flexibility in the local provision of skills for residents and businesses. Will the Minister look sympathetically into these suggestions? Can he confirm that budgets will be maintained or, even better, enhanced, given the needs of the area, and will capital funding be protected or enhanced? Will the apprenticeship levy be reformed with a view to regional oversight of a more flexible skills levy?

Important though the provisions of this order are, we must not forget the enormous pressure our schools are under following years of cuts and the effective displacement of local authorities from the provision of the education service, and the enhanced role for academies, many of which have proved to fail their pupils and the communities they were supposed to serve. This was highlighted for me earlier this year when I approached a school in the ward I represent on the city council about a possible grant from a local charity. Expecting a request for something extra, I was dismayed by a request with which to buy books.

School budgets are under enormous pressure, as are staff members. The ratio of staff to pupil numbers has fallen, the proportion of staff making it to retirement has halved and working hours have lengthened. In Newcastle, in the period 2015 to 2019, 74 schools out of 85 have suffered cuts to per-pupil funding of £24.4 million, or a loss per-pupil average of £259. Unaccountable academies, many of which have failed abysmally, dominate the provision of the service in the area.

Welcome though the provisions of this order are, the Government have failed for nearly a decade to protect a key service—key to the life chances of our children and to the future of our economy and our country. Adult education should not be seen as a means of repairing the failings of an underfunded and overstretched school system. Having said that, I repeat the welcome for this provision, but it has to be seen in the context in which it takes place.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I support this order but, as has been indicated by the speech your Lordships have just heard, it is founded on a far-from-ideal devolution scheme for Northumberland, Newcastle and North Tyneside. It was a scheme with the wrong boundaries, because it excluded Gateshead and South Tyneside. It had the wrong name; it was referred to, not even colloquially but officially, as North of Tyne, when two of the main towns in Northumberland are south of the Tyne—Hexham and Prudhoe. It came with an unwanted elected mayor, which was a price that Cornwall did not have to pay but we did in order to get any devolution at all. But it is what we have, and I hope that the additional control of resources for FE, which this order provides, will be put to good use.

I want to refer to the basic problem for rural and remote areas. Colleges, the main centres, are concentrated in the south-east of the combined authority’s area, in Newcastle, Tyneside and Ashington. There is some FE provision in Berwick, in Hexham and at Kirkley Hall—where my son was an agriculture student. Berwick also has provision in areas, for example, related to the construction industry and in hairdressing, and there are now new initiatives for the performing arts centred on the Maltings theatre in Berwick. But for so many other courses, a 50 or 60-mile journey each way is a severe disadvantage and deterrent to taking part in further education. That is what students in Berwick or Bellingham face to get to Northumberland College or Newcastle College. Northumberland College has now merged with Sunderland College, which, of course, is outside the area—a merger that was pressed upon it by Ofsted in its very critical report.

A few years ago, the Liberal Democrat administration in Northumberland introduced free transport to Newcastle College, which was ended when Labour took over. I am glad to say that it has been reintroduced in a form by the current administration. This has led to a sevenfold increase in travel to further education on public transport. However, it is a scheme with limitations because there is a requirement to go to the nearest college. That does not really make sense if you can go to Newcastle in 45 minutes on the train or, slightly nearer, Ashington in about three hours by a series of buses. I also point out that Northumberland College does not offer A-levels or GCSEs at all, so a student needing A-levels not provided locally in order to get into higher education has to go to a more distant college.

These examples illustrate my concern that the combined authority, with its enhanced control of resources, must put behind it the competition and rivalry between neighbouring authorities and neighbouring colleges and set out to provide boundary-free access to further education, with particular regard to the transport needs of those in rural areas and more distant parts of its area. That should also include cross-border transport to Scottish institutions such as Borders College, which is much nearer to those in the north of Northumberland. There are serious inequalities in access between rural areas and the urban south-east of the area which need to be addressed by the combined authority.

The Explanatory Memorandum points out, at paragraph 14.1, that the authority has to engage in,

“an extensive programme of monitoring and evaluation”,

which has to be agreed with Ministers. Has that programme yet been agreed by the Government, and if it has not, will it soon be agreed, and will it involve the department making sure that rural needs are addressed?

I support the order, but I want to make sure its powers are used to tackle the weaknesses in our present FE provision and in access to it.

Transport: A1 Dual Carriageway

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Beith]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect work to begin on the construction of new sections of dual carriageway on the A1 in Northumberland.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Lord Speaker for the clarity of his statement and beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, as set out in the road investment strategy of December 2014, construction of the A1 dualling schemes between Morpeth and Ellingham is expected to commence in 2020. This is subject to completion of statutory planning processes and continuing to demonstrate value for money. The A1 in Northumberland programme will also benefit from a package of smaller-scale junction improvements, overtaking lanes and pedestrian improvements north of Ellingham. These are planned to start construction in 2018.

[Lord Beith]

I thank the Minister for his reply and ask him if it is the view of Her Majesty’s Government that there should be a continuous dual-carriage A1 from London to the Scottish border. He indicated in his response, and perhaps he will now confirm, that although the commitment was made by the coalition Government in 2014 for substantial extra dualling, it will probably not start until after the next general election.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I applaud the persistence of the noble Lord in raising over many years the issue of upgrading the A1 up to what I believe is his old constituency in Berwick. I reassure him that it is very much part of the plan to dual the road right up to the border, but he will be aware that these road plans can be very complicated and need to be done in stages. This programme will start in 2020 and is due to be completed on time and on budget by 2023.

Anti-Semitism

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and I thank her for initiating this debate, and for doing it so well. I, too, want to concentrate on what universities need to do. Universities have duties to their students that they must not neglect. They must provide an atmosphere of free inquiry in which students learn to examine ideas and theories critically and rigorously, and, at the same time, they have a duty of care to students so that their precious time at university is not disrupted or destroyed by those who fail to treat fellow students with respect and decency. Anti-Semitism is as intolerable in the university context as it is in any other, and as unacceptable as all kinds of racism and hatred based on religious difference.

As the noble Baroness indicated, anti-Semitism has some characteristics which make it a particular challenge and call for extra effort, particularly in the liberal context of a university. Anti-Semitism often makes its appearance in the very thin disguise of attacks on the existence of the State of Israel, with the term “Zionist” used in a way that indicates that the attacker has an agenda or motive that goes far beyond criticism of the policies of any Israeli Government and extends to an attack on Jews in general. Those whose background is Pakistani or Bangladeshi are not held responsible for every action of the Governments of those countries or required to disavow the very existence of those countries, which are of a similar age to Israel as a state. They have other problems—Muslims are so often associated quite wrongly with Islamic terrorism—but the problem I have described is one that relates particularly to anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism is a conspiracy theory that suggests that because some people share a particular racial background or religion, they must be engaged with each other in a conspiracy to exercise undue influence, subvert democracy or take over the world. It would be risible if it was not deadly—quite literally deadly, because that was the basis on which 6 million men, women and children were slaughtered in the lifetime of some of us present. Of course, the same conspiracy theory infects those who deny that the Holocaust ever happened or who try to excuse it—an utterly ludicrous position.

There are many things that have to be done about anti-Semitism and its close relations, racism and hate crime, which thrive on it. University authorities must make student unions aware of their legal responsibilities under criminal law and charity law, and must be ready to enforce conditions they can act on when they own property or land that unions occupy. Universities should continue to make sure that the rigorous, critical and well-informed examination of ideas is part of every undergraduate student’s education and development. They should see that vulnerable students are supported and helped and that respect for diversity is actively promoted. The National Union of Students needs to get rid of leaders who pander to anti-Semitism—calling Birmingham University “a Zionist outpost”, for example, as Malia Bouattia did—otherwise that organisation will find more university unions disaffiliating from it, as those in Birmingham and Newcastle have done.

Time does not allow me to go into the detailed proposals of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on dealing with anti-Semitism in universities and, indeed, more widely, but I commend its report and hope very much that it will be acted upon. I also commend the continued work of the Community Security Trust, which does so much to protect and reassure members of the Jewish community when they find themselves under threat. Finally, I welcome the interfaith dialogue that goes on in and around many universities, promoted by university chaplains of all faiths and by local churches, mosques, synagogues and religious organisations. It is an important part of educating a wide range of students.

One omission I must repair is to say that I have been president of Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for interrupting but the time allowed is four minutes and the noble Lord is now on his fifth minute. There is no spare time in this debate.

Education Regulations and Faith Schools

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) on securing this debate. It is a shame that so few Members are here for this debate on an extremely important subject. The two previous speakers have made important points, to which I am sure the Minister has been listening.

Let me say straight away that this is a matter of conscience, so I speak for nobody but myself. I have a lot of sympathy with what has been said, particularly on tolerance, and on the rights of children, which we need to think about very seriously. I come to this issue from a different angle; I confess that I am an atheist, but I am probably a model of tolerance for other ways of living. I think it extremely important that schools set people up for a full life in modern Britain. I shall come on to give one or two examples of where I feel that is not happening. To me, religious education is about education, not indoctrination. I shall briefly cover four areas in my speech: admissions, staffing, curriculum and community cohesion.

On admissions, it is interesting to note that only four countries in the whole of the OECD allow state schools to select on the basis of religion: the UK, Ireland, Israel and Estonia. No other country does. In fact, we are the only country in the OECD that has a legal commitment to an act of collective worship. That law is broken in about 80% of schools every day; if we think about the number of people involved, this must be the greatest act of collective law-breaking in history. I think it is time that we looked again at the collective worship provisions of the Education Act 1944. Given that so few schools go through with this, we need to clarify the position. It is interesting that we have heard a lot about the aggression of Ofsted, but in theory, it should be marking down and reporting the schools that are not carrying out proper acts of collective worship and are therefore breaking the law.

On staffing, my party is clear is about its policy. We believe that there should be a discriminatory recruitment process only for the staff needed to carry out religious activity in schools. A lady who lives two doors away from me in Redcar found her school in south Middlesbrough taken over by the Vardy Foundation, a creationist organisation, about 10 years ago, and she had to reapply for her job. I believe that the head of the foundation has now sold the schools that he took over. That woman, who was a drama teacher, was told that her new job would largely involve biblical tableaux. Not surprisingly, she left the school, and subsequently pursued a very successful career at a different school in my area. The issue of staffing is extremely important; young people deserve a range of staff to provide for their needs.

As for the curriculum—I mentioned the drama curriculum a moment ago—I suspect that that is where some of the trouble starts. Other Members have said that Ofsted appears to have been over-zealous in some of our more moderate schools. It certainly sounds as though it has, and I think that clarification is needed. However, it has recently identified various practices. I have already referred to the teaching of creationism as fact; that is happening in quite a few schools in the science and biology curriculum. It is a particular issue in the north-east, partly owing to the Vardy Foundation and some of its successor organisations.

GCSE science exam papers have been redacted in girls’ schools because the questions were deemed unacceptable. Some schools have not observed the legal obligation to teach anatomy, puberty and reproduction. Access has been denied to art or music. Schools have espoused a narrow view of the role of women and girls, homophobia, and exposure to extremist views. Those are all real, recent cases, and we need a system that is capable of picking them up.

I was a member of a parliamentary group that recently heard witnesses speak about three topics. The first was the Trojan horse situation in Birmingham, which has been well reported, so I shall not repeat all the arguments now, but I think it is well known that it was a problem for young people. We also heard from an ex-pupil from a Jewish Orthodox Haredi school in north London, who, despite having been born and raised in the United Kingdom, could speak only Yiddish at the age of 17 because he lived in such a tight, closed community. His education had been incredibly narrow. Some may say that his community is free to behave in that way, but I personally think that it is a poor preparation for life in modern Britain.

We also heard from a former Accelerated Christian Education pupil. ACE bases its entire curriculum on the Bible, and the former pupil said that he had left the school, at the age of 18, believing that the national health service and the welfare state were against biblical teaching. In other words, the teaching at the school was a cover for a very right-wing political agenda. Was that person well prepared for life in this country?

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

I realise that I approach this issue from a slightly different standpoint, but I have to say that the examples given by my hon. Friend are unbelievably alien to the experience of faith schools in areas such as Northumberland. I would not want him to think that that is what faith schools are like. The motion refers to

“the ability of faith schools to teach their core beliefs in the context of respect and toleration for others.”

I am sure that that wording reflects his views as well as mine.

[Ian Swales]

Absolutely. Indeed, my right hon. Friend has anticipated the next part of my speech. I have very little against most faith schools. The head of Ofsted is the former head of a Catholic secondary school, and he said recently that most faith schools “have nothing to fear”. There are outstanding faith schools in my constituency: Sacred Heart in Redcar and St Peter’s in South Bank, and their four Catholic feeder primary schools. The point that I was making in giving those rather extreme examples was that we need an inspection system that is fit for purpose and picks up such instances. If anyone has been given the impression that I think faith schools are riddled with this kind of thing, I wish to correct the record, because that is not what I was suggesting.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I share my hon. Friend’s frustration, but perhaps not in the same way! My Bromsgrove constituency has areas with similar coverage problems, so I can absolutely see the importance of the issue he is raising and how big the problem is for towns such as Kielder. I look forward to visiting Northumberland soon and I will apply whatever pressure I can to BT and others to end this scourge of not spots and poor, slow broadband speeds.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Innovative small business in my constituency, such as Shepherds Walks in Rothbury, have doubled their business as a result of the availability of superfast broadband under this valuable scheme. The remaining areas have businesses that could do the same if they were given a chance, so can he report any progress on alternative technical solutions for the most difficult-to-reach areas?

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the impact that superfast broadband can have on businesses, helping them to grow. As he will know, there is a phase 3 to our broadband plan, which is the so-called “last 5%”, and we are working on that simultaneously—we are not waiting for phases 1 and 2. We are working on that right now, and we recently had a £10 million programme to test the feasibility of various projects. We are looking into the results and seeing what can be done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Beith Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

Usually it is appropriate for the local authority to fund transport improvements from its transport budget, but if my hon. Friend sends me the details of the case that he raises, I will look into it carefully.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Although the Government’s commitment to rebuild the Duchess’s community high school in Alnwick is very welcome, the problem of furnishing a new-build school is arising there. Will the Minister discuss with me how we can meet that problem?

[Mr Laws]

I will be happy to have those discussions with my right hon. Friend. I am sure he accepts that where there is furniture and equipment that can sensibly be reused, it should be—it would be ridiculous in these times to waste good furniture and equipment—but where there is a need for support, we will certainly consider that.

Schools Funding

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Walker]

That is obviously for the Government to explain. I share my hon. Friend’s mystification, though, that a county so close to the bottom of the table has so far received nothing, and I hope that because consultation is continuing that is something that can be changed and that areas such as the East Riding of Yorkshire, Staffordshire and Trafford, which have so far missed out, may still have something to gain from the process. They certainly have something to gain from fairer funding.

In its consultation response, F40 has queried the methodology used by the Government in allocating the £350 million. One substantial difference between its calculations and the Government’s is the unit of funding used. F40 has tended to use the guaranteed unit of funding, whereas the Department used a new measure called the single basic unit of funding. I do not want the debate to be dominated by the technicalities of funding mechanisms. However, I understand that that technicality is part of the reason why the East Riding of Yorkshire may have done less well than Cambridgeshire, despite similarly low funding. Differences in the local approach to the allocation of high-needs funding account for much of the difference in the outcomes. F40 has asked the Government to look at those matters again, to ensure that each poorly funded authority gets a fair chance to secure better funding. I hope that the Minister will be able to look into that.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

I want to express support for the hon. Gentleman’s efforts, and I congratulate my hon. Friends on what they have achieved in government; they have done something that two previous Governments failed to do. Does the hon. Gentleman share my anxiety that nothing that happens in the consultation should undo the benefits that a number of authorities have now received—not before time—such as Northumberland’s extra £10.6 million?

[Mr Walker]

Absolutely. I completely agree. After fighting for so long for any improvement at all, it would be tragic if at this stage the benefits that the consultation brings to areas that have suffered for far too long were to unravel. However, there are one or two allocatons in the consultation that F40 would question.

Skills (North-East)

Lord Beith Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution; it is a perfectly fair point, which the Adonis report deals with. The north-east skills pilot is an attempt to achieve that. Some are shorter apprenticeships—no one would deny that—but the majority are exactly what he and I, who are of venerable years, would understand to be a traditional apprenticeship. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is looking at me as though I am ageing him too much. I am sure he is still a stripling.

Yesterday I spoke to Bob Paton, another of my constituents from the Hexham shire, who took time out to come and talk to me on exactly that issue. He described the apprenticeships offered by Accenture, a big multinational of which he is a director. Accenture’s IT apprentices spend three years in the business and complete coursework and college work on a repeated basis, at the end of which they can achieve a university degree. The apprentices are working and learning, and they achieve both an apprenticeship and a degree.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

In this context, is it not vital that we ensure that further education linked with apprenticeships is spread more readily around the rural parts of Northumberland? Access to further education is essential to making good apprenticeships work.

[Guy Opperman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that point. He was not quite in his place when I said that my key desire arising out of this debate was for a technical college for Northumberland, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear. At the moment, there is the potential for a college linked to Hitachi in Durham, but we need something in the northern part of the north-east to address the skills gap between school and a job, which is central to fulfilling the manufacturing and engineering demands of our businesses.

Child Abuse (Northumberland)

Lord Beith Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)]

When I first came to Parliament, a long time ago, one of the pieces of advice that I got was, “If you have an abuse case, tread very carefully.” Anyone who has read about Operation Rose knows what I am talking about, and I will try to develop that in my arguments.

To start, we should concentrate our minds on Operation Rose. I will come to Terry Priestner and his statement later. I was a young councillor when Operation Rose was going on. I do not think that it came to any real conclusion, but it cost £5 million and it deliberated for three years. Perhaps that was one of its failures—it did not get down to the business quick enough and trailed a bit. There was also a lot of anguish on the other side—the carers and teachers accused—but of course in such an operation the innocent sometimes have to suffer, which is unfortunate.

The police started a trawl, which involved them going to interview at least 1,800 children in Northumberland homes, trying to get some information. The teachers and carers accused the police of trying to put words into the children’s mouths, although of course they were middle-aged people by then. That is what the police were accused of, but in reality I do not think that that was the case.

Mr Priestner came to me six months ago. I listened carefully and I went to the police, but the police could not do anything for him. I went to Northumberland social services and met the director, but they knew nothing about Mr Priestner. He was, however, in homes at that time. He knew about Operation Rose, and when he wanted to contribute, he was told, “Those things happen—abuse happens. It happened in them days and that’s the way it is.” As we know now with the Jimmy Savile case, all that has arisen again—everyone thought Jimmy Savile was a man of the people, but we know now that he was not. Therefore, a lot of people—in their 50s and 60s now, but who were in the homes at the time—are now saying, “It happened to me, but nothing happened.”

As I said, the police were accused of encouraging false allegations, and people were talking about lies against innocent teachers and care workers. Trawling for evidence was the wrong approach, according to some. Dozens of professionals from the north-east were backed by MPs, who had, according to media reports at the time, lodged complaints about the “blunderbuss”—I gather that is a gun, although I did not know that before I looked it up—

“effect of the five-year Operation Rose that saw more than 200 people investigated but in the end only six convicted”,

and, of those convictions:

“A total of 277 residents and former residents made allegations against 223 care workers for alleged offences including rape, buggery, indecent assault and physical assault.

Of 32 people who were charged with a total of 142 offences, five were found guilty, one pleaded guilty, 12 were found not guilty, nine had cases withdrawn, four died before their cases were heard and one remained on file.”

At the time, Assistant Chief Constable John Scott defended the police, but acknowledged that the trawling system could trap innocent people—of course it could, and we know that it did. He said:

“We would conduct the inquiry in the same way, were we to do it again.”

So his recommendation was, basically, that trawling was the best idea, even though it could, and did, fetch in innocent people.

At the time, the carers and the teachers formed a group to defend themselves. The matter even came before the Home Affairs Committee, which was chaired by Chris Mullin, and he suggested that a new type miscarriage of justice had arisen from the “over-enthusiastic pursuit” of the alleged abuse of children in institutions. He said:

“The decision to conduct this inquiry was taken in response to a large number of well argued representations.”

There was therefore enough evidence to have an inquiry, but for us to know whether the inquiry was run correctly at the time, I suppose will need another inquiry. If some people think that the first inquiry was wrong, we need an inquiry to find out whether it was. It did take a long time to get through Operation Rose, and that has been said many times, but I do not know though whether another inquiry would be the right approach.

I have, however, secured the debate on behalf of my constituent, because he wants to bring it up—perhaps the Jimmy Savile and new abuses business that is going on has concentrated his mind. He argues that the abuse he suffered at the hands of Northumberland social services, because they put him in those care homes, is still on his mind. Whether that is right or wrong, only people can tell—the people he accuses might be dead, but we do not know.

I will go through Terry Priestner’s statement, because it is best if I read from what he says, rather than read what I would say. He was in Northumberland care homes from 1969 until 1976 and suffered physical and sexual abuse and neglect. First, he was in Fordley children’s home, in 1970; the abuse was physical and the abuser Mrs Evans. Next was Earsdon children’s home, in 1971; the abuse was neglect, according to case records of an allegation by his mother, Mrs Priestner, and the abusers were the house parents, whose names he cannot remember. At Hillbrow children’s home in 1974, abuse was sexual and the abuser was Mrs Allenby. At the same home, there was also physical abuse, and the abuser was Mr Green. I understand that Mr Green was an ex-Royal Marine.

Such allegations, Terry Priestner states, were

“the main allegations…but are not the only events which took place. I did mention everything at the time”—

Operation Rose—but he was told:

“That’s just what happened in those days.”

That cropped up once or twice with Mr Priestner. He was told several times, by several people, “Them things happened in them days”—as with our friend Jimmy Savile, “He was a lovely man; it just happened, didn’t it?” That is the same sort of argument.

After Terry Priestner had spoken to me, according to his statement he

“was contacted by Northumbria Police again, and once again told them what happened along with names, places…and was told by them, we cannot find anyone of the names you have given us, which I find…ridiculous”,

because they were there. The police again said that such things happened in those days—that phrase keeps cropping up—and dismissed them. He also went to see Northumberland council, which also turned a blind eye.

Mrs Allenby, whom Mr Priestner accuses of sexual misconduct, went to court and was told that she would not face trial for nine counts of indecent assault dating back 27 years and which she denied. The prosecution at Newcastle Crown court told Judge Maurice Carr that it would not be in the public interest for the trial to proceed because vital documents were missing. That is what was stated at the time. Although there was no evidence—as far as I am concerned, it had been tampered with because it was there one minute and gone the next—there was still a case.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

That is not the only incident of a prosecution being withdrawn because documents had gone missing or the police had committed errors when collecting them.

[Mr Campbell]

I appreciate that, but when there are nine accounts of sexual abuse and vital evidence suddenly disappears, something has gone wrong. It would be silly to ask for an inquiry into an inquiry—I do not think that has happened before—but I sometimes wonder whether we should do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Beith Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Of course we do use public procurement to increase the number of apprenticeships, not least in Crossrail, which is the largest public procurement and construction project in Europe at the moment. It is true that we had to take action to remove some low-quality provision in the 16-to-19 space when we introduced rules to ensure that every apprenticeship was a job, which it had not previously been. I would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would welcome the improvement in quality. We also have a programme in hand to increase the numbers. Participation in apprenticeships is at the highest level ever, which I would have thought all parties would be able to support.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

Young adults in north Northumberland who have left school without the basic skills to which the Minister referred do not have ready access to further education, because there are no college facilities within a reasonable distance of them. Will he work with potential providers to ensure that the gap is filled?

[Matthew Hancock]

I have visited Northumberland college, which serves my right hon. Friend’s constituency, and it is an impressive institution. Of course, it is important to ensure that adult skills are available throughout our country, and as the recent OECD study showed, spreading English and maths skills is vital to ensuring not only that we can improve our competitiveness as a country but, most importantly, that we can allow everybody to participate. Improving technologies in teaching will help, but we must ensure that there is access to basic skills throughout the country.