Rolling Stock (North of England)

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Angela Smith

Wednesday 12th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner.

The TransPennine Express service is without doubt a vital artery for the north of England, and it is worth explaining exactly why that is. Its routes cover most of the north, from Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria to Newcastle, and of course at the hub of the network are Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds, connecting out to Liverpool and Cleethorpes. All in all, the area that its services cover has a population of more than 15 million people. That surprised even me, and I am an occasional user of the service and someone who has always lived in the north of England. To put that in perspective, TransPennine Express serves nearly as many people as live in the whole of the south-east of England, including London. That point is at the heart of today’s debate, which is about whether the rail network in this country provides equally for people in the north of England and people in the south-east and London.

Not surprisingly, the services provided by TransPennine Express are already busy. Indeed, the operator won the title of Passenger Train Operator of the Year in 2010, with record growth in passenger numbers from 13 million when the company started in 2004 to 23 million in 2010. That is an impressive record. However, it now seems that because of the shambolic nature of this Government’s handling of rail franchising, TransPennine Express is at the receiving end of a catastrophic series of decisions, initially triggered by the collapse of the west coast franchising process nearly two years ago.

Of course it is the north that will suffer the consequences yet again, because the end of the line of this terrible series of decisions made by the Department for Transport and Ministers is the loss of nine of the TransPennine Express Class 170 Turbostar train units, which will be transferred to Chiltern Railways. By the way, that figure represents a 13% loss in the capacity of TransPennine Express.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; I have congratulated her on several occasions now on securing essential debates, and this debate is no exception. Was she as astonished as me last Wednesday at Prime Minister’s questions at the reaction to the raising of this exact issue by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw)? Also, will she confirm that passengers are up in arms, including Helen Egan, a constituent of the Deputy Prime Minister’s, who told me that every morning she has to stand from Dore station in Sheffield to Piccadilly in Manchester?

Free School Meals (Colleges)

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Angela Smith

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I am sure that it will be a pleasure serving under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I am pleased to be doing so. I thank hon. Members from all parties who have taken the trouble to attend what I consider an important debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) for the enormous amount of work that she has done on this issue, bringing it to public attention.

I hope that we have reached consensus across political parties that action is needed. The issue is simple. Those who are in school and go through to school sixth forms continue to receive free school meals and those who are in free schools or academies from 16 to 19 or in university technology colleges are entitled to free school meals, but those who are in general further education or in sixth-form colleges are not. That is so inequitable, unfair and discriminatory that I know that the Minister will say, “Time to put this right.” As it is unfair and discriminatory, it is unjustifiable. The Minister might say, “Why didn’t you do this before?” Do you know, there are times in life when it is best to put our hands up and say, “We should have done.”? Of course, we introduced the education maintenance allowance. I was Secretary of State when we introduced it and I am proud of it, and I am sorry that it has effectively been abolished.

I was proud of our Government’s taking steps to equalise funding, which the coalition Government are continuing, between those in different forms of 16-to-19 provision. That is welcome. We do not, of course, have a pupil premium for those aged 16 to 19. Had we such a provision, it might be possible to argue that youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families would receive additional support, but they do not.

The issue is simple. Is it right that more than 100,000 young people, nationally, should be denied something—because they made a conscious decision or received proper careers advice and took up courses in sixth-form colleges and in further education—that those who continue into school sixth forms get automatically. Clearly, it is neither acceptable nor justifiable.

I hope that, with a smile on his face, the Minister—[Interruption.] I do not know how often he smiles.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

He is smiling a lot.

[Mr Blunkett]

I understand that the Minister is smiling now, and I hope that that will yield fruit. I know that the case that will be put over the next 85 minutes by hon. Members from all parties will persuade him.

We have two new sixth-form institutions in my constituency. One, known as Hillsborough college, is part of Sheffield college and the other is a free-standing sixth-form college called Longley Park. Both were established from 2004. Up to that time, my constituency regrettably had the third worst figures in the country for staying on in education post-16. Only Bristol South and Nottingham North were worse. A great deal of work was done by the Further Education Funding Council, which became the Learning and Skills Council, including, for example, research by Sheffield Hallam university on the causes and issues.

We were convinced that youngsters would stay on if there was an accessible institution, with support—the education maintenance allowance—and if their parents could be persuaded that youngsters would be supported in other ways. That worked. Both institutions that I have mentioned are now over-subscribed, contrary to what the cynics thought, and young people’s lives have been transformed. Now the colleges are worried about what is happening to the young people in terms of the careers advice that they receive, because careers advice has been in what might be described generously as an interregnum. I hope that, online or otherwise, advice will be more readily available.

Advice is skewed. Understandably, because it is human nature, schools with sixth forms do their best to persuade youngsters to stay in the school. If they can also say, “And you’ll receive free meals,” where entitlement exists and, “But if you take a different course or even the same one in a college, you will not receive free school meals,” that is bound to have at least some impact on a really disadvantaged family. That brings me to my final point, because I want other hon. Members to emphasise the situation.

Regional Growth Fund

Debate between Lord Blunkett and Angela Smith

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Angela Smith]

A Government who trusted the voice of the northern regions, and their intimate knowledge of their manufacturing base, would never have cancelled the Forgemasters loan. [Interruption.] If the hon. Lady thinks that is funny, people in Sheffield and south Yorkshire do not. Yesterday we heard an acknowledgement that the Government got it wrong on Forgemasters, and they have awarded a consolation prize, but nothing takes away from the fact that the original purpose of the loan has passed, and an important strategic opportunity has passed us by, thanks to the spiteful attitude of a condemned Government hellbent on cancelling what they saw as a Labour loan.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on this timely debate, and on her work on Forgemasters last year. Is it not a serious issue that although a previous Government—including the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Treasury—did up to two and a half years of due diligence on the proposed loan to Forgemasters, in the past two and a half months, no such due diligence has been done? Despite the warm welcome for the money announced yesterday for Forgemasters, the board has not even approved the detail of how the investment is to be made. Last year, the Deputy Prime Minister wrongly described the original decision as political, but we now have a most vivid example of such a decision, with the Deputy Prime Minister arriving at Forgemasters, seeking to make a political gesture out of public money.

[Angela Smith]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. The Deputy Prime Minister would have been better served yesterday had he acknowledged to the people of Sheffield that he got it wrong and they got it right. If he had shown some humility and apologised for the grave errors that his Government made more than a year ago, perhaps the political point that he was making would have carried a lot further.

One of the issues at the heart of the chaos and confusion surrounding the regional growth fund is the bureaucracy at the heart of the process. For instance, the rules for the fund state that payments will only be forthcoming on successful delivery of outputs. That means that private companies are being asked to invest up front, with the risk that, if they do not make the said outputs in two or three years, they will not receive the moneys promised. That means that the promise to Forgemasters is exactly that: only a promise. That, I am told, is not only putting off many smaller companies from applying, but is making the writing-up of contracts difficult for the successful companies due to the risks involved. In that context, the comments made to me yesterday by the Institute of Chartered Accountants are damning. The institute has been working with BIS officials to make the process simpler and more cost-effective, but it says:

“However, following discussions with our members, BIS officials and firms, we fear that a convoluted approach to the due diligence process for the RGF is resulting in delay, additional bureaucracy and cost for businesses and the government, and undermining the growth goals that the RGF money intends to achieve.”

Those are not my words, but those of the Institute of Chartered Accountants—a damning indictment of the Government’s approach to regional investment.

To make matters worse, the minimum bid for an application to the fund is £l million, with typical leverages of eight to nine being demanded. That means that the fund is out of reach to the average small or medium-sized enterprise—the sectors that the Government say they want to help the most. The Federation of Small Businesses said to me yesterday:

“From our point of view, the minimum amount for bids of £l million has always been far too large for the majority of small businesses. We did encourage collective bids to be made on behalf of SMEs, however this is not ideal.”