Royal Mail Privatisation

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I too congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) on securing this important debate. We both have rural constituencies that contain islands, and post offices are important in such rural communities.

Post offices are important in the communities they serve. No other retail outlet has such a range of shops that cover the rural parts of the country to the same extent as the post office network. Post offices provide an important social function and assist vulnerable people with help and advice. I am pleased that the Government have recognised that by making a big investment in the post office network, and I am delighted by the guarantee of a no closure programme, which is a complete reverse from the position of the previous Government. During the previous Parliament, debates such as this happened practically every fortnight as hon. Members tried to stop post offices being closed. This debate takes place in a completely different atmosphere as we have a Government who recognise the importance of post offices and back that up with investment.

For post offices to stay open, not having a closure programme is not enough. It is essential that as small businesses, post offices remain profitable for the sub-postmaster or sub-postmistress. Changing lifestyles mean that what was once one of the core businesses of post offices—people taking their pension book to collect their pension—is no longer so important. When people retire, they are more likely to have their pension paid directly into their bank account, as that is what currently happens to the vast majority of people of working age. Therefore, it is inevitable that business will decline. One postmaster put it to me succinctly when he said, “Many of my customers are dying off.” When people retire they do not collect their pension at the post office to the same extent, and that service must be replaced by other Government work.

It is essential that Departments, the devolved Administrations, local government and public bodies give work to post offices. Otherwise, in the long term we will see a gradual decline. There is no immediate threat to post offices, but unless the Government provide commitments to more work, in 10 or 20 years’ time we will see the gradual decline of post offices.

I am pleased to note the Government’s stated policy of giving more work to post offices, but it is vitally important that every Department follows that policy with action. Often, giving a contract to the Post Office will cost more than giving it to another provider, but that is because of the social benefits of post offices. Post office staff will take time to explain things to vulnerable people and give them help and advice that they would not often get in a supermarket or filling station. One can imagine the impatient queue at a filling station if people wanted to pay for their petrol but the assistant was taking time to give advice to an elderly person. Such advice is provided in a post office, but I cannot see it happening to the same extent in a filling station or supermarket. I hope that Departments will not be tempted to save money from their budgets by taking contracts from the Post Office.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says but when it comes to the crunch, sometimes a local post office will close, no matter how unfortunate that is. One of the biggest areas of growth is in supermarkets, whether metro stores or small stores. If a new supermarket contains a post office, would that not keep some of the services, even if they are in a supermarket?

[Mr Reid]

I agree with my hon. Friend; there is no problem with a post office being located in a supermarket and I was not saying that was a bad idea. My point is that a different type of outlet—PayPoint, for example—could be in a filling station but not in a dedicated post office that is part of a supermarket or filling station. In such situations, a person will not receive the same help and advice as they would in a post office located in a supermarket. I have no problem with a post office being located in another outlet—in my constituency, almost every post office is within a shop, filling station or supermarket. However, I would be concerned if the contract for benefit cheques was given to PayPoint, for example, because if an elderly person is in the same queue as people who are waiting to pay for their petrol, they might not receive the same quality of advice and help. A post office in another outlet is great, but if the facilities are simply part of that other outlet they will not offer the same social benefits to the customer.

The benefit cheque contract of the Department for Work and Pensions is for paying pensions and benefits to vulnerable people who are considered unable to use the Post Office card account. That contract was put out for renewal by the previous Government and I understand that the Post Office and PayPoint have bid for it. I hope that once the DWP has weighed up all the factors involved, including social factors and access criteria, it will keep the contract with the Post Office. PayPoint has a large number of outlets, including in my constituency, but nearly all those outlets are in towns and it does not have the same coverage throughout rural areas and islands as the Post Office.

If the contract were taken away from the Post Office and given to PayPoint, it would mean that on several of the islands in my constituency, there would be nowhere for people to cash the cheques. Also, in the rural areas of north Argyll, there would be nowhere for people to cash their cheques, because although there are plenty of PayPoint outlets in Oban, once people go outside Oban, they have to go all the way to Ballachulish or Inveraray to find another PayPoint outlet. It is therefore very important both for social reasons and for access reasons that the contract remains with the Post Office. I hope that the Minister will go away from today’s debate and knock on the door of the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to tell him just that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

1. What assessment he has made of the likely effects on the economy of maintaining his Department’s science and research budget at present levels.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Investment in science and research attracts inward investment, drives innovation and delivers highly skilled people to the economy, which is why we are protecting the cash budget for science and research at £4.6 billion and ring-fencing it.

[Graham Evans]

The Government are right to protect the science budget in cash terms, which is a decision that will reap dividends for our economy in the future. Does the Minister agree that the world-leading Daresbury science and innovation campus in my constituency should continue to receive the funding it needs so that it may play an important role in future economic growth?

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend has campaigned effectively for Daresbury, and I can tell the House today that we have agreed that the public sector bodies can sign the joint venture agreement with their preferred private sector partner. That means that Daresbury now has excellent prospects as a national science and innovation campus, and I look forward to visiting in the new year.

Funding and Schools Reform

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I had the good fortune to meet head teachers from my hon. Friend’s constituency very soon after I came into this job. They told me how that cluster of free schools could undermine other local schools. I am at a loss, and I wonder whether the Secretary of State can help me. Why is a school specialising in Latin exactly what Acton needs? I am yet to be persuaded that that is the best route for modern education in west London.

I mentioned outdoor space. A good example of schools achieving more together than they can alone is sport. School sports partnerships are a wonderful example of schools working together. The Australians have described our system as world class. I urge the Secretary of State to think again on that. School sports partnerships, which created a new delivery system for school sport, have worked well and given more opportunities to young people. I hope that he is open to the arguments of Darren Campbell and others who are pleading with him to keep that infrastructure rather than dismantle it.

My worry is that in the long term the free school experiment will lead to a much more segregated schools system—a splintered system in which narrow social groups impart a narrow world view. Are we heading towards an unaccountable free-for-all in our local education systems? Experience in Sweden suggests that the Secretary of State’s schools will have a negative impact on standards.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andy Burnham]

I will not.

I have never heard how that negative impact will be addressed in the Secretary of State’s world view, in which schools are free to fail. I am worried that he is creating a world where each school exists within a walled garden, with no obligation to other schools. The local authority co-ordinating role is important, and I cannot see why the Government want simply to wipe it away with a national funding formula. Local authorities look out for the needs of all children within an area, including the vulnerable and the voiceless. Who will speak up for them in his brave new world?

My vision is of a truly comprehensive education system, in which there is diversity of provision, and in which we help all children to be the best that they can be. I want a collaborative rather than a competitive system, and I want all schools to recognise their obligations to each other. I am worried that the Secretary of State is creating an elitist education system.

We fear that Sure Start centres are about to close, and we heard today that the pupil premium will take money from some of the most deprived communities in our country. We have just had a debate on how the Government’s policy on EMA could depress aspirations, particularly those of working-class kids. We have heard that the Secretary of State, in closed meetings in Westminster, has nodded and winked to the effect that his foot is hovering over the pedal when it comes to allowing more selection and allowing grammar schools to use the free school route to set up more grammar schools. He needs to come clean on those things. Does he want to create a more elitist system, where opportunities exist for the few but not the many?

That is the Opposition’s critique of the Secretary of State. We have had broken promises and free market reforms with no evidence, and there is a whiff of elitism in everything the Department introduces. That spells danger for our schools. We need a plan not just for some schools, but for all schools. That is what our motion is about, and I commend it to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I support the Opposition motion. The Secretary of State evaded interventions from me and from several others on the Labour Benches after he said that we were “angry” that the coalition Government were introducing a pupil premium. May I inform him that the Labour Government had a pupil premium? I do not know if it was as well worked through as it should have been; it was an early policy introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) that was absorbed and no longer ring-fenced when Charles Clarke became Secretary of State. There was a pupil premium, but I would challenge the Secretary of State. He knows that the Opposition want more resources to follow people from deprived backgrounds. If he is honest with the House and in his intellectual engagement with the debate, he also knows that the most difficult thing is to find a method of ensuring that the money tracks the right people.

The Secretary of State will find it difficult, as we did with Sure Start children’s centres. We started, as he knows, with 500 in the 500 most deprived communities, but we then discovered that that left out most of the deprived children in our country so we moved the number up to 3,500. One of my concerns—and a concern of Members on both sides of the House when they talk frankly in private—is that we might see a drastic cut in the number of children’s centres, based on the idea of going back to the original intention of having 500, which would exclude most children from deprived backgrounds. That has a parallel in the pupil premium. The Opposition are arguing that the way in which the Government propose to introduce the premium means that it will fail to reach the children who are most deprived, because it is not well crafted. We understand that it is difficult for any Government to ensure that such methods work.

The one thing in the Opposition motion that I found difficult to swallow was the mention of ideology. I honestly fail to see what the Government’s ideology is. I do not see a consistent theme running through their education policy. There are bits and bobs of ideas, some of them refreshing and interesting, but when it comes to others I, and other people who have been in education for a long time, do not understand where they are coming from or where they are leading us.

As Chair of the Select Committee for nearly 10 years, I found it refreshing when a Minister came before the Committee and said that the reason for introducing a policy was that it was evidence-based. One of the most refreshing things about Tony Blair in his 1995 conference speech, in his Ruskin speech in 1996 and when he put that speech into operation in 1997, was that he was both pragmatic and open to evidence-based policy. We saw that across a raft of policies, but when the Committee looked at how policies evolved, we found that when Ministers left the evidence base they got into trouble.

The present Government seem to be basing their whole education policy on something called the big society. Many people have talked to me about what the big society means. It is very difficult to find out. What is the big society? Is it localism? It is a funny sort of localism that jumps over and disregards locally elected education authorities. That is a very different kind of localism.

How do we know that people who want free schools represent the community? We have already heard evidence that there have been some strange bids. I am not sure that the answers we heard today about faith schools were entirely convincing.

[Graham Evans]

Before the general election, Labour Members supported co-operative schools. Can the hon. Gentleman tell me the difference between the co-operative schools project and the Government’s free schools project?

[Mr Sheerman]

I was, and am, a great supporter of co-operative partnership in academies. I was a great supporter of academies, but I understood exactly what the argument for academies was under the previous Government. Under Tony Blair, it was to take first 200, and then a further 400, schools where everything else had been tried; they were usually in areas of great deprivation and everything that had been done to try to raise standards had failed. We introduced academies where we thought it was worth trying something because nothing else had worked, but now the academy model has been inverted. It is no longer about where schools are failing and real help is necessary for kids, who get only one chance for education—where we need to act quickly because we cannot wait for a laggardly local authority to get its act together. We now have a system in which any school can become an academy, and I am not sure what its theme, goal or arrival point is.

The big society does not seem to be a substitute for evidence-based policy, or to involve a clear notion of where we are going with education policy. I shall illustrate that with just one point. My concerns are not only about Sure Start and early years, but also about the fact that there is now seemingly an end to the choice that was opening up. There was real choice in our schools—the apprentice route, the skills route through the diploma, or the academic route. That opening up, with the possibility to cross over, was very refreshing, but it seems to have been killed by the new Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chair of the Select Committee, and his comments about the importance of investment in improving attainment and standards, but it is also important to recognise that the previous Labour Government not only put in the money but achieved results. I did not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of what happened. GCSE results and others improved, and there was a big increase in further and higher education results.

My family was fortunate enough to have access to Sure Start when a centre opened where we lived. It benefited not just my family but the other families who used it. They told me in great detail the difference that it had made to the younger children, when compared with older children who had not had such an opportunity in a Sure Start centre or in any other pioneering family centres that preceded it. The difference can be seen many years later in the attitudes, behaviour and achievement of the younger children, who are now teenagers, compared with their slightly older brothers and sisters, who had no such support in the early years. I know from that evidence the importance of Sure State to children who live in deprived areas, which explains people’s concerns about Sure Start’s future.

The Secretary of State did not answer the point that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) made about concerns regarding the future of Sure Start, but perhaps he will do so in his closing remarks. I know from my experience and that of many others who have benefited that, of all the previous Government’s achievements, the improvement in the quality of lives and the outcomes for children and families, just through Sure Start, is beyond measure.

The education maintenance allowance benefited many young people who stayed in education. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats suggested in their manifesto that they understood that. They promised to support the EMA, as did the Conservatives, because they saw the improvement in staying-on rates, and the predicted decline by some organisations in staying on of 10% or 12% is worrying. In Sefton, 80% of young people receive EMA, and from talking to them I know the number who say that they will not bother going to college any more without the £30 or £50 a week is frightening. I hope the Government reconsider the limits they are placing on support to young people.

I asked the Secretary of State about the pupil premium, about which the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Library make similar points. The rise in the numbers of children going to school means that, despite the pupil premium and the increase in the overall money for schools, the real-terms effect is a cut for 87% of secondary schools and 60% of primary schools. That cannot be what the Secretary of State intended, and the impact on areas of deprivation, to which the hon. Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) referred, is worrying.

I accept that we need to look after people in pockets of deprivation in the more affluent areas, but it is important to ensure that people in the larger areas of deprivation, such as those in Merseyside and our other large cities, are protected. Unless we do that, the outcomes and many other aspects of life for children who most need our help will decline significantly.

[Graham Evans]

My constituency is on the periphery of Merseyside and Cheshire. I want to address the needs of those in pockets of social deprivation, which you have just brushed aside. Those numbers add up. I appreciate, and have a lot of sympathy with, the issues that you have in Merseyside—indeed, I support your case—but you cannot ignore those numbers because when you put them into the comprehensive—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. First, the hon. Gentleman should not, by now, be using the word “you”. Secondly, interventions should be brief, not mini-speeches. Other Members are waiting to contribute to the debate.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hancock]

I am wholly in favour of trusting parents; it is the silver-tongued politicians I am worried about, who make the suggestions to people that this is like manna from heaven and that the whole world will be changed. Politicians have more than once talked with forked tongue and parents have been misled into believing that a certain direction was the way to go only to fall foul of a politician’s promise, which was usually made before or during, rather than after, an election campaign. Very seldom have such promises been made after an election campaign, and very seldom have they been fulfilled.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I can talk from the experience of being a parent of a child with special educational needs, and also as an MP representing lots of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. My eldest child had trouble with his arithmetic; he would get 3s and 7s the wrong way round. I was told by the teachers that it would be okay and he would work his way out of that, but I became concerned as he got older and reached the ages of eight, nine and 10. I therefore asked about getting the SEN specialists and an educational psychologist to take a look. That did not happen; the school refused to do that because they said there was nothing wrong with him. After another academic year went by and nothing happened, I decided to employ an educational psychologist myself, and it was clear that my son had SEN issues. The local school and local authority were quite happy to take and run with the document from the independent educational psychologist —for whose services I and my family had to pay several hundred pounds—and the SEN statement was therefore put in place.

The Bill will change the way things happen, and they did not work in the past, certainly in my area. I hear what the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Mr Hancock) says about his concerns and the remarks of the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), but I believe this Bill will put checks and balances in place to prevent what they fear from happening. The system does not work now and it did not work in the past, and this Bill is an opportunity to sort it out.

[Mr Hancock]

I have nothing but admiration for the hon. Gentleman for having both the ability and the courage to take on the system on behalf of his children. Parents get worn down by the system, having been frustrated by it time after time. They are physically worn out—as young people, in some instances—because of the struggles they have had to make. He was lucky that he had both the courage and the resources to take on the system, because so many parents do not have that and are always relying on somebody else to fight their battles for them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Carmichael]

I am sorry about that. I am deaf in my left ear, and I always assume that that is some excuse. Very many apologies. I am from Stroud, and that sometimes gets mispronounced, although not as significantly as the hon. Gentleman’s constituency can be.

Amendment 71 has a couple of problems. Funnily enough, the shadow Minister—I shall not make my mistake again—emphasised that. It is too much about assessment rather than provision. Assessing things raises the question of how long it will take and what the implications are. The problem with the amendment is that it will delay the arrival of academies. I believe that a step is being taken in the direction of improving special educational needs provision, and that is one of the points that I want to make. We need to talk a little about history.

[Graham Evans]

I agree very much with my hon. Friend. I want to share what happened recently in one of the schools in my constituency. A severely autistic child had been in the mainstream for many years—from reception and through years 1, 2 and 3. It was becoming apparent that he needed more care than could be given in that school. The community is close-knit; everybody knew the child and the family. However, the length of time that it took the local authority to come up with the statement was a complete disgrace. Eventually, it made the right decision and said the right things, but we could see the angst on his parents’ faces when they came to collect him from the playground. Do we have to put parents through that, when even as lay people we know what the answer will be? Why cannot the authorities that currently have to make the decisions make up their minds more quickly?

[Neil Carmichael]

My hon. Friend’s point is exactly correct; local authorities can and must start addressing those issues.

I also want to talk about special schools, which have been mentioned. Of course going into mainstream education is preferable to going to a special school, but the fact is that there is a place for special schools. Some time ago, when I was a parliamentary candidate for Stroud, we were fighting a battle to save Bownham Park, a special school that was providing an excellent education—not for a huge number of pupils, but for a number large enough to justify its continuation. It provided education to a range of children from the ages of seven to 16. That school was closed. The parents wanted to keep it open, but the Government were effectively behind its closure and the local authority, under a Labour administration, was pivotal in ensuring that that happened. That is the sort of history that we have to bear in mind when we consider the performance and decision making of local authorities. It emphasises my hon. Friend’s point. Local authorities are sometimes responsible for poor decisions, and we cannot allow that to continue.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Glenda Jackson]

That is an extremely salient point, and one is left wondering why the Bill has to be rushed through in such a short space of time. I personally have received no comfort from the Minister when it has been pointed out during this afternoon’s debate that we are running into the long summer holidays and he has replied, “Well, work is going on and schools will open in September.” We do not know which schools they are. I am secretly hoping that the Minister will, with the best will in the world and not because of his own individual failure, be proved wrong on this matter, as his Secretary of State was when he made his five varying announcements on which schools would or would not be in the Building Schools for the Future programme.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

May I ask the hon. Lady to clarify something? Did she pass the 11-plus?

[Glenda Jackson]

Somebody else who does not listen—you are not the listening party, are you?

The Bill’s measures would take us back to a position to which we really should not want to return. As we all know, we are living in an ever more competitive world, and the greatest national resource we have is our people—their talent, their energy, their ability, their creativity. The future of this country is dependent upon our young people, and on our being able to deliver to them the best possible education, but it must be the best possible education we can deliver to all our children and young people, not just a selected, or selective, few. So I sincerely hope that the amendments that have already been presented will be accepted by the Committee, because this is the heart of the Bill and the Committee should reject the Bill as it stands.

--- Later in debate ---

The Minister has tried to offer a justification, but will he say what other differences there are in the model funding agreements on admissions between what existed and what happens now? Why have those changes been made, and why should we be reassured simply by his words on changing the model funding agreement, which is the legally binding contract between the Secretary of State and the school that becomes an academy? Even if the Opposition agreed with the Minister’s policy, which we do not, would it not have been better to have reassured people by ensuring that the various things that have been taken out of the model funding agreement were kept in?

[Graham Evans]

Much of the debate has been on schools in areas of social deprivation and selective schools, but what about the middle ground, such as schools in my constituency? Mid-Cheshire towns have areas of deep social deprivation—not quite the same as in cities—but also prosperous families. When they are brought together, we end up with good rather than outstanding schools. Does the hon. Gentleman not see that the Bill will help good schools that are under-achieving? Under the Bill, all sections of those communities could come together to achieve the outstanding excellence that we all want.

[Vernon Coaker]

In fairness, the hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point on the need to concentrate not only on outstanding and failing schools. He is right to point that out. It would have been perfectly possible to develop Labour’s academies model to deal with schools in the middle—I will not call them coasting schools. Similarly, that is why our model contained provisions for all-through academies. It was sometimes a matter not of the secondary school alone, but of linking the primary and secondary schools. That is important.

The reason why the Opposition are opposed to the way in which the Bill is constructed is that it does not consider the need for academies or where they can bring added value to schools in an area, but says that they are the only solution. National challenge trusts, a change of head teacher or the injection of new staff to a school could make the difference rather than structural change, as I have seen in different parts of the country. One flaw at the heart of the Bill, to which we will doubtless return when the Government introduce their Bill in the autumn, is that they have made the mistake that people always make of believing that structural change brings improved performance in schools. Sometimes such change creates the opportunity for change to take place, but essentially, what ultimately makes the difference, whether in a local authority school, a national challenge trust or an academy, is the quality of leadership and teaching in the school, not structural change.

Good schools deserve help and support, and the hon. Gentleman was right to point out that we need better to understand how we get that injection of pace and inspiration into them. I do not think that that is necessarily brought about by structural change, particularly the structural change enabled by the Bill, which does not include a requirement on outstanding schools to link to or partner other schools. That is an aspiration and a desire—

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady is an impassioned advocate for Bolton West, but I have to tell her—and she can tell this to the children and parents concerned—that the reason why this process took so long is because of the bureaucracy her Government put in place. The reason why those children are losing out is because of the decisions made by the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood, and if she is angry, as I am, that children’s destinies have been compromised, that anger—that righteous anger—should be directed at the right hon. Gentleman, the person who presided over this debacle in the first place.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

Free schools have the potential to make a massive positive impact on the education of children in my constituency, Cheshire and the north-west as a whole. When does the Secretary of State anticipate that the first free schools will be able to open and begin their vital work?

[Michael Gove]

September 2011.