Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box at Scottish questions on behalf of the Labour party. The one question I have is, “Who next?” because we have had a selection of individuals. I say to the hon. Gentleman that these are very significant powers over tax and welfare. The autumn statement in this House is a very important event, but on 15 December we will see the Scottish Budget. For the first time, the Scottish Government will be able to raise income tax at their will in the Scottish Budget. That is a very significant moment in terms of taking responsibility and accountability.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

3. What steps he is taking to ensure that Scottish small and medium-sized enterprises are protected from economic uncertainty.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Margot James)]

The Government will continue to provide an environment where small and medium-sized enterprises everywhere can thrive. That means cutting red tape, keeping taxes low, tackling late payment and improving access to finance. We are committed to ensuring the whole of the UK is a great place to start and grow a business.

[Paul Blomfield]

Figures produced by the Scottish Government show that SMEs constitute 99% of all private sector enterprise and more than 50% of employment in Scotland. If the economy suffers any form of setback—and the Chancellor is predicting one—these enterprises will be hardest hit. Given their importance, what is the Minister doing to reduce uncertainty and to support their growth?

[Margot James]

The UK economy is strong in spite of uncertainty. Scottish SMEs currently benefit from nearly £400 million of investment from the British Business Bank and Innovate UK aimed at helping them to grow and capitalise on new technologies and new export markets.

Student Volunteering

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) for providing me with the opportunity to add to his comments. I echo them, because the landscape that he paints of volunteering opportunities and activity in Oxford is replicated in every town and city across the country that benefits from universities and colleges.

I speak as the Member with the highest number of students of any UK constituency. As of last week, I am also the representative of the student volunteer of the year, and I congratulate Liam Rodgers. He is a creative writing student at Sheffield Hallam University. He is the leader and founder of UpScribe, a project that helps homeless people to express themselves through creative writing, increasing their confidence and ability to work with others, as well as reintegrating them into society. That project not only demonstrates the breadth of student volunteering, but the creativity and innovation that students bring alongside traditional volunteering opportunities. Liam’s is a great good news story, and there are plenty like it across the country.

We should put on record our thanks, as my right hon. Friend has, to the almost one in three students who volunteer while they are at university and to the growing numbers in further education colleges who do so, too. Last Tuesday, to mark Student Volunteering Week we held a meeting of the all-party group on students, which I chair. That meeting was not only to celebrate that activity, but to look at the challenges.

As my right hon. Friend said, volunteering is a win-win. Local communities benefit hugely from the thousands of students involved in every town and city where they are engaged, and that is the main motivator for students. Four in five students responding to an NUS survey said that it was why they got involved in volunteering, but they also benefit, developing skills and improving their employability. We all know that in a competitive graduate market employers are increasingly looking for graduates-plus. Employers do not simply want a good degree, but experience and skills, too, and volunteering helps facilitate that. It is therefore doubly important that volunteering opportunities are available to everyone.

A joint report by Universities UK and the National Union of Students found that not having enough time is cited by students as the main reason why they are unable to volunteer or to volunteer as much as they would wish. The main pressure on time, apart from academic work, is paid employment. Research shows that 77% of students work to help fund their studies. The pressure to earn while studying is increasing with the cost of university. I worry that that pressure will increase further for the poorest students with the abolition of maintenance grants. If we limit volunteering to those who do not have to take paid employment to see themselves through university, we tilt the playing field—it is already tilted towards those with advantages—even further in their favour and in the wrong direction. We would be giving extra opportunities to those who already have an edge in the graduate market, while those from lower income families risk falling further behind. I am keen to get the Minister’s views on how we can ensure that volunteering opportunities are available to all, so that in future Student Volunteering Weeks we can celebrate moving from the basis of strength that we have now to having even more people engaged with an even greater impact on our communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the £8 billion—effectively £10 billion when we think of the £2 billion already put in for this Parliament—is a real vote of confidence from this Government in the NHS, and money that will make a real difference. I know that he has been campaigning to expedite the situation at Launceston medical centre. I am told by NHS England that it is a priority development. I hope that perhaps it can form part of the work we are doing to create a genuine seven-day NHS—seven days for people to access the NHS and always get the same levels of high-quality treatment.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Q6. GP practices across Sheffield serving patients with complex and therefore more costly health needs are threatened by the withdrawal of the minimum practice income guarantee and the personal medical services premium. Will the Prime Minister ask NHS England to review the impact of these decisions to ensure that no practice closes, and will he ask Health Ministers to meet me and other Sheffield Members to consider what can be done to support effective practices?

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that the Secretary of State for Health and his team will listen carefully to that and see if they can speak to the hon. Gentleman. What is happening in his city is that the number of GPs is actually increasing. This year, NHS Sheffield clinical commissioning group is getting £708 million, which is an almost 2% increase at a time of almost zero inflation. What we need to do is get the negotiations on this contract right. That does mean making some changes over time, but the contract has got to deliver the quality that the patients deserve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Blomfield Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It would assist us if the Minister looked towards and spoke into the microphone. That tends to assist amplification in these circumstances.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

T2. The importance of students’ electoral registration was recognised by the Cabinet Office in allocating welcome if belated funds to the National Union of Students to get people on the register in the run-up to the general election. Will the Minister commit to providing similar funds to boost student electoral registration at the start of the new academic year to ensure that they are represented properly on the register on which the parliamentary boundary review will be based?

[Mr Letwin]

The hon. Gentleman raises a serious question about student registration. As he will know, we now have a system of individual registration, which people can do in about three minutes on an iPhone. We are going to make that even easier, and we will work with the NUS and others to try to encourage students to do exactly as he suggests.