Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)]

The hon. Lady will be pleased to know that by 2020 we will be spending more on the adult education budget than at any time in our island’s history. We are investing in skills, with millions of pounds for the national colleges and the institutes of technology; we are investing in apprenticeships, with 377,000 over-19s in apprenticeships in the past year; and we are investing in adult education—that is exactly what we are doing.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

T9. I am chairman of the all-party group on literacy. Today, with the National Literacy Trust, we are announcing figures showing that 86% of all English constituencies have at least one ward with significant literacy problems. Does the Minister agree that people not being able to read and write is not just an economic issue, but one of social justice?

[Mr Gibb]

I share my hon. Friend’s view about the primacy of reading and writing, which are fundamental to education and to social justice. That is why ensuring that children are taught to read using the method of systematic synthetic phonics—evidence from this country and around the world shows that it works—has been at the heart of our education reforms. As a result, the proportion of six-year-olds reaching the expected standard in the phonics check has risen from 58% in 2012 to 81% in 2016.

Trade Union Bill

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I rise to speak to amendment 5, which appears in my name and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I do so with a heavy heart, because clause 14, to which the amendment relates, is entitled, “Prohibition on deduction of union subscriptions from wages in public sector”. As a Conservative, I am not greatly in favour of prohibition in many instances and I certainly am not in this instance. The clause was not in the Bill on Second Reading so we did not debate it and I am disappointed that it has been brought forward. Because it has been brought forward, I will speak to my amendment.

When we introduce a prohibition, we must ask what the penalties will be. If a union and an employer decide that this kind of arrangement is so important and so difficult to unwind that they will continue using it, what will happen to them? Will the police be involved? Will the employer and the union be fined? If there is a prohibition, there must be some way of enforcing it. There is no sensible way of enforcing this kind of prohibition on what is a relatively sensible arrangement between an employer and a union.

Let us be clear that we are talking about an agreement between an employer and a union, not something that is imposed on either of them. It is a partnership. In my view, it is generally a positive one as it enables people to work together. Surely that is what all of us are here to encourage. Nobody is required to have such an arrangement.

If my amendment were accepted by the Government at some point, it would require the cost to be reimbursed, as it is in many arrangements up and down the country, including in my county of Staffordshire, where there is a perfectly good arrangement between Unison and Staffordshire County Council.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I support amendment 5 because it is my understanding that local authorities and other such organisations would be able to charge a commercial rate to recover the costs.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

Yes, and they do. As I mentioned in an intervention on the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), some councils make a surplus from it that goes towards their services.

As has been pointed out, clause 14 singles out union subscriptions. There is no prohibition on other deductions for which there might not be compensation to the employer, such as deductions for season tickets, which have been mentioned, or professional fees. Even on my payslip as a Member of Parliament, the top deduction every month is £2 for the Members fund. There will be no prohibition on that deduction, unless the Members fund is a national union of Members of Parliament, which I do not think it is.

Other people have made the case much more eloquently than I have, so I will not detain the House any longer on this point.

Education and Adoption Bill

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Steve McCabe]

I am happy to make that plea, and I hope to say a little more about mental health before I conclude. I say in passing that I certainly welcome the decision of the new Leader of the Opposition to create a Cabinet health post specifically for mental health.

What we need to know is that the Government’s ambitions are not just about speeding up adoptions and presenting us with tables showing an increase in numbers. We need to know that the extent of these problems has been properly appreciated and that the need for continuing support for these children and families is built into the fabric of any new adoption arrangements.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children wanted me to table a much broader amendment on children’s mental health. Although I am extremely sympathetic to its ambitions, I concluded after discussion and advice that what we had in mind was probably too broad for the scope of the Bill. If you will allow me, Mr Speaker, it is worth taking a moment to share what it had in mind. The NSPCC asks the Minister to consider amending either the Children Act 1989 or the Adoption and Children Act 2002 by placing a duty on local authorities to ensure that a child receives a mental health assessment at the point they enter care, and to provide immediately the necessary support services to meet the identified needs of the child for as long as necessary, with regular monitoring of the child’s ongoing need for mental health support.

I want to make it clear that I support counselling and proper intervention to address mental health issues as a key element of securing permanence in placements. It is good that the functions to be transferred under the Bill will include the provision of adoption support services, but what these children and their new adoptive parents need is a guarantee from the Government that the necessary support will be available. Having the right to assessment is not enough; what is needed is a right to the treatment, therapy and support identified by that assessment. It seems strange to me that children currently entering our care system are subject to a routine physical health check, but given the trauma that many of them have experienced prior to entering care are not automatically also given access to a mental health check.

If the Minister really wants to make a difference, he will give a commitment today to make it a requirement that all children entering the care system have access to a mental health assessment, and that any treatment, counselling, therapy or support recommended as a result of that assessment will be theirs as of right, and to include those requirements in any new adoption arrangements he makes with local authorities or other bodies.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I have a lot of sympathy with the line that the hon. Gentleman is taking. From talking to a number of my constituents, I am concerned that meeting organisations six or seven times a week is seen as support, whereas adoptive families need actual, real support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I have had extensive discussions with fellow members of the Cabinet, including the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on those important issues. The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that this is a difficult time of year, in relation both to young people who might go abroad to places such as Syria, and in particular to vulnerable girls, who may be persuaded to undertake some sort of forced marriage or female genital mutilation. We will take—and, indeed, have taken—action by issuing guidance to schools and working with other authorities to ensure that we know where young people are and that we work with parents and communities to make sure that they are not going abroad unnecessarily.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

T2. What support will the Minister offer primary schools that are trying to improve literacy standards for all pupils so that no child leaves school unable to read and write?

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

As my hon. Friend knows, the Government place phonics at the heart of the early teaching of reading, and that is reflected in the new national curriculum. The coalition Government provided £23 million in match funding to more than 14,000 primary schools to boost the quality of phonics teaching. In 2012, we introduced a phonics screening check to identify those children still struggling with reading. Three years on from its introduction, the screening check shows that over 100,000 more six-year-olds are on track to becoming confident readers.