Soft Drinks Industry Levy: Funding for Sport in Schools

Will Quince Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) in the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) on obtaining an important debate which is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield said, timely, given the subject matter.

My views on the sugary drinks levy are well documented, and this is not the right debate in which to go over them. If anyone wants to, there is an article online, entitled “Ten reasons why the sugar tax is a terrible idea”, setting them out. Today, however, is about the allocation of the money. I have concerns that can be wholly set aside from the debate. Both sides, whether in favour of the tax or against it, are well meaning; the issue is whether it will work, how much money we shall get, and what we shall spend it on. I have an issue with dedicated or hypothecated taxes in principle, because we do not really have an idea, apart from some presumptions and assumptions, about how much money will come in.

I accept all the points made by hon. Members about obesity. I know, from just one Christmas when I have come back to Parliament feeling that my suits have shrunk considerably—that is the excuse I am using—that we have an issue with obesity, and childhood obesity in particular. We must take measures to tackle that, without question. My worry is that this is an instance of “Something must be done. This is something, so let’s do it.” Parking that worry, however, and accepting that we must address the problem of childhood obesity, I agree with all the points that have been made about sport, including sport in schools, and fantastic initiatives such as the activity camps that my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon mentioned, as well as the use of school premises out of school hours. They are fantastic ideas. Driving past secondary schools in the evening or at the weekends, one can see that many are being used. However, primary schools are less used. They have beautiful fields, and in some cases astro pitches or multi-use games activity centres, which would be perfect. They sit unused when members of society, and in particular young people, would desperately love to go and kick a ball around or play basketball. There is a huge public health gain to be made from the principle of using the money to fund measures that will reduce obesity and get more children active.

However, if we accept that there can be such a massive public health gain, and that the right thing to do for the health of the nation is to invest the money as I have described, we should be funding it through general taxation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said when the policy was announced:

“We are going to use the money from this new levy to double the amount of funding we dedicate to sport in every primary school. For secondary schools, we are going to fund longer school days for those that want to offer their pupils a wider range of activities, including extra sport.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2016; Vol. 607, c. 964.]

The figure mooted at the time was some £520 million. I want, as does, I believe, every Member of the House, £520 million or thereabouts to be spent on school sports; but we have no way of saying how much of that money will be raised from the sugary drinks levy. That is my fundamental concern. If we are saying that the issue is important and that we should invest in it, and that it will have a massive impact on childhood obesity and public health, we should invest in it. We should not be giving schools and other organisations, such as those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon, funding that is not sustainable.

We should treat the issue as important, and commit the money to it. I am worried because, on my calculation, reformulation, portion size, illicit sales and such things as cross-border shopping will mean that the figure raised will be more like £200 million to £300 million. That is a considerable shortfall on the amount quoted in the Budget last year. We must ask questions about hypothecated taxes and direct taxes. I would love to ask the Minister what the budget is: what is the expectation, and how much money do we think will come from the sugary drinks levy?

I have two concerns. One is that we shall have to top the levy up from general taxation—and if that is the case I support doing it. It is a worthwhile thing to do, and we should finance it. I am also concerned, as are many people in the food and drink manufacturing industry, that we have just set a figure of £520 million. That is what we need to fund the initiative, and that is what we are going to raise. If we cannot raise it through sugary drinks we shall start looking at other products. Perhaps there is an argument for doing that, and for applying the levy to sugar across the board. I discussed that at some length with my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). However, we are not there now, and we must be clear about what our ambition is. Perhaps we are thinking about a tax that applies to more products. I take some issue with that in principle. Nevertheless, if that is the direction of travel we must make sure we are clear.

If we are going to raise £520-odd million, I should like to know that it will go into school sports. For all the reasons that have been given by Members of different parties in the debate, that is very important. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon on obtaining the debate, but I have concerns about whether that money will be pulled through from the soft drinks levy to be spent in schools. I know that the tax is direct and hypothecated so to some extent it is out of the Minister’s hands, but perhaps he can give some commitment about how much money there will be to spend on sports in schools and on some of the great initiatives that have been mentioned. That would be helpful and would set minds at rest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) reminded us about the importance of outdoor recreation, so I rise to my feet very tenderly, having just participated with the MP parliamentary football team for 90 minutes over in Chelsea. We played the press lobby. It was a one-all draw, and there was no love lost between the two teams when we came off the pitch.

It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) on securing the debate. Why he is not in Government, I do not know. I thought that he did an extraordinarily good job with disability confidence in the last Parliament. I was pleased to support that with my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), in putting on one of the biggest events in the north of England, and I hope that impetus carries on even though he is no longer at the Department for Work and Pensions. The hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) has already laid out the facts, and I congratulate her on her chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group on adult and childhood obesity.

One in five children are overweight or obese before they start primary school, and the figure rises to one in three by the time they leave year 6. That puts children at serious risk of developing serious conditions such as heart and liver disease, cancer, related mental health problems—I think that the hon. Member for Macclesfield is the only Member who has mentioned mental health today—and diabetes.

Let me make an observation about health in my constituency, where I have the world-class Wythenshawe hospital, run by the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust. Its outcomes are unbelievable, but I say to consultants that my constituency has one of the worst levels of public health outcomes in England and Wales, and what we are really doing is triage in the trenches. My population is ravaged by hypertension—I am looking to the doctors in the Chamber to help me out here—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and, in particular, type 2 diabetes, which is having all sorts of impacts on NHS costs—somebody has already pointed out the £6 billion cost to the NHS.

I am starting schemes in all those three areas and, as the hon. Member for North Swindon said, using civil society as best as I can to tackle them. With the British Heart Foundation’s work on hypertension, Diabetes UK’s diabetes groups and the British Lung Foundation’s Breathe Easy campaign, we know that we can keep people out of our A&Es, which is a huge issue this week, whichever side of the political fence hon. Members are on. People can self-help and self-medicate, which is important because by the time they go to A&E or to their doctor or health professional, it is almost too late.

I concur with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) and by the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who chairs the Health Committee: some areas do not have such a strong civil society and they need a leg-up from Government through the hypothecation of taxes. We have seen a link between the scale of poverty and obesity in children, in particular. The Government recognise that but have taken away the targets along with the unit that looks at child poverty, which is rocketing, and not just under this Government—it was going up previously because of the economic and financial crisis.

In 2016 the Government introduced a new levy on soft drinks through the sugar tax. In England the new levy revenue will be invested in programmes to support physical activity and balanced diets in school-aged children. I want to talk for a moment from my personal experience as a primary school teacher for 10 years. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), who is not currently in his place, pointed out that children go to school for only 40 weeks a year. It is important for politicians to remember that, because I used to get frustrated at this place when I was a teacher in the classroom. We all think that we can change society by changing our schools, but it is only a small, if important, bit of how we change society.

I used to eat with the children before and after the Jamie Oliver meals came in. I patrolled the free school meals kids in particular, not because I was the sugar police—although, we did had very firm policies in my 500-place primary school about what they could have in those packages—but because I knew what the afternoon would be like if they had had a can of Coke, a load of chocolate and a packet of crisps. It is almost impossible to get really extraordinary teaching and learning going on with poor diets. Everybody in the Chamber has made the link between good food and good mental health in children.

There is a clear link between sugar intake and childhood obesity, as illustrated by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition’s 2015 report on carbohydrates and health. With 30% of the sugar in children’s diets coming from sugary drinks—the point has been made that children are consuming a bathtub of these drinks annually—action is clearly needed. The levy is expected to raise more than £500 million in the first year. It is a good policy. I will come back to why I disagree with the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) in a second, but I thought that the hon. Member for Falkirk (John Mc Nally) articulated well why it is a good policy and why we should support it. The amount raised is likely to fall over time as manufacturers remove sugar from their products and the consumption of sugary drinks falls.

I disagree with the hon. Member for Colchester because he has stated that this is a nanny state-type tax, but what we now have, particularly with school budgets, which I shall come to later, is a postcode lottery. For example, look at what Britvic is already doing to avoid the sugar tax. It is changing its behaviour and remodelling the formula so that it does not pay the tax. Surely that is a good thing. Surely that is how Governments should intervene to make the world a better place, particularly for children.

[Will Quince]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Kane]

I will, because I have attacked the hon. Gentleman twice now in this speech.

[Will Quince]

Not at all. I accept that point, but I think that the hon. Gentleman has reiterated what I was saying. We all accept that if the industry reacts and reformulates products, that will be a great thing. However, if it does so and takes the action we know it is taking over a shorter period of time, rather than a longer period, that will mean we have less money ultimately to spend on this programme.

[Mike Kane]

But over the longer term people will hopefully be consuming less sugar, which I think is the key objective. However, the hon. Gentleman is right; reformulation not only will reduce the tax take and therefore be a measure of the success of Government policy—we need measures relating to public policy—but will have an impact on reducing consumption, which is just as important. He also pointed out that it is important that the impact is comprehensively evaluated, so that it can be refined and adjusted continually to keep getting public health gains.

Let us move on to schools and sport, where I have a few things to say to the Minister. Doubling the PE and sport premium fund to £320 million a year from 2017 is good news and shows a commitment from the Government that this is important. The premium has shown that it can enhance the quality of PE teaching and increase pupil engagement and participation in sport. Continued investment in sport was also highlighted by school leaders as the most important factor in maintaining quality PE provision in a Youth Sport Trust survey published last year.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) on what she said about teachers. This is not just about civil society. Tens of thousands of selfless teachers give up their time after work to run such clubs—during a decade of primary school teaching, I ran the football club and the cross-country club—and all the other clubs that are part of what is expected of schools but are not in the job description. It is right that we praise the teachers up and down the land who do that.

However, as essential as all these things are, a legacy for school sport is about looking beyond primary-age provision and competitive sport initiatives. Everyone has talked about the daily mile, outdoor recreation, walking to school and our physical environment. Increasing the number of pupils of all ages who are participating in school sport—competitive or not—across all phases of education and the amount of time that they spend doing so should be fundamental to a comprehensive strategy, yet the Government have gone backwards on the issue.

Take, for example, what my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) said about the previous coalition Government’s decision to remove £162 million of funding from school sport partnerships. Those partnerships were terrific—there is no doubt about it. The Government are embarking on breaking up our estate by privatising and nationalising it, and there are a spread of school campuses across the country. What the partnerships did was link combinations of local primaries to their secondary school, which usually had the expertise, resource and field capacity to do really joined-up work and get a system going where those clusters could really begin to make a difference.

When the money went, there was a negative impact, as opportunities for young people to participate in more school sport decreased, as the Education Committee noted. As I said to the hon. Member for Colchester, that decision has created a postcode lottery relating to good provision, because we had a national system but we now have local systems in which local schools are trying to do their best to keep up good practice. It has been particularly evident in secondary schools that do not have ring-fenced budgets for sport.

We also know that, unsurprisingly, since this Government removed in 2010 the requirement for pupils to have at least two hours of sport a week, the number of pupils taking part in sport has collapsed. From personal experience, there is an over-expectation of sport in schools. A teacher who is timetabling two hours, as I used to have to do, must think about their relevance as a classroom teacher. Sometimes we in this place do not think about that. It can take 10 minutes to get the children changed and five minutes to get them to the playground or field—if the school is lucky enough to have one—or to the hall. The curriculum focuses mainly not on physical activity but on skills, and then the children need to be warmed down, get changed and go back. I saw teachers selflessly giving up their play times and breaks so that the children could get the best hour possible.

The situation will be exacerbated by school budgets, which will be cut by £3 billion between now and 2020—an 8% cut in real terms. Schools are not the panacea for the policy. Despite the fairer funding formula, they will be reducing staff in all areas of our country in the months and years to come. I have had the indication that I should leave it there.

“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies

Will Quince Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for listening to Back Benchers on this issue. She knows that I have been a vocal critic, but I found her willingness to engage with us on the issue most refreshing and I am grateful to her for that. Can she confirm that she will continue to engage with parents and teachers as she pursues our vision to improve education for every child, regardless of background?

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. It has been a pleasure to talk to him and all colleagues on both sides of the House. I look forward to continuing that conversation.

Schools White Paper

Will Quince Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler). I declare any necessary interests as my wife is a primary school teacher.

I want to raise my concerns and those of my constituents about the proposal to require every school to become an academy by 2020. Let me be clear: I believe that there is a place for academies in our education system. They have played a part in helping to turn around schools and improve educational attainment for children throughout the country, although I do not believe that that improvement can be attributed solely to their being academies. I am not convinced that academies are the only direction for our education system or that they will somehow deliver the next great leap in academic results. First and foremost, there is no evidence that academies are automatically better than state-maintained schools. Indeed, there are plenty of good and outstanding schools throughout the country, including in my constituency, which are maintained by the local authority.

Furthermore, I fear that forcing schools to become academies, especially when they do not want to, will be an unnecessary shake-up for the school and the local council.

[Bob Stewart]

Academies can be really good—for example, the Harris academy in Beckenham, which has improved greatly. However, we are considering a White Paper—an evolving document for discussion—not a directive, and I disagree with the idea if parents and governors do not want it to happen.

[Will Quince]

Call me old-fashioned, but I hold the view that if a school is well governed, well run and performing well, it should be left alone and allowed to do its job.

No one quite knows what the outcome of the proposal will be, especially given that there seems to be a rather disjointed approach to the role of local authorities. We are telling local authorities that they are no longer responsible for schools, but still responsible for home-to-school transport and admissions. They are expected to be champions for parents when they are still responsible for the two most contentious matters when it comes to schools.

I do not believe that moving the control of schools from local authorities, which are run by elected representatives, to unelected regional schools commissioners makes schools more accountable to parents. We need decentralisation of education, which gives more control to teachers and parents. The proposal risks centralising power in Whitehall and giving power to unelected bureaucrats.

As my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) pointed out, we are considering a White Paper, and there is therefore time to put the proposals on hold and have a rethink. The White Paper is unquestionably generating a lot of uncertainty in our schools, and we should be in no doubt that the public have concerns.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is no doubt and there should be no concern about the role of parents as governors? I declare an interest as a parent and a parent governor. It is clear from the White Paper that parents will be encouraged to continue to serve on governing boards.

[Will Quince]

On that one point I am very disappointed by the Opposition’s motion. I largely agree with their points, and, given that we are talking about a White Paper, I could even have supported the motion, had it not been factually incorrect. [Interruption.] There is no question but that it is factually incorrect. It has a word missing. We do not mark exam papers on the basis of, “It was what they meant to say, so we’ll give them an A.”

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry—the hon. Gentleman is a most courteous individual, but we must now move on. There are 21 remaining colleagues who wish to speak and probably fewer than 50 minutes. There will now be a three-minute time limit in a bid to ensure that we maximise the input.

Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill

Will Quince Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

It is not often that my hon. Friend makes a ludicrous argument, but I am afraid he has just done so. That would be like saying that any Bill should automatically be nodded through on its Second Reading because then we can amend it to how we would like it in Committee. That is not how this place works, as he well knows with his 32 years of service; I hope there will be another 32 years. The point of the Second Reading debate, as he helpfully identified, is to decide whether we agree with the Bill in principle. The principle of this Bill is given away by its title—the Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-Funded Secondary Schools) Bill. I do not agree with the principle of compulsory emergency first aid education in schools, so why on earth would I want to allow such a Bill a Second Reading, any more than he would vote for the Second Reading of a Bill whose principle he disagrees with? That is how this place works.

If this subject is to be added to the national curriculum, as proposed in the Bill, will Ofsted be required to assess and monitor its teaching to see whether schools are fulfilling their obligations under a revised Education Act 2002? Surely it follows that Ofsted must check to ensure that students are being taught appropriately, taught to a high standard, and taught well. It will have to be trained to judge the teachers to assess the level and quality of the first aid lessons they are offering to students. That seems to be another bureaucratic nightmare that Ofsted, and the teachers in the schools it is inspecting, could well do without. Nor do we know how much support the Government are going to give to allow that to happen. That is why I believe that this is better done on a voluntary basis.

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend seems to suggest that education is valid only if it is tested. Sexual education is compulsory, so how did he perform in his sexual education tests?

[Philip Davies]

I should point out to my hon. Friend that, as it happens, sex education is not compulsory in schools, and long may that be the case, but that is a debate for another day; I am not going to get side-tracked.

The final point I want to make in my brief remarks, during which I have been interrupted on a number of occasions, is about the Bill’s legal consequences for schools. That is one of the serious fears that my schools raised with me when I asked them to consider its implications. In its submission to the Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Public Bill Committee in September 2014, St John Ambulance mentioned that 34% of people said that the primary reason people are deterred from intervening in any situation requiring first aid was concern about the legal repercussions. I am glad to say that we have in the Chamber one of the finest legal brains in the country, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) —and, I might add in passing, the most expensive.

Such a concern was also raised during my consultation with local schools. One headteacher told me that they

“would have concerns that a school could be liable to be sued or held accountable if a student carried out first aid and ‘got it wrong’ and the school had delivered that training”.

That covers the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, but it has not been touched on during this debate. We must consider such matters in a Bill before we press ahead with a worthy sentiment.

Clause 1(3) specifies that children will be taught which emergency first aid actions are

“appropriate in each such scenario, including the best management of circumstances where a person is or appears to be…unconscious and not breathing,…unconscious and breathing,…choking,…bleeding severely,…having a heart attack, or…having an episode arising from an underlying condition such as asthma or epilepsy”,

and also taught the appropriate deployment of emergency first aid education

“procedures and equipment including…cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and…defibrillators.”

Given that the text in the Bill explicitly sets out that schools will be responsible for teaching when first aid is appropriate as well as how to administer it, the concern raised by the headteacher of my local school is very real. What securities will be put in place to ensure that headteachers, staff and schools are protected from legal action should any first aid be incorrectly administered by a student, given that the Bill, by making it a compulsory element of education, directly creates a point of responsibility? I cannot find any such protections in the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce). I am not entirely sure how to follow the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). This campaign was kicked off by my predecessor in 1997. I suspect that one of his biggest regrets is that he did not see it succeed. I hasten to add that there are not many of his campaigns that I will continue, but this is certainly one of them. I therefore support the Bill.

The Bill defines emergency first aid education as

“formal lessons to equip pupils with age-appropriate skills and knowledge required to provide assistance, in the absence of a competent adult, to a person in need of emergency medical attention until medically-qualified personnel are present.”

As my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) said, doing this is a no brainer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said, it is obvious. The sad reality is that it is neither of those things, because it is not a statutory obligation.

There are cost implications, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley rightly pointed out, although I suspect that some of the costs he raised could be negated through the work of charities and social enterprises. Of course some headteachers will be against this move because there are implications of cost, time and resourcing. Nevertheless, that is not a reason not to support the vital aim of upskilling pupils in our schools and helping them to develop important life skills. Fundamentally and most importantly, this will save lives.

I accept that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) said, the Bill is not without its issues. I mean no offence to the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead in saying that. The Bill puts the onus on teachers to learn and teach first aid. In my view, it should be more flexible. I hope that that can be addressed in Committee to allow social enterprises, volunteers and charities to help. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) might even want to go to her local school and impart some of her considerable knowledge in this area. My wife is a teacher, albeit at primary level, so I fully understand the pressures on teachers and on the curriculum. There is a part for the third sector to play and the Bill could be tweaked to take that into consideration.

It is a shame that we have to consider legislating on first aid education to make it part of the curriculum. Ideally, I would want it to be part of the citizenship scheme. The national curriculum framework is clear that every state-funded school should teach a curriculum of subjects that

“promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society”

and

“prepares pupils at the school for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life”.

First aid education clearly fulfils both criteria.

I can understand Ministers’ reluctance to add anything to the curriculum—it is already pretty jam-packed—but let us not forget that swimming is compulsory, as is sex education. Despite what my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said, there is a statutory obligation to provide sex education; it is just that parents can opt out. It seems to be an anomaly that we teach pupils how to make life but not how to save it.

The Bill seems to be a common-sense piece of legislation that would ensure that all school pupils who go through our state system have the chance to learn life-saving skills. It is right to focus on secondary school, where the pupils are sponges for this kind of information. It has been asked whether this education would be limited and whether the quality would be high enough. Often, pupils get a taster of something in school and then go on to do far more and to expand their breadth of knowledge. If people get a taste for first aid education, I suspect that there will be a much higher take-up in the scouts, guides and St John Ambulance, because they will want to expand their skills.

A number of hon. Members have touched on the Red Cross poll, which showed that 85% of adults agree with this proposal, 84% of secondary school teachers agree, 95% of parents agree and 97% of 11 to 16-year-olds agree. That is pretty compelling.

It is important to recognise that life skills are as important as academia. That is why citizenship is on the curriculum in England. The cost of implementing this measure has been raised—including by me in an earlier intervention—but what about the cost of not implementing it? What about the cost to A and E of all those additional visits that could have been prevented if young people in this country had those initial first-aid skills? What price do we put on life? My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham made that point eloquently when she spoke about her personal experiences.

There are, of course, worthwhile areas of study that are not specifically related to pupils’ academic development, so why not include first aid education on that list? I strongly support the Bill. Indeed, I will upset my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and say that I think we should go further. We have a big problem with knife crime in this country, and I would like weapons awareness to be included in the curriculum. A fantastic charity in my constituency, Only Cowards Carry, incorporates first aid and weapons awareness within its lessons in schools, but at the moment that is entirely optional.

I do not want to take up too much time, and I would love the Bill to be passed if put to the vote. This seems like a common-sense Bill, and we could create a potential new generation of life savers, starting in our schools. I urge Members to support the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Will Quince Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I am slightly surprised at the hon. Gentleman who is a great man and a great Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. He knows full well that it has required no arm twisting or strong arming by Government to encourage lots of colleges to combine with each other to form very successful groups. Manchester college and others are great examples of it. It is that kind of sensible consolidation to increase the strength of the college system that we will be encouraging through the area reviews.

[Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)]

At the weekend, my wife and I visited Bill’s, which is a new restaurant in Colchester and part of a large chain. At the end of the evening the bill had an automatic 10% gratuity, which the staff member said that they did not receive. Does my hon. Friend agree that the public expect staff members to get the tips in recognition for the service rendered?

[Sajid Javid]

Yes, absolutely. When a diner leaves a tip, they rightly expect that to go to the staff. Recent reports have suggested that some restaurants are not doing that, which is unacceptable. I have already launched a call for evidence. I will see whether the Government need to take any action. If they do, nothing is off the dining table.