Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alex Chalk and Gordon Henderson

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

22. What steps he is taking to support employment advisory boards.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

Employment advisory boards, chaired by business leaders across the country, do hugely important work to foster links between prisons and employers. I was delighted to attend the EAB conference just last week. Having a job reduces the reoffending rate by up to nine percentage points. That is good for society and for the offenders who turn their lives around. That is why we have rolled out boards to 92 resettlement prisons ahead of schedule.

[Gordon Henderson]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s response. I recently visited HMP Swaleside, where I witnessed good work done by the excellent employment advisory board, including the setting up of the internal distribution centre run by prisoners and supplies prisons across the estate. I am sure that members of the employment advisory board, the governor, prison staff and prisoners themselves would get a big lift if the Prisons Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), would find time in his busy schedule to visit the Isle of Sheppey and see for himself this fantastic initiative.

[Alex Chalk]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that issue. I know the prison that he speaks of. He is right to highlight the brilliant work of Paul Barrett of Barretts Motor Group, who is bringing that work to HMP Swaleside. Thanks to his hard work we are seeing a dramatic improvement in the percentage of prisoners in employment six months after release—it is up 9% in just a year. When the latest figures come out, I think my hon. Friend will see an even greater increase. That really matters. My right hon. Friend the Prisons Minister is already planning a trip to the Isle of Sheppey to see those initiatives in action.

Education Funding

Debate between Alex Chalk and Gordon Henderson

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson]

I am sure that the hon. Lady is right and that many other Members have similar stories to tell. I would just say this about the outlook being presented by the Department for Education: all is not rosy in the garden of England.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that one of the problems is that the special schools in all our constituencies are having to contend with a level of demand and complexity that simply was not there 10 years ago? We need to make sure that the funding is there to meet the need that exists.

[Gordon Henderson]

I agree, but I do so hesitantly, as I have a very good special school in my area, which teaches children with acute physical disabilities. We have now been told by the DFE that my constituency is to get funding for another special school for people with learning difficulties. I am immensely grateful for that, because currently 70 children from my constituency have to travel to the other side of Maidstone every day—some get up at half past 6 or 7 o’clock in the morning and do not get home until half past 5 in the evening—to attend a special school there. I agree, but I do so slightly reluctantly because I am going to get some funds for a special school in my constituency.

I would like to list some of the other problems that headteachers in my constituency say they face, in no particular order. First, they tell me that there is a need for an increase in the overall funding for schools, which should be coupled with a long-term plan that would ensure that the growth in our population is properly addressed. That is very pertinent to my constituency. Secondly, they want to scrap the current system of requesting a three-year forecast from schools without providing any firm information about likely costs and incomes. Thirdly, we need to find a solution to the growing problem of poor mental health among students and staff, which is coupled with a lack of funding to help those who suffer. Fourthly, headteachers in my constituency are frustrated when they see the DFE focusing on workload reduction while insisting on schools cutting their costs, which inevitably reduces the workforce and increases workloads for the remaining staff. Fifthly, they feel pressurised by the funding arrangements into replacing experienced teachers in order to save money.

Sixthly, headteachers have to manage the impact on school budgets of unfunded mandatory costs, such as the increase in the pay level of support staff brought about by an increase in the living wage. Seventhly, headteachers often struggle to fund the £6,000 needed for each education, health and care plan, and to find the additional money involved in preparing those plans. Eighthly, inflationary pressures continue to undermine any increases to school funding under the new national funding formula. The so-called fair funding formula is simply not fair.

Ninthly, schools are having to divert scarce resources to cover services that were previously supplied by either local authorities or the NHS, and no longer are. Finally, research has found that Kent schools have lost £149.5 million between 2015 and 2019, which averages out at £270 per pupil. Some 510 out of 535 schools in Kent have experienced cuts. One secondary school in my constituency has lost £780,000.

I am lucky in Sittingbourne and Sheppey to have some fantastic, committed school leaders and teachers. However, I fear that without a real boost in investment and funding better targeted to areas where it is most needed such as mine, we are going to lose our best educators to better resourced areas, which would be to the detriment of the children in my constituency.

I know the Education Minister, and I am sure that, in their heart of hearts, he and his colleagues understand the financial challenges faced by schools and that they are lobbying the Treasury hard. I just hope the Chancellor —whoever that turns out to be in November—listens and delivers more money for education in this year’s Budget.

Universal Credit

Debate between Alex Chalk and Gordon Henderson

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

My constituency has been operating the universal credit full service since January this year, so I like to think that I know something about what is being delivered at a grassroots level and the effect it is having on my constituents who claim it.

Let me begin by saying that UC is not perfect, but nor is any benefits system that we have ever had in this country. UC replaced a legacy system that was deeply flawed and offered no incentive for people to work. It is true to say that despite a number of improvements that have been made to UC since its roll-out started, it still has a number of faults, which I will come to later. However, it is certainly not the disaster caricatured by right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches. For some time, the Labour party has been busy whipping up opposition to UC, criticising it at every opportunity. These continual criticisms are not only a metaphorical two-fingered insult to the incredibly hard-working staff in my local DWP offices—they are delivering an excellent service to my constituents—but are misleading the public and frightening some very vulnerable people.

Of course, the introduction of any system can be problematic. I, too, had concerns about how it would affect people in my area when it was rolled out, so I visited my local jobcentres and sat down with the staff to go through their plans with them to ensure that none of the claimants moving from the legacy system to UC would be disadvantaged. I was impressed by the commitment and enthusiasm of the staff and was satisfied that they would be prioritising the most vulnerable claimants.

At the time, I urged staff to contact me should they come into contact with anybody they were unable to help because of the system, and I promised to take up those problems with DWP Ministers. No such problems have been referred to me by the jobcentres.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I went along to the Jobcentre Plus in Cheltenham and I had the same experience as my hon. Friend. Staff were enthusiastic about the benefits that it was creating, and crucially, people in work were, on average, receiving an additional £600 a year. Does he not agree that that important factor should be weighed in this conversation?