Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Andrew Bingham and Justin Tomlinson

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I was a member of the Bill Committee, which was very constructive and involved much cross-party support. The Minister has a real passion for, and depth of knowledge about, this issue, and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden), also demonstrated a genuine interest.

I want to focus on a specific issue raised by the shadow Minister in connection with his desire to promote equality of opportunity. I think that that should include people with disabilities, and specifically those with learning disabilities. The Government have made great progress—they have helped some 600,000 more disabled people to obtain work in the last three years, which is fantastic—but those with learning disabilities still find it extremely difficult to benefit from the opportunities of work. The proportion is about 6%.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend for the work that he did as Minister for disabled people. Does he agree that we also need to help employers? Does not dealing with people with learning difficulties or mental health issues, about which the Prime Minister has talked today, require a great deal of support for the employer as well as the apprentice?

[Justin Tomlinson]

Absolutely. That is at the heart of the points that I am going to make. People need time to develop the necessary skills, and employers need to be able to provide suitable opportunities for individuals with learning disabilities. All Governments, in all generations, have tried their best to give opportunities to people with learning disabilities. The proportion has stayed rigidly at about 6%, which is the worst percentage involved in any disability and therefore presents us with the largest challenge.

When I was Minister for disabled people, I visited Foxes working hotel in Bridgwater. I was incredibly impressed by the fact that it had managed to get 80% of its young students into work. Its three-year course involved two years in a working hotel, where the students learned how to acquire independent living skills and how to work towards obtaining jobs once they had finished. They were acquiring skills that were needed for their local towns, involving restaurants, hotels and care homes. We all have our own skills gaps in our constituencies, so the skills would be adapted accordingly.

The students spent their final year continuing their learning directly in the workplace. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) mentioned employers. That final year gave employers an opportunity to receive support. Foxes academy provided training and advice for employers, and for the staff with whom they would be working. Young lads and ladies were able to learn their skills patiently over the year, which seemed to me to constitute an apprenticeship: they were learning skills on the job.

I invited the team to my Department. I said, “This is amazing: why can we not increase numbers?” I was told, “We could increase numbers, but that final year is so expensive, because we have to support the employer, that we have to cap them.” I think that if we could rebadge the system as an apprenticeship, we could access the funding that is being created through the apprenticeship levy, and bring about a huge number of additional opportunities. I met the then Minister for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who agreed with me, and we set up the Maynard review. I am delighted that the Government have accepted every one of its recommendations, and I pay tribute to both Mencap and Scope for the huge amount of proactive work that they did, as part of the review, in helping to shape real, tangible opportunities.

Having spoken personally to the Minister, I know of his passionate desire to see all that through. We touched on the issue in the Bill Committee, but let me urge him now to crack on with those pilots. Every young adult will seize the opportunities which—as I know, having met hundreds of young people with learning disabilities—they are desperate to be offered. I ask the Minister to continue to make this a priority, and, in his summing-up, to explain where we are, what is the timetable, and what more we can all do to raise the issue with local employers.

Life-saving Skills in Schools

Debate between Andrew Bingham and Justin Tomlinson

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing the debate on a subject that I know she is passionate about. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling), as we have been pushing on this collectively for some time. I feel that we are making some progress.

The debate is essential, because we are talking about creating the next generation of life-savers. Let me use some cold, hard statistics to reinforce that point. Some 60,000 people a year will have a cardiac arrest. The survival rates in this country are disgracefully low—between 2% and 12%—which means that approximately 55,000 people a year will die from a cardiac arrest. About half of those are, in theory, able to get help through the ambulance service, but on average it takes approximately 6 to 12 minutes for an emergency ambulance to reach a critically ill patient. For every minute that passes, the chance of survival falls by 10%. However, if CPR is given immediately, survival rates increase threefold. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot said, we really cannot do any worse by leaving somebody in that position.

The great shame is that most people are simply not able to help. For about half of the 60,000, there are witnesses on hand who could help, but most either do not have the skills or lack the confidence even to try something. By training and educating individuals, we can radically alter the situation. I have heard horrific stories of crowds gathering round, with no one willing to step in. Thankfully, the evidence clearly shows that, with training, lay people can overcome the psychological barriers and manage the patient until more advanced and experienced personnel arrive.

Those are the cold, hard statistics, but I was in such a position with my own father. When I was 12, my father collapsed. My attempts to help were, at best, muddled, and passers-by then helped. We all rely on people having that confidence to go and make a difference. Sadly, my father was one of those statistics who did not survive. We will never know, had we all been equipped with the skills, what difference that would have made.

What we are asking for would take only 0.2% of the school year. It takes less than two hours to train a young person fully in emergency life-saving skills. To put that into context, that is the equivalent of one PE lesson. I am conscious that schools Ministers are for ever lobbied by campaigns saying, “This would be very important for the national curriculum.” I am as guilty as any MP for asking for financial education, basic cookery skills and a variety of other campaigns. However, we are trying to be helpful; we would be happy if such training were included in PSHE, as long as it was a mandatory part of it. It could go into biology, as one understands how the breathing system and the heart works. It could go into PE lessons, especially given the number of sports therapists we would like to encourage. We are not proud—as long as we can get it in somewhere.

We are told that there is a limit to the amount of time available in the national curriculum, yet we find time for every school to practise fire drills. They are important, but 60,000 people a year having a cardiac arrest is certainly up there with fire drills. We could take the training in assemblies. If we really are struggling with the school curriculum, then there are always driving lessons, because all young people want to take lessons—we are trying to be as helpful as we possibly can be.

The training is straightforward. At a recent meeting of the all-party group on heart disease, I and all of my staff took part, and it was a breeze—it was pretty impressive for us for it to be a breeze. The training can be broken into three levels and even the most basic form of training can make a difference. For example, the body has enough oxygen in the blood so that even basic compression CPR is sufficient for 15 minutes. Crucially, these skills will remain with people for the rest of their lives. We will create a new generation of life-savers and they can pass their skills on, so it is a win-win situation. We have the evidence that it will work. It will allow us to change the prognosis of this devastating condition and save thousands of lives a year.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot made great play of international comparisons, talking about the improvements in France, Denmark, Norway and Seattle. The cold, hard statistics show that, where such training is compulsory, survival rates are not 2% to 12% but 52%. That means that an extra 15,000 lives a year would be saved.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that children would thoroughly enjoy learning emergency life-saving in school? Instead of sitting in the classroom reading books, they would be getting involved; it is hands-on. They would enjoy it, and learn quickly, too.

Debt Advice and Debt Management

Debate between Andrew Bingham and Justin Tomlinson

Thursday 1st December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), who has been a long-standing champion for this issue. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) on securing this important debate on a subject in which I take a particular interest—I supported the ten-minute rule Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) and have spoken in several connected debates.

This issue is important because 91% of people in financial difficulty feel that with better information and advice they would have made different decisions. Members of Parliament know through their casework of the distress in which individuals find themselves, and in times of financial difficulties their needs are even more urgent. These people do not necessarily have the time to shop around and make informed decisions, and many people get into financial distress following a significant change in their circumstances, whether it is a job loss, bereavement, illness or family breakdown. At such moments, they are not necessarily in the strongest position to address the challenges that they face.

I wish to highlight a number of issues. First, I have been a long-standing champion for the improvement of financial education, and I shall take this opportunity to plug my ongoing campaign. We need to equip people of all ages in this country with the key skills that enable them to make these important decisions, and I shall continue to press for that at every opportunity. The total costs of the decisions that people make are not necessarily displayed in a format that they understand—in plain, good old-fashioned cash terms.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

With his usual modesty, my hon. Friend just briefly mentioned the campaign for financial education in schools, on which he has led the way in the House—I think that the all-party group on financial education for young people, which he set up, is the largest in the House. Does he agree that financial education is very important to tackling the problem in the long run, particularly given that there are now so many different ways in which people can purchase things and borrow money? This education is crucial for future generations.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He has been extremely supportive of our ongoing campaign. One of the driving forces behind our desire for compulsory financial education is the fact that we live in a challenging, complex world, where individual consumers are all too often bombarded by unhelpful marketing messages. Equipping consumers to enable them to pick their way through that minefield would make a big difference.

We are also seeing products becoming available that have complex terms and conditions—again preventing consumers from making informed decisions—and for which the consequences of defaulting are not clearly set out. The up-front and administration fees are not clearly shown, and too many consumers are making monthly payments to such companies without clearing the original debt for which they turned to them to get help. We have also seen misleading company names and advertisements. People in financial distress are under pressure from the companies to which they owe money. They feel obliged to make a quick decision, so when companies contact them to say, “We can sort this out. You just need to say yes in this phone call and we’ll get these people off your back,” it can be very attractive. We have seen excessive amounts of cold calling and dishonest texting. I agree with the request that the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) made to ban such practices—I am certainly someone who is sick and tired of receiving unwanted calls and text messages. A number of hon. Members also referred to Google rankings, whereby people innocently type in “free debt advice” and are bombarded with the complete opposite. I would recommend that the Minister look at that.

I welcome the OFT’s revised guidelines, which set out the standards and expectations of debt management companies, making it clear that they must be transparent about the service on offer and the fees charged, to ensure that the advice provided is in the best interests of the consumer. It is clear that the Government—especially the Minister, who has shown a great interest in this subject—and the OFT are seeking to make a difference. However, I have a number of questions for the Minister, which I hope he will respond to when he wraps up. Some 129 businesses have already been warned, 69 of which have now exited the debt management market. Does he consider that a success?

Secondly, the process can take up to two years. What can be done to speed it up? As the hon. Member for Makerfield pointed out, not only can those businesses inflict huge damage to the most vulnerable consumers in two years, but for some of them, their whole business plan is geared towards being around for only two years and making as much money in that time as they can. I have spoken to the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, which told me that many such companies are also fleet of foot. As soon as we knock them off in one form, they reappear in another. My final question on the issue is this: how easy is it to identify some of the online operators? If they are on the high street, with nice big shiny signs above their shop doors, it is obviously easy to identify and tackle them. However, many such companies operate online, making it difficult to track them down. Is that stopping the clock ticking in terms of action being delivered?

All those who have spoken today have promoted making available free, independent debt advice—which I, too, support. I welcome the increased content available online, but we must remember that a significant number of the most vulnerable consumers—the people we will see coming into our surgeries—still rely on individually tailored, face-to-face or telephone sessions to help. I pay tribute to organisations such as Citizens Advice and the CCCS, which provide fantastic, individually tailored, free advice sessions. Those sessions are essential, because vulnerable consumers, with their individual circumstances, need somebody with the patience to go through things with them. All too often they are people who, through fear of what they are encountering, have not opened their post. They need someone to sit down with them, because online advice relies on people to know their own situation, which all too often is not the case.

People might also feel the need to make a quick decision because the people to whom they owe the money are chasing them. A debt management company might say, “Just say yes on the phone and I’ll sort all those problems out.” When confronted with a bag of unopened post, people need somebody to help by saying, “We’ll sit down with you and get to a position where you can make a quick response.” Also, advice sessions will always take account of people’s individual circumstances, because every person is different—every person has different priorities and different amounts of debt—and will help them take the best possible course of action for their circumstances.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to secure the £27 million-worth of additional funding for the next year, but we need a long-term commitment, which is what the Money Advice Service is exploring. I urge it to continue and find what it is looking for, as this is so important. In these difficult and constrained financial times, this is an absolute priority, which I shall continue to support.

I would go further than some other speakers who talked about the need to provide access for free and independent advice. Just as we insist on having a Government health warning on all packets of cigarettes, I would like to see information published about how to access the free independent advice so that people can take a few moments out and contact those who can assist them. Too often, we have seen some of these debt management companies create spurious charities, whose people then provide the “independent advice” when they are, in fact, just subsidiaries of the company that is going after the business in the first place. Some have said that they did not want to get rid of this market completely, but wanted to be confident that every single consumer has easy access to the free and independent advice that we all believe is so important.

Finally, I want to explain how we can make a difference as individual Members of Parliament. Organisations such as Citizens Advice are under a lot of pressure: only a limited amount of funding is available and only so much time can be given to consumers who are in financial distress—effectively in a last-chance saloon—and need a quick response. When approached by R3, Citizens Advice and Nationwide, we carried out a training day, involving me as MP and all the staff in my constituency office. We were trained on how best to deal with people in financial distress. We were able to phone up the local citizens advice bureau and arrange an emergency appointment the following day, where people could benefit from a one-hour session. It provided an opportunity to sit down with the individual in advance and say, “This is what you need to bring to your session tomorrow”. The maximum help possible was provided in that one-hour session. All too often, consumers turn up at the last chance saloon without having all the information they need, which makes it difficult to give them the practical advice they need. I have been assured by both Citizens Advice and the Consumer Credit Counselling Service that they will happily provide similar training for all MPs. That shows how we can take this up to make a positive difference.

Obesity

Debate between Andrew Bingham and Justin Tomlinson

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Bingham]

I think that the Minister has been reading my notes. The point I was coming to was that we have talked a lot about what the Government can or cannot do, but this is one of many issues on which responsibility lies with us and with the parents of young people. My generation’s parents taught us how to poach eggs, for example; it is all about education in the home. I know that I sound like a grumpy old man, talking about how it was in my day, with rose-coloured glasses—[Hon. Members: “No, Never”] I will concede on grumpy; old I will argue with, at the moment. We can discuss different demographics, but if people are brought up on balanced, home-cooked food they will carry that on through their lives. It worries me that the more ready meal-type culture we have, the more it will go on and the bigger the problem will get.

We can expect, or ask, the Government to do this, that and the other, but as with many things, responsibility lies with individuals and with the parents of young children. That is where we need to start, with people being responsible for their own actions.

We have a fantastic opportunity with the 2012 Olympics, when we will see athletes from across the world. I will wager that in a year’s time, when Jessica Ennis wins a gold medal—I hope she does—we will see children out doing long jump and triple jump, using their own resources to copy their sporting heroes. We must capitalise on that. I played football in the winter as a kid because that was what was on TV, I played cricket in the summer and we all played tennis for two weeks when Wimbledon was on. We can use the Olympics. We talk about the legacy Olympics, and I would like the legacy to be the starting point for people getting active again.

[Justin Tomlinson]

We all have a role in encouraging our local schools to get 100% behind the school Olympics principle, so that when we have our successful athletes, in javelin or whatever we prove successful in, children can be inspired to take up the sport on a regular basis.

[Andrew Bingham]

Absolutely. There are dozens of sports in the Olympics, and everyone will watch and take an interest in one, so let us foster that and make the legacy of the games a healthier and more active society. We need to take that together with using the supermarkets, to get healthier eating.

We have a surfeit of cookery programmes on television. Every time we put it on there is someone gardening, doing DIY or cooking. Those three hobbies, or whatever we want to call them, can help to produce healthier people and a healthier country. Let us not necessarily rely on the Government. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) that the health and wellbeing boards and the reforms in the Health Bill will help, but let us take on our responsibilities and get the message across to our constituents, getting the whole of society involved in this to make for a healthier and less obese Britain.