Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Youth unemployment rose by nearly 50% under the last Labour Government, and one of the best ways to make sure young people have opportunities is to have a thriving economy, but as the hon. Gentleman reiterates, a strong education system, including a strong technical education system, is critical, which is why we are introducing our reforms on T-levels.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

An important measure of educational performance is employability. In Germany, youth unemployment stands at 6.4% and in Japan, 5.1%; in my constituency, it stands at 1.6%, down 80% since 2010. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating schools in my constituency on getting their pupils work ready?

[Justine Greening]

I pay tribute to those schools; they are clearly doing an excellent job making sure that children are not only attaining academically but getting the skills they need to be successful in the workplace. That is not the case in the rest of the UK. In Wales, where Labour is in charge, standards are now falling.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

We recognise the value of international students in our system, which is why we have recently asked the Migration Advisory Committee to review in full the contribution that they make to our university system. I remind the hon. Gentleman that there are no limits to the number of international students who can come at present. We are second in the world in our market share of international students, and we want that to continue.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend has said, international students provide a wealth of benefits to our universities. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that the UK higher education sector remains a welcoming place for students from foreign countries?

[Joseph Johnson]

It is a welcoming place, as attested to by the fact that this year, for the sixth year in a row, we have 170,000 international students coming into our system, which is a record number. We want that to continue. The work of the British Council contributes to that, as does the work of the GREAT campaign. I will be in India in November drumming up business for our universities, and I expect that other Ministers will do so too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

We are busy with our plans to introduce the apprenticeship levy. By 2020, we will be spending more than double on apprenticeships, or £2.5 billion extra. We are well on the way towards achieving our target of 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020, with over 500,000 starts in the past year alone.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Although I welcome the record number of people participating in apprenticeships in our country, will the Minister outline what steps the Government have taken to encourage more small businesses to offer apprenticeships?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend, who is a champion of apprenticeships in his area, will be pleased to know that, under the plans for the new apprenticeship levy, small businesses that hire 16 to 18-year-olds as apprentices will pay only 10% of the training costs. Furthermore, they and the providers will each receive £1,000. That will encourage small businesses to hire more apprentices.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

May I first welcome the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) and congratulate her on her appointment as shadow Secretary of State? She follows in the footsteps of the long-serving hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), and I suspect she was more surprised than I was by her appointment. Having worked with her in seeking to raise standards in Oldham schools, I know how able a shadow Secretary of State she will be.

In answer to the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), flexibility is of course important. It enables academies to flex their salaries and to recruit and retain the top-quality graduates they need. It is a very worthwhile policy, and it is working.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is essential that headteachers have the ability to flex salaries to retain the very best staff? Will he also comment on whether resigning after 48 hours in the education sector sets a new record?

[Mr Gibb]

I think it must be the record for the shortest-serving shadow Secretary of State. I am particularly offended, though, that there is no one to shadow me, and I wonder what I have done to deserve that offence.

Term-time Holidays

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and we must emphasise evidence that suggests that even small absences from school will have a long-term impact on a child’s education. As I set out in my opening remarks, a lot of education is linear, and children must learn one thing before they learn another. If a teacher is not able to provide a catch-up lesson for that child, they will permanently miss out on a crucial part of their education.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have taken positive steps to reduce the cost of family holidays, and therefore the financial incentive to take term-time absence? By reducing air passenger duty for children’s tickets to zero, last year 4.5 million children under 12 flew tax free, and this year more than 7.5 million of those under 16 will fly tax free.

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend made that point better than I could have done.

“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

That just shows that if hon. Members sit here and listen to a statement, they still do not necessarily listen to what I have actually been saying. I have talked about finishing the job—the job of lifting standards for all young people in this country.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for her measured and thoughtful statement, which I believe will address the legitimate concerns of many excellent but small rural schools in my constituency. Does she agree that in education, and indeed across all government, we must never let the outstanding become the enemy of the good?

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend and neighbour and I both know that we are very fortunate in Leicestershire to have many great schools, but we also know from our experience that not all young people have the opportunity to attend a good or outstanding school, whether in the midlands or elsewhere. That is why we cannot let up on the pursuit of reforms that lift educational standards.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

That will depend on when exactly the devolution deal is done. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, in our own area of Greater Lincolnshire that deal is reasonably well advanced; in other parts of the country, the deals are less well advanced. Fundamentally, it is pretty simple: we want authorities to be commissioning from their local colleges the adult skills provision that they believe their area can benefit from.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Although the budget is enhanced, it is only a finite amount. Given that, it is important that it is targeted at where it will have the most effect. Does the Minister agree that those funds are best targeted at young adults, the low-skilled and those actively seeking work?

[Nick Boles]

I agree with my hon. Friend that those will often be the best targets. What is even more important is that his local combined authority and those of other hon. Members are best placed to identify the particular groups or industries with particular needs, and then respond accordingly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I was following the right hon. Gentleman’s question up until the last sentence, when he seemed to imply that, somehow, academies were not part of the public sector. He could not be more mistaken: they get their funding directly from the Department for Education, their teachers are trained in accordance with our guidance and they can follow the national curriculum. What does the right hon. Gentleman say to the headteacher who wrote to me after the Academies Show last week, saying that her colleagues were forgetting that children are the priority, change is the reality and collaboration is the strategy. How can it not be our moral responsibility to serve as many children as possible by working together? That is what we want to see.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that a good argument for academisation is to get schools out of the control of loony left councils, such as Brighton and Hove, which is seeking information in relation to the gender assignment of four-year-olds?

[Nicky Morgan]

The point about academies and academisation is that they are the vehicle for schools to innovate, make best use of the freedom to drive up standards and do the right thing for their children, which often does not happen under local authority control. That is what we want to see, and that is why we want schools to become academies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady is right to raise the importance of credit throughout every region of the UK for everyone who thinks a vibrant growing economy is important. We talk regularly with the Treasury about these issues—for example, about the work we do through the British Business Bank, which has provided more than £2.4 billion of financing over the past four years, helping some 40,000 businesses, many of them in the north-west.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

When people take the decision to start their own business, it is on the back of a great idea or they have skills which are useful, but for most people turning a great idea or skills into a business requires expert advice. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that that advice is available to potential entrepreneurs?

[Sajid Javid]

First, I know my hon. Friend speaks with experience. He is a very successful businessman and no doubt he has talked to many businesses about this. One of the ways we try to help is through the growth hubs. We have made sure that every local enterprise partnership in England has a growth hub and we have increased the financing that goes into that, so locally tailored advice is available to local companies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady is right to raise the issue of skills in that industry. The first thing is to do everything we can to help it. Of course, the crisis has inevitably led to job losses, but the measures I referred to earlier will help to protect some of those jobs. We are also talking to a number of companies in the supply chain to see what we can do with skills training to ensure that those skills are transferable.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

I can assure the House that the midlands engine is firing on all cylinders, but it does need fuel in the tank. Will the Secretary of State confirm that more than £2 billion was raised in venture capital in the UK last year, which was up 50% on the year before?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend talks about venture capital and the importance of attracting more and more investment across the nation, and of course in the midlands, too. I am sure he would be interested to know that over the last four years, the gross value added of the midlands region has increased by 15% or £27 billion, while the number of jobs has increased by almost 300,000.