Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Damian Hinds

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)]

My right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour has been a long-time champion on this matter, and I know his local work well. There are 701 free schools open, and a further 140-plus are in the pipeline. There is a current round of applications for consideration of special and alternative provision free schools, but further capital would be a matter for future spending reviews.

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

T6. The independent review of relationships, sex and health education in schools submitted its recommendations to the Secretary of State back in September. When will those recommendations be made public? If they are not to be made public, why not?

[Damian Hinds]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are conducting a review of RSHE guidance. These are important and sensitive topics and it is important to get them right. He will not have long to wait to see the results.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Damian Hinds

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

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

4. What steps his Department is taking to raise standards in secondary schools.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)]

The dedication of teachers along with our reforms has seen the proportion of good or outstanding secondary schools increase from 64% to 75%, in terms of the pupils in them, between 2010 and 2018.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Unlike the vast majority of senior schools, most of my constituency still operates a middle and upper school system. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the all-through education model is better for raising standards and preferable to pupils having to move school only five terms before they take their GCSE exams? Will he do everything in his power to assist schools in North West Leicestershire that want to transition to the 11-to-16 model?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Damian Hinds

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I have always recognised—and said as much—that we can of course find excellent education provision in a number of different models, as well as academies. Overall, the academies programme has been a great force for good. Something like half a million pupils are now studying in sponsored academies that are rated good or outstanding, and those academies typically replaced underperforming schools.

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

Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the fact that 91% of all the new school places created between 2016 and 2017 were in schools that were rated either good or outstanding?

[Damian Hinds]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend on that; of course, he has a new and particular interest in and concern about the future of the next generation, and I congratulate him on that. It is very important that we are creating a million new school places this decade—that is the biggest expansion in school capacity for at least two generations. It is vital that we do that in good and outstanding schools, where possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Damian Hinds

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

We continue to spend on a range of programmes in the north, and some of the results are reflected in the figures I have just given. Bradford is of course one of the opportunity areas to which I referred, and £1.5 million has been provided to fund school improvements there. We are seeking to support the work of Bradford for Teaching, and Academy Ambassadors is working to further strengthen multi-academy trusts across the north. Altogether, more than £767 million of additional pupil premium funding was allocated to schools in the north, which over-indexed on pupil premium funding in comparison with the rest of the country.

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

The Government did indeed commit themselves to spending £70 million on improving educational attainment in the north. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that they have in fact spent considerably more than that?

[Damian Hinds]

I am happy to confirm that we remain committed to all areas of the country. In English education there is nothing as simple as a north-south divide. There are areas of educational under-achievement in the north, the south and the middle. We need to seek them out wherever they are, and provide the support and accountability that are needed to ensure that those children too can thrive.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Damian Hinds

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

My right hon. Friend is right to identify the challenge that we have in STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths. That goes for apprenticeships and for other parts of the education and training system, as well as employment. It is partly about encouraging girls through programmes such as “Girls Get Coding”. We are taking part in the Year of Engineering, and we continue to support improvements in gender representation through our diversity champions network.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that raising the quality of apprenticeships is just as important as raising the numbers, and that there is evidence that good progress is being made in this area?

[Damian Hinds]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. In reforming apprenticeships, we looked around the world to see what the standards were in leading nations such as Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Having a lengthy apprenticeship with a significant off-the-job training element is very important.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Damian Hinds

Monday 29th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I confess that I have not yet read this morning’s report, but I look forward to consuming it when I have the time to do so with proper attention. My right hon. Friend mentions something on which he has consistently campaigned throughout his time in Parliament, and it is so important that we do not have some sort of wall between the academic and the technical and vocational. Things such as degree apprenticeships are a great opportunity for more people to benefit from certain types of education and to make sure that we widen participation as much as possible.

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

Will my right hon. Friend join me in echoing the phrase used by the BBC and, despite Brexit, welcoming this year’s record number of international students in our university system?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is correct that the United Kingdom remains an exceptionally attractive destination for international students. As he says, the number of non-EU international students is at a record high, and of course we want that to continue.

Landfill Tax (No. 2)

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Damian Hinds

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

We have had a good, if short, debate on this important matter. Let me deal with some of the points that have been raised.

The whole point of landfill tax is to reduce landfill, and it has been successful in that regard. We have seen the amount of waste in landfill drop by 70% since 2000 and average household recycling rates have risen from 18% to 44%. Landfill tax is not the only cause of those beneficial changes, obviously, but it is one cause.

The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) is right to identify aspects of fraud that will not be eradicated by the measure, but that does not mean that the measure is not beneficial; it deals with a large part of fraud. Wider enforcement is also important, and I am assured that HMRC is on top of that. He and I are to meet in a couple of days, and I look forward to discussing in more detail particular issues that arise in his constituency and elsewhere.

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

Does my hon. Friend the Minister appreciate that it is a given that the higher the tax, the greater the incentive for people in the industry to evade the tax? What will the sampling regime be? Who will take samples of the waste and determine what grade of landfill tax is applicable?

[Damian Hinds]

Landfill operators must take a certain number of samples per customer load, depending on the risk profile of that customer. So if the operator has never had a difficulty with a customer before, rightly they should use a light touch, but where there have been problems before, that frequency should increase. There is a loss on ignition test to find out what volume of the sample is degradable and in its steady state there is a limit of 10%, but for a limited period of a year, to allow industry to make the transition, a slightly higher rate of 15% will be allowed.

The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) asked about conducting the tests. The key factor is laboratory capacity. The samples go off to accredited labs, and I have no reason to believe that there is a problem with capacity. It is a commercial line of business.

HMRC compliance in general is a wider issue. HMRC cannot be in every operator’s yard at every moment, but it treats all forms of tax evasion extremely seriously and has a statutory duty to ensure that the correct taxes are collected, as well as a direct incentive to do so.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Can the Minister see that the next area of potential tax evasion will be the sampling regime and what samples are taken from a large load of waste?

[Damian Hinds]

There is probably no fool-proof or fraud-proof system of taking samples. People will seek to get around the regime, but the challenge in compliance is to interrupt that activity and stop it. In the past 15 months HMRC has accelerated its response to tax aspects of waste crime. It has a range of responses, including criminal and civil investigations, and the national waste sector task force takes cross-tax approaches.