Skills and Growth

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. One of the issues with the productivity challenge is the need for management to ensure continual training on the job and not just in the initial state of the skills. Trade unions play an important role in that. We will get through the productivity puzzle by ensuring that at every stage—from education to skills to employment—we work out how we can get more from our human capital. The link between higher skills and rising productivity is well established.

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

At a time when the Labour party is saying that it needs to be more business friendly, what message does the hon. Gentleman think it sends out when he criticises the jobs created by the private sector? Will he concede that it is far easier to move jobs if a person already has a job and has work experience?

[Tristram Hunt]

I do not think that I criticised any jobs. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is making sure that those working in the potato industry in his places of employment are getting the necessary training, support and growth.

We are failing miserably to provide young people with an education that spreads enough opportunity and excellence for all. The long tale of underperformance—the bane of practically every Government for at least the past 30 years—remains a stubborn reality. You will not be surprised to learn, Mr Speaker, that I believe that the Labour party education manifesto contains some excellent measures that could have boosted our education, skills and training system. For a start, we would have protected further education, sixth-form colleges and sixth forms from the round of cuts already heading their way. We would have thought it rather curious that private schools continue to get tax breaks whereas sixth-form colleges have to pay VAT. That is not what we would call fair. The Government chose to spend £45 million on the Westminster academy free school, while we would have supported education and training in the communities that need it most. That is simply the great moral and ethical difference between the Labour party and the Conservative party.

I strongly encourage the Government to match our manifesto investment in dedicated independent careers advice for young people. By reallocating some £50 million from the universities’ widening participation fund, which, as far as I can see, has not done nearly enough to widen participation, we could have funded effective careers guidance. Our labour market is particularly weak in matching skills supply with demand and there is some evidence that misallocation is a component of our productivity challenge. We need to be more ambitious.

Infant Class Sizes

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The challenge facing seaside towns is often particularly acute in the case of educational disadvantage, so it is absolutely right that we focus on smaller class sizes. It is absolutely right that young people coming into class with lower literacy levels have a good working environment in which to succeed, particularly in the early years.

Labour will tell every parent who is angry that their infant is being educated in classes of well over 30 that the fault lies with the Government’s ideological determination to pour money into the free schools programme. By September last year, the Government had spent £241 million on free schools in areas with no shortage of school places. The Hawthorne’s free school in Bootle was built in an area with no shortage of school places and now faces falling rolls, yet despite being judged inadequate it has received nearly £850,000 in extra “start-up” cash from the Government. Money is spent on adding extra places in areas with a surplus of places, while it is withdrawn from areas of need.

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

The hon. Gentleman’s spin just will not wash with the electorate in Leicestershire. The last Government allowed net immigration to rise to an eye-watering 3.5 million while reducing the number of school places available and, during their time in office, Leicestershire’s schools received the lowest funding per pupil in the whole country.

[Tristram Hunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. More work is needed to raise standards in Leicestershire, and one element that worries me is the growing attainment gap under this Government between children who are on free school meals and those who are not. If we strip out London from the data showing the achievement of children on free school meals, we see that this Government’s record is absolutely lamentable.

Higher Education Policy

Debate between Andrew Bridgen and Tristram Hunt

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

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

The future funding of higher education was one of the immediate issues, like that of the budget deficit, that had to be addressed after the months and years of drift at what I can only describe as the fag end of the previous Labour Administration. If we had not addressed it we would have risked reaching a point of decline in further education from which we would have been unable to climb back. Hon. Members should have no doubt that doing nothing was certainly not an option. The previous Government recognised that, which is why they commissioned the Browne review in November 2009. The review’s remit was to investigate the balance of contributions to universities by taxpayers, students, graduates and employers and to consider how much students should be charged for attending university.

If our universities are to compete in the global economy, they need to be well funded. With a huge budget deficit, one cannot argue that when other Departments are facing cuts, the further education budget could be in any way immune. However, the increase in tuition fees proposed by the coalition Government does not, as the shadow Secretary of State has claimed, signal a wholesale withdrawal of state support for higher education. Under the current system, higher education is funded 40% by the student and 60% by the state, and under the new regime it will be funded 60% by the student and 40% by the state. That is far from the wholesale withdrawal of state funding. The fact that fees are to be capped means that there will be no up-front payments for students. No one will pay anything back until they are earning at least £21,000.

[Tristram Hunt]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that that £21,000 figure is at 2016 money, so in current terms the figure is £15,900? Once someone earns more than £15,900, they begin to pay back.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I would need to check the hon. Gentleman’s figures, but the sum is considerably more than the current level. The bottom 20% of earners will pay back considerably less in total, and those earning less than £25,000 will pay back less than £1 per day for their university education. That is a progressive repayment system. The Government are working on ways to help students from the most economically disadvantaged backgrounds by reducing the fees that they will have to pay back.

In opposition to this, we have the puffed-up inaction of the Labour party and the support given by the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor to the idea of a graduate tax, which is not a solution to higher education funding. It would provide no guarantee that universities would receive the additional funding raised. There is no mechanism for former students to repay early, and it would not allow any differentiation between a student from a lower income background and one from a higher income background.