Oral Answers to Questions

Antoinette Sandbach Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

Under our terms, any business that employs fewer than 250 people is a small business, but that does not matter, because the hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Obviously, we meet the banks and encourage them. One interesting thing is the number of businesses that are looking at alternative sources of funding, such as crowdfunding and angels. Those sources are growing as businesses begin to see the benefits of them.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

Small businesses in my constituency very often start up in rural areas. What steps is the Minister taking to co-ordinate with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on broadband connections, particularly in rural areas, which allow businesses to market themselves online?

[Anna Soubry]

I very much agree that this is a big problem, and not just in rural areas. The lack of superfast connectivity concerns many businesses. It has been raised by the Federation of Small Businesses, and properly so. We have put aside £1 billion to assist the programme, but I absolutely agree that more can be done. My hon. Friend can be sure that this matter is at the top of Business Ministers’ priorities. We are working hard to ensure that every business quickly gets access to superfast broadband.

Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap

Antoinette Sandbach Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

One of the real problems is getting girls to study STEM subjects and to access those highly paid and highly skilled jobs. For example, only 19% of girls who achieved an A* in GCSE physics went on to study the subject at A-level. That compares with 49% of boys. Until we tackle that gap, we will not be able to tackle the gender pay gap.

[Nicky Morgan]

I know that my hon. Friend has been participating in debates in the House for a number of weeks now, but I would like to welcome her to her position. She is absolutely right in what she says, and I am going to come on to deal with it in more detail, because it is relevant to my work both as Minister for Women and Equalities and as Secretary of State for Education.

As I have said, one of the most substantial causes of the pay gap is the fact that women are still far less likely to work in more highly paid industries. As Education Secretary, I am very conscious of the fact that that begins with the different choices that children make at school. My hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) has just made the same point.

Oral Answers to Questions

Antoinette Sandbach Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

We know that more women are employed now than ever before. Call me an old-fashioned feminist but—[Interruption.] I understand that Opposition Members could call me far worse than that. I support the many wonderful initiatives that have been introduced to encourage women to come into business and set up their own businesses. It is striking, however, that all the meetings I have had with big businesses have been very male-dominated. We find an abundance of women in the small business sector—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady shakes her head but that is a fact, and that is because women have so much talent.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

12. What plans he has to support the science sector in the next five years.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Joseph Johnson)]

In the previous Parliament the Government demonstrated our commitment to science by protecting the science budget, even as we were forced to make discretionary savings of £98 billion elsewhere. Over the next five years, as we saw in our manifesto, our commitment to science will run through it like the words in a stick of rock. We have reaffirmed our commitment to investing £1.1 billion of science capital, rising every year until 2021, including £2.9 billion on grand challenges.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Thornton science facility was handed by Shell to Chester University, which is attended by many of my constituents. With large, high-skill employers such as Airbus, Bentley and others in the north-west, what more can my hon. Friend do to link employers to educational institutions and encourage the uptake of STEM— science, technology, engineering and maths—subjects?

[Joseph Johnson]

I agree with my hon. Friend that Thornton science park deserves national recognition as an exciting regional centre for innovation, enterprise and higher education. I also welcome the strong leadership from the University of Chester in drawing together an impressive range of partners from business and academia. We need to see more such collaboration between universities and business all over the country.

Skills and Growth

Antoinette Sandbach Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

This has been an excellent debate. It has been made all the better for the outstanding maiden speeches we heard from the hon. Members for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), for Derby North (Amanda Solloway) and for Northampton South (David Mackintosh) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain). I was very glad to hear about the warnings and risks to our line of work from the hon. Member for Northampton South. The hon. Member for Derby North spoke with great courage about the progress we need to make to improve our mental health services. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East spoke with real passion and force about the transformative power of education. They all spoke with great wit, great eloquence and great passion, making a mark on both the debate and the House.

What we have sought to do in the debate is put the challenge of productivity centre stage. I am delighted that the Chancellor has now woken up to the productivity crisis that bedevils us, albeit arguably five years too late. The facts are very clear, extraordinary and alarming: there is now a 20% productivity gap between the United Kingdom and our G7 competitors. What does that mean? It means something pretty stark: what the rest of the G7 finish making on a Thursday night takes us to the end of Friday to get done. If this carries on, it will mean something pretty simple for the UK economy. We will become the cheap labour economy of Europe, while the rest of our competitors—we have heard many of those stories today—will continue to streak ahead. Quite simply, unless we grow smarter, we are going to grow poorer. There is no other way of raising living standards in the medium term unless we improve our productivity. It is good that the Chancellor has finally woken up to this issue. In three weeks’ time, he has the chance to set out a Budget that reflects on the contributions we have heard this afternoon and, crucially, does something about it.

The productivity crisis has come around every decade or two in this country since the second world war. In the 1970s we invented a phrase for it. We used to call it the British disease. Right now, the growth in productivity is worse—not better—than it was at the end of the 1970s. The British disease is back and it is worse than ever. The danger is that this is unfolding at a time when our challenges are getting stronger. We are now all pretty familiar with the strength of the education system in countries such as China and in cities such as Shanghai. I commend the Government for seeking to learn what lessons they can about how we improve our education system from some of those new competitors. I think it is next year, however, that China will spend more on science than the whole of Europe put together. Four out of the top 10 biggest global technology firms are now Asian. We are going to fall behind, and fall behind fast, unless we tackle skills and growth with greater vigour.

Across Westminster and beyond, I think there is an acceptance and a sense that reform of technical education is too fragmentary, not ambitious enough and too piecemeal. What we are seeing in some of the Government’s reforms are challenges to every single rung of the ladder. It is not clear whether the EBacc will apply to all students in all schools, such as UTCs. I hope the Minister can clarify that.

The hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) was heroically, and quite understandably, unable to answer that question. We hope the Minister will do a better job.

The number of unqualified teachers in our classrooms is up 16% at the last count. Half of state schools do not send a single girl to do A-level physics. The CBI says our careers service is on life support. As the Minister will know, the number of apprenticeships for under-25s has not risen in the past year, but has actually fallen. The Secretary of State needs to talk far more about the apprenticeship opportunities she is championing in government for 16 to 19-year-olds. It is now widely accepted that it is not enough for the Government to talk about their ambition for the number of apprentices; they have to talk about raising the quality bar too.

A far-too-small number of apprentices go on to degree-level study. I know the Minister is working hard on this, but it is simply not good enough, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) pointed out, that only 2% of apprentices go on to degree-level studies. At the moment, 70% of higher apprentices go to over-25s, and there has been a 40% fall in the number of people studying for HNCs and HNDs. As a result, the skills gap is getting wider and wider. The chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover, Mike Wright, says that there is a 40% gap every year in the number of qualifying engineers. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) set out with tremendous eloquence what damage that is doing to the fabric of our economy.

Of all the challenges, however, perhaps the most serious is that the Government seem hellbent on destroying the spine of the technical education system—our further education colleges. This afternoon we have heard powerful testimony about the damage being wrought all over the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) spoke with his customary eloquence about the impact of the 24% in-year cut to the adult skills budget. It is hard for cities such as Birmingham to move people up the skills ladder when every rung of that ladder seems to be being broken. He was absolutely right to set out the extraordinary work that colleges such as South and City College Birmingham and Birmingham Metropolitan College are doing, but they are doing it despite the Government, not because of them.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman’s words might have more credence were Labour not doing the same in Wales to further education colleges there. It is clear that cuts are being delivered and that qualifications, particularly in STEM subjects, are not being achieved in Wales.

[Liam Byrne]

The hon. Lady cannot evade the fact that a 24% cut is being delivered to adult education budgets across our country. Right now, colleges and college leaders all over Britain are saying to right. hon. and hon. Members that many colleges are about to fall over. If the Minister is serious, as I hope he is, he has a judgment day coming at him in three weeks. If the Chancellor stands at the Dispatch Box and does not deliver a sensible, sustainable settlement for further education, I fear that the Minister’s ambitions for the future of the technical education system will come to naught.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) set out the horrifying scale of cuts to the City of Liverpool College. I cannot believe that such a college is having to lose 1,300 places at a time when the prospects for regeneration in Liverpool are pretty good. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North talked about the catastrophe unfolding at Dudley College, which is doing anything and everything to help people in Dudley get up the skills ladder, get qualified and get better jobs, and again it is doing that despite the Government, not because of them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) has not been in the House long, but she made a powerful speech about the damage being wrought to Tameside College and the denial of opportunities she is already seeing in her constituency. The right answer would have been to protect the 16-to-19 education budget, which would have delivered a £400 million uplift to further education over this Parliament.

The Government will have to make a decision in three weeks’ time. Are they serious about backing the Secretary of State for Education in her ambitions? Are they serious about backing the Minister for Skills in his? It will be decision time, and Ministers will be judged on whether the Chancellor delivers.