Adult Literacy and Numeracy

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will not report you to the ageism commission for that remark, Mr Speaker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), who has been a strong campaigner—the best I have known—on adult literacy and numeracy. She has corresponded with me on the issue many times and I am delighted to be a co-sponsor of this debate along with Members from the other two main parties.

I have tremendous guilt about this issue, because I chaired the Education Committee, which has had various names, for 10 years. We thought we were doing a reasonable job, but I do not think we focused as much as we could have on literacy and numeracy. It is never too late, however, to look at the issue again.

One of the most important things to recognise about this debate is that there are no easy solutions. The answer has evaded all Governments and all political parties over a very long period. During my 10 years as Committee Chair I learned that evidence-based policy is not always the total answer, but it is not a bad place to start. We should ask, “What is the evidence?” I have discussed adult literacy and numeracy with a number of people and there is a great danger that some think they know the answer intuitively. They will immediately say, “The reason is this”, and then give a simplistic explanation that is not based on anything. Only this morning I spoke to a colleague who said, “Well, the reason is the high level of migration in Britain”, but that is not true if we compare ourselves with other countries.

The recent report on adult literacy by the OECD—it was published only this week—is convenient and substantiates everything the hon. Lady said in her very good speech. We are ranked 19th out of 22 nations on the literacy of people aged 16 to 24, and 14th out of 22 on adult literacy. That is a chilling comment on our society.

A fundamental problem in this country is that our social and economic structure has changed dramatically over a short period. As you have said, Mr Speaker, I have been an MP for 34 years, but during my young days as a university teacher—one of the undergraduates I taught at Swansea university is sitting on the Government Benches—the world was very different, in that there were a lot of low-skilled and unskilled jobs in our economy. I remember cycling to Hampton grammar school and seeing a sign outside a factory I passed that said, “Hands wanted”. There was no mention of brains. That was the society in which we lived, with 50% or 60% of people working in manufacturing industry. It was a very different society.

When I speak at universities today and ask people about the social and economic structure of our country, they reply that 30% or 40% of people work in manufacturing, but the real figure is 9.5%, while 30% work in education, health and local authorities—what are sometimes called public services—and 60% work in private sector services. People who work in the early-years and later-years sectors are on the minimum wage or minimum wage-plus. People who work in retail and distribution are on minimum wage-plus. We live in a very different society today. The onus is on people who are seeking employment to have high skills and high literacy and numeracy.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Sheerman]

May I just finish this point? In many ways, we have responded to that challenge. We have more graduates and more talented young people coming through with the advantages of higher education. That is indisputable. However, at the same time, we have failed to deliver basic education to a significant percentage of the population. Those people are very unlikely ever to get anything other than the most menial work on the lowest wages.

[Mr Walker]

I wanted to intervene not to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, but to strengthen his argument. He said that roughly 9% of people work in manufacturing industry. I am sure that he would recognise that the nature of that industry has changed enormously. The skills that are required for people to enter that industry are probably greater than they have ever been in the past 100 years. Even in that industry, it is not just hands that are wanted, but brains. The modern manufacturing world wants people who are literate and numerate, and who can work with computers.

[Mr Sheerman]

That is absolutely right. A lot of manufacturing is coming back to this country because things can be manufactured anywhere in the world with highly sophisticated equipment, such as 3D printers, and only a small number of highly skilled people.

We have the problem that about 25% of the young people coming out of our schools have only one bare GCSE. Something is going dramatically wrong that we have not been able to put right. We must do something about it. I want to make a strong case for looking at the evidence. We need more research into why that is happening.

When I became the Chair of the Select Committee, I had all sorts of assumptions about which parts of our country were underperforming educationally, but that was absolute prejudice. The evidence shows that the coastal parts of the country are among the lowest performing areas. People on the street would say that the north-west performs very badly, but that is not true. It is coastal areas and the east of England, which contains Cambridge university and the Open university, that are the lowest performing areas.

We must look at the facts. Where is the underachievement? What is it in the structure of certain communities that means that people do not value education, do not stimulate their children to be interested in education and do not support them in the school process? We know that the early years are essential. It is important for children at a very young age to sit on somebody’s lap and have those little cloth books read to them. We must get children into reading very early on. We know that that works.

There are many fashions and fads. If there is one thing that we must not do in this debate, it is to be party political. We must not get carried away by enthusiasms. The research on teaching children to read shows that if teachers are trained to use a system and that system is used, it works. It is fashionable to say that only synthetic phonics works. We know that that is not true. If we have a system and train people to use it, we will get good results.

We must carry out research and have systems in place, but we must also have people who inspire us. Mr Speaker, you know that I am obsessed with the English poet, John Clare. When he lived, he had only 100 poems in print. We have since discovered a lost archive of 1,000 poems. He was one of our greatest poets on the environment. He left school at 12, the peasant son of a thresher and a farm labourer. All his life, the only jobs that he got were through standing in the village and being hired. He was only 5 feet tall, so he did not get much work. However, he learned to read at the parish school and was liberated to be an amazing poet. He lived a full life in so many ways.

Only this weekend, I was reading Caitlin Moran in The Times. I am an unashamed devotee of Caitlin Moran—in fact, I got some strange comments when I was in Spain with all our great-grandchildren and I was reading “How to Be a Woman” by the side of the pool. I tweeted that I was getting some strange comments, and Caitlin Moran immediately tweeted back:

“You carry on being righteous, dude”,

which I thought was rather good. Caitlin Moran is a young woman from a family of seven who lived in social housing, and there were a lot of barriers to her succeeding, but she learned to read and could not stop reading. What a fantastic talent she is. From John Clare 200 years ago to Caitlin Moran today; that is how to get kids to be liberated and become full citizens.

When I go into schools and universities I talk about the importance of education and of liberating talent, and I call it “the spark”. The spark is in all of us, if only we can reach it. If a child does not have early stimulation and the support of a network, it is quite difficult for them to find that spark later in life, liberate it and let it blossom. The earlier the better, but it can still be done later on. Further education colleges are good at parts of that and provide basic skills, but there are other ways. Mentors are crucial, and I say to the Minister that they are cheap. I find that business people, professionals and university teachers want to give back, and they will be mentors.

When I talk to university and other students, I say that if they liberate themselves, they will liberate themselves for a good life. The best debate we can have with young people is by telling them that it is difficult to have a good life on the minimum wage. That is true, and we have to liberate young people so that they are not only talented and great providers in our economy but great citizens. We can do that only by tackling the problem as early as we can, and let us do it on a cross-party basis.

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[Mr Evans]

I agree with my hon. Friend—that is exactly what should happen. When I am learning French or Russian, I use the internet. There is an amazing amount of stuff in different languages to read on the internet. It is the same for those who want to learn English, but they need the IT skills to do that. Those things can be combined—lifelong learning clearly involves IT.

[Mr Sheerman]

On that point, is the hon. Gentleman aware of an interesting innovation between Cambridge and Hertfordshire universities? They are working together on a new system that evaluates people’s competences. They begin with competences to start businesses. If people get through the evaluation, the universities give them courses to make them fit to do so. That is the beginning of an interesting process.

[Mr Evans]

I was not aware of that innovation, but the hon. Gentleman shows us the potential that is out there, which we must use to its fullest. We cannot allow millions of people in this country not to live the fullest life they possibly can. They need to be given extra support. All hon. Members recognise that we have let a lot of people down for decades. They will say fairly well the same thing as I have said in the debate—that we need to do a lot more—but when will we start? If not today, when?

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[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

First, I apologise to you, Mr Speaker, and to other hon. Members, for arriving late. I was in a Select Committee interviewing the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary so I could not be here earlier, but I wanted to speak in the debate and I am glad to have the opportunity to do so. I will not speak for too long, because others wish to speak.

I am particularly concerned about numeracy. I used to teach economics and statistics and am familiar with numeracy problems. Lord Moser, who is a splendid member of the other place, wrote a report some 15 years ago that I have talked about in the Chamber many times. He found that more than 50% of the population were innumerate. He illustrated that by saying that 50% of the population did not understand what 50% means. When I write articles for newspapers I do not just write 10% but “one in 10”, to make sure that people get the message, because not everyone understands percentages.

I have encountered many adults with numeracy problems. When I taught economics, the first question I would ask my students was: what is the difference between 1 million and 1 billion? Many of them did not know, so I said that a million is not very much and a billion is quite a lot. I used to ask, “How many houses can be bought for £1 million and how many houses can be bought for £1 billion?” In Luton, one might be able to buy five for £1 million and 5,000 for £1 billion.

[Mr Sheerman]

Was my hon. Friend teaching in the US or the UK? The answer would be different if he taught in the US.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I was teaching in Britain, where of course 1,000 million makes 1 billion—let us get that straight from the beginning.

I met Lord Moser recently at a reception in the House of Lords. He is an elderly man now, but he still despairs of the problem of adult innumeracy. Adults are bamboozled by politicians because we throw numbers about all the time—all parties do it. A Front Bench spokesperson can say, “We are going to spend £20 million extra on the national health service.” Twenty million pounds is absolutely nothing in the scheme of things in public expenditure, but £20 billion is a significant amount. Politicians constantly bamboozle the electorate, knowing that they can be not very sophisticated at handling such numbers.

I used to teach elementary statistics to A-level students studying sociology. I used to do simple sums with square numbers to find the square root. For example, the square root of 100 is 10—that is quite easy. When one of my students said that nine times nine was 89 and 10 times 10 was 110, I realised there was a problem. I have another anecdote. The daughter of a good friend of mine wanted to be a nurse. She had various O-levels, so I said, “Why can’t you be a nurse?” She said, “I can’t pass O-level maths.” I asked her why not. She said that she could not do multiplication because she had never been taught it—imagine that.

We have to go back to a philosophy of education and teaching that was utterly misguided. My wife and my brother are both primary school teachers. In the 1960s, 1970s and, to a certain extent, the 1980s, rote learning of tables was regarded as anathema—absolutely forbidden. Complete and total nonsense. Of course, I angered many of my good friends on the left who thought I was some sort of authoritarian, because I thought that learning tables was a good idea so that people knew that 12 times 12 was 144—elementary stuff.

When I first entered the House in 1997, I raised this issue with the then Schools Minister, Stephen Byers. I said that we had to look at teaching methods and the interface between teachers and pupils, particularly in primary schools so that pupils learn numeracy properly at the beginning. He said, “Oh no, that would be too prescriptive.” Sometimes we have to be prescriptive. We have to say that some things work and some things do not work. Let us look at other countries where numeracy is better.

The international comparison table published in The Independent yesterday showed that we are slipping down the table, and that 16 to 24-year-olds are actually worse than the previous generation. We are now quite low down the table, which is very worrying. If we are to produce the engineers and the skills we need for the future, we have to address numeracy problems. Governments have to look at what works and try to ensure that that is what is applied in schools. It is not enough to reorganise institutions—creating academies and free schools and so on. We have to look at what is happening in the classroom at every state school, because we have a problem.

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[Matthew Hancock]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to welcome the fact that inequality in Great Britain is at its lowest level since 1986 as a result of the efforts of this coalition Government.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) made a passionate speech. I hope that this debate will not become party political because there is no need for it to be; if we all listen to what the OECD said and drive rigour and standards through schools, it does not have to be party political. He also mentioned mentors. We are reforming careers advice to make it about inspiration and mentoring, and to help brokerage between businesses and schools. If anyone had him as a mentor, I have no doubt that they would absolutely value that. He made many extremely important points, crucially recognising that this has not gone well for a long time and needs to be turned around. He said that we have failed to deliver the most basic of education over a number of years, and that is exactly what we are trying to turn around.

[Mr Sheerman]

May I remind the Minister that I was also trying to get over the fact that we have been very successful for one section of our population, really expanding things, at the same time as we have been totally unsuccessful with, and almost wilfully neglectful of, the lower achievers?

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely; I believe somebody once called them the forgotten 50% and they were indeed forgotten. That is no longer the case. Educational reform has to be about making sure that everybody can reach their potential. I was going to say that an intellectual error has been made in the past and we have to put it right. I am talking about the argument that because someone has a low level of education or they are undertaking a low-level qualification—level 1 or level 2—what they are doing does not have to be rigorous, stretching and high-quality. At every level of education we have to make sure that we get as much improvement in pupils as possible. We are trying to put right that mistaking of a low level with the “need” for low-quality and sloppiness.

It is fantastic and an honour to be answering the first speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) has made from the Back Benches for several years. He rightly argued that this is about the fulfilment of lives as well as about jobs and the economy. He, like my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), mentioned the importance of tackling the issues faced by those who have dyslexia, and I could not agree more. It comes back to the previous point: just because someone has dyslexia does not mean they cannot have decent English and maths. It makes those things harder to teach and we need different techniques for teaching them, but we should not have low expectations just because people find something difficult. He also mentioned the importance of the context for learning and, as the Minister responsible for apprenticeships, I often find that people who failed in English and maths in a formal setting thrive in them as soon as they encounter them in a job. That is because suddenly it matters whether or not they can do their maths. If they can, they can do their job.

The hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) mentioned Unionlearn, and I am grateful to her for highlighting it. The Government support it and fund it—it would be great to get some acknowledgement for that. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) talked, as he often does, about financial literacy, and it was great to be able to put that into the curriculum. I hope that it works and that we do not think that the job is done just because we have put it in the curriculum. We have to keep an eye on it and make sure that it really works. He also talked a lot about school reform, which is the heart of the long-term solution to the problem.

My admiration grows for the hon. Member for Luton North. I did not know that he was an economic historian until now.

UK Trade & Investment

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Betts, for calling me in this important debate on UK Trade & Investment and British exports. We spend a great deal of time in Parliament debating and having robust political exchanges about how to spend taxpayers’ money, yet we seem to spend very little time considering how to create greater wealth for this country. It is a great sadness to me that we have had only about four debates about British exports during this whole Parliament, and three out of four of them have been initiated by me. This debate will be the longest of all of them. Very few Members of Parliament have come to take part in this important debate, scrutinise UKTI and work on a cross-party basis to discuss how that body can become ever more productive in using taxpayers’ money well to ensure value for money and make Britain one of the world’s top exporters.

I have spent the past 12 months writing a report on UKTI, which I have sent electronically to all Members of Parliament. If anybody would like a hard copy, I would be grateful if they got in touch with my office. My office and I have spent the past 12 months writing the report and interviewing more than 220 British companies, which sent representatives to our office in Parliament from all over the United Kingdom to give us their analysis of and feedback on UKTI, highlight their recommendations and sometimes frustrations with UKTI and advise how the service could be improved.

One of the first things that we say in the report is that the United Kingdom is the fifth largest economy in the world, yet only the 12th largest exporter. That is an important figure, and I would like the Minister and everybody to keep it in the back of their minds. This small country of ours has managed to become the fifth largest economy in the world. Sometimes we forget what an extraordinary achievement that is. However, we must ask ourselves why and how we have become the fifth largest economy in the world but only the 12th largest exporter. Why are we not the fifth largest exporter, commensurate with our international standing as a global economy?

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on this debate and his fantastic campaign. As I am co-chair of the all-party group on manufacturing, he will know of my passion for and interest in the subject. Is not part of the problem that we have shrunk the manufacturing base to the point where only 9.5% of people in this country work in manufacturing? That has affected things. He is absolutely right that getting through to small and medium-sized enterprises is what UKTI finds most difficult.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

Absolutely. I have agreed to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss those points further. SMEs will be critical in the renaissance of exports that we hope to achieve, and a little later in my speech, I will explain how they must play their part. I will not rest in probing the Government until we have achieved the position of fifth largest exporter in the world. I do not think that that is an unrealistic target.

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[Daniel Kawczynski]

The hon. Gentleman will have to wait and see.

The report makes three or four specific recommendations, which I will highlight to the Minister. One of the most critical is extra parliamentary scrutiny. In the process of writing this report, we went to see the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills and interviewed its esteemed Chairman. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is a large Department, and the Committee is focused on domestic business and skills matters. During this Parliament—I may be corrected if I am wrong—I understand that the Committee has not undertaken any reports specifically scrutinising UKTI.

The Committee and the Department are so large that we need a subsection of the Committee or even, dare I say it, a separate Select Committee. The Minister and others might say that that is unrealistic, but I am putting the suggestion out for deliberation and consideration. Some form of body or mechanism is needed to perform ongoing scrutiny of the work and performance of UKTI. Let us not forget that UKTI receives hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. It is vital that all of us in the House play our role in scrutinising how that money is spent.

If we have additional scrutiny in the House, we can be confident in going to the Exchequer and others when things need additional funding and saying, “This is the work that the House of Commons has performed in scrutinising UKTI, and these are the deficiencies and shortfalls that UKTI faces. We need to secure additional money for it.” One mistake that the Government made at the outset, although I completely understand that budgets had to be cut across the board, was cutting the communication and advertising budgets for UKTI and others a little too much. I am certainly making representations to the Prime Minister to ensure that additional funding is given to UKTI so that it can advertise itself in providing service delivery and market itself to SMEs.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) rightly referred to SMEs. About 47% of British SMEs have never heard of UKTI. They do not know anything about it; they do not understand what services it can provide. How can we expect cutting-edge SMEs, some of which have the most extraordinary innovation and ability to export, to use UKTI if they simply do not know what resources exist? I want UKTI to have product placements, even in soap operas. There could be a storyline where a local UKTI chap comes to see a company to help it export. I want advertising in national newspapers and on the radio and television, so that everybody starts to talk about export and understand that we can use our experiences in other markets to help SMEs export. We all remember the “Tell Sid” campaign, whether or not we agreed with—

[Mr Sheerman]

Some of us are trying to forget it!

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I thought the hon. Gentleman would say that, but whether or not we agreed with privatisation, we all remember the campaign. That is the sort of campaign that I want the Government to proceed with, so that everybody understands and is cognisant of UKTI, and so that no matter how small a business is, if it has the ability to export, it is given that opportunity.

The report also suggests that UKTI should be a single entity. Ideally, I would like it to be an Executive agency. At the moment, it is split between the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Foreign Office, so it straddles two Departments. I fear that when a body reports to two Departments, there may be a degree of overlap or too much interference. I would like it to be a single entity and an Executive agency. What is an Executive agency? The definition is as follows:

“Executive agencies are part of a government department which enables executive functions within government to be carried out by a well-defined business unit with a clear focus on delivering specified outputs within a framework of accountability to ministers.”

I believe that UKTI should be a single entity, with a chief executive who is directly accountable to Parliament for the strategy, focus and organisation of that body.

At this stage, I pay tribute to Mr Nick Baird, the chief executive of UKTI. I think that when I started the report, he must have had a voodoo doll of me in his office into which he stuck pins, because I have been a real pain, but he has always interacted with me, no matter how difficult I have been with him, no matter how many probing questions I have thrown at him and no matter what barbed comments I have thrown his way. He has always been extremely civil, courteous and polite. He is doing great things at UKTI. He is appointing more business people to the organisation. However, I want him to have more autonomy and to be accountable directly to Parliament.

Following all the research that I had done, I wanted to utilise all the passion that I had for exports for my constituency of Shrewsbury, so we have moved on to the next step. Let us not forget that although UKTI is meant to help companies to export, it is also responsible for attracting direct inward investment into our constituencies. We all know that the vast majority—a massively disproportionate amount—of direct foreign inward investment into the United Kingdom goes to London. I want to ensure that UKTI on the ground in Shropshire is working in conjunction with my local council, the local enterprise partnership and the chambers of commerce directly to identify the top 10 inward investment opportunities for Shropshire. I have therefore tasked the UKTI team in the west midlands—Mr Paul Noon is the director of UKTI in the west midlands, and his staff includes Nicky Griffiths and others—with getting round the table with Shropshire council, the chambers of commerce and the LEP. I have brought them all into the same room and said, “What are the top 10 inward investment opportunities for Shropshire?” They are currently working on identifying those opportunities.

However, I suspect that the level of activity that I have described is not going on in every part of the country. I have spoken to many Members of Parliament who have told me that they are unaware of any interaction between their local UKTI teams and their local councils and LEPs, yet in Shrewsbury we have taken the bull by the horns and ensured that that work is happening. My office and I are at this moment writing a case study of exactly what we are doing, which we will share with every Member of the House, so that they can experience what we are doing in Shropshire and, we hope, try to replicate it in their own constituencies.

I pay tribute to Paul Noon and Nicky Griffiths and to Mark Pembleton from Shropshire council for their co-operation, their sterling work and their enthusiasm for getting together, with my encouragement, to start working on the top 10 inward investment programmes.

The critical point that I want to make to hon. Members is that it is no good a council or a LEP coming up with 10 opportunities that are not costed or not properly tabulated in a business format. They must be agreed with UKTI staff in such a way that those staff are happy and confident to sell them overseas, and that is precisely the work that is being carried out now. To ensure that we get extra resources for that project, I have invited Mr Nick Baird to come to Shrewsbury on 5 November. The chief executive is coming to spend a full day in Shrewsbury, so I hope—I am sure this will be the case—that everybody completes the work on those top 10 inward investment opportunities before his visit. Once they have been identified, I will play my part, as someone who is passionate about exports to the middle east and who knows the area. All other Shropshire MPs and everybody else who has a passion for Shrewsbury will also have to play their part in selling the top 10 inward investment opportunities to foreign sovereign wealth funds and countries abroad.

I would like the Minister to follow very closely what is happening in the case study in Shrewsbury and to give us every support in the run-up to Mr Nick Baird’s visit. It is very important that we can show success—that we can show how UKTI can work with the local councils and LEPs on the ground.

I want UKTI to leave no stone unturned when it comes to scrutinising every market in the world as a potential market for British exports. Of course UKTI is focused on the large emerging markets of Brazil, India, Indonesia and others, but we must never forget the very small markets. I came back yesterday evening from Gibraltar, where I had the great honour of addressing thousands of Gibraltarians. Most of Gibraltar came to the square to celebrate national Gibraltar day. I have to say that seeing 20,000 people singing “God Save The Queen” and “Rule, Britannia!” and flying the flag meant that it was a very emotional day for me. I pay tribute to the Gibraltarian spirit. However, because of my passion for exports, I started to ask a few questions about what is happening with Gibraltar. Of course it is a tiny market; of course it has a population of only 30,000 people, but my goodness me, it is more British than we are in many aspects and if we cannot sell to the Gibraltarians, who can we sell to?

I spoke to the deputy to the Governor and was told, “Oh no, it’s not my job to relay any opportunities to UKTI.” Then when I asked the question of the Governor, he looked at me with incredulity: “Oh no, of course it’s not my job.” By the time I had got through everybody, I had found that nobody was relaying business opportunities in Gibraltar to UKTI. Luckily, I have spoken to the Chief Minister, Mr Fabian Picardo, and put him directly in touch with Mr Nick Baird, and they are having a telephone conversation this afternoon to see how UKTI can interact directly with the Government of Gibraltar to ensure that the United Kingdom is aware of every opportunity, whether in construction, tourism or anything else, that exists in Gibraltar.

However, the thing that really upset me was that I found out that exports to Gibraltar are run out of offices in Madrid. I hope that I am not the only one who finds that rather ironic, given everything that Spain is doing to try to strangle Gibraltar at this time. I said to the chief executive, Mr Nick Baird, that it is completely unacceptable. The Foreign Office and UKTI seem to have these hubs. They do not have officials on the ground in certain countries, but commercial activity in smaller areas is directed from a bigger hub somewhere else. I understand that in certain cases, but it is completely unacceptable in the case of Gibraltar. The gentleman in Madrid who is dealing with Gibraltar obviously is very focused on the Spanish market, which probably accounts for 99.9% of this trade. He does not want to upset his Spanish partners. We must have direct contact with the Government of Gibraltar at the highest levels, and I will be monitoring that very closely.

Over the past year, I have created the cross-party British middle east and north Africa council, which more than 200 parliamentarians have joined. I feel passionately about the importance of the Arab world. The 22 members of the Arab League are, after all, our neighbours and of huge strategic importance to the UK from a security perspective. Hon. Members will be horrified to learn that only 5% of British exports go to the region—just 5%, to the whole of north Africa and the middle east.

What is striking when travelling around the middle east is the incredible strength of the British brand. We have good commercial links in the United Arab Emirates, but there is almost no commercial activity in countries such as Mauritania. When I visited Mauritania a few years ago, I was the first British MP to go since 1960. I asked some of my colleagues what they thought of Mauritania and they said that they thought it was a ship. They did not understand that it is an important, up-and-coming country of huge strategic importance with huge mineral resources.

When I went to Tunisia and met the Anglo-Tunisian chamber of commerce, I was notified that only 60 British companies operate in Tunisia, compared with 1,800 French companies. Tunisia is a close, Mediterranean country on our doorstep.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is a very distinguished mathematician and Member of this House, and he is absolutely right: we need to ensure that gifted mathematicians, both recent graduates and those who are changing career, have the opportunity to ensure that the next generation are introduced to the wonder and beauty of mathematics.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the question the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier) just asked not emphasise the point that we need highly trained teachers? We need to get the best out of teachers. They might be good at their academic subjects, but I believe that teachers are made, not born. Is that not right? Will the Secretary of State disassociate himself from the statement by the head of Brighton college, who thinks the reverse?

[Michael Gove]

It is difficult for me to disassociate myself from anything the headmaster of Brighton college says, because he was at the same college as me, in the year ahead, and is a much smarter guy. I owe almost everything I learnt at university to cribbing off him. However, the hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. The whole point about teacher training is that it is not just a matter of one year of postgraduate study; it is a matter of continually refining one’s craft and profession collaboratively with other great teachers.

National Curriculum

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It is right to put forward a proposition, consult on it and amend it when good advice is given. That seems exactly how the Government should operate. On the implementation timetable, as I alluded to briefly in my response to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), we are supporting a number of centres of excellence, not just in mathematics and science but also in outstanding teaching schools that are doing much to raise standards across the country and help deliver change. If evidence suggests that additional support is required in any area, of course we will provide it.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Both you, Mr Speaker, and the Secretary of State now have a vested interest in all things John Clare, and the more John Clare on the curriculum the better as far as I am concerned.

On a more serious note, the proposals look encouraging. I like the consultation process that the Secretary of State has gone through, but I hope it can be further refined because some statements we have heard recently, including over the weekend, seem to suggest that he puts so much emphasis on the very brightest students, rather than on the broad panoply of students. We need the right teaching and curriculum for all our children, not just some of them.

[Michael Gove]

I could not agree more with someone who is increasingly my honourable Friend. First, the more we can do to support the work of the John Clare Trust in bringing that fantastic working-class poet to wider attention, the better. Secondly, the English literature curriculum includes for the first time a requirement to study the romantic poets, which I hope will be broadly welcomed. Thirdly, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and although we expect our brightest children to do even better, I hope the new method of secondary accountability—on which we are still consulting—will make it easier for all schools to recognise their responsibility and obligation to less able students.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress the importance of construction and other sectors in helping to encourage more young people to consider apprenticeships. The Under-Secretary of State for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock)—who sadly cannot be with us, Mr Speaker, because he is enjoying paternity leave—has I think done more than any other Minister, apart possibly from his immediate predecessor, to put apprenticeships on the map and to work with industry to raise the esteem in which vocational training is held.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State realise that many of us who believe passionately in apprenticeships are concerned that the people instructing apprentices should be of the highest order? What is this love affair between him and people who are unqualified working with apprenticeships and in schools?

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

The Harris academy in Beckenham, like all Harris academies, is performing significantly better than its predecessor school. May I place on the record my gratitude for the visionary leadership shown by Lord Harris of Peckham, Sir Dan Moynihan and those Members of Parliament from Mitcham and Morden to Beckenham who have championed Harris academies, often in the teeth of opposition from the National Union of Teachers, the NASUWT and other unions that have acted as the enemies of promise?

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with his own chief inspector of schools that over the past 15 years standards across the urban population of this country have risen remarkably? Will he give the House the opportunity to hear him say, “Well done, teachers. You’ve done a good job. You could do more but you’ve done pretty well over these past 15 years”?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as he is increasingly becoming, for giving me this opportunity to underline that point. Let me first of all praise those politicians from the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) to Lord Adonis who, in the teeth of resistance from trade unions and others, pressed forward the case for reform. Let me praise the former Prime Minister Tony Blair for his courage in doing so. Let me regret that the momentum for reform was lost under the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), but let me above all praise teachers for the fantastic job that we are doing. We have the best generation of young teachers and the best generation of head teachers ever in our schools, and I had the opportunity of seeing some of them when I visited the constituency of Buckingham just over a week ago. In both schools that I visited, Buckingham school and the Royal Latin, I was privileged to see brilliant teachers doing a wonderful job for an MP who believes in the very best of state education.

GCSEs

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I thank my hon. Friend and pay tribute to him for the fantastic work he did in office to lay the foundations for some of the changes we are announcing today. I do think that the exam boards are chastened and that their current leadership recognise that the credibility of the qualifications they offer depends on their policing standards with even greater rigour than ever before.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State will know that rigour and reliability are quite elusive, that many Governments have tried to combine those two and that it is difficult to do so. May I welcome today’s report and what he said to the House, and the fact that this is going to be subject to consultation? However, may I say to him that sometimes he should learn the lesson that I learnt during 10 years as the Chair of the Select Committee, which is that you have to carry people with you—you have to carry parents, students, teachers and the broader community with you—and that he sometimes falls into the trap of being more in favour of disruptive innovation than building a consensus for change, which he really will need?

[Michael Gove]

Those are very generous words from an experienced politician that I shall take to heart.

Children and Families Bill

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Elizabeth Truss]

This is a matter of pressing need, and we are taking forward the following proposals: introducing early-years educator and early-years teacher qualifications; introducing tax-free child care; ensuring that more money for child care goes to the front line; increasing the supply of childminders through the establishment of childminder agencies; and making it easier for schools to take two-year-olds in their nurseries.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The current childcare system is not working for parents. The real cost of child care has risen by 77% in real terms since 2003. Families in England pay some of the highest costs in the world; some spend 27% of net family income on child care. In comparison, parents in France spend just 11% of their income on child care.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Sheerman]

I hope that the hon. Lady does not think I am trying to be disruptive. I was enjoying what she said, but I want to get to the heart of it. She said that the Government are not proceeding with the other proposals, which should of course have due consideration. At the moment, child care in this country is too expensive, and very many women find it a great burden to be able to afford it as compared with those in other countries, especially in Europe. Will the proposals that she is left with do something about that?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree that we have very high child care costs and I will do everything I can, where we can secure cross-Government agreement, to address that. I want to outline some of our proposals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point. Other countries in Europe have flexibility and lower costs for child care. We are seeking to replicate some of their other reforms, and that is what I want to address.

One of the issues is that the UK has some of the lowest staff salaries in Europe. Child care workers here earn £6.60 an hour on average, which is barely above the minimum wage. Annual earnings are £13,000, which is well below the averages of £16,000 in France, £20,000 in Denmark and £22,000 in Sweden. We must reform the supply and funding of child care. If we do not, it will remain expensive and parents will struggle to combine work and family or find themselves cobbling together care, which is difficult and inconvenient. I know of some families where parents work alternating shifts to cover their care responsibilities. I want those families to have good alternatives.

Dual-income families are now the norm across the developed world because of our changing society and economy. In Britain, two thirds of mothers go out to work and many fathers also seek to combine family and work life. If we want parents to have good choices, we have to get better value for money for the £5 billion that the Government spend. International comparisons show that we spend the same proportion of GDP on public support for child care and early years as France and more than Germany, yet, as I have said, parents here pay double the cost that parents pay in countries such as France and Germany, and I do not think that that is right.

[Mr Sheerman]

I would be the last person to volunteer to defend the leader of the Liberal Democrats, but perhaps he was not sure about the overall, holistic analysis of what is going wrong. We pay more, it costs more and early-years carers are paid rubbish salaries, while many settings do not have a graduate in employment, which always lifts the quality. What is the reason for that? There must be one. What do the advisers and researchers suggest?

[Elizabeth Truss]

There are, of course, various reasons, many of which relate to the history of how child care systems have developed in different countries. France, for example, has a long tradition of the école maternelle, which involves structured, teacher-led learning from an early age. That has been shown to improve outcomes for children, particularly those from the lowest income backgrounds. Our reforms seek to make sure that high quality, highly qualified professionals go into early years, and to try to adjust the differential between early years and primary school salaries. I will come on to that later.

Parents need to know that they can access high-quality care. The research is clear: high-quality early learning experiences boost children’s attainment throughout their education. There are many excellent nurseries that provide stimulating, structured learning opportunities for young children, which help them to prepare for school. However, there is much more to do.

Anyone who works with children needs a wide range of qualities, not all of which can be quantified by degrees or diplomas. However, that does not undermine the case for greater skills and better qualifications. In future, there will be two qualified roles: early years educator and early years teacher. Graduate leaders are already having a positive impact. Almost 12,000 early years professionals are trained to deliver high-quality early education and care for pre-school children. Building on that legacy, early years teachers will be specialists in early childhood development who are trained to work with babies and young children. We want to see more crossover between teachers in primary and early years so that there is a continuum of education, rather than two separate silos.

The training programme for early years teachers begins this September. Trainees will have to meet the same requirements as primary school trainee teachers. They must have a degree and will need to pass the English and maths tests. The National College for Teaching and Leadership has consulted on the new teacher standards for early years, which will be published in July.

We are extending the reach of Teach First, which has been successful in bringing talented new people into schools. From this September, it will include teaching three and four-year-olds for the first time. Teach First attracts some of the most talented and ambitious graduates in the country, many of whom might not otherwise have considered working with young children. They can make a big contribution, especially in areas of disadvantage.

We also want to raise the standards of practitioners who do not have degrees. Early years educators will be qualified at level 3. Early education qualifications have been far too diffuse and lacking in rigour, and there are hundreds of existing and historical early years qualifications. We are addressing that failure. The National College for Teaching and Leadership has consulted on new criteria for level 3 qualifications and will publish them shortly. Using those criteria, awarding organisations will develop high-quality qualifications to be introduced in September 2014. The minimum entry standard for the qualifications will be grade C at GCSE in English and maths.

Apprenticeships will offer a high-quality route to becoming an early years educator. They will last 20 months on average and combine employment with study towards recognised qualifications through various routes, including further education colleges.

Careers Guidance

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to participate in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. As all the previous speakers have said, it is a very important debate.

It is also great to see our leader, the Chairman of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), back again. Obviously, all of us wish him all the best for a swift recovery.

It is good to see the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) gracing the education world once more. We remain a happy if not always entirely united Committee, which is good for democracy. This morning, I was busy telling a conference just what the role of a Select Committee is. There seemed to be some confusion, with people thinking that we are just another adjunct of the Government, but if they came along here they would notice that members of Select Committees do not just simply salute the Government, which is another good aspect of Parliament that we should reflect on and be pleased about.

As the Chairman of the Committee mentioned, at our last meeting we talked about destinations, and the Secretary of State mentioned that he was sorry that he had not covered that issue properly in the accountability world. It is a critical issue and I want to say why it is so important that we know about destinations, and why that has an impact on schools in terms of careers. Obviously, if a school is to be measured by the destinations of its pupils in the future, it will show a great interest in finding the best destinations for its pupils and encouraging them towards those destinations. We need to bear that in mind as a stimulus for schools, particularly secondary schools. In other words, if a school is identified as good because of its record in getting pupils into good jobs or good pathways to further their careers and so on, it will establish the mechanisms that will help it to do that. We should work really hard to ensure that we have a destination measurement system in place.

I say that because whenever I ask companies in my constituency what we can do to help, there are usually three things. First, there are regulations; they are talked about by people in just about every organisation. Then, of course, there is criticism of high street banks, because they do not lend. But the commonest question is, “Where do we recruit from? Where are the skills?” We must start working out how we match the demand for skills with the output of our education system. Doing that is critical, especially when we are attempting to rebalance the economy, because while we are doing it we are effectively recalibrating the kind of skills we need. Therefore, we must ensure that people understand where the best opportunities are, both for themselves and for our economy. Business and education need to engage properly.

I have been having conversations with people from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, for example, and they make that point forcefully, because they are aware that there is a bit of a void between many schools and businesses. What do we have to do to improve the situation? First, we must send a signal that now that schools have the responsibility for careers guidance, which they will have for some time notwithstanding the discussion that we have already had today about resources, we must make sure that schools are actually going out to engage with businesses. Governing bodies will have a role, and head teachers have to accept that it is part of their responsibility. It is absolutely right that Ofsted should consider how schools deal with those challenges, and measure the performance of schools and comment on it as part of the inspection package.

Of course, business has to engage with schools as well; there must be two-way traffic. Businesses must communicate with schools, because it is no use their sitting on the sidelines and saying they wish that this or that would happen; they must ensure that they influence the schools. Academies, of course, are more autonomous, so they should be more responsive and more open to contributions from the business world, and certainly from local businesses.

That is an issue we must focus on and the hon. Member for Scunthorpe—

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I was enjoying what the hon. Gentleman said, up to that point, but will he talk about resource? I still visit many schools and they would love to do the things that he has just been articulating, but schools are busy and strapped for cash and resources. When I chaired the Education Committee, the two things that we said a school needed were a person trained to be a careers adviser—it does not come from Buggins—and the resource to get out of the classroom to meet businesses. Does he not agree that resources are crucial?

[Neil Carmichael]

I will just finish my response to the point that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe made. He quite rightly said that local enterprise partnerships should play a role. They should, and we need to see an enhanced role for them. That would be a useful tool to encourage dialogue.

As for resources, of course everybody accepts that we do not have a bottomless pit. Having more resources would be better, but we must work within the framework we have. Businesses should engage with schools from self-interest, and we need to make that point more. I tried to provide some context by pointing out that, in some cases, businesses are concerned about where they are going to recruit.

In my constituency, I have a festival of engineering and manufacturing. I do so for two reasons. First, one in every five jobs in my constituency is connected with engineering and manufacturing; it is a big proportion, which shows we have critical mass. Secondly, I am aware that there ought to be more dialogue between medium-sized firms and schools, so I provide a platform for that dialogue to happen. We organise events, for example constructing electric cars, and various projects involving batteries, computers and so forth. Children come into businesses and find out what it is like to see a business, and business people go into schools and see what the situation is there. We had the festival last year; it was incredibly successful and that is why we are doing it again this year.

We want to see more such initiatives; it is all very well sitting around and saying, “This is what we need to do”, but we have to get on and do it. My festival is a good example. It is not something that everyone would necessarily want to copy, but people may want to consider the messages that it sends out and the mechanisms that it uses.

It is absolutely right that we get businesses into schools. The motivator could well be the destination measurements, and it is really important that teachers learn more about the place of work. That is something else that the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development talked to me about, and I intend to expand that dialogue to see exactly what else we can learn about the way forward.

I finish by discussing economic competitiveness, because as a country we have to be more competitive and make more use of the European Union. I do not want to go through the arguments that we had in the House yesterday, but in my contribution to the economic growth debate, I made a point about the role of the Mittelstand type of companies in Germany. They have linkages with their local community, knowledge of and involvement in local schools, capacity to plan ahead and an interest in ensuring that they get the right supply of skills into their firms, as needed, largely on the basis of knowing what their requirements are and having the contacts to ensure that they can be fulfilled. We need to arrive at such a situation. It requires not resources and bureaucracy but a change of culture, in which schools and businesses start working together to ensure that we have the right skill sets and the right environment for pupils and students to choose careers that suit them and contribute to the rebalancing of our economy and produce more economic growth.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a characteristically acute point. The sharper Ofsted framework, with its greater emphasis on teaching, leadership and, critically, performance management, should ensure that, although these procedures will take less time to execute, they need not be used in many circumstances because heads will have done exactly as he suggests, in that they will have moved quickly to deal with underperformance.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg the Secretary of State to stop giving the impression that he believes that all teachers are incompetent. There are some incompetent teachers, and they should be guided and managed properly, but too many people—both parents and teachers—think he is against teachers. Please will he start working with them, have confidence in them and energise them, in which case children and parents will be very happy?

[Michael Gove]

Again, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me an opportunity to repeat in this House what I say in every speech I give, which is that we are uniquely fortunate to have the best generation of young teachers in our schools, and that standards are higher to a significant extent because of the commitment they make. I am also delighted that so many changes that are happening in education—from the establishment of free schools to the way in which teacher training is changing—are being driven by teachers, who are working with us in a spirit of collaboration.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

We are looking hard at what we can do to extend that protection for the very smallest businesses from burdensome regulation from next year. In addition, we are pressing the Commission to make more proposals to implement its own commitment to a moratorium. We have seen a couple of examples from the European Union so far and we need to see more.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will agree that most of the small firms we meet want light regulation, if none at all, but they also want good finance. What does he have to say about Rich Ricci, who has just been awarded a £16.7 million bonus by Barclays? What has Barclays ever done for small business in order for a man to get a £16.7 million bonus on the same day as the Budget took welfare money away from the poorest in our country?

[Michael Fallon]

I am not sure what that has to do with the red tape challenge, but Barclays is one of the banks that we are pressing hard to do more to lend more to small businesses, and we expect it to steadily increase the take-up of the various Government schemes on offer.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)]

That is a perfectly fair point, but let me reassure my hon. Friend that the single pot funding from 2015 will be allocated not simply to the cities, but through local enterprise partnerships. It is her local enterprise partnership that will be able to make a bid to the Government.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

T4. I do not want to use my topical question to talk about the obscene Barclays bonus; I want to ask whether the Secretary of State is aware of the fine example of CEEP—clean and energy efficient production—and sustainable manufacturing in our country’s industrial production. We are a world leader and we have amazing markets in China and India for this product. Will he put even more effort behind CEEP—he has done well up to now—so that we can conquer those markets?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, absolutely. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s acknowledgement that we have done well up to now. I have visited Huddersfield twice to see some of the successful companies there, and I am very happy to see more.