Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

That is a tempting question, but actually we have achieved a huge amount. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who has worked closely with me and my officials on driving through this programme. It is hard to see how we could have done much more in that context.

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

T4. Does the Minister agree that one of the great failures of this Government has been their inability to check the quality of private companies engaged to deliver our people’s public services? Has that not been one of the fatal policy weaknesses of this Government?

[Mr Maude]

We have improved the quality of the commercial directors and teams across Government so that we can monitor much better what is done than was the case under the hon. Gentleman’s Government, and I announced yesterday some principles for transparency that will take this process yet further. It is much better than it was, but there is still a lot to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Yes, I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. After such a long period of over-centralisation of decision making in Whitehall, the fact that this coalition Government have finally been able to set Greater Manchester, Cheadle and other parts of the country free from excessive Whitehall control is a great achievement that has been accompanied by a rebalancing of the economy. Sixty per cent. of the net growth in jobs has taken place outside London and the south-east. That contrasts very favourably with Labour’s record.

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

Is the Deputy Prime Minister actually going to tell me, or the people in Yorkshire where I represent the town of Huddersfield, that this late conversion to the northern powerhouse and all this talk is anything more than pie in the sky? The Government should have been doing something about the northern regions in the past five years.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

What an absurd thing to say for a member of a party whose Government presided over a decline in manufacturing that was three times faster than under Margaret Thatcher, and who saw the north-south divide open ever wider during the 13 years of the Labour Administration. We have not just started this in the later stage of this Parliament; we have introduced city deals and local growth deals, we have devolved more funding, and we have devolved control over business rates—something never, ever undertaken by Labour.

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[Mr Speaker]

It is no surprise that the previous career of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) was as a Foreign Office diplomat. He is able to react to any situation, even when he is busily consulting his iPhone. We are deeply obliged to him.

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

T9. I notice that the Deputy Prime Minister is responsible for building strategic relations with Europe. Given how weak our country is in Europe and NATO and how so many people compare this Prime Minister with Neville Chamberlain, is he proud of the job he has done promoting Britain in Europe?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman gets very worked up. It is no secret that there are differences of opinion in this coalition Government on some of the big long-term issues concerning Britain’s future in the EU. My party will never argue for withdrawal from the EU, because we think it is in our overwhelming national interest to remain part of it. I would say this, however: political and diplomatic strength is directly related to economic strength, and, in my view, if we stay the course and finish the job—and finish it fairly—of fixing the finances and continuing to rewire the British economy, within a generation it could be the largest and most potent economy in Europe, which will deliver considerable clout to future generations.

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[The Attorney-General]

I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend. It is right that, where mistakes are made, they should be learned from, but of course, as he will appreciate, it does not follow that cases that result in an acquittal should never have been brought as prosecutions in the first place. That is not the way the system works; it is important to make that point. It is also right, as he has heard me say before, that regardless of what someone does for a living or their position in society, if a prosecution is appropriate, according to the evidence and the tests that are applied, it should be brought.

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

Does the Minister believe that it would be better for the CPS to have clear guidelines? Should not statutory rape, which ends at 12 at the moment, be extended to a higher age, or should we even consider raising the age of consent to 17?

[The Attorney-General]

The hon. Gentleman asks some interesting questions to which, fortunately, it is not for me to determine the answers, but I am sure that he will appreciate that it is important that wherever the boundaries are set, the CPS prosecutes under the law as it stands as effectively as it can, and we must do all we can to ensure that it does.

European Council

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, may I thank my right hon. Friend for the valuable work that he has done for his constituents in this House, but also as part of the Government both in Northern Ireland and at the Ministry of Defence? He has played an absolutely crucial role, and he will be missed.

On the issue of Russian money, we have some of the toughest controls anywhere in the world in terms of money laundering and other such issues. I would make the point that Britain has very much been in the vanguard of arguing for sanctions on Russia and Russian individuals, even though it could be argued that this might in some way disadvantage investment coming into the United Kingdom. We have put the interests of Europe and the interests of the Ukrainian people first.

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

Is the Prime Minister aware that many of us on the Labour Benches who are pro-European want what our allies want, which is a strong Britain in a strong Europe? Yes, we want a reformed Europe—all of us are in favour of reform in Europe—but we are not in favour of weakness and vacillation, which manufacturers and exporters in my constituency say will damage this country over the next three years while we wait for a referendum.

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman says that he is in favour of reform, but I have not heard one single proposal from the Labour party about anything it wants to reform. He is presumably standing on his leader’s ticket, but I do not know whether he has his picture on his leaflets. When I met my Labour opponent in Chipping Norton market square this week, I had a look at his leaflet, and there was not a dicky-bird when it came to the Leader of the Opposition. It could have been from a totally different party. There are plenty of pictures of me. The Leader of the Opposition has said:

“I don’t think Brussels has got too much power”.

That is the official position of the Labour party: it is not for reform, but for the status quo.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman made a very interesting point, but I am finding it hard to relate it to the question under consideration.

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

6. What system is used for identifying potential candidates for public appointments.

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)]

As was the case under the last Government, appointments to public bodies are made on merit by Ministers after a fair and open selection process regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. We have taken unprecedented steps to open up the public appointments process to new talent, slimming down the application process, placing an emphasis on ability rather than prior experience, and increasing awareness. In the first six months of the current financial year, 44% of new public appointments made by Whitehall Departments were women, compared with about a third under the last Government.

[Mr Sheerman]

The Minister knows that, following the fiasco of the Home Secretary’s attempt to appoint a chairman of the inquiry into child abuse allegations, there is a sense that there is a black book or a secret list, dominated by the metropolitan elite. They are all from London, they all know each other, and they all went to school together. When will the Government open up the secret list, and let us know how people get on it?

[Mr Maude]

As I have said, we have moved significantly towards our aim of ensuring that 50% of public appointments are of women. I recently hosted events organised in Birmingham and Leeds to encourage people from outside London to express interest and apply for such roles, and I am delighted to say that there was a huge amount of interest. We will continue down that path. [Interruption.]

Growth Deals

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is right. I am delighted that the thaw has started in Buxton, although I am sure it looks even nicer under a covering of snow. From a rival spa town of Tunbridge Wells, I commend the attractiveness of the great town of Buxton and I hope to be able to visit it to see the impact of this investment.

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

The Minister will know that Huddersfield is not a city but that the Kirklees local authority is one of the largest in the land. Nobody from my constituency would not welcome new money to the university of Huddersfield or our area, but may I put this in context? The research published last week by the Centre for Cities gives a very different picture of the way in which over the past five years power and resources have flowed to the richest parts of our country, particularly to London and the south-east. Is he aware of how much of a cut people in Kirklees have suffered in recent years and face in the future? Services are being cut at every level.

[Greg Clark]

The university of Huddersfield is a strong institution. I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a particular interest in its connections with business, so I hope he will welcome locally the investment that has gone in there. The Centre for Cities is a good and valued think-tank. It carried out a 10-year review of the performance of cities over that period. It did not split what happened before 2010 from what happened subsequently, but when one does that, the story is striking: most of the net new jobs before 2010 were in London and the south-east, whereas most now are outside London and the south-east. Strikingly, since 2010 the list of areas that have had the biggest fall in unemployment, as measured by the claimant count, is topped by Liverpool, followed by the black country, Birmingham, Teesside, Manchester, Coventry and Warwickshire, the Humber, and Stoke and Staffordshire. That is a picture of the revival of our local economy, which is due to the efforts of local leaders but backed by this Government.

Higher Education Funding

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the Third Report from the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, Student Loans, HC 558, and the Government response, HC 777; and calls on the Government to outline proposals that will sustain funding for the sector while addressing the projected deficit in public funding.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to hold this debate, which is of huge significance to universities up and down the country and, indeed, to the cohorts of students at or about to go to those universities. The debate is essentially about the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee report on student loans. I must thank my Committee colleagues because the report’s recommendations to the Government were unanimously agreed on a cross-party basis. It is fair to say that they reflect the concerns of Members from both sides of the House.

I will also draw on other reports not mentioned in the motion, including some by academic and university institutions, but particularly a report by the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies and one by the Higher Education Commission. I stress that the IFS is an independent body with expertise across both the academic and economic spheres, and that the Higher Education Commission report was co-chaired by the Conservative peer Lord Norton of Louth and Dr Ruth Thompson. Although the reports’ details may vary, their conclusions are remarkably coherent and consistent.

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

My hon. Friend will know that I used to co-chair the Higher Education Commission. I have a copy of the “Too Good to Fail” report, which we produced on an all-party basis, and I thank him for mentioning it.

[Mr Bailey]

I understand that my hon. Friend is due to speak, so although I will draw on his report, I will not pre-empt him by discussing its conclusions.

The motion mainly deals with the policy’s public spending and budgetary aspects, but it is important to recognise that we are not just talking about money. Higher education is vital to the economy of this country and to our society. It is an £8 billion export earner and attracts students from all over the world, because British universities consistently feature at the top of the rankings of world universities. In addition, universities drive and sustain economic growth in their immediate local economies, which are often in some of the most deprived parts of the country.

For an individual going to university, such an education is a potential path to personal fulfilment, and of course an economic advantage. Various estimates of graduate earnings show a minimum of something like £150,000 earned by a graduate over their lifetime over and above what they might expect had they left school after A-levels, and many estimates show more.

The Treasury estimates added benefits from taxes earned, and further benefit to employers through productivity gains. In short, higher education in this country is a success story that needs to be sustained, and it is crucial to reinforce Britain’s position in a global economy that is becoming ever more competitive.

[Mr Bailey]

My hon. Friend, as ever, touches on the key issue underlined in the Committee’s report, and I will address that issue in due course.

As I was saying, higher education is a success story and vital for our economy, our society and the aspirations of millions of young people in the country. To underpin it we need a funding system that enables it to respond to the demands that will be placed on it by outside pressures, and to sustain its role as a driver of social change. The current funding system is based on recommendations in the 2010 Browne review and subsequently implemented, with some changes, in 2012. The key change was to replace direct Government funding of university teaching by a fees-based system payable by individual students on the basis of Government loans through the Student Loans Company, capped at £9,000. Those fees are to be repaid after graduation once a salary of £21,000 has been reached, over a period of 30 years.

There were short-term benefits to that model. It removed the cost of funding from public accounts, except for those costs that would have to be written off through under or non-repayment in the future—technically known as the resource accounting and budgeting, or RAB, charge. That model benefited the universities because it led to an increase in funding at least in the short term, and it benefited taxpayers because there was a drop in public subsidy per student of something like 5%. The benefit to the student is far less clear. Although the system delays payment for education until later in life and is income-contingent, the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that the average debt per student will be more than £44,000 for a combination of tuition fee and maintenance loans. In its report the Higher Education Commission stated that focus groups demonstrated a low level of awareness among students about that issue and its potential implications for them.

[Mr Sheerman]

The IFS and the commission report highlighted the fact that many students we interviewed had no idea that the debt would be that much. They will possibly never be eligible to get a mortgage later on, which I find absolutely stunning, astounding and disgraceful.

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[Mr Bailey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his observation. When I speak to sixth formers and potential undergraduates I always make the point that, compared with the cumulative spend in their lifetimes on cars that depreciate immediately, investing in their education is a very good investment. But it will have consequences for patterns of consumer expenditure, the full implications of which we do not yet know.

[Mr Sheerman]

I am sure that my hon. Friend would not wish to mislead the House and I know that he is replying to an intervention, but the IFS study says that middle earners—the public administrators, the health and education workers—will be particularly affected. That is 40% of graduates, so we are not talking about a small number who may never be able to get a loan for a house.

[Mr Bailey]

I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes and I could talk about it at some length, but I recognise that other people wish to speak in the debate so I will not pursue it any further.

It is now clear that the level of debt repayments is predicted to be much lower than when the scheme was initiated. In the early days, the Committee questioned the Minister on that point, and the estimate was a level of default of between 28% and 30%. It is now acknowledged by the Government that the rate is 45%, and that may rise. In crude terms, for every £100 the Government lend, they get only £55 back. That has huge implications for the Government’s long-term budgeting.

The principal reason for the projected increase in non-repayment is the fact that graduate income has not grown as anticipated by the Office for Budget Responsibility. That will keep an increasing number of graduates below the repayment threshold, and even if they reach the threshold they will repay at the lower rate, commensurate with their lower income. That will mean that they will be unlikely to pay off the debt within 30 years.

The IFS has estimated that 73% of graduates will not repay in full. We can add to that the difficulties that the Student Loans Company has had in securing repayments, particularly from former students living abroad, so there is a basic problem and other administrative problems.

The Select Committee has made recommendations on the latter. If we look at the implications for annual budgetary expenditure, we find that £7.4 billion in loans was given to undergraduates in 2012-13. In 2015-16, that figure is estimated to be £12.6 billion. If we estimate that nearly half of the loans will not be paid back, it is clear that that has enormous implications for future budgetary planning. If that were not a big enough problem in itself, the Chancellor added to it in his 2013 pre-Budget report by announcing the lifting of the cap on student numbers to allow the additional recruitment of 30,000 students. He tacitly admitted that there was a funding problem when he said that that would be funded by the sale of the student loan book. The Committee subsequently questioned Ministers and others on that. We expressed considerable concern that such ongoing expenditure should be financed in this way, and we were very doubtful about the Government’s potential to balance their books by doing so.

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

What a privilege it is to take part in this debate. The quality of the contributions has been excellent. The House will recall that I have been involved in higher education for a very long time. Over the 10 years that I was the Chair of the Education Committee it partly covered higher education, so I was very absorbed in the subject. I was also a university teacher for 12 years, back when I used to work for a living, as I sometimes say—like the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley), I am one of the few Members who had a career before entering this place. The fact of the matter is that this has been a very high-quality debate.

I care deeply about higher education and love what it has done for my generation. I am the youngest of five children and the only one to go to university. I got into the local grammar school and was saved by going to Kingston technical college and then getting a scholarship to the London School of Economics, where I am now a governor. Higher education made my life. It gave me opportunities that my brothers and sister never had. I think that we underestimate just how powerful it can be and just what it has done in a short number of years for the people of this country.

I was at the LSE when the Robbins report was being written. Indeed, we had to walk quietly past the great man’s study in case he was behind the door, working on the royal commission. What he came up with still guides us, and I still think that it is right. He said that higher education should be paid for through a fair balance between the individual who benefits, the employer that benefits and society. That thread has run through all the contributions we have heard today. We are still concerned about how to deliver that fairness and that balance.

I do not want to repeat the excellent contributions we have heard on funding or to get into the black hole, so I will instead focus my remarks on delivery. However, I will say that the reason I gave, as co-chair of the Higher Education Commission, for doing a report on the long-term sustainability of higher education in our country was that everyone is talking about it. As my old friend the right hon. Member for Havant (Mr Willetts) knows, the higher education sector is very gossipy, and people in every corner—including vice-chancellors and business people—have been asking whether this is a long-term, viable model. They are asking that because higher education is so vital to our future. To get it wrong would be disastrous for our country’s future.

Fifty years ago Harold Wilson, who was born in my constituency, delivered a speech to the Labour party conference in Scarborough. It is now known as the “white heat of technology” speech. He said that for years this country had been ruled by a few people who went to posh schools and then to Oxford or Cambridge and who were essentially amateurs, but that the new world had no future for people without skills, or even for semi-skilled people. He saw that the future was in high skills, quality management and high science. He told us to look at what was happening in Russia: they had put a man into space before the Americans. He had been to the United States and seen production lines in the automobile industry where nothing was touched by a human hand. He could see that as a country we had to become highly skilled.

Harold Wilson also said some ridiculous things in that speech. He said, “Why do only 5% of people go to university? It should be 10%.” What a silly statement—I say that in jest. Why should we not have a university in every former industrial town? When Labour won the election a few months later, the polytechnics were introduced. There is a lovely story that Harold, when given the list of colleges of technology that were to be brought up to polytechnics, said, “Eee, where’s Huddersfield?”, before writing it in. I mention that because it is an amusing story, but there is a serious point: any town or city in this country that does not have a university cannot get into the super league. Up and down the country, large towns and cities that do not have a university—Huddersfield is lucky to have one—are in a lower league. I do not mean to decry those places, but universities are so important to the life of our communities, to their wealth and success. If we took them out of our towns and cities, we would be left with very little.

[Mr Binley]

I made a point earlier about being a secondary modern schoolboy at a time when only 2% of the population went to university, and I desperately regret not being able to take advantage of further education. I am really glad that so many of our young people can now do so. I was one of those boys that Harold Wilson was perhaps talking about—I was not a great fan of his, but that is another matter. Thank God we have a university that is doing its job so well in Northampton. I agree with the hon. Gentleman in that respect.

[Mr Sheerman]

I have a close relationship with Northampton university and its excellent vice-chancellor and know of its commitment to social enterprise. I am astonished by how few Members are in the Chamber for this debate. Huddersfield university is the biggest employer in my constituency, the biggest bringer of wealth, and it is what makes my town so vibrant. It has 25,000 students, and growing, and a massive number of staff. Think what that means for local businesses and supply chains. It pays very fair wages and sticks to all the principles. Indeed, not only was it last year’s university of the year, but it has just been given an award for the best level of employability of graduates. I will say more about that in a moment.

What Harold Wilson said 50 years ago is even more true today. If we do not produce the high skills we need in this country to compete and earn our living, we will be in dreadful trouble. Out in India, Brazil and China there are masses of people getting high-level and very practical qualifications. In every area where we have expertise we will find more and more competition as time goes on. We have to become brighter and smarter all the time. There is no place in our society for people without skills. That is a tragic aspect, but it is also a hopeful one. We have built up a fantastic university structure.

When I got the “Too Good To Fail” report going, what I wanted to say was that we do not want to throw everything up in the air. I do not want another Browne report, and I do not want to have to go back to the LSE and have another Robbins report. It is time that sensible men and women get together, as we have today, and say, “The system is working fairly well, but there are some real problems—can we fix them intelligently by co-operating?” The interesting and remarkable thing about the way in which higher education policy was produced, as Members might remember, is that it came out of an all-party agreement not to discuss the subject during a general election. We said that we would set up an inquiry agreed by both sides—Opposition and Government—and let it get on with its job.

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful speech that I agree with. He talks about the fantastic system we have. However, it is basically a market-based system that is not delivering the balance of skills that the country needs. For example, we need 500 power engineers a year but we have only 100 undergraduate places. What does he think we should do about how the market delivers what the country needs?

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates the second part of my remarks, and I do not want to detain the House for much longer.

I wanted to begin by setting the scene in establishing how important universities are to towns, cities and communities. Our higher education system is pretty marvellous. People come from all over the world to see it. I show them around and they marvel at its quality. However, it is not perfect; the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in many ways. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) said, we are not delivering the right product in our universities. All my vice-chancellor friends will disown me for saying “product,” but it is a product.

Are we delivering the kinds of graduates our country needs? In lots of cases, we are—they are brilliant. My own university has one of the best design departments in the country. Young people who do its fashion degrees are snapped up by fashion houses all over the world. Indeed, the head of Burberry is one of our graduates. Mechanical engineers and design engineers are snapped up by Formula 1. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) has a son who is a graduate working in F1 because of the fine quality of the department. We do loads of things right—of course we do—but often not in a way that is appropriate to what is really needed.

That is not to say that things are not happening. There are people doing two-year degrees in Coventry. Skoda Coventry has people doing degrees either only in the morning so they can work in the afternoon, or only in the afternoon so they can work in the morning. The diversity of what is being done around the country is much greater than we might think.

[Mr Denham]

In its evidence, million+ said that the political sensitivity of fees denies it the chance to run two-year degrees that would cost 80% of the cost of a three-year degree, because that would take the fees to more than £9,000 a year, even though the degree would be cheaper. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to remove some of the artificial constraints that have stopped universities being as flexible and creative as they would like to be?

[Mr Sheerman]

That is absolutely right. We must find the right model and give opportunities to people. Part-time degrees have plateaued—some say diminished—but not in Scotland and Wales, interestingly. We need a more flexible system.

I get a bit tired of the CBI saying, “We’re not getting the right people with the right skills as graduates”, but there is a strong element of truth in that. When people are delivered having finished their degree, there should be a strong element of their being fit for employment. When a good arts or social sciences graduate comes to see me, I say, “You’ve got an arts degree—go to Cranfield or the LSE and get yourself a business degree or something with economics that is much sharper, because that is what the market is looking for.” That is a good combination, but it creates a greater level of debt, and a lot of people are reluctant to increase their debt.

The level of debt is always on my mind. Young people’s inability to get mortgages is a very important issue. We are in an age when it is getting more and more difficult for people to get a home of their own. Many people are still living at home with their parents when they are in their 30s. Those within the middle-income areas in public services, education and health will be most hit by the inability to get a mortgage.

I do a great deal of work in identifying entrepreneurs and increasing their ability to be entrepreneurs. As some Members will know, a lot of it involves crowdfunding and crowdsourcing. I have been working with a number of universities to ensure that they are knowledgeable about crowdfunding platforms. Then, when their undergraduates become graduates and want to start a business, there is on the campus, as in Northampton, an ability for them to get money through crowdfunding for start-ups. When I go to universities nowadays, I look very carefully at how much space there is for young entrepreneurs. They do not have to be a private entrepreneur; they can be a social entrepreneur. Enterprise and entrepreneurship is going to be the future.

When people ask me why the industrial revolution started in places like Huddersfield, I say that it is because we had cheap power in the form of the water that flowed from the Pennines and turned the water mills that made the factories possible; we had high skills; and—people tend to leave out the third element—we had entrepreneurs who could put all that together and make something. Our universities have to be much more focused on how to create opportunities for entrepreneurship to be not only learned but encouraged. As opposed to the old, tidy world of going into the City, academic life, or whatever—the traditional occupations—we have to make it much more possible for young people, and older people, to find the spark of enterprise and entrepreneurship.

By the time people have graduated, they should understand some of the rules of how to be interviewed properly and organise themselves properly. That would make a real difference. I once horrified some people at a meeting in the House when I said that I would teach management from four years old onwards. I chair the all-party management group. Managing one’s life is pretty darn important. When I talk to undergraduates, I find that they do not know how to manage their life. If they did, they would be much more likely to get a job.

I go round universities all the time. I am a visiting professor at Huddersfield and at the Institute of Education in London. I talk to graduates and they do not know what the British economy is like. I ask, “How many people in this country make anything?”, and they say that the figure is 30% or 40%, but of course it is less than 10%. We have 1% of people working in agriculture, 30% in what Conservative Members tend to call public services—but I call it education, local government and health—and 60% in private services. People working in early-years or later-years care will be on the minimum wage or minimum wage-plus, as will those in retail and distribution. When I tell students this, they say, “Wow, is that true?” Then I say to them, “If you’re on the minimum wage or minimum wage-plus, you can’t have the good life.” Someone at the back always puts their hand up and says, “Mr Sheerman, I really disagree with that. You can have the good life in a cave—it is in your heart.” Then we get into the best discussion of the reason most of us come into Parliament—to give the people we represent and the people of this country the good life. We con people if they end up thinking that one can have the good life without high skills.

The model for universities has to be refined; we do not have to throw everything up in the air. We need more flexible degrees, with much more emphasis on people being work-ready and enterprising so that they can become entrepreneurs.

This has been a tremendous debate, and the quality of the speeches has been excellent. For the first time in a long time, I may not stay until the end. I have a sick elderly relative who has been rushed into hospital with pneumonia, so I may have to disappear, but that is no disrespect to those who speak after me.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

As my hon. Friend well knows, the quality of data in central Government that we inherited was not good. It is getting better, but there is much more that needs to be done. The new chief executive of the civil service, who has got off to a terrific start, has a lot of experience in the management of big, complex dispersed organisations from his business background and I am sure that he will want to discuss that further with my hon. Friend.

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

Is the Minister not aware that there is a great deal of disillusionment in the civil service? Is it not our job in this House to support really good people with the highest level of skills coming into the civil service so that they are happy and motivated in their job? What will he do about morale in the civil service?

[Mr Maude]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need to support the development and skills of civil servants and to provide them with rewarding jobs. Obviously, the purpose of the civil service is not to provide jobs but to serve the public. I am happy to tell him that morale in the civil service, as measured in the annual people survey, has held up very well—it has certainly not fallen since the last year that his Government were in office—despite the very considerable demands made on it and the downsizing to which I have referred.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we want high-quality jobs to be sustained in the future, we need to invest in skills. That is why the Gloucestershire growth deal will see substantial investment in training in such skills at the former Berkeley power station. I know that he has been a big champion of that.

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

May I wish you a happy new year, Mr Speaker, and the Deputy Prime Minister a happyish new year—[Interruption.] A little humour, Mr Speaker. May I push the Minister on regional growth funds? The fact is that none of us will turn down help from the regional growth funds and my own constituency has some, but, at the same time, we have a totally demoralised democratic local government in this country that is desperately short of funds and desperately unable to meet the needs of local people. Is it not about time we had democratic, well-resourced local government in this country?

[Greg Clark]

The news from the shadow Chancellor will not be welcome in the hon. Gentleman’s patch, as the shadow Chancellor has said that there will be more cuts for local government. He might want him to explain that. The leaders of the councils in Leeds warmly welcomed the growth deal concluded in July, which establishes a £1 billion transport fund for west Yorkshire that will benefit the hon. Gentleman’s constituents as well as others across west Yorkshire. That was warmly welcomed by leaders across the region, so I think that he should talk to them.

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[Mr Speaker]

May we have a very brief question from Mr Barry Sheerman, and a very brief answer?

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

I have encountered a case in which someone was bailed for even longer without being charged. That has ruined the lives of two people, and it has gone on and on. What is the longest period of bail without charge of which the Attorney-General is aware?

[The Attorney-General]

I cannot answer that question off the top of my head, but I will of course write to the hon. Gentleman, and I agree with him. We need to consider this issue carefully, and to ensure that in the generality of cases there is a clear expectation of a maximum length of time that people should spend on pre-charge bail before minds are made up about what to do in such cases. That is what the consultation is about, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman and others will contribute to it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. When, on the recommendation of Baroness Lane-Fox, we adopted the digital-by-default approach—if it can be done online, it should be done only online—we stressed that there must be an assisted digital alternative for those who are not online, and we will ensure that that is the case.

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

May I congratulate the Minister on much of the innovative work he has done in the digital area, thanks to Martha Lane Fox, the Cross-Bench Member of the House of Lords? Will he, however, take on board the fact that older people in this country find it very difficult to make the transition from the traditional to a digital way of communicating with the Government?

[Mr Maude]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his compliment. We are trying to make a lot of progress, and the British Government are now regarded as world leading, after having been, frankly, a byword for failure in Government IT. Other Governments are now using the source code for gov.uk, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Baroness Lane-Fox leads the Go ON UK charity, which is dedicated to getting more people online, which is the key purpose. When we provide the assisted digital option, we ideally want to frame contracts so that they incentivise the provider not just to provide a service, but to use it to help individuals to get online so that their lives are enriched more widely.

Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

The city deal with Glasgow was signed during the summer and it is proceeding apace. The medical research centre will be one of the most exciting, cutting-edge opportunities in the country. It involves a long-awaited connection to Glasgow airport and the city. I have received indications from other Scottish cities that they would welcome very much a city deal of their own. No decisions have been taken as to whether that is possible, but I listened very carefully to the representations.

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

The Minister will know that Huddersfield is part of the Leeds economic partnership area. We are not against city deals—we are very interested in them—but, strategically, what is their democratic content? What is the plan for long-term democratic participation? How are we going to attract good people to come in and be the democratically accountable people who run the city deals?

[Greg Clark]

The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point. One of the sadnesses of the tendency to suck power away from our great cities to Westminster and Whitehall is that it reduces the authority and the influence of the leaders of the cities, towns and counties. Empowering the cities and getting them to enjoy their renaissance is a powerful incentive for people to come forward with the ambition and aspiration to lead them, and that is what we are doing.

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[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman is now languishing—as he puts it —elsewhere and is able to ask his question. He appears to have forgotten that the proposal to equalise constituencies was part of a wider package of constitutional reform. A deal is a deal, and his party, having committed solemnly to the British people to push for House of Lords reform, flunked it. Quite understandably, therefore, the deal could not be proceeded with.

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

T5. Has the Deputy Prime Minister seen today’s report from the cross-party Higher Education Commission that shows how awful the situation is that students in debt face for the rest of their lives? Some 68% of them will never pay back their loan, and many will never get a mortgage, because he deserted them, broke his pledge and voted for £9,000 fees?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am perplexed. When those controversial changes were introduced, the hon. Gentleman said they would be too harsh on students, but now he is criticising them because students will not have to pay off their outstanding loans. It cannot be both. He predicted at the time that fewer people would be going to university, but there are more youngsters on full-time courses now then ever before; he predicted that fewer kids from disadvantaged backgrounds would be going to university, but there are now more kids from poorer backgrounds at university than ever before; he predicted that kids from black and minority ethnic backgrounds would not go to university, but there are now higher rates of participation in university among kids from BME backgrounds than ever before. Why does he not stick with the facts?

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[The Solicitor-General]

Pro bono work is never a substitute for legal aid. It is an adjunct to legal work, but not a substitute. That has applied throughout the development of pro bono work, and at various times we have seen previous Labour Governments make changes to legal aid. I think it would be wrong to correlate the two.

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

I work with a man called Glyn Maddocks, who puts an enormous amount of pro bono time into miscarriages of justice, and many solicitors and legal people do that. Does the Minister share my concern, and will he talk to the Law Society about this, at increasing evidence of lawyers—solicitors—working in a grey area where I believe they are becoming very suspect in the way in which they handle their affairs?

[The Solicitor-General]

I listened very carefully to the hon. Gentleman. The Solicitors Regulation Authority deals with professional misconduct and I know that it takes all complaints very seriously indeed. The solicitor profession has a long and honourable tradition of quality work and I know solicitors would want that to be maintained, so if there are any particular cases, I urge they be taken up with the SRA.