Consumer Rights Bill

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford]

I am not going to give way again, because I want to end my remarks.

I have one question for the Minister before I sit down. She wrote on 8 January to the Trading Standards Institute and to the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland. Our argument is clearly getting through, because she has raised concerns about consumer protection and has asked for the organisations’ advice. When she responds, will she say whether she has had that advice? We have been debating the issue for a very long time and for the Minister to be writing on 8 January to find out this information is a little like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, but we still have time, because the Bill will obviously go back to the Lords where there will be an opportunity for common sense to prevail with the Government, even if they will not concede the point tonight. I hope that the Minister can tell us how she got on with her letter.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

I came late to this debate and picked up on some interesting arguments being put by Members on both sides of the House. At first glance, my one concern about the amendments is that they do not seem to address some of the valid points about robots that have been raised by Members on both sides. I am sure that the Minister will want to address that point when she answers the debate.

One point that has not been raised about the nature of the free market and how it operates for secondary ticketing is that there is not an absolute property right to a ticket when it is sold, because it is not like any other good. The hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) mentioned second-hand cars, which someone might buy and then sell at a later date, but of course the ticket is merely a promise to provide a service or a piece of entertainment in a given period of time, and therefore the original vendor must retain some sort of property right. If the original vendor wishes to sell a ticket to someone at one price, perhaps because they are a certain age, come from a particular area or belong to a particular club, that vendor might still have some property rights that enable them to enforce the terms of that sale. I am sure that the Minister will want to address that issue as it pertains to the secondary market, because those people who sell tickets should be able to have some control at some point, if they wish, over who they sell those tickets to.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It has been a year since we started to scrutinise the Bill, time during which much has changed, not least the Minister leading on it. As she can tell from today’s debate, she missed many treats during our debates, although I am not sure whether a repeat performance of the arguments made by the hon. Members for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) and for Shipley (Philip Davies) was what she intended to generate.

It has been a long journey and I pay tribute to all those Members who have sought to scrutinise and improve the legislation. Many debates have taken place to meet the test we set, as this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a nation that is on top of its rights and can play a full and active part in the market in both the public and private sectors. Labour certainly recognises that helping people to make the most of their money is vital in a country that is drowning in personal debt—£1.43 trillion of it. Little wonder that StepChange Debt Charity says that six out of 10 people in this country believe that politicians must do more in the next five years to help them stay out of financial difficulty. Making sure that they do not get ripped off should therefore be absolutely paramount in the work we do and in this Bill.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for tabling the amendment and for their perseverance on ticket touting, which is a clear example of people being ripped off. I also want to pay tribute to the hon. Members for Bury North and for Shipley for their persistence in making their arguments and possibly making Friedrich Hayek spin in his grave through their interpretation of a free market. Let me deal with their arguments, because I think we will have to come back to them otherwise.

Few other markets would be characterised as free in which a limited number of sellers hoard a product, buying it up in bulk using underhand methods and then colluding to sell at hyped prices. Just because this is happening on the internet does not make it any different. One of the golden rules of the free market is that people should deal with each other honestly and require honesty in return, and that is clearly not what is happening in this industry. It is clearly not a free market. I am also delighted that both hon. Gentlemen outed themselves as fans of St Trinian’s, because that can be the only explanation of why they believe that this is about spivs in pork-pie hats looking at the types of shoes people are wearing rather than a billion-pound ticket-touting industry that is damaging the pockets of fans of sport and music.

One reason we support the amendment tabled by the all-party group on ticket abuse and reject the Government’s call to reject the cross-party call from the Lords to address this issue is that we do not agree with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport that this is classic entrepreneurship, precisely because we know that it is not an open market. We know that botnets are hoovering up tickets the second they go on sale. Fans simply do not stand a chance.

Some estimates put the figure at 60% of tickets being taken up in this way. One expert looking at the sporting industry in the past year has identified around 30% of tickets being bought up in this way, so fans cannot click fast enough to beat the botnets. The Secretary of State challenged my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West and said:

“The interests that the hon. Lady is representing are probably those of the chattering middle classes and champagne socialists”—

I noted that the hon. Member for Shipley called me a socialist earlier; I have amended my Twitter biography accordingly, with his praise—

“who have no interest in helping the common working man earn a decent living by acting as a middleman in the sale of a proper service.”—[Official Report, 21 January 2011; Vol. 521, c. 1187.]

This is no Flash Harry and this is no decent living.

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

I am delighted to be called to speak in this debate and apologise to the shadow Minister and to those on the Treasury Bench for not being here at the beginning. It is a very important Bill that the Minister has brought before the House, and it is one that I feel strongly about, because my first job was running a very small business, and then I ran one that was only slightly larger. When one has lived and breathed cash flow, and dreamt about lack of payment for invoices that have been outstanding for 60, 70, 80 or 90 days, one knows why the provisions in the Bill are so important.

I know that the Minister understands small business; he was brought up in it. I also know that the shadow Minister is one of the very few people on the Opposition Benches who has business experience. It is good that we are having a discussion about some of the things that are incredibly important and pertinent to small businesses —pre-packs, zero-hours contracts, payment terms and director disqualification, all of which I plan to talk about —but it is also good that we are having this discussion, full stop, because they were not discussions that were had in any detail under the previous Government.

I would like to start on that note, because one of the things that I, as a small business owner and manager, turned to time and again was the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, a piece of legislation that was well meant by the previous Administration, brought in early as a result of a manifesto pledge, but that was almost completely useless. No one was really able to go to their customers and enforce the 8% above base stipulation set out in the Act, because they were afraid of upsetting them. I had recourse to it on only two occasions when dealing with customers. The frustrating thing was that although Parliament had willed the means, following a long campaign at the end of the Major Administration and the beginning of the Blair Administration, it was unable to will the ends. That is why I am so pleased with what the Minister has created in the Bill, because we are getting much closer to a system that will work.

The first thing we must recognise is that it has taken this amount of time, and the innovation of the coalition Government, to be able to do something of this magnitude. That is why I think that criticising the Bill and trying to claim that it is deficient in some way or other is a pretty mealy-mouthed approach to what is a big step forward in helping small businesses control the terms of trade that they have with their customers.

Having run a business that, at the start, was turning over only a few hundred thousands pounds, I know the pain that was caused to my business when every week the results showed, almost invariably, that we were trading at a profit, yet that was not reflected in the bank account because of poor payment terms by large companies and, frankly, large parts of the public sector, and that is a pain I will never forget. I remember getting towards the end of the month and being genuinely terrified that I might not be able to pay the people working for me because I had not been paid by big customers. It is a very unnerving, frightening and frustrating experience. The amount of energy it takes out of small business people, who should be deploying that passion and energy in building a business, employing people and increasing wealth and prosperity, means that it is very destructive to business growth.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The hon. Gentleman is very gracious in giving way and is making a moving speech about his experience. Constituents and many small businesses from across the country who have come to talk to me have shared that experience. Does this mean that he will support new clause 4, which is about undertaking a review so that small businesses which have problems with late payers are automatically compensated so that they do not have to risk using measures that have previously been unsuccessful?

[Ben Gummer]

I understand why the hon. Lady wishes to push new clause 4. I have read the Minister’s response in Committee to the points raised by the shadow Minister, and I think it was compelling. We are making a very big change which will have a revolutionary impact on the payment terms of small businesses, but if the regime and the legislation are too rigid, we could end up with perverse consequences, which is precisely the problem with the previous legislation and why it was reformed and then repealed in the course of one Administration.

To those who claim, for whatever reason—probably connected with the proximity of the coming election—that the Government could do something else, I would say that the measure is a magnificent change and one that we have waited for since 1998. The previous Government could have done all these things but did not. We now have a Government who are willing to do so, and we should give them our full support without moderation.

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that many of the late payment problems, particularly in manufacturing, when a lot of product has to be bought before it can be turned into something, arise because small companies have been sent down invoice financing routes to finance their cash flow? The charges for invoice financing, and sometimes the prohibitive interest charged by invoice financing companies, heaps extra cost on those companies, which does not help the bottom line of a small company struggling to work and provide jobs and prosperity for the industry in which it is working.

[Ben Gummer]

I could not agree more. When I tot up in my head the amount of interest that I have paid on a business account for overdrafts incurred because of non-payment by large customers over the years, and when I think of the amount of money that could have been spent on product development, employing new people and growing my business, it is immensely frustrating even now to think of all that wasted money. My hon. Friend is entirely right that in any business in which the process involves the purchase of large capital goods, whether that is in manufacturing or in construction, and the business is dependent on paying its suppliers in order to create an end product, the middle guy is stuffed if he is not paid on time.

The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks) referred to the construction industry. That is where my first business was. I was running a small business, largely working for very large multinationals or for the Government, and my suppliers were often small businesses. Sometimes they were larger ones. When a business relies on the good terms of its suppliers in order to satisfy the punitive terms of its customers, that is a wrong place to be. It is, in effect, pushing credit all the way down the line. That is what I find most objectionable about large companies and Government agencies that behave in that way. They are using their supply chain as a bank. The businesses serving as that bank are not large banks; they are, in many cases, small businesses which cannot bear the cost.

A second important aspect of the Bill relates to the disqualification of directors and pre-packs. Too often, in running a small business, I ended up with bad debts because of suppliers who went bust, cleared out their overdue creditors, reinvented themselves the next day with precisely the same shareholders, directors and a whole load of other people who were connected with the previous company, and then suddenly emerged, phoenix-like—in fact, pre-packs are called phoenixes in the business—and ready to trade again. That is an absolute outrage. It goes against all the principles of a decent, liberal market economy. It is fraud.

The two key provisions that will go some way towards helping that situation are those on director disqualification, for which there is a five-year horizon—I hope that the Government will be able to use the provisions within that period—and on pre-packs, also within that period.

[Bob Stewart]

I am reminded of the time when I was running a small business. I thought that what my hon. Friend has just described was utterly illegal and people could not do it. I never believed that it was possible to close down one day and then start up as a new entity the next. I thought it was highly illegal even then, and that was 15 years ago.

[Ben Gummer]

I remember thinking it was illegal the first time it happened to me. It involved a business based on a trading estate in the east midlands, not far from where I was based. I went there one day to try to get some money out of someone who had bought something from me, and was refused the cash. When I went back two days later, everything was exactly the same apart from the name plate over the trader’s shop window and the fact that the filing cabinets had been thrown away because they contained all the creditors’ records. There was a brand-new sign but it was an old business.

The provision on the late payment of commercial debts is part of a package of measures that will transform the ability of small businesses to carry out their business.

[Gordon Banks]

The hon. Gentleman says that this Bill will transform the experience of small businesses. Surely he has to admit, coming from a small business background, as I have, that the only way the late payments situation can be transformed is by forcing people to make payments on time, and that can happen only with financial detriment to the payer.

[Ben Gummer]

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, although I understand his point. In the end, having thought about this at considerable length, because it is something that has taxed me, I came down on the side of the Minister, because transparency is the best way of ensuring exactly what he intends to achieve. If we start mandating people on payment terms, we end up with perverse consequences as regards the payment terms themselves, and a race to the bottom as regards their length. One supermarket famously gave terms of a minimum of 90 days. We cannot change that by legislation, because, in the nature of things, payment terms must sometimes be short and sometimes be long. Mandating would force, or encourage, companies to extend their payment terms. That is the first problem.

The second problem, as the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, having been in business, is that there are many times when someone’s invoice is disputed. The problems in the construction industry caused by the winding-up orders and appeals to the commercial courts—the county courts—that are often used as an excuse to try to avoid payment would be compounded all the more by the mandating of payments. We would end up in an unholy mess that would not be good for small businesses, for honest large businesses, or for customers who did not want to pay a bill but felt forced to do so because of terms such as he proposes.

[Gordon Banks]

I think the hon. Gentleman misunderstands the objective, which is not to get the extra forced payment, but to make sure that the original payment is made on time so that the debtor does not have to pay that forced payment.

[Ben Gummer]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is driving at, but much as I would love there to be a mandatory payment term in a theoretical world, I just do not think that it would work in practice. As I have tried to indicate, I think it would result in perverse consequences that would be worse for small business than if we go down the Minister’s route of transparency and openness with regard to the terms offered by businesses.

[Toby Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman may well think that the proposal would make things worse, but his opinion is not shared by the Federation of Small Businesses or the Forum of Private Business, both of which support our approach. Why does he presume to think that he knows better than those well-respected bodies, whose members tell them that they support our approach?

[Ben Gummer]

I can only speak from personal experience, which is what I have tried to do, to explain why I think it makes sense to go down the Minister’s route and why we would end up with perverse consequences were we to go down the route of mandation. Many small businesses are not members of the Federation of Small Businesses, and the Federation of Small Businesses is not absolutely right in everything it suggests. All I would say is that, in this instance, my own experience is that mandation would have a perverse consequence that would be inimical to the well-being of all small businesses. As a good first step, transparency, as the Government suggest, will create a new environment for businesses, which will change things for the better for people trying to build wealth and prosperity in our nation today.

The shadow Minister intervened on me to suggest that something better could be done. All I will say to him is that, when in government, his party did absolutely zero. They were, if I may coin a phrase, a zero-zero Administration when it came to small businesses. In 13 years, they did nothing apart from put up taxes on small businesses. They did nothing to cut red tape. Labour Members oppose the Minister’s efforts to tackle bureaucracy and claim that they can do better, but that sits a little ill in their mouths. I know that most business people—this is true of almost everyone I speak to in my constituency—think that it sounds a little false, and there is a reason for that: it comes neither from the heart nor from a real desire to do anything right. The difference is that the Minister understands what needs to be done and he is doing it.

[Bill Esterson]

Like the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer), I have run a small business—for 15 years, in my case. The reason new clause 4 is so important is that the status quo just is not working: small businesses are not in a position to chase late payments. In Committee —the Minister will probably repeat what he said then —members on both sides came up with examples of why action is needed, but I am afraid that what is being suggested just is not adequate. That is why we need measures such as new clause 4, which goes so much further.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) has said, small businesses account for half of our economy. They are a crucial part of the economy and of prosperity and future prosperity. Very many small businesses are struggling at the moment and late payment is one of the main reasons for that. They are used by suppliers for working capital—in fact, they are used as a bank. We have heard about how accounts departments are available only on Tuesday at 5 o’clock or Friday at 3 o’clock, and if people cannot get hold of them at those times, they have had it. When I was in business, there was only one payment run a month, and if people missed that, they had had it for a month. The following month’s invoice would then be queried and sent back to them, so they would miss two payment runs and two months’ worth of pay. I am afraid that that sort of practice goes on all the time, which is why action is needed to go further than the Government’s proposal.

A total of £39.4 billion is overdue in payments to small businesses. On average, small businesses are owed £38,000 in overdue payments. One in four companies spends 10 hours or more a week chasing late payments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins]

Absolutely right, there is nothing wrong with that. However, the suggestion that none of my colleagues has been involved in the business world does not stand up to scrutiny

The hon. Member for Ipswich described the Bill as a thing of “magnitude”, which was an incredibly generous description. It contains a number of measures, none of which has anything particularly wrong with it, but it is not in any sense a thing of magnitude. It contains small steps in the right direction on transparency, with some positive commitments from the Government— [Interruption.] Oh, he’s back. I’ve just been talking about you. For the benefit of anyone watching on television, the hon. Member for Ipswich has returned. There are positive steps in the Bill on the role that central Government will play by paying people on time, but it is certainly not a thing of magnitude. The steps are relatively minor, and the steps that the Opposition proposed in Committee and have alluded to today on Report would have been far more significant, which was why they enjoyed such broad support.

The hon. Gentleman attempted to say, “The Federation of Small Businesses—what do they know? They might be wrong.” I believe that having more transparency would be a significant step, so he was wrong to say that. Many owners of the 2,500 businesses a year that go bust as a result of not being paid on time will think so, too. It is important to get on record the full scale of the problem that we are highlighting, and to reiterate some of the statistics that my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth gave. Figures published by Bacs reveal that Britain’s small businesses now carry a burden of £39.4 billion in overdue payment.

[Ben Gummer]

I apologise for missing the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. He has just characterised what I said in terms that were completely different from what I actually said. He quoted me as saying with reference to the FSB, “What do they know?” That was not actually what I said. Maybe if he reflects on precisely what I said, which was that I thought the proposal could have perverse consequences, he might give a different response.

[Toby Perkins]

Members will be able to check Hansard for the exact phraseology, but I was attempting to paraphrase the hon. Gentleman rather than to quote him. He said, if I remember rightly and can quote him more directly, that the FSB was not always right, or that it was wrong on this issue. He said that he believed he was right and the FSB was wrong on the issue—is that close enough? Anyway, anyone who wants the word-by-word definition can check it in Hansard.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins]

I almost wish the hon. Gentleman had been on the Committee. We debated many of these issues and he raises thoughtful questions on it. His would have been a valuable contribution to the Committee. We are referring to something that we are not debating today but, in terms of his question, the invoice would usually become due for payment at the moment the work is completed. If we were talking about a six-week construction project, the moment at which the invoice would start would be once the work was completed. There would then be a period from that point. A late payment penalty would be due 30 days after the invoice was due. In practical terms, on a traditional contract of 30 days’ net monthly, the business would provide the work and present the invoice. There would be 30 days when the payment was due. There would then be another 30 days before any late payment interest was due. There are a number of safeguards in place to try to deal with that.

[Ben Gummer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Toby Perkins]

I will give way because the hon. Gentleman made a speech. But if we are going to get into a great deal of detail about something that is not actually in the new clause, I would caution whether that is the best use of our time.

[Ben Gummer]

I understand that, but the hon. Gentleman has just made a point that reveals his misunderstanding of how an industry works. Herein lies the problem; his answer suggests that he fails to understand the way in which payment terms work in the construction industry. Often, invoices are not issued when work is complete. They are done on a staged basis when applications are made and certified by an architect or a quantity surveyor. Often the work is not complete; it is part of a process. It might well be that the work may not have been completed to the satisfaction of the customer, but they will be afraid of raising a complaint because it is not worth the 8% premium, or whatever it might be under the proposal. Herein lies the issue; he proposes legislation the impact of which he does not quite understand. It would have perverse consequences, and he has come back with another clause just to satisfy a particular interest group rather than actually trying to support what the Government are doing.

[Toby Perkins]

That was a bizarre contribution in a number of ways. First, we have said we are going to support what the Government are doing so he was factually wrong in that regard. But saying that by giving a single example of how it might work I was suggesting that that example would always work in every single case is a complete straw man. That contribution did not take us anywhere, so let us move on.

In Committee we tabled amendments that would have required the Secretary of State to initiate an independent assessment of the functions on export finance and how to improve awareness of the body. Unfortunately the Government did not accept our amendments. But the next Labour Government will make it a central mission to boost exports. Within that, there is a role for examining the overall way in which UK Export Finance works, but I would be hesitant at this stage about saying that, on that basis, the amendment of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion should be supported. She may be minded to explore the issue today and consider whether to push it to a future stage.

On amendment 92, we strongly agree with the principle that Ministers should be accountable to Parliament for their performance in supporting businesses, and I accept what the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion said about not wanting a series of meaningless measures with things being deregulated just for the sake of deregulation. I also think, however, that having a deregulatory target has some value in ensuring that Governments and their civil servants are constantly conscious of the impact of any proposed new regulations. We thus think the deregulatory target has some value, as I say, although I share some of the hon. Lady’s reservations about how it will work.

Public procurement is a hugely important function of government. Central Government spend about £45 billion a year on the purchase of goods and services, and ensuring that more of that money delivers for the UK economy is one of the most valuable things that any Government can do. We are absolutely behind ensuring that the power of UK Government procurement delivers for the real economy. That is the principle behind our amendment 1, which outlines three areas in which such value can be found for our constituents, constituencies and communities, ensuring that proper reports are made and kept in each of those areas.

There is much good practice around the country coming from various public authorities. The TUC has championed the “one in a million” campaign, which aims to ensure that as far as possible, every £1 million of public spend results in at least one apprenticeship opportunity provided to a young person. A Labour Government would deliver on such principles. We would, for example, require the HS2 project to create 33,000 apprenticeships for young people at no extra cost to the taxpayer. Likewise, Labour’s new immigration Bill would compel multinationals to create an apprenticeship place each time a skilled worker was hired from outside the EU. We should leave no stone unturned in fighting for apprenticeships.

We should ensure, too, that we fight for quality apprenticeships. They should be at or above NVQ level 3, so that every business that takes on someone who has had an apprenticeship will know that they have taken on someone who has had a really significant quality of training. We think there is a lot more to be done to support apprenticeships, and our amendment 1 would take significant steps forward in supporting those apprenticeships and the type of economy that we are looking to create.

On both apprenticeships and late payments, we think that the Government are taking small steps in the right direction, but they could have been far more ambitious and delivered far more for small businesses, apprenticeships and a skilled economy. We hope that the Government will support our amendments, which would enable us to do precisely that. If they do not, they can be sure that a future Labour Government will pursue these themes and make sure that we have the kind of economy in which we can have confidence and faith in the future.

Infant Class Sizes

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I would say that they are looking for respect in this debate. They are looking for honesty and for figures to be used responsibly. They are looking for a Government who are putting right the messes of the previous Government. The hon. Gentleman stood up to make the preceding speech, for which I thank him—of course, I should have observed that courtesy at the beginning of my comments—and I thank him for reminding us what schools were like in the years following 1997. I sat in a classroom of more than 30 pupils when I was at school, in a Norfolk comprehensive, so I have personal experience, should the hon. Gentleman wish to hear it, of having been at school under Tony Blair. You are about to remind me, Mr Deputy Speaker, to return to the subject of infant class sizes.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

My hon. Friend was an infant.

[Chloe Smith]

At one time I was an infant. I shall now return to the point in hand.

We need to set out high ambition for our children from infant school through to the point where our young people emerge into the world. I want children to be told about the stars and to be taught how to get there. I want them to be well educated and equipped with a passport to the world of work after that. I want them to be an asset to their city and their family and to themselves. I want to see our local authority continuing to pull its act together, which it has done in recent years in Norfolk, and I want to see our local authority continuing to apply those high educational standards.

I will continue to work with that authority to ensure that the funding being made available by this Government benefits Norwich and Norfolk children in their infant school experience. I do that because I believe in peace of mind for parents. I believe they deserve the security of a decent and ambitious education for their children. We owe those children and their parents honesty and a responsible approach to their money and their choice. It is the same old Labour party; on the last count, it would spend the same money 12 times over. It is dishonest to do so. It is also disrespectful to knock the choice of hundreds of my constituents who attend free schools in Norwich. The Labour party does not understand parental choice and does not understand good quality. It does not understand the taxpayers or their money. It has no plan on this point.

To sum up, I am backing those parents in Norwich. They want that peace of mind for their children’s schooling. We have made that funding available to put right the Labour party’s wrongs in culling 200,000 school places at the height of the baby boom. This is intensely relevant to Norwich. I want to see this put right for the constituents whom I represent and I want to see those constituents served well, with a better tone of debate than we have seen at times this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

We have had an interesting and well-informed debate with contributions from hon. Members on both sides of the House, including my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), who is no longer in her place, but who spoke passionately about the waste of resources when her constituency desperately needed school places.

We also heard from the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who said he worked at the coal face in Swindon for many years and claimed to be above party politics—before launching into his highly partisan comments. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) said that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) and I were glad to see the previous Secretary of State go. May I correct him? We were disappointed that he left, because the polls were showing the impact he was having on voters—not just teachers, but parents. Had he carried on, we would have been heading for a landslide. Nevertheless, we now have the continuity Secretary of State.

We heard from the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), who also is not in her place, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), who, like the hon. Member for North Swindon, served for 10 years as a local councillor, as did I—it is obviously a common apprenticeship for this House. We also heard from the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who said it was easy to bandy about statistics, and then immediately did so himself, copiously. We then heard, as usual, a common-sense contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), who said we were looking not for uniformity, but for equality of opportunity. She was exactly right, as she was about how resources should follow need—a point, in fact, that touches precisely on the nature of this debate.

I am sorry that, even after that preamble, the Secretary of State has not been able to return from her live web chat, after opening the debate, to be here for the wind-ups. I am sorry about that, Mr Speaker, and if I refer to her in her absence, it is not through choice.

It is always a bit of a lottery seeing who will turn up to education debates these days, because the Department for Education has become so dysfunctional after four years of being run by a right-wing ideologue and his crazed advisers that we have not one, but two Schools Ministers. One is the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), whom I am sincerely delighted to welcome back to his place on the Front Bench today. Despite our disagreements, we have always got on very well on a personal level, and I am glad that he was resuscitated by the Prime Minister, in the recent botched reshuffle, to placate the right wing of the Conservative parliamentary party. It is his job, we are told by the Prime Minister, to preserve the legacy of his former boss, who has now been forced into a vow of silence as the Chief Whip.

The other Schools Minister—the yellow variety—who seems to have become an invisible man these days in debates on schools in the Chamber, is obviously—

[Ben Gummer]

He is working hard.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am sure he is working hard—in his other job, in the Cabinet Office, dreaming up more fantasy Lib Dem manifesto pledges at the taxpayer’s expense. Indeed, it appears—just to be topical for a moment—that the coalition Government have now introduced compulsory setting, in that the two Schools Ministers are not allowed to be in the same room at the same time. That perhaps explains why the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) is not here with us this afternoon.

However, it would be useful if the Minister in this debate would clarify in his winding-up speech—[Interruption] —after he has finished reading the Parliamentary Private Secretary’s telephone—the whole shambolic issue around setting, which we have heard about today. We have not really had clarity today; we have just had chaos, in what is, after all, the first major policy announcement by the Secretary of State. It would be good if this House were told exactly what is going on, rather than our having to try to find out from Twitter. Despite the Secretary of State’s earlier remarks about not relying on Twitter for such information, we have to, unless we get it in the Chamber, which is where we should first hear of such things.

The first duty of any Education Minister is to ensure a sufficiency of good school places where they are needed. The figures that have been unearthed in recent weeks and which have been highlighted in today’s debate show that the Government have failed in that basic duty. We all remember the pledge, which has been mentioned in the debate, in the 2010 Conservative manifesto, when the Prime Minister promised

“small schools with smaller class sizes”

and said,

“the more we can get class sizes down, the better”.

That pledge has turned out to be as worthless as a Lib Dem pledge on tuition fees, because we have seen a 200% increase in the number of infants in larger class sizes over 30 since 2010, and the pressure on places is growing.

Teaching Quality

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I very much welcome that. Teach First is also doing good work in Bournemouth, a coastal town that has had particular issues. We should look at what impact it has had there—

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

And in Ipswich.

[Damian Hinds]

And in Ipswich, but I want that to be done on a big scale in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and all the other places where we can make a big difference. We now have Teach Next, and it would be nice to have “Teach Later” so that people towards the end of their careers in business or academia who want to come back and give something back to schools can do so.

The second critical thing we could do is further to develop performance management and performance pay. That has been well covered by other hon. Members and, as time is short, I will not bang on about it.

The final thing I want to mention—I apologise to erstwhile Select Committee colleagues, because I have frequently banged on about this in the past—is how teaching is such a high stakes profession and is such a high stakes commitment to make. When people do their PGCE or undergraduate degree, the assumption is that they will do the job for life. There are very few careers left in this country for which that is the case.

We ask, “How can you tell a great teacher?” The answer is that we cannot: we cannot tell from a paper qualification, QTS, degree results or anything else, but we know it when we see it. That also goes for the individual considering teaching. We need a heavy emphasis in teacher training and accreditation on classroom performance. We also need more taster sessions, in which sixth-formers or undergraduates considering doing an undergraduate education degree or a PGCE get an opportunity to teach in a classroom and figure out if it is right for them.

Cost of Child Care

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Bridget Phillipson]

Perhaps the hon. Lady could have a chat with a colleague at the Department for Communities and Local Government about the disproportionate cuts passed on to local councils. My local council is facing some of the biggest cuts in the country, having been given a disproportionate and unfair burden. Councils are being forced to take really difficult decisions about the kinds of services that they can provide.

I value the important role that libraries play in our community, just as I value Sure Start children’s centres. However, councils face impossible demands and are really struggling to balance the books. I suggest that the hon. Lady continues to lobby for her constituents, but it is her Government who are passing on those significant cuts—

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

There were no cuts in Suffolk.

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

Order. I ask the Parliamentary Private Secretary not to interrupt speakers.

Co-operatives in Education

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Brennan]

I strongly agree. I should like to talk more later about knowledge and understanding of co-operative schools. I should say at the outset that the Labour Front Bench is strongly supportive of the movement and of the rapid development and spread of co-operative schools that has happened in recent years, since legislation was amended to make it a little easier to form them. There is still work to be done, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley pointed out. There is a good quotation on the Schools Co-operative Society website:

“Essentially they are just what schools should be and what people thought they really were about already!”

That is a good way to put it. There is nothing about co-operative schools that would not be familiar to people, as far as values or ideas of what a good school should be are concerned. Yet, as we know, there is sometimes misunderstanding about co-operatives and co-operative schools.

Values in education are one reason why Labour supports the movement. It is time that we had more of a debate about those. There is much debate about structures and the idea that opening a free school or an academy will solve everyone’s problems. However, we all know that what really counts is good teaching, great leadership and the values underpinning a school and education system. It is interesting that the process that has been going on, which is a quiet revolution in the system—and people talked about a revolution in the debate—has received hardly any media coverage. Yes, the Government have a flagship policy for free schools, but there are far more co-operative schools than free schools. No one would think that from reading the papers and following the news. Certainly, a lot more Department for Education staff are devoted to free schools than to co-operatives. There are more than 100, are there not? I did not realise there were that many left in the Department. It is an awful lot of staff, but very little in the way of resources is devoted to helping co-operative schools to develop.

I welcome the remarks of the Secretary of State about the co-operative movement and co-operative schools in general, which the hon. Member for Wycombe quoted. No one would ever accuse him of not talking a good game, but in relation to actual delivery and policy, it would be good to see more resources within the Department being devoted to co-operative schools, since the Secretary of State has made it so clear that he is powerfully in favour of their development. That is important because it provides a bulwark against what some people fear—that the current upheaval in the structure of the schools system could lead to the idea that the Secretary of State has entertained from time to time: a system of taxpayer-funded, profit-making schools. That idea was tried in Sweden under its free school system, but it has not worked out too well.

The Swedish system was a model. The Secretary of State was infatuated with Swedish models, but he does not talk about them much any more. Sweden had profit-making free schools, but what happened was perhaps predictable. There are two ways to make a profit: increase revenue or cut costs. Of course, there are limited opportunities for taxpayer-funded schools to increase revenue. In Sweden, once hedge funds and the like invested in the schools, it led to the cutting of costs.

Since there is no requirement for qualified teachers, an obvious way to cut costs is to employ people who do not have to be paid qualified teacher rates. As a result, some of the schools went bust, with consequences for the education of the children, and also with the consequence ultimately that the legislation was overturned and a requirement was reintroduced for qualified teachers in the schools. There were no real educational or co-operative values underpinning the schools, which left them as the prey of hedge fund managers and the like. [Interruption.] If there are co-operative schools—would the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) like to intervene?

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

No.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman does not want to intervene. He is chuntering away from a sedentary position, but he is not prepared to share his views with us.

If there is a co-operative schools system underpinned by the values described so eloquently by the hon. Member for Wycombe at the start of the debate, we overcome such problems. The schools can have autonomy. They can be run by local people according to a set of values that do not put profit before the education of local children and the views of local people.

I have had the opportunity to visit co-operative schools around the country. I mentioned earlier the visits that I made to Upper Shirley high school in Southampton and the Tiverton co-operative learning development trust in Devon. I talked to the teachers and the leaders in those co-operative schools and I put the hard questions to them. It is not enough simply to have a structure and values in place. It has to be absolutely the case that everybody involved in the school is focused on raising standards and making sure that every child matters and that every child is given an opportunity to fulfil their potential.

I have no doubt that from time to time some co-operative schools will go off the rails, as do other schools, but it is surely right that a model based on co-operative principles, whereby everybody knows the values that they should be working to, stands a better chance of success than one that is based on ultimately making a profit. That is a road down which I understand the Secretary of State is interested in travelling.

Sure Start Children’s Centres

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

Sure Start was ring-fenced—that was the policy of our Government. The Labour manifesto talks of strengthening early intervention. I am holding the Prime Minister to account for what he said when he was seeking the votes of people in this country. He said, in terms, that he would strengthen Sure Start, so I am saying that we should look at the evidence on the ground. Is Sure Start strengthening or weakening? When I read the hon. Gentleman some of the evidence, I hope that he will make an honest judgment on whether the service is getting better or is under threat.

The research from the Library tells us that in England the average cut in the EIG between 2010-11 and 2011-12 is £50 for every child in this country. Altogether that is absolute proof that the PM, who is undoubtedly a good talker—a PR man—is dangerously cavalier with the facts at the Dispatch Box, as Oxford university recently found to its cost. He said at the election that he would protect Sure Start, but in fact he has cut it, in real terms, by about a quarter. This takes us to the crux of the matter. The Government have not had the guts to be honest about the cuts that they are making to Sure Start. Instead, they have cut the budget, removed the ring fence, and offloaded the problem and the responsibility on to local authorities up and down the country, some of which face invidious choices in cutting essential services for children—child safeguarding and other important services. That is a terrible position for local authorities to be in, be they Conservative, Liberal, Labour or in coalition. Some other councils are cutting way beyond what would have been the ring fence. They are cutting into funds that were given by the Government for the purposes of Sure Start, siphoning them off and spending them elsewhere.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman talked about cavalier language. At the last election, Harriet Harman, the Member for—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I remind Members that they should not name other Members? The reference should be to the constituency represented; I think that the hon. Gentleman was about to get on to that.

[Ben Gummer]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for correcting me.

At the time, the lady of whom I spoke came to Ipswich and told my constituents that children’s centres would be cut in Ipswich. Since the election, every single centre has stayed open and two more have been added. The right hon. Gentleman is a decent man. Will he apologise on her behalf for having misled people, because I have tried to get her to apologise and she has refused to answer my letters?

[Andy Burnham]

I will happily look at what is happening on the ground in Ipswich. However, there is an important difference that I point out to the hon. Gentleman. It is possible to keep a children’s centre’s lights on and keep a receptionist and a cleaner, but what is going on inside? Is he satisfied that an appropriate level of service is being provided to support the parents of Ipswich? That is the judgment that he has to make. It is not just a case of whether he can come to the House and say that Ipswich is keeping the lights on—it needs to do more than that. Indeed, his own Government have funded it to do more than that. Suffolk, which is the local authority concerned, has had a huge cut of £40 per child in its area. He has to ask his Front Benchers whether that is acceptable for his constituents.

Let me go around the towns and point out what is happening on the ground. Derby, home to a Tory-Liberal coalition, seems like a good place to start. Surely there, if anywhere, people would implement coalition policy to the letter, would they not? Well, perhaps not, because we find that in Derby six children’s centres are threatened with closure. In a BBC news report on 10 March, Kelly Jennings, daughter of the Tory leader of the council, Harvey Jennings, said:

“I voted for the Conservatives because I thought there was going to be more help for the NHS. Now they are cutting that off and locally they are cutting off the Sure Start centres which single parents like myself rely on.”

We have been very pleased to welcome Kelly into the Labour party because she sees that in these tough times only Labour will be the voice of people and stand up for the services on which people depend. [Interruption.] Conservative Members laugh, so let us look at some Tory authorities. We have heard wonderful praise for many local authorities today; let us look at a few others. Are they working hard, like other authorities, to implement the Prime Minister’s clear pre-election pledges?

In Hammersmith and Fulham, we saw the first use of an interesting tactic that my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) mentioned earlier. Many of its 16 children’s centres were under threat of closure. My hon. Friend went to the council meeting to see it discuss the issue. Then we heard the news that six would become hubs and 10 would remain as spokes. Only when we dig a little deeper do we find that nine of those so-called spokes will receive £25,000 a year. What is that enough to pay for—a receptionist, a caretaker, a bottle of bleach? Is there much more that it would pay for? I do not know, but it could not be very much. At the last Education questions, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) recalled the hospital without patients in “Yes Minister”. This coalition may be remembered for a more modern equivalent —a children’s centre without any children in it. That could be the Secretary of State’s legacy. I do not know about hubs and spokes, but there are certainly plenty of mirrors and smoke when it comes to presenting the facts about Sure Start.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

I have to profess that I am underwhelmed by the motion. It asks, in the end, for the Secretary of State to monitor the evidence. The Opposition do not ask for the closures of half the Sure Start centres in the country to be reversed, but that was the threat put before the electorate at the last election.

As I mentioned earlier, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) was in my constituency during the last election. I confronted her at the entrance to the Tree House Sure Start centre. She shouted at me that centres in Ipswich would be closed within months of the general election. What has happened? Not only has every centre stayed open, but two new ones have opened. The services have been protected because of the decisions of the Conservative county council, which faces £90 million-worth of cuts over the next two years, and because of the strength of will of Councillor Graham Newman, who leads the children’s and young people’s services there.

Suffolk shows how it can be done. The shadow Secretary of State suggests that the centres are hollowed out. Last week I was at the Tree House centre, on the anniversary of that altercation with the right hon. and learned Lady. I went inside with Claire Ball, the manager of the centre. It is true that parts of the organisation of Sure Start centres are having to be remodelled, but Claire Ball is introducing new services and the county council is excited about the possibilities in the Health and Social Care Bill, which will allow it to integrate social services yet further within Sure Start centres.

I assure the shadow Secretary of State that every centre is staying open. Perhaps he will tell that to the right hon. and learned Lady. I have written to her and confirmed that she has not apologised for the smear that she made. Every centre has stayed open and the services are being improved and increased.

That bears testament to the passion that Government Members feel for Sure Start. It is telling that more Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members are attending this Opposition day debate than Labour Members. I exempt the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) from that criticism. I do not want to embarrass him once again by mentioning him, but he has driven many people on both sides of the Chamber into politics. Having been discouraged from this vocation from perhaps too close a connection with it, he was the one person who saved it in my mind.

The genesis of the right hon. Gentleman’s idea is to have a broader universal service, with funding targeted at those who need it most, to repair the damage of decades of failure—not dreamt of or created by anyone deliberately—in communities across the country. The failure has been of a structural welfare state that does not support families and does not, at times, support communities. That failure was not designed, but it has happened. We are in the process of re-stitching together communities, and Sure Start is part of that.

May I ask the Secretary of State and Ministers to address two things that could be improved? We need proper longitudinal studies through Sure Start into primary education so that we can understand the evidence, but there are blocks in data protection which prevent that from happening. Primary school teachers would very much welcome better co-ordination with Sure Start managers and assistants, and they could do that better if data protection rules were relaxed. It would also be useful to be able to encourage a greater diversity of providers so that we can share best practice across the country.

Conservative Members are passionately in favour of Sure Start, and that is why it is such a pleasure to see it flourishing in my constituency under this Government.

Sure Start Children’s Centres

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

Yes, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I am a firm believer in localism. My experience of Sure Start centres is that they evolve in a way that suits their community, and it is for county councils to support that need as necessary in their community. I am not a big fan of centralism or, indeed, of ring-fencing for that very reason, so I share his concern about the decisions that councils may be taking to cut those services, which I very much regret. Having said that, there is enormous room for improvement in Sure Start children’s centres, which could become more effective. Those centres need to focus strongly on that because otherwise the incentive for councils to continue to fund them at current levels simply will not be there.

That brings me to my final point, which is about the call for better evaluation. OXPIP, the charity that I have been closely associated with for many years, has always had rave reviews from social services, health visitors, GPs and families in Oxfordshire, where it operates, but we have not been able to have a random control trial, which is the gold standard in quantitative evaluation because of the ethics of intervening with one group but not another. What about the outcomes for the group of families whom we know are in difficulty but do not help? The ethics around this issue mean that quantitative evaluation is a problem. If the Government are to do anything to help Sure Start children’s centres to make the right decisions and to make progress in the most effective areas, they need to put resources into serious studies about how effective different early intervention programmes are. I strongly support the work of the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) in looking into those issues and in trying to evaluate which programmes are more helpful than others.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I have been spending a lot of time in primary schools in my constituency in the past 10 months and reception teachers have told me time and again that they can almost tell which Sure Start centres are doing good work and which are not really adding much value. However, that is the extent of their knowledge because the evidence is anecdotal. We really need some proper evidence so that Sure Start centres can be evaluated and best practice can be spread.

[Andrea Leadsom]

That is exactly right. County councils and directors of children’s services are very aware of the potential value of Sure Start children’s centres. My director of children’s services in Northamptonshire would love to get even more value out of them and would welcome better research showing what would work better, rather than having to go it alone in those areas.

Let me conclude with a small plug. I plan to launch a pilot scheme in 2011 for a Northamptonshire parent infant project that will mirror what OXPIP has been doing so successfully for 13 years in Oxfordshire. Working closely with children’s centres in Northamptonshire, I hope to show, prove, demonstrate, document and evaluate the value of really early intervention services in making a real difference to the quality of families’ lives.

Building Schools for the Future

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the policy commitments given by the previous Government, a commitment was made, but it was dependent on underspend—something that the Treasury has subsequently confirmed does not exist. Therefore, the policy was unobtainable.

[Derek Twigg]

We need to get to the nub of the problem. We can go back and look at who was responsible for the economic crisis, the world crisis and so forth. The Conservative party keeps trying to suggest that somehow this problem is down to the way that the previous Government managed the economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Wright]

If only that were still the case, Mr Gray, some school buildings might still be being refurbished and rebuilt.

Before the Division, we were discussing the arrogance and incompetence of the current ministerial team. When the Secretary of State announced his decision, he committed the cardinal sin of failing to ask the right questions. That was arrogant, because he thought that there was no need to consult or ask whether his information was correct and accurate. That is an example of top-down government—the belief that the Minister in Whitehall knows best and that there is no need to check data or facts with schools, trade unions or local authorities.

Building Schools for the Future was not perfect; I have not suggested that and nor has any other hon. Member who has contributed to this debate. However, it was ambitious in its scope, and that was something that we had not seen in this country for the best part of a century. It represented nothing less than a 15-year programme to refurbish or replace every single secondary school in England.

[Ben Gummer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Wright]

The hon. Gentleman must forgive me, but I have only four minutes left. In cancelling BSF, the Secretary of State told the House that rising standards in schools are not based on new or improved school buildings.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Ben Gummer Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Glenda Jackson]

I must be entirely honest with my hon. Friend: I tend to avoid speeches by the Prime Minister. If you have heard one, you have heard them all. The Government are constantly arguing that localism is all and that local people must make the decisions about housing, the erection of wind farms, jobs and everything else, but on this central and essential issue—the education of all our children—that local dimension is, apparently, thrown out of the window. There is to be no consultation with the people who really matter.

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

The hon. Lady made that point to the Minister in his introductory remarks and he said that it was up to the headmaster of any school that wishes for academy status to consult the community about it. That is exactly what is happening in one school in my constituency, which was taken into an academy as introduced by Labour Members. It is consulting widely and of its own volition—and very successfully.

[Glenda Jackson]

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, if I heard the Secretary of State correctly, and if I remember the changes being made by the Bill, it says not that they must, but that they should engage with poorly achieving schools. It is much too broadly drafted for there to be any real input at all—for a high-achieving school to make the widest possible contribution to its local community. I am not saying that high-achieving schools are not doing that already—certainly, academies in some areas do—but what the Government propose will set up a barrier that will be driven, as we all know because we are all human beings who see it all the time, by parents. Schools will be in the position of selecting not pupils but parents, and those parents will be selecting them.

The idea that there is an equivalency in education between the voices of parents simply is not true. A colleague of the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) raised an issue that we all know about—people who have enough money to buy themselves into the catchment area of a school they wish their children to attend. In many instances, that practice excludes the children of people who were born and raised in the area and whose parents and grandparents were born and raised there. That happens a great deal in my constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

That is a very good question. It has taken me so long to get the information out of the Department for Education that it relates only to the whole maintained sector. Our next stage is to pursue those questions locally. Of course, as the hon. Gentleman indicates, the data are influenced by the fact that, given the achievement gap in English schools, poorer students are disproportionately entered for equivalent qualifications at GCSE level. Academies, which have served lower-income cohorts to date, have mirrored that scenario, but that is surely the challenge that academies should take up.

We do not want the soft bigotry of low expectations, with academy league tables benefiting at the expense of pupil learning. That two-tier education fails to give some of our poorest communities the education that they deserve. Sadly, certain academies have accentuated that trend. As independent schools, they are exempt from the curriculum and, to date, have not had to reveal the details of their results beyond the basic percentage of their pupils who pass five-plus GCSEs or the equivalent.

I refuse to accept that that trend of teaching is inevitable. In my constituency, the Mitchell business and enterprise college on the Bentilee estate—for which my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) did so much good work in his time as a Minister and where youth unemployment is high and household income low—continues to offer rigorous academic subjects to all its pupils, not least because that is what business wants. Genuine vocational training requires a solid academic foundation up to the age of 16—a view espoused by employers in vocational areas of work. So it is of great value that amendments passed in the other place now ensure that academies are subject to freedom of information legislation, but there seems little change in the Bill to ensure that as many academies as possible deliver the broad curriculum that provides a stimulating learning environment. In many cases, freedom for academies has produced a narrowing of the curriculum options.

[Ben Gummer]

I am fascinated by the hon. Gentleman’s destruction of the policy supported by Labour Members for so many years. Given his firm disapproval of the independence of academies, I am interested to know whether he would recommend that the school that he attended should submit itself to the authority of the local authority, as he clearly wishes to pursue that line for other schools?

[Mr Hunt]

To be honest, I did not quite follow the hon. Gentleman’s line. The point that was pursued by Labour Members when we were in government is that standards in teaching and academic qualifications matter, and if academies produce league table inflation at the cost of the education of their pupils, that is to no one’s benefit. The worry is that, with greater freedoms, there is a narrowing of curriculum options, which is what the statistics have proved.

I have no ideological opposition to academies. In many situations, they are refreshing, innovative and provide the aspirational step change in low-income communities that can transform the life chances of many young people. I am proud of the Labour Government’s achievements in that regard, but we need greater transparency. What we need in the Bill is an understanding that there can be no more equivalence at the cost of academic rigour, as that is to the cost of the educational life chances of our young people. That is what we are dealing with. We want a tailoring of the curriculum in many cases, so that teachers have control, and can teach to the needs of young people and pursue vocational and academic topics, but we need clarity, accountability and transparency about these issues.

This is about more than league tables and data sets; it is about studying and learning skills and—dare I say it?—enjoyment. Too many schools and academies are denying that to some of the most disadvantaged communities in the country by not allowing the full academic curriculum. We must not make economic deprivation a licence for intellectual deprivation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell]

That is a helpful clarification and answers some of the points that have been made by Labour Members suggesting a bias in favour of outstanding schools.

The shadow Secretary of State tried to give the impression that the entire system of state education was being ripped up. If he really believed that, it is strange that we have not seen more Labour Members in the Chamber during this debate. He tried to claim that the Bill was a perversion of the Labour party’s approach to academies. In an earlier intervention, I cited remarks by Tony Blair on 24 October 2005, when he said:

“We want every school to be able quickly and easily to become a self-governing independent…school”.

What the Government are doing may be a departure from what the previous Secretary of State was doing, but it certainly is not a departure from what the Labour Government under Tony Blair were planning to do. Indeed, the Government are fulfilling the promise that he made.

The shadow Secretary of State’s main objection was that the proposals would create a two-tier system, but some of my hon. Friends have already made the point that that is what we have at the moment. Some schools are academies and some are not. If parents have the money to move into the catchment area of a good school, their children will get a good education. If parents are locked into a particular area by lack of money, they have to put up with the school in that area. There is huge so-called social segregation in our schools. One school has just 4.2% of families on income-related benefits, but at the other end of the spectrum there are schools with nearly 70% of families on income-related benefits.

The shadow Secretary of State claimed that the Bill would widen the gap—that somehow allowing outstanding, good and satisfactory schools to get better is a bad thing. That is the classic Labour argument of trying to hold the good down in order to narrow the gap. Surely what we should do is try to get everybody to improve. The Secretary of State confirmed that these schools will partner with a good school, and that is an important element. I would not want a free-for-all. I want to see schools collaborating and working together. Even when it comes to outstanding or good schools, there are too many parents who do not have confidence in those schools and choose to move out of the area or to the independent sector, and we want those schools to improve. We want parents to have confidence in their local schools, but they can have concerns even about some of the schools that we class as good or outstanding. The Government’s policy on the pupil premium should give schools an incentive to take pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

My final point in response to Labour Members is that they seem to lack confidence in the teachers and parents of children from deprived areas. In my experience, the vast majority of teachers are motivated by the desire to help the least well-off kids. Rather than hearing a lot of publicity about parents setting up these new free schools, I hope that we will see teacher groups going into some of my most deprived communities and using this legislation to drive up standards in those areas.

[Ben Gummer]

On free schools, is it not the case that Sweden has a couple of thousand people in the independent sector, while here the figure for children in the independent sector is a rather shameful 7%? Surely a good result of the free school policy would be to bring that number down and bring more people back into the state sector.

[Gavin Barwell]

I agree with my hon. Friend.

I should like to address a couple of questions to the Minister. First, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), who has now left the Chamber, made some good points about the importance of academic qualifications, although they were rather at odds with the record of the Labour Government. I understand that the Government have now accepted an amendment in the Lords to ensure that academies are counted as public bodies under freedom of information legislation. I believe that there is an issue in relation to the impact on local councils. May we have more clarity on what areas of council spending will not be devolved down to academies?

The Secretary of State spoke earlier about the role of local authorities. My own council often finds itself defending schools that are not performing particularly well. I would much rather that local authorities were the champion of parents in their area and stood up for higher standards, rather than making the case for schools that were underperforming.

On consultation, we do not want a bureaucratic arrangement that is going to slow the process down. Like my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), I am keen to see progress made quickly. However, it is important to have consultation, and not just with parents in the school in question. When we try to change things in schools, we often find that the existing parents might have one view, while parents in the community around the school who are unhappy with the school might have a completely different one.

The Bill places before us this fundamental question: what is the best way to raise standards in our schools? I particularly admired the comments of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the former Chairman of the Select Committee. In complete contrast to the shadow Secretary of State’s political speech, he recognised that Members on both sides of the House have a passion for driving up education standards, and that we simply disagree about the best way to do it. That is a reasonable disagreement that should be aired and debated in the Chamber, and we should not imply that some people simply do not care about the issue.

The fundamental question is what is the best way to raise school standards. The previous Government believed that the best way was by driving standards from the top down. Indeed, in the debate in the other place, Opposition Members were clear that the improvements made by academies were the result of their getting all the Government attention. They almost suggested that it was the Department for Education that was responsible for those improvements.

Our belief is that the best way to drive up standards is to allow a choice of schools. There should be some surplus places to allow people to choose, and we must give schools freedom so that they can differentiate and offer parents different things. Different children might well benefit from different styles of education. We should empower parents in that way and give them that choice. That bottom-up approach is the way to drive up standards, not the top-down approach of the previous Government. It is with great pleasure that I speak in favour of the Bill, which I believe will make a profound difference to parents and children across our country.