Higher Education Reform

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

Absolutely not, no. I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has asked this question, because our policy is about widening participation and making sure that education is high-quality. It is also about making sure that there are more degree apprenticeships. There are now 180,000, which did not exist before. There are now 180,000 more people who can do what I did, as the only degree apprentice in the House of Commons. It is a fantastic route into the workplace. We also have higher technical qualifications and boot camps. There is so much investment that has all happened under this Conservative Government.

[Sir Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), missed the opportunity to condemn the disgusting and cruel University and College Union marking boycott? Will my right hon. Friend use these reforms to protect young people to ensure that this never happens again and that universities such as Cambridge and Exeter can issue degrees?

[Gillian Keegan]

It is important. Young people have suffered already a lot during covid. They have invested in their degree and put all the hard work in. It is only right that they should have their degrees marked. This is a dispute between universities and their lecturers, but we are urging them to make sure they prioritise all those who will be graduating this year.

Budget Resolutions

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

The subject of the River Wye has already been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman). There is no advantage in my repeating all he said; suffice it to say that there is not a cigarette paper between us in our agreement on that vital subject.

The Budget comes at the tail end of a once-in-a-century pandemic, the sharpest financial hit in more than 300 years. Despite what others may think, our finances were in good shape before the pandemic hit. That allowed us to keep the country running, so we should be grateful to the local authorities and all those who played their part and mended the roof while the sun shone.

Now, as we make our way out of the pandemic, it is encouraging to see signs of our economy recovering at a great pace: record numbers are in work, job vacancies are at a record high and we have the fastest-growing economy in the G7. We should not forget that that is largely thanks to £280 billion-worth of support from the Government, the taxpayer and our Chancellor, keeping businesses afloat and helping families to weather the storm. This Budget means that we can stay in the lead, helping industries such as the hospitality sector and the hop and cider industries in my constituency.

The cider industry in Herefordshire is said to produce most of the cider consumed in the UK. Cider apple growing is worth only about £24 million to farming annually, yet UK cider production comprises 39% of the global market, and the industry pre-pandemic was worth about £3.1 billion to the UK economy. However, it has taken a significant hit during the pandemic.

Cider is now worth £2.1 billion—a decrease of 32.1%. That is why the Chancellor’s announcement about alcohol tax and duty will have a significant impact on producers based in my constituency. The 15 alcohol duty rates will now be reduced to six—a simplification that was a long time coming—and cider duty will see its biggest cut since 1923. Having always been at a 2p disadvantage to beer, cider will now finally be treated as equal.

The alcohol by volume of most ciders is between 4.5% and 7%, which is similar to beer, excluding the low-alcohol versions. Some 47.8% of all households, up from 45.5% last year, now regularly buy cider. I think that that is fantastic. Apparently, the average UK household takes home 33 litres each year—it must be good for them.

Over the past year, cider sales online saw a growth of 81.4%. Cider occasionally wins a share from beer during the summer months, going from 10.5% of market share to 12%. It is easy to see why this should have happened. I welcome the Chancellor's announcement because it will promote job stimulation in the sector. At present, just 11,500 people rely on the cider industry for employment, yet UK cider producers sell to more than 50 countries all over the world. My constituency is home to some of the finest and best-known cider manufacturers not only in the UK, but in the world, and they will truly benefit from the Chancellor’s announcements.

We have a burgeoning craft cider sector as well. Approximately 80% of Britain’s cider makers are small producers; the small producers relief is fantastic news to those entrepreneurial cider makers. It is my hope that the simplification will allow small producers to become more profitable and expand their market share. Currently, hundreds of producers make cider up to the 70-hectolitre limit, but produce no more because they cannot afford the tax burden of going over the threshold: as soon as they produce 7,001 litres, they have to pay the current duty on their entire quantity at the same rate as a multi- national corporation that produces 1 million hectolitres. The new changes are important; I look forward to seeing the detailed plans to support small local producers when they are released.

I also welcome the benefit that this Budget will have for the hop-growing industry. Just over 50 British farmers grow hops in the UK, of which about half are in my constituency. The relationship with the crop goes back centuries: the first reference to hop growing in Herefordshire was made in 1577. Herefordshire is one of only three major hop-growing regions in the UK, alongside Worcester and Kent. Over recent years, there has been an explosive rise of craft brewing that has revolutionised the British beer industry. As a result, demand for local hops has grown, and it is my hope that demand will only increase as we promote brewers and their fare.

As we all know, the hospitality sector took a massive hit during the pandemic. According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, consumer spending on hospitality started to increase in May 2021, but remains at less than 70% of pre-pandemic levels. It is therefore encouraging that 90% of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will receive at least 50% off their business rates bills in 2022-23. That will be a huge relief for the pubs that struggled so much that they were forced to close their doors.

Post-covid tourism within this country is expected to grow as well. When that is teamed with the biggest cut in beer duty for 50 years, we are looking at boosting British pubs by nearly £100 million a year, which has to be a good thing. Collectively, we expect to reduce the burden of business rates in England by more than £7 billion over the next five years, and the freeze in alcohol duties for the third year in a row will translate to a tax cut worth £500 million every year for families. The duty on draught beer and cider served from containers of over 40 litres will be cut by 5%, which will encourage drinkers to return to pubs after the pain of the pandemic and give the pubs the boost that they need. However, Ministers are due to hold a consultation on the size of kegs eligible for the tax relief. Many of the craft brewers and cider makers that we are trying to boost use 20 or 30-litre kegs. Unless the consultation shows some sort of sympathy towards them, I expect that that will change fairly rapidly.

We must be careful not just to help the big producers, but to do the Conservative thing of encouraging the entrepreneur. However, as Nik Antona, the chairman of CAMRA—the Campaign for Real Ale—rightly said after the announcement, the Chancellor’s budget shows that

“pubs are a force for good in our communities and should be supported to help them survive and compete with the likes of supermarkets.”

I truly believe that the Chancellor agrees with that statement, and I commend him for all he is doing for the sector.

This Budget was never going to be an easy one, and I have my concerns about some aspects of it, such as NHS reform along with value for taxpayers’ money. I would of course have liked to see more taxes reduced, while recognising that the armed forces who have played such a crucial role need to be increased. With such large expenditure announced for our public sector, it is only right that we expect a modicum of reform, and the way in which it spends taxpayers’ money must be scrupulously rigorous. However, we are faced with recovery from an extremely sharp economic decline, not just nationally but internationally.

Crucial aspects of the economy are growing and giving everyone the leg up that they deserve. I look forward to seeing how these changes continue that help for individuals and, especially, businesses in my constituency.

Educational Settings

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

Yes, we can.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

This Easter holiday was, for good students, their opportunity to revise, so we do not have a great deal of time to give proper guidance for A-level and GCSE students. How long should they expect it to be before they know exactly what is going to happen?

[Gavin Williamson]

We will be giving very clear guidance for all schools and all students. There will not be exams taking place this year, and we will be making sure, for every child due to be sitting GCSEs, A-levels or any other form of qualifications and expecting results in August, that the work they have done is properly reflected in those GCSEs and A-levels.

Agriculture GCSE

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Julian Sturdy]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I have not quite reached the farmer’s average age yet, which is around 59 at the moment. I was going on to mention that Northern Ireland already has a GCSE in agriculture, which started in 2013.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I really hope the Minister will answer this when she responds later: why is it good enough for GCSEs to be provided to young people in Northern Ireland, but not in North Herefordshire?

[Julian Sturdy]

It is up to the Minister to respond to that, and I hope she does, but I do not want to see a GCSE in agriculture only in North Herefordshire. I want to see it in England and Wales and perhaps Scotland as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Sturdy]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a valuable point.

My support for the agriculture GCSE is based on two central arguments: first, the course would offer great benefits to GCSE pupils in helping to equip them for a skilled and fulfilling career that agriculture can offer; and secondly, it would support the farming sector by providing a better and larger pool of young, educated and skilled workers. I have already mentioned Northern Ireland. It is important to re-emphasise that Northern Ireland has had a GCSE in agriculture since 2013. I could not get the figures, but I would be interested to know what the take-up has been in Northern Ireland.

[Bill Wiggin]

My hon. Friend will find that 17 schools already offer the GCSE in Northern Ireland, with an average of 10 students per class. Agriculture, horticulture and animal care is the fastest growing degree subject, with an increase in applications of 117%, so clearly the demand is there.

[Julian Sturdy]

I am glad my hon. Friend has brought those figures to this debate. I can always rely on him to bring facts to the table. It is also worth mentioning that there is an opportunity for those who are privileged enough to have the advantage of taking an IGCSE qualification in agriculture offered by Cambridge Assessment, but it is clear that opportunities are limited to a small cohort of students in the UK, so I do not think that that really qualifies. We have to make sure that it is offered right across the board.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Sturdy]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman; he makes the point very well. As we move forward with Brexit, now is the time to push the boundaries and take agriculture to new levels. To do that, however, we will need the skills base for the future, and we have to enthuse young people. A GCSE in agriculture gives us a real opportunity to do that.

Sadly, there is plenty of evidence that young people do not consider agriculture as a potential career path at the moment, which is unfortunate considering its vital role in the UK economy, and in addressing the huge global challenges of world hunger, food security and environmental conservation. Only 4% of UK workers would ever consider farm work or going into agriculture. Statistics show that about 20,000 students opt to study agriculture at university each year. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) said, that is a growing number, which is very encouraging. However, some 280,000 school leavers sign up for business-related degrees. Introducing agriculture as an option early on, at GCSE level, would give young people a chance to understand the huge opportunities that the sector offers them, and would do something to correct the imbalance.

The comparison with business studies in those statistics, along with Adam Henson’s comments that I quoted earlier, are important because it is essential that we remember that farming is a business, and therefore offers exactly the same opportunity for entrepreneurship and innovation as urban enterprises, as well as addressing huge environmental and humanitarian concerns. Moreover, it is a business sector that will be at the forefront of unfolding technological developments and exciting scientific advancements. A GCSE option would be a useful way of alerting school pupils and school leavers to those opportunities.

Agriculture is being, and will be, transformed by the fourth industrial revolution, and it is important to alert pupils and parents to the option of pursuing a career in a high-tech, high-skill industry, utilising the latest scientific innovations. School leavers entering the farming sector in the next few years could expect to use GPS technology to harvest wheat, to use driverless tractors, to use drones to deliver herbicides to weeds on a precision basis, to grow wheat with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and to use other new technologies that will drive up animal welfare, such as robotic milking parlours. The industry needs entrants with sound scientific understanding and applied skills.

In the next few decades, robotics, biotechnology, gene editing and data science will become increasingly established in the farming sector. Our country is home to some of the best agri-science research in the world, such as at Rothamstead Research in Herefordshire—

[Bill Wiggin]

Hertfordshire.

[Julian Sturdy]

Sorry, Hertfordshire—once again, I thank my hon. Friend for giving the correct details. Other examples include Fera Science, just outside my constituency in North Yorkshire, and Stockbridge Technology Centre in North Yorkshire. We should be trying to fire the imaginations of our young people by engaging them in the classroom with such examples as soon as possible, just as we try to inspire pupils with the achievements of British scientists and astronauts and the richness of British cultural and literary achievements in their science and English GCSE courses. The development of indoor vertical farming using hydroponics will also expand the opportunities for growing food in urban areas, which could make agricultural knowledge just as relevant to pupils in urban areas as in rural ones.

An agriculture GCSE would also encourage school- children to grapple in a practical manner with the huge practical, humanitarian and environmental challenge of global food security. The growth of the global population means that, as a world, we have to produce 70% more food over the next 30 years to keep pace with demand, and to ensure that people do not go hungry. Moreover, we have to do so in an environmentally sustainable way that makes the best use of our finite resources.

The challenge is as significant in its own way as that of climate change, and I argue that, like climate change, it should be included in school curricula. Putting an agriculture GCSE on the curriculum would also widen opportunities for students, by giving them the option to learn about a sector that relatively few of them will have knowledge of, or have considered as a career choice. The majority of farms are family businesses, mine being no exception, and the routes to getting involved if someone is not directly from a farming background can, sadly, be quite limited. That is to the detriment of both the sector and school leavers, who are restricted in their ability to get a taste of a sector in which they could well thrive.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on science and technology in agriculture, I was pleased to host the UK and Ireland delegates to the global agricultural summit here in Parliament last November. All the current entrants were university students. I was hugely impressed by their knowledge, their enthusiasm for the latest advances in agriculture and their desire to contribute solutions. However, what was most telling was that not a single one of them had a family background in farming. They had all been drawn to the sector by developing their own independent interest and research into agricultural questions. That certainly emphasised to me the capacity of agriculture to challenge and inspire young people, but I would also highlight that it is relatively rare for children to become independently interested in it, which reinforces the value of having the option at school so that they can make informed choices on the basis of a comprehensive array of available options.

As well as being of benefit to younger people, having an expanded pool of educated and enthusiastic young people would also be very useful for the sector and the wider UK food and drink industry. As has already been mentioned, the age of the farming workforce is ever increasing. Farming is challenging and changing. In the race to keep up with the pace, we need a high-skilled workforce entering the industry with applied capabilities and an awareness of the breadth of available opportunities. I commend the Government for pushing ahead with a substantial reform to post-16 education, but its effectiveness could be limited if measures are not introduced to expand the opportunities in secondary education to include a GCSE in agriculture.

I ask the Minister to look closely at this issue going forward. There is a great opportunity for our economy, as well as an opportunity to give young people the skills in what is, to me, an incredibly vibrant and exciting sector.

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) on securing this debate. He spoke passionately and emphasised the need for people—not just young people—to know about careers in all aspects of farming. He also mentioned agri-tech. In my role as Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, I have met a number of people in that sector about the opportunities. My hon. Friend and I have spoken at length before about grazing horses. This is a new subject for us to discuss, and I heard everything he had to say.

I am mindful that with apprenticeships and T-levels there is a tendency for the focus to be urban-based and for rural areas to be forgotten. I assure my hon. Friend, as well as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) —who has now left—my hon. Friends the Members for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), for Angus (Kirstene Hair) and for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), and the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), that I will not forget that, because it is important.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer raised the issue of food production across the world and the international aspects of farming, which is equally important. It is also important that the sector gets the workforce it needs. He will be aware that a number of subjects taught at key stage 4 and earlier include some core knowledge about food production and the environment. Those have been recognised in the changes that have come about to GCSEs. There have also been a number of changes to GCSEs that make the content more rigorous. Whatever someone does after 16, it is critical to have a good foundation in maths, English and digital skills. My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of understanding that farming is a business. Business skills are important, and such skills are predicated on a solid grounding.

In geography, for instance, pupils are expected to learn about changing weather, climate change, global ecosystems, biodiversity and resources, including an overview of how humans use, modify and change those ecosystems and environments in order to obtain food, energy and water. In the nutrition GCSE, pupils are required to understand the economic, environmental and socio-cultural influences on food availability. That is quite important. There is also content in some of the science GCSEs. I suspect that that will not be enough to satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer, or indeed my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire, who spoke with his usual passion, but material in the core reformed subjects provides a general background, which forms an important grounding in some of the knowledge needed to go on and run a business.

Schools can also do outdoor learning and there is a certain amount of freedom, which many schools use. I gather that there are more than 100 schools with farms in the UK, a fact I was not aware of. They bring pupils from both rural and urban areas to understand a little bit more about farming. Also, there is a City & Guilds technical certificate in agriculture for 16 to 18-year-olds, so some opportunities do exist. In addition, apprenticeships and T-levels—technical education that will be on a par with A-levels—will change the world. To some extent, it is in the hands of hon. Members to go out into their schools to highlight the opportunities that exist.

The first teaching of T-levels will start in September 2020, with the remainder launched in two phases in 2021 and 2022. The agriculture, environment and animal care route will be rolled out in the second phase, which gives it a degree of importance not afforded to all. The content of the T-levels will be decided by employers, professionals and practitioners, which will mean they have real market relevance and real currency within the sector. We are currently consulting on T-levels and I am sure the farming sector and the broader agri-tech sector will have input.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer is right that early introduction to the issues is important. I launched our careers strategy in December last year. The strategy recognises that young people’s interaction with work is absolutely critical—not just doing work placements, but employers coming into schools. There are now duties on schools to bring people in and there are clear benchmarks about what they have to achieve in terms of introducing young people to the wide range of careers and the routes to getting there. Entrepreneurial, talented new entrants are needed to encourage the next generation of farmers.

There has been wide-scale reform of apprenticeships. There will be some farmers who pay levies, but there are opportunities even for small and medium-sized enterprises. Apprenticeship standards for land-based service engineer and land-based service engineer technician are already live and a number of standards are in development, including crop technician, farrier, poultry technician and stockperson. The Institute for Apprenticeships is working with employers to ensure that quality standards are high. I recently met some students in a school for young people with special needs. I was very impressed with the work that they are doing to encourage those children, who are going on to do level 2 apprenticeships in agriculture, farming and animal care. It is very impressive.

We want to make sure that the sector has the right skills, but what is absolutely critical is overcoming a not insignificant degree of parental and teacher prejudice about the options that are open for young people. It has been a pleasure to have this debate. I am sorry I did not have longer, but I assure my hon. Friend that I am on the case. It is very important that the tendency with these changes for an urban focus is spread out into rural communities. National Apprenticeship Week is coming up. He will have the opportunity—

[Bill Wiggin]

Will the Minister give way?

[Anne Milton]

Yes, briefly.

[Bill Wiggin]

It is critical that we have an academic qualification for people in urban areas in this subject, rather than making them do apprenticeships that they cannot reach because they live in the towns.

[Anne Milton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because it is also about attracting people back into the countryside. One of the issues for rural communities is that people leave and go elsewhere. There are high-level qualifications too—it is not just about levels 2 and 3; it is about levels 4 and 5. The degree opportunities were mentioned, and degree apprenticeships are really taking off. There is not much not to like—

Education, Skills and Training

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I will get on to those points, but this is a debate on the entirety of the Queen’s Speech, and I am entitled to say what I like about any little bit of it. The hon. and learned Lady can make her own speech if she catches the Speaker’s eye, and I will thank her if she lets me make mine. I am here to make the point that I want to make, and I intend to do so.

The emptiness of the current Conservative agenda outlined in the Queen’s Speech is apparent in the public relations hyperbole that accompanied its announcement. Once more, we have to “mind the gap” between rhetoric and reality. Although the Government boast about their credentials as a “one nation Government”, they are cutting support for working people and giving the richest a tax cut. They think £450,000 for a starter home is affordable, and they are doing nothing effective to solve the housing crisis or the problem of soaring rents. They boast of a life chances agenda, as indeed the hon. and learned Lady has just done, but this is what is happening in 2016 in Tory Britain: homelessness is soaring; millions are forced to resort to food banks just to eat; Sure Start centres are closing; the attainment gap is widening between different areas of the country; and millions more are struggling to see their doctor, and cuts to funding mean that that is likely to get worse.

The Prime Minister’s self-proclaimed life chances agenda is either a joke or a con. How do the Tories improve life chances by abolishing student maintenance grants for the poorest, increasing tuition fees and barely mentioning further education colleges in their plans? How do they create opportunity by underfunding education and constantly fiddling with school structures while ignoring low morale, the chronic teacher shortages and the growing pressure on school places? The Government’s proposals for improving life chances must be judged in the context of their funding settlements for education, as I mentioned earlier. The 16-to-19 age group has seen a real-terms fall of 14% in its funding provision since 2010, and education capital spend has fallen by 34%.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I hesitate to interrupt such an enthusiastic and positive speech. The hon. Lady is having a busy day. Perhaps she would be kind enough to rally a little support for the Hereford university project, which will deliver the life chances that I know that she and I can unite in supporting.

[Ms Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman should invite me to come and visit the university. We can go together so that I can see what is going on in Herefordshire.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has calculated that there is likely to be an 8% fall in funding per pupil between now and 2020 in the schools sector, after a modest 0.6% rise in funding per pupil in the previous Parliament. It cannot be said that I do not put the figures accurately on the record and give the Government credit where it is due—0.6% for the first five years of the coalition, and minus 8% for the next period. Both adult and part-time education have seen huge falls in numbers participating because people cannot afford to pay.

Schools Funding

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to respond later.

The F40 campaign has been driven by many hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I am only one of many voices who have been calling for progress. I hope that we will hear those voices following up on that in the debate, but I also hope that we hear from all such Members recognition of the progress that has been made to date. I urge the Minister to listen particularly closely to the concerns of those long-suffering F40 areas that have so far missed out and to ensure that all the lowest-funded authorities get the fairest deal possible from the consultation. I urge her to keep up the pressure for progress towards a fair and transparent system of funding and to commit ever more firmly to real fairness in the years to come.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Free schools is one area that is party political. I am sure that we all welcome the excellent progress made by the Government and that the funding formula for free schools has had a stronger impact on the lowest-funded areas than, perhaps, on the wealthier ones. Does he agree that the Government need to address that in F40 areas?

[Mr Walker]

Changes to the system for free schools and to the LACSEG—local authority central spend equivalent grant—a couple of years ago have produced some effects that have tended to hurt the lowest-funded areas more. That is a consequence of unfair funding, rather than of the changes, and the key thing is to get the funding system right, so that we do not have such pernicious effects in future. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, because it gives me the opportunity to welcome the Government’s decision to fund the Aspire academy in Worcester, a free school that is taking over pupil referral unit provision in the county, which is badly needed and supported by a wide range of secondary schools in Worcester.

I want our party to set down clearly in its manifesto our commitment not only to a fair, transparent funding formula in years to come, but to its rapid implementation. I am proud that, with the help of so many colleagues, I will be able to face the electorate of Worcester and say that we have won a better deal and that fairer funding is on its way, but the fight is not yet over—it has scarcely begun. We have secured the first down payment on fairer funding. F40 MPs must keep campaigning together to secure the real fairness that our schools, their teachers and, most importantly, their pupils have been denied for too long.

School Funding

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

A surprising last-minute entry, Mr Bill Wiggin.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to the statement and hearing how my right hon. Friend is teasing Labour Members by not telling them their figures. Will he remember and reinforce the unfairness that we have had to put up with for so many years, and turn the knife by telling us how much Herefordshire is getting?

[Mr Laws]

Yes, I certainly can. Herefordshire is one of the authorities that were underfunded by previous Labour Governments, and it will gain as a consequence of this announcement with funding rising to around £4,430 a pupil.

Education Funding for 18-year-olds

Bill Wiggin Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this excellent debate, Mr Williams. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on securing it. There is clearly passion about the issue throughout the House.

The further education and sixth-form sector has been neglected and under-supported for many decades. It has not had the rightful support that it needs, which is a great shame, because it does extremely well with the resources that it has. We have heard that education for 16 to 18-year-olds gets about 22% less funding than for pupils up to 16, which seems problematic. We in Cambridge are hit particularly hard, because our county gets the lowest funding in the country for all schools, followed by poor funding afterwards. That is a separate issue and not for the Minister, but I hope the Government will correct the long-standing anomaly that pupils in Cambridgeshire get £600 less each per year than the English average. That does not seem fair to me.

My constituency is served by three excellent institutions, all of them for some reason right on the boundary; some are just inside, some just outside. They are Long Road sixth-form college, Hills Road sixth-form college and Cambridge Regional college, and they do extremely well. Hills Road sixth-form college has a national reputation for leading the way in the sector. If one looks at entry into Oxbridge, which I do not think is the only way to measure success, its performance is right up there; it gets more pupils in than anywhere other than Eton and Westminster, and it is a state-funded sixth-form college. That is what we should be aspiring to in state-sector education throughout the country.

However, the Government changes, of which the measure we are discussing is one, will make it hard for those colleges to provide the four A-levels that they have often provided and that are often provided in the private sector. They are worried about whether the example that they have set for so many years will continue, or whether that excellent exemplar of what the state can provide will be lost. They have huge problems.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

Hereford sixth-form college is another outstanding performer. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government could—it would be much appreciated by everybody if they could—consider how much VAT such schools can reclaim?

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Gentleman is right. I was going to say that next. I have debated this matter in the House, as have many other hon. Members. One big problem is that the general education sector does not have to pay VAT, but the sixth-form sector does. If equal money is given at the beginning but one sector has to pay VAT and the others do not, that is a huge problem. A sixth-form college’s VAT load is typically £300,000. If the Minister could fix the problem with the Treasury, that would be solved. Cambridge Regional college pays £1 million in VAT. That is a huge difference and there should be a much easier way to solve the problem.