Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Russell Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am beginning to recognise a theme, albeit a very welcome one. I do not wish to spoil the harmony on the Government Front Bench, having worked very well with my Conservative colleagues on restoring the economy, but we happen to disagree fundamentally on the future of Europe.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

T6. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for his excellent stewardship of the Department over the past five years. Greater attention must be given to Britain’s defence industry when placing orders. Price and competition are all very well, but in the defence interests of the UK, and to support the skilled jobs we have, does he agree that in a changing world we should not put at risk the skills, supply, maintenance and servicing of our defence capability?

[Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He refers to a recent decision by the Ministry of Defence to award a contract to a British company in Germany, rather than a German company in Britain. In general our industrial strategy has been widely adopted across Government, but we probably have not gone as far in integrated defence procurement in that process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Russell Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is good that we have got through all the substantive questions on the Order Paper.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)]

As this is the last Education Question Time of this Parliament, I thank colleagues in all parts of the House for their questions, though I particularly thank all staff and governors at the thousands of schools up and down this country who work so hard every day to prepare our young people for life in modern Britain.

In this Parliament, the Government have established more than 4,200 academies, 255 free schools, 37 studio schools and 37 university technical colleges. More than 100,000 more six-year-olds are able to read because of our focus on phonics, and we have introduced the pupil premium, worth £2.5 billion this year. Our plan for education is working.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer, but one thing that the Government have not done is introduce a holistic approach to education for life. If we are talking about positive values and life skills, is it not time that first aid training was made a requirement in the school curriculum?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for spotting one of the things that we have not yet achieved in this Parliament. I agree with him that first aid skills are very important, and I was discussing that only this morning with Natasha Jones, who has been named Tesco community mum of the year for setting up a baby resuscitation project. We also welcome the work of expert organisations such as the British Heart Foundation to support schools in this aspect of teaching and we have been working with the Department of Health on helping schools to procure defibrillators at a reduced price.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Russell Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

VAT is a matter that is constantly raised with me, but it is one for the Chancellor. He keeps all taxes under review, and I am sure that he will keep this one under review too. The hon. Gentleman might like to know that I am holding a round-table meeting on VAT with the industry in the next two weeks.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Let us hear the fellow—Sir Bob Russell.

[Sir Bob Russell]

Mr Speaker, I was merely observing that the Mayflower commenced its journey to America from Harwich and merely stopped off at Plymouth en route.

[Mr Speaker]

I think that question was rhetorical, but if the Minister particularly wishes to respond she may.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Russell Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Lady rightly touches on the key outstanding issue, and I certainly believe it would be appropriate to consider the indirect supply chains. I am happy to talk to my colleague the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about that particular issue, but I think she will find that there is a legislative obstacle.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Will my right hon. Friend look at the successful local sourcing policies promoted by the East of England Co-operative Society, with the support of Forward East, which are enabling small food and drink manufacturers to get their products into local stores? He and others might wish to know that on Tuesday 24 February, in the Inter-Parliamentary Union room at lunchtime, they will be able to witness that for themselves.

[Vince Cable]

It is always the case that genuinely voluntary efforts to promote local sourcing produce substantial benefits and that legislation is necessarily a blunt instrument. The method my hon. Friend describes is better where it can be applied.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

I met my hon. Friend and a delegation yesterday to discuss that. I congratulate him on the stamina he has shown in pursuing the Goonhilly project, which is now part of the regional growth fund. He has raised wider issues about how the space policy can be developed to bring in the private sector, and I shall discuss with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science and Cities how we can progress that.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Unemployment in my constituency has fallen by 54% since the last general election. In respect of business, innovation and skills, will my right hon. Friend get his officials to look at the success story that is the Colchester business enterprise agency, a not-for-profit voluntary organisation which has about 50 starter workshop units helping new and innovative fledgling businesses?

[Matthew Hancock]

Yes, absolutely. The fall in unemployment across the land, in Colchester and beyond, is a vital sign that the long-term economic plan is working. I very much look forward to visiting Colchester soon and look forward to taking up the hon. Gentleman’s proposal.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Russell Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I understand that several hon. Members are celebrating their birthdays in the House today, but we would be here for a long time if I named them all. I am trying to remember some of their constituencies. There is my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick). I have not quite memorised all the names and constituencies in the way that you have, Mr Speaker.

I have met Professor Arthur and I think that he is doing fantastic work in Birmingham and I look forward to him taking part in our work on building the plans for character education in our schools.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with me that if first aid was made part of the national curriculum as part of her inquiry into character building and well-rounded citizens it would greatly help with both of those objectives?

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman is right that those are of course important skills that we would like to see in all our young people. In the work of the Department I need to balance demands for additional subjects and for academic qualifications, but many schools already teach life-saving skills. As a Department, we have recently negotiated a contract so that schools can obtain defibrillators at reasonable rates and they will of course want to train their pupils on how to use them.

Lords Spiritual (Women) Bill

Bob Russell Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill has been brought forward by the Government in response to the welcome decision by the Church of England to allow the ordination of female bishops. It will ensure that female diocesan bishops can join their male counterparts on the Lords Spiritual Benches sooner than they would have done under the current rules.

Bishops have attended Parliament from its earliest beginnings. In the first Parliaments, abbots as well as bishops and archbishops attended as Lords Spiritual alongside the nobles and peers of the realm—the Lords Temporal. Several Archbishops of Canterbury served mediaeval kings as Lord Chancellor. After the Reformation, abbots ceased to be Lords Spiritual. In the reformed Church of England, there were 26 diocesan bishops, all of whom had the right to sit as Lords Spiritual.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I am sorry to bring a note of discord to the proceedings, but I am bound to observe that the whole arrangement is for one denomination of the Christian Church. If we are to have religious people in the other place in the 21st century, surely they should be more representative of all Christian denominations and, indeed, should reflect all faiths.

[Mr Gyimah]

The Bill is very focused. It does not seek to change the composition or powers of the House of Lords, but to allow something that will happen anyway—the admission of female bishops to the House of Lords—to happen sooner than it otherwise would.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Thank God for women priests, because the Anglican Church would be in dire trouble in many parts of the country if there were no ordained women. I pay tribute to the women priests of the Church of England in my constituency over the past 30 years.

I speak as somebody who is not an Anglican. I come from good non-conformist stock, brought up in the Congregational Church and now in the United Reformed Church. My great-grandfather was a Congregational minister, one grandfather was a lay preacher, and my parents were leading members of their churches. As Members can gather, that has obviously become diluted through the generations. I am intrigued by the lords a-leaping—the bishops’ gymnastics—that we have heard about, and I have a wonderful picture as to how that will be carried out.

The Bill is great news and I shall support it, even though I am not an Anglican. As I said earlier, of all the Christian denominations—clearly, I am a Christian—only one denomination is guaranteed 26 places in the other place, although my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) has briefed me that a female Methodist priest has been in the other place for many years, so it is good to see them catching up. The Christian Church is stronger as a result of having different denominations with people of all views, whether they be evangelical, high church, non-conformist or Salvation Army, and so on. There is a breadth of denominations, yet only one denomination has guaranteed places in the other place.

I did my bit to break the mould in 1986-87, when I became mayor of Colchester and appointed the first woman ever to be the mayor’s chaplain—Deaconess Christine Shillaker. I had the great privilege and honour of being in Saffron Walden when she became a “Rev”—although still not a full “Rev”—and then of being in Chelmsford cathedral when she was in the first cohort of women in Essex to become fully fledged clergy who were able to do everything, and not just have the pick-and-mix approach that the Anglican Church allowed them at different times.

Regarding that very important occasion, what also sticks in the memory is that some of the people there were opposed to women being ordained; I am not sure what they would do about them becoming bishops. There was—only British culture could allow for this—a formal protest. At the end of the penultimate verse of the last hymn, the whole proceedings stopped to enable a reverend gentleman, Rev. Bell from Stanway near Colchester, to go forward and explain why it was wrong to allow women to become priests. A bewigged gentleman from the diocese office then went forward and explained why it was legally okay to proceed. To Rev. Bell’s credit, as he walked the full length of Chelmsford cathedral, the packed congregation sang the last verse with even greater gusto. I am delighted to say that the Rev. Christine Shillaker later had her own parish near Harwich, where she did her time, and she is now happily retired, living back in Colchester. I am so pleased that it fell to me to invite a woman to be the mayor’s chaplain and thus break the mould.

It is obviously an historical outrage that there is not a diocese of Colchester. We are in the diocese of Chelmsford, and have been for a hundred years, and I had hoped that the Archbishop of Canterbury would have stayed just long enough to hear this plea. Kent has two Anglican cathedrals, so why, given its population growth, cannot Essex? The plea is stronger, coming as it does from a non-Anglican. The historical support for such a plea is that Colchester was once the capital of Roman Britain, and in my town, visible to this day, are the remains of arguably the oldest Christian church in the British Isles. It was a Christian church in the closing period of the Roman occupation. It has taken the Christian Church centuries to get this far, and the Anglicans are catching up on many of the non-conformist Churches. Today, Parliament can say yes to women bishops in the other place, but Anglicans are not the only Christian denomination in this country, and if the Anglican Church is represented in the House of Lords, the other denominations should be too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Russell Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me an opportunity to clarify that. I think that it should absolutely be part of the procurement process for all major infrastructure projects that bidders are expected to make appropriate investments either in some form of skills training or, ideally, from my point of view—I am the apprenticeships bore—in the creation of apprenticeships. I hope that he, having criticised our record, will welcome the enormous number of apprenticeships that have been created in his constituency —50% up on 2009-10.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Is this Government policy applicable to all Departments? Will the Minister specifically have a word with the Ministry of Defence, which perhaps does not know about it?

[Nick Boles]

I have the greatest respect for my hon. Friend and am always nervous about implying that his comments are in any way unfair, but the armed forces in fact create more apprenticeships every single year than any other organisation in the country. I want this to be an integral part of the procurement for major infrastructure projects and, to the extent that the MOD is involved in such projects, it will absolutely apply to it, but the MOD is leading the way in creating apprenticeships, and we should pay credit to it for that.

Paediatric First Aid

Bob Russell Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate, and congratulate Millie’s Trust on highlighting awareness of this issue. I met a member of the family at Little Blossoms nursery in Barrowford in my constituency at a fund-raiser for Millie’s Trust. I echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) has said. When I was talking to people and raising money for Millie’s Trust, it was providing people with the free pocket face shields that can be put on a key ring. Those of us who are qualified and trained in delivering CPR always have a face shield on us in case we come across a choking incident that has developed into something where CPR needs to be given.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

rose—

[Mark Hunter]

I give way to the chair of the all-party group on first aid.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate and for the manner in which he has spoken. I follow on from the previous two interventions. Sadly, I am a parent who has walked this way, albeit at a different age and in different circumstances. We need to reinforce the need for first aid right across society. In each occupation and discipline, account needs to be taken of the specialist medical needs. First aid in schools, which I have been banging on about ever since I became a Member of Parliament, needs to be brought in, but the specialist needs of occupations need to be bolted on to that.

[Mark Hunter]

My hon. Friend’s contribution was, as ever, clear and concise. It gave a clear indication of his experience personally and as the chair of the all-party group on first aid.

To move on for a moment to the current guidelines, the Department for Education published its new statutory framework for the early years foundation stage in March. It became effective in September. Paragraph 3.25 of section 3, which is on the safeguarding and welfare requirements of early years providers, states:

“At least one person who has a current paediatric first aid certificate must be on the premises and available at all times when children are present, and must accompany children on outings. Childminders, and any assistant who might be in sole charge of the children for any period of time, must hold a current paediatric first aid certificate. Paediatric first aid training must be relevant for workers caring for young children and where relevant, babies. Providers should take into account the number of children, staff and layout of premises to ensure that a paediatric first aider is able to respond to emergencies quickly.”

What the Thompsons, Millie’s Trust supporters, I and countless other Members are asking is: why stop at one person? Does that not leave a nursery open to the possibility of another such tragedy? What happens if the first-aider is off ill, called away or panics?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Hunter]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I am sure that everyone involved in the Millie’s Trust campaign will be heartened by the interest shown by hon. Members from right across the House, including the hon. Gentleman.

During the inquest into Millie Thompson’s death in December 2013, the coroner, John Pollard, said:

“It is of national importance that the legislation surrounding nurseries regarding paediatric first aid is reviewed.”

He also recommended that the North West Ambulance Service review some of its policies, including what paediatric equipment each ambulance should carry. I am pleased to report that, since the inquest, it has successfully carried out that review. The coroner has said that the issue is of national importance and called for the policies around paediatric first aid treatment in nurseries to be reviewed, so I hope that the Minister will take that on board.

The North West Ambulance Service has gone further by introducing a minimum requirement list of paediatric equipment that every ambulance must now carry. The service’s urgent review and subsequent changes have ensured that any errors made in how it reacted to the 999 call regarding Millie Thompson will not be repeated. It has taken seriously what the coroner advised, and Millie’s death has had a positive outcome that will help other children in future. We acknowledge that the Department for Education deals with a wider remit than that of the North West Ambulance Service, but it is disappointing that we have seen action from the ambulance service on the coroner’s recommendations, but none as yet—although we live in hope—from the Government.

Following Millie’s tragic passing, the Thompsons decided to set up a charity to provide paediatric first aid training to anyone who wants to learn. They have successfully built what is now a national charity in just two years. It provides free training to parents and hugely discounted qualifications to anyone who needs paediatric first aid training, which is what Ofsted requests. Over the past two years, the charity has trained about 7,000 people, many of whom are nursery nurses. Millie’s Trust is a registered centre through Qualsafe, which is an Ofqual-recognised awarding body organisation.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to speak for a second time and for making that point. Millie’s Trust is a bona fide, regulated, registered charity. Did the coroner make any comment about the training competence of whoever trained the first aiders? I was alarmed when my hon. Friend said earlier that unregulated people may be out there providing first aid training; they may not be competent to do the job that they tell people they are able to do.

[Mark Hunter]

The coroner made a wide-ranging series of points in his response. I do not have his report to hand, but I am happy to ensure that my hon. Friend, as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on first aid, gets to see a copy. It is fair to say that the coroner addressed the wider concerns and the relevance to any future measures that may need to be taken.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I will be brief, because my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter) has presented his case comprehensively; the interventions he took and his responses to them have dealt with virtually every aspect of the debate.

I will address the wider need for first aid. I was shocked to hear that the element of first aid required under the previous regulations for child care was withdrawn. We need an explanation of why, bearing in mind that many of us have been pushing for first aid to be made part of the national curriculum. I brought forward a Bill in the previous Parliament on that issue, and have raised it at regular intervals at Education questions; most recently, I raised it with the Secretary of State for Health when he made a statement on greater investment in the NHS a few weeks ago. A population trained in first aid would bring massive financial savings, and would save several thousand lives a year—think of those in need of attention after a heart attack or a road crash.

Today’s debate is specifically about young children and infants. We have heard a catalogue of things that went wrong. I pay tribute to Millie’s parents for the diligent way in which they have turned a personal tragedy into a hope that we can take things forward, so that no other parents—or grandparents, uncles, aunts or family friends—will experience such a tragedy in the future.

I repeat the point I made in an intervention: if we start with five-year-olds knowing about nose bleeds—both theirs and other people’s—by the time they leave school, they will be trained in life-saving techniques for the rest of their lives. On top of that, we then need to bolt on, occupation by occupation, the specific first aid requirements that each profession needs. Clearly we do not need to train someone in a car factory on how to deal with an infant who is choking, but a person working in a nursery needs to know all about dealing with whatever calamity might occur to a young person there.

One point my hon. Friend mentioned has caused me great concern. Until today I had simply assumed that people who taught first aid were qualified up to a required standard, meaning that they were registered and regulated to give first aid and first aid training. We know that St John Ambulance and the Red Cross are qualified first aid organisations, but I am aware of other organisations, companies, groups of friends or whoever, who come together to provide first aid cover at events at a much lower rate than those two charities. I do not know how qualified those people are.

That is a serious issue that the Government need to look at and investigate. Who is providing first aid at events and how qualified are those first-aiders? That is why I asked my hon. Friend whether the coroner had made any comment about who trained the two members of staff at the nursery who, on the day in question, fell short of what was required. I do not know this, but it may well be that they had not been fully trained by qualified trainers. That is a huge area that the Government need to look at, although it is probably more an issue for the Department of Health than for the Department for Education.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this very moving debate. I thank hon. Members who have intervened. Specific thanks must go to Millie’s parents, who have devoted many months now to a campaign that has come quite quickly into the Houses of Parliament. We owe it to them to take the matter forward.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter)—not just for securing the debate, but for his calm and measured argument.

This debate marks yet another milestone in democracy. A while back, the tragic death of a nine-month-old child would not have led to a giant petition, signed by over 100,000 people, being considered by Parliament, with the chance perhaps to change the law. Although that would not have happened but for changes in parliamentary procedure, it is above all the result of the remarkable reaction and leadership shown by Millie’s parents, the Thompsons. Joanne is motivated by the purest motive that any of us parents could hope for—to make something positive out of profound tragedy, and light a candle in the darkness.

Although many of us can think of other recent examples of constituents campaigning successfully on issues dear to their hearts, today’s starting point must be to recognise both the very sad circumstances of Millie’s death and the positive reaction of Joanne and her husband afterwards in founding their charity. The heart of today’s debate is whether it should be mandatory in law for everyone working at nurseries to be given paediatric first aid training, or whether the law should stay where it was when the Childcare Act 2006 was brought in, under which it is mandatory that someone on the premises is trained, but not everyone.

My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) made a case for first aid training for every individual in the United Kingdom. He has a point: it is right that we should all go on a course. It is one of the best things I have ever done—I did so fairly recently, and no doubt far too late in life. However, that does not necessarily mean that to do so should be mandatory, thereby having rules, regulations and punishments attached to it—that people should be fined or there should be some other punishment for not going on a first aid course. I am not sure that today is the moment for a discussion of whether we should legislate that everybody should go on a course.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I should point out to my hon. Friend that I was not saying that there should be first aid training for every person, but that it should be part of the school curriculum. Clearly, over three generations everybody in the country would then be a trained first aider; others could—this is the example he has set himself—go voluntarily for training. However, if parents are entrusting their children to a nursery, it should be mandatory for the staff to have specific training for the needs of the role that they may be called upon to perform.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is right to differentiate between the two. The point I was going to make was that the fact that I went on a first aid course about two years ago does not necessarily make me that competent to attend to someone in a life-or-death situation today, let alone at some point in the future. Although it is a great idea that everybody at school should learn first aid, again, that will not necessarily make them competent to act in a life-or-death situation. As other hon. Members pointed out, the stress of that situation, the possibility of panic and the absence of recent and up-to-date experience of handling dummies and so on, will be crucial.

That brings me to the key points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle. He rightly touched on the fact that the number of children in child care is rising and on the need for care for the most vulnerable—this point will be especially relevant to the Minister, whose son cannot be much older than Millie was at the time of her death in 2012. The case that has been made today for mandatory paediatric first aid training for everybody working in child care is therefore a powerful one. The coroner concluded that, first, the ambulance service should carry paediatric equipment for such a situation and, secondly, that there should be a national review.

Joanne and her campaign for Millie’s Trust have already achieved the first objective, which other ambulance services around the country may want to consider. I shall certainly write to my own ambulance service in Gloucester. The second objective is open for the Minister’s response, and I hope he will bear in mind the already remarkable achievement of the trust in having trained several thousand teachers for free. This is a fantastic objective, and the number of teachers who have already been trained is fantastic.

I do not know the precise cost of ensuring that every person in every nursery is trained, and I hope that it would not increase the cost of the child care provided to so many of our constituents around the country. I hope that it will be absorbed by the nursery as a necessary part of providing that trust in child care that all of us who are parents would expect.

Today’s debate is an important step in recognising what an individual has done on behalf of her own child and her own family situation, but it has much wider applicability across the land to all of us who are parents and to everyone who puts their children, with trust, into a nursery school. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle made a strong case that is the stronger for having been measured and reasonable. I hope that the Minister—a reasonable man and a young father to boot—will be able to give us some reassurance about the national review as quickly as possible. I suspect that all of us here today hope that that review will lead to mandatory provision of paediatric first aid.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I start by offering my deepest sympathies to Mr and Mrs Thompson for the tragic death of their daughter, Millie, in October 2012. I would also like to say how much I admire the worthwhile work that the Thompsons are doing through Millie’s Trust in their daughter’s memory, providing first aid courses free of charge for people who are pregnant or have children under 12 months, and providing two-day courses for a charge to nurseries. Those are all incredible feats in a very short period of time, and I congratulate them on that. It is no accident that Joanne Thompson won the Lorraine Kelly inspirational woman of the year award.

This debate has come about following Millie’s tragic death and because of the impact of Mr and Mrs Thompson’s e-petition, which has gained more than 102,000 signatures, to have it made law that everyone working in a nursery must be trained in paediatric first aid. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter) on securing today’s debate on this important matter. I also thank all the hon. Members who have spoken here today. I have listened to their contributions and I agree that Millie’s death is a wake-up call for all of us. I hope during the course of my speech to address the points that have been raised so far.

As many hon. Members have said today, we can all agree that all young children deserve the highest possible level of safety and care. As a new father myself, with an eight-month-old son who is about to start nursery, I know that I want the nursery that I choose for my son to have an exemplary safety record, so that I can be reassured that he will have the best possible care. That is because the safety and welfare of children in all settings, whether in social care, schools or early years provision, is paramount.

What do we want to achieve? We want to ensure that there are confident, capable paediatric first-aiders in all nurseries, taking responsibility and responding quickly in an emergency. What are we doing to deliver that? The statutory framework for the early years foundation stage sets the standards for learning, development and care for children from birth to age five. All nurseries must meet these standards to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe.

In the light of Millie’s case, we have strengthened the early years foundation stage requirements. From this September, the early years foundation stage has made it even clearer that nurseries must always have staff available who are trained in paediatric first aid. Beyond that, we added to the paediatric first aid requirement that nurseries

“should take into account the number of children, staff and layout of premises to ensure that a paediatric first aider”

is “available at all times” and

“able to respond to emergencies quickly.”

In other words, if a nursery is operating over three floors, with children on each floor, it is not acceptable for it to say that it only has one first aider, because it is operating on three floors.

[Sir Bob Russell]

Bearing in mind what my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle said, will the Minister state whether training in those first aid requirements are being given by people who are qualified first aid trainers and not just people who say they are qualified first aid trainers?

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Russell Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

Schools play an important part in identifying young carers and offering them appropriate support. To assist them in that endeavour, the Department has been working with the Children’s Society and the Carers Trust to share tools and good practice with schools, including a free access e-learning module for school staff. The Department of Health is also training school nurses to support young carers at school.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Is it still the case that, for the purpose of drawing up school league tables, a pupil in hospital receiving treatment for cancer would be marked as absent?

[Mr Gibb]

Schools use various codes to report absences. In the case of any illness, chronic or otherwise, there is a specific code. Schools are not judged on the absence levels of pupils who are suffering chronic or other illnesses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Russell Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend that it was absolutely right to invite the Government of Ireland to lay a wreath at the national remembrance day service. It was an opportunity to mark our nations’ shared sacrifice. My hon. Friend will also be aware that Her Majesty the Queen lays a wreath on behalf of our country and the Crown dependencies and the Foreign Secretary does so on behalf of British overseas territories. I have to tell my hon. Friend that at this point we have no plans to change these arrangements.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Christmas eve is the 200th anniversary of the ending of the North American war between the United States and the United Kingdom. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is also worthy of a fitting tribute, perhaps of celebration and not just commemoration?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue. It is not something I have looked at carefully, but now he has mentioned it, I will take a look.