Ebbsfleet

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Tony Baldry

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. and learned Friend makes a very good point. One point I have made at various recent events is that we must make sure as we move forward that we build good-quality design, not just lots and lots of housing estates. There are two reasons for that. If we want people to be more accepting of development, not only have we got to make sure that people are involved in that through local plans and neighbourhood planning, but the development they see in their area must be of good quality. That requires good-quality design not just of the properties but the overall master plan. My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right that having even small areas developed where, when possible and appropriate, there is a good mix of retail, commercial and residential, with good open space and good community areas, bringing people together, does not just deliver good-quality homes for people to live in and good-quality places for people to raise their families, but also builds good, strong, long-lasting communities, and that is something I wholeheartedly support.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Ebbsfleet is blessed in that there is already a Bishop of Ebbsfleet, which must be the first time that the bishop has come before the city, rather than a city creating a bishop. I want to raise two points. We will not need an urban development corporation for Bicester. All the land for it lies within the area of Cherwell district council, and we are determined to make a success of it, and to make a garden town for the 21st century of which the country can be proud. What we will need, however, is the Ministry of Defence to surrender every square foot of MOD land that it does not need as speedily as possible. As evidence that Cherwell district council is determined to get on with this as speedily as possible, as my hon. Friend the Minister will know but the House may not know, Cherwell had acquired land to build 1,900 self-build homes. This is an incredibly popular project. Local development orders are now in place. Queues of people are coming, wanting to acquire these plots for self-build homes. May I suggest that this project, witnessed by the Prime Minister yesterday, could be rolled out to other parts of the country, because there is clearly a large appetite among the public for building their own homes, as we have seen in Bicester?

[Brandon Lewis]

My right hon. Friend has been a loud and strong proponent of the fantastic work being done in Bicester and of development on those garden city principles, and he is absolutely right. I visited Bicester last year and I visited again last week to see the excellent work done in just a few months, and the progress made to deliver the development in a good, strong, community-built way. He is right that this shows it does not have to be just one type of tenure. We can also develop the custom and self-build opportunities, which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and I have agreed on in the House—there is cross-party agreement—in the last few months.

I would say, however, that we do not do well enough in this country in sharing best practice. I advise people across local government who are looking at developments and how to develop to look at what is happening in places like Bicester and to talk to those involved. They are strong proponents, they are happy to talk to people, and they have done some excellent work that they can share with others about how good-quality development can help build strong communities of which we can all be proud.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Tony Baldry

Monday 21st October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman does himself a huge disservice in the way that he puts the question, for a couple of reasons. Putting aside the fact that the retirement age of 60 came in under the Labour Government in 2005, the issue about fitness and capability is, as I have said, for the employers and the Fire Brigades Union to resolve. I am delighted that we have brought them together.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Everyone appreciates the work that is done by the fire and rescue service. However, is there any reason why firefighters should have a public pension that is more generous than those for the armed forces and for police officers?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend is quite right. He reminds me that the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) also made a point about privatisation. As has been made clear a number of times from the Dispatch Box, that is a fallacy that he made up. I know that he continues to perpetuate it, but it is a complete fallacy and is not what this Government are doing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) is right that firefighters will end up with one of the best schemes in the public sector and that the age is being brought into line with the police and the armed forces.

Work Experience

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Tony Baldry

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank the hon. Lady for outlining that she supports the Socialist Workers party position on this. The reality is that the publicity came about a few weeks ago, when the Socialist Workers party started a campaign, having placed an advert that was wrong.

[Tony Baldry]

Would my hon. Friend not pass on to the hon. Lady the advice that when one is in a hole, one should stop digging?

[Brandon Lewis]

I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. He has probably said everything that needs to be said.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have debated this issue a few times with people from Right to Work and various other groups that are backed or supported by the Socialist Workers party. What has been particularly noticeable, however, is that there has, until very recently, been a lack of Labour Members debating it. It was therefore somewhat surprising, if not frustrating, that when Labour Members started agreeing to come out during the last couple of days of the real media coverage, they quite openly said that they supported the scheme’s principle—I hope the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), will do so again today—but then complained that the problem was miscommunication.

The miscommunication has come about, however, purely because the Socialist Workers party and its representative protest groups have purposely confused things in every single debate. Before one debate I took part in, a member of the Socialist Workers party was chatting quite happily outside the studio. He understood exactly what the different programmes were and how they worked. When we went in to debate them, however, he straight away confused the mandatory Work programme with work experience—he knew exactly what he was doing. It is a real shame that Labour Members did not come out with us, even if they do disagree with the programme, to clarify that work experience is a straightforward and simple voluntary programme that gives people experience in an industry or field they have expressed an interest in going into.

We should remember to congratulate the companies involved in the scheme, and it is great that hundreds more are joining, thanks to the publicity it has had—we should possibly thank the Socialist Workers party for giving it that extra coverage. Those companies should be congratulated for doing young people a service by providing opportunities and experience of a range of issues. They are providing not just the skill sets that people want, whether that is in engineering, technology, retail or any other industry, but the interpersonal skills that Members mentioned and the skills that come with simply understanding what it means to get up and go to work. Last week, The Sunday Telegraph carried a story about people on the work experience programme of a company in Kent. Those people said how much higher their self-esteem was as a result of getting up in the morning and having a project, and most of them were going on to full-time jobs with the company.

We must, however, be careful. The real shame is that if we do not make it clear what a good scheme this is, organisations such as charities that run work experience schemes could lose the benefit of them. Through the Prince’s Trust, I have had people work in my office for a couple of weeks. They have been excellent people, and they have used that experience on their CVs and gone on to really productive ways of life, which was perhaps not the case before. A range of charities could be threatened if we are not careful.

The most important people in all this, however, are the young people who take part in the scheme. They have voluntarily said they want to do something with their lives; they want to think out of the box and take a different path. As we have heard, many of us, and many people who work in the media, have had work experience. I was fortunate enough to do so when I was young because my father happened to know somebody who offered me work experience, and that led to other opportunities. Other young people do not necessarily have those connections and opportunities. It is right and courageous of the Government to put the scheme forward, to give a chance to people who may not have those contacts. That is hugely important.

We have all perhaps worked in jobs that we have seen as only the first step. My first paid job was in a warehouse. I did not particularly want to spend my life working in a warehouse. I wanted to be a buyer, and move on from there, but to get into a particular company I needed to take a job in the warehouse. It was step one on the ladder. We must encourage the 34,000-plus young people who have done the work experience programme to feel that they have done a good thing. They have shown motivation, and are inspired to go and do something different—to take a step on to the first rung of the ladder, and not to expect to jump on to rungs four, five or six, which too often is the case these days. We should really congratulate the young people who have had the motivation to get involved with the scheme, as much as the companies that give them the opportunity. It is a good scheme and we should support it.