Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I am sure that, if my right hon. Friend is getting the rounds in, we will be very happy to join him at his local pub. As he knows, I have been a strong advocate for a pubs code and pub company regulation, which are very long overdue. I therefore welcome the MRO extension and urge him to continue working with our pubs, which are the enterprise heart of our country, to see how that affects them and to make sure they keep their place as that heart.

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend rightly says we should always look to see what more we can do to help the pubs in our community. Perhaps we can welcome this measure in The Mouse in her constituency, which is a very fine pub.

Oral Answers to Questions

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I will not commit to a pledge that is as unfunded as every pledge that Labour has made since 2010. Labour Members think that they will pay for all this out of a tax on bankers’ bonuses that has so far been used about 27 times. There was no money left according to the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and that is because Labour has absolutely no idea how to run a budget.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

12. What support her Department is providing for the establishment of a college of teaching.

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

Nothing in schools matters more than good teaching, and we are proud to have so many dedicated professionals in our classrooms. An independent professional body could play a valuable part in raising the status and standards of teaching, and give teachers vital support. Our consultation, “A world-class teaching profession”, outlined our commitment to offer support to those seeking to establish such a body, independent of Government, and we will publish our response to the consultation shortly.

[Charlotte Leslie]

The Government’s offer of funding to help a college start up is welcome, but can the Secretary of State reassure me that it will come with no strings attached so that teachers themselves can drive what the college is, and that she will not seek to impose things such as teacher licensing schemes top-down, before this fledgling college has even left the nest?

[Nicky Morgan]

If my hon. Friend knows anything about me she will know that I am not in favour of anything that is top-down, and I agree that the proposed body must be established and owned by teachers for teachers. To be successful, a college of teaching must be free from Government control. Our recent consultation made a commitment to offer support—whether financial or otherwise—if that would be helpful, but the independence of the college from Government remains our overriding concern and our support must not compromise that.

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[Nicky Morgan]

What I say to the hon. Lady, and therefore to anyone who wants to ask questions about this, is that when her party was in government, it stripped 200,000 places at the time of a baby boom and allowed uncontrolled immigration. At the last national offer day—[Interruption.] I suggest that she waits to find out what the offers are this year, but at the last national offer day, 82.5% of pupils were offered a place at the highest preference school and 95.5% were offered a place at one of the top three; and of course, seven out of 10 free schools have been opened in areas of basic need.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

T2. Little Fatima at Fonthill school in Southmead made two years’ reading progress in just 16 weeks thanks to the “Read on. Get on” scheme. What support are the Government giving to reading recovery schemes such as this?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

One of the purposes of the phonics check, which we introduced in 2012, is to identify early on those children who are still struggling with the basic reading skill of decoding. We expect schools to focus their resources on helping those children, which is why they retake the check at the end of year 2 to ensure that no child slips through the net. As a result of our policy on reading and the introduction of the phonics check in 2012, 102,000 six-year-olds are today reading more effectively than they would otherwise have done had Labour stayed in office.

Oral Answers to Questions

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that under the last Government the numbers of apprenticeship starts was half the number that we have seen in the current Parliament, and that these are also significantly longer and higher-level apprenticeships. As for procurement, if companies can build in apprenticeships—which we encourage them to do—that is of course desirable, but it is a very crude mechanism which adds to the barriers facing small business and the cost to the Government. The experience of trying to build conditionality into section 106 agreements suggests that many companies regard the process as token, and do not invest in sustainable apprenticeships.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I recently visited Mathias & Sons, a work clothing manufacturer in my constituency. It is hoping to secure the contract to provide clothing for workers at the Hinkley Point C development. What can the Government do to ensure that important small businesses like that obtain contracts for such huge developments?

[Vince Cable]

I believe that congratulations are due to the hon. Lady, who has become engaged—perhaps this morning, but certainly recently.

As for procurement and Hinkley Point, the leading contractors have committed themselves to a substantial UK content, and we hope that that extends to apprenticeships. We are endeavouring to frame the pre-qualification questionnaires in such as way that apprenticeship training is encouraged in UK procurement.

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[Vince Cable]

If the shadow Secretary of State is so critical of the regional growth fund, is he proposing to abolish it? I suspect not. The reason why some money is not spent is that tests of due diligence have not been satisfied. I am sure that he will acknowledge the fact that, under the regional growth fund, public money is spent a lot more efficiently and effectively in drawing in private investment than ever happened under the regional development agencies, which were wasteful and ineffective.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

T3. Many people say that LEPs have been a huge improvement on the regional development agencies, but some small businesses that I talk to in Bristol are concerned that their priorities are not always reflected in local growth funds. Will the Minister work with his colleagues to ensure that the priorities of small businesses are reflected in LEPs, and that LEPs are not unduly influenced by major business interests?

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

It is very important that businesses have a strong voice in the leadership of the local economy. That is what they are achieving through LEPs and it has been one reason why more than 2 million new private sector jobs have been created during this period. My hon. Friend has been an active campaigner for projects in her local area with some success, and I know that she will continue to influence the business and the local authority participants in her LEP.

Oral Answers to Questions

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely will. It is vital that we reassure students and teachers in Northern Ireland that the qualifications they sit will be valued, and that access to universities in the rest of the United Kingdom will be upheld. I am proud that our kingdom is united, and that there are students in Northern Ireland who see themselves as part of a family of nations and a community of learning across these islands. I will uphold their right to equal access to institutions of higher and further education in these islands as long as I hold this office.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

Proposals and actions for a royal college of teaching continue apace. Although I am sure the Secretary of State would agree that it is not for politicians but for teachers to drive that potential body, can he provide assurance that the Government will give all appropriate support and as fair a wind as possible to the proposal, which could be a game changer for teaching and, of course, ultimately for our children?

[Michael Gove]

The more that teachers take control of their own destiny, and the more the profession is in charge of improving education, the better. I think the best thing about a college of teaching is that the Government stand well back and wish it well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

It is vital that we increase the number of engineers, and indeed, provide more physics, which leads on to engineering. The number of schools offering three sciences at 16 is now back up to 80% after falling precipitously in the past decade. The number and proportion of pupils studying physics is going up, too. We need to do much more, but we are on the right track.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

T5. Will my right hon. Friend outline what plans he has to improve alternative provision, and will he recognise the role that sports, particularly boxing, can play in raising the educational achievements of our most disadvantaged and underperforming young people?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her work with the all-party parliamentary group on boxing. I think boxing has had a great year: we have seen great performances, such as by Nicola Adams in winning a gold medal in the Olympics. That is a fantastic inspiration to many school students. We are encouraging more diversity in alternative provision. We want to encourage boxing alongside academic subjects so that students can get back into mainstream education.

Secondary Education (GCSEs)

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) that this has been a historic debate. There has been a tendency for people in this country to live in a fantasy land. We think that as long as we allow grades to go up and tell ourselves it is okay, it is okay, but in an era of globalisation it is not enough to tell ourselves that everything is okay; it really has to be so. We have been doing this in relation to grade inflation and what we have been telling our young people. We have been saying, “Do this nice course—it’s all going to be fine and no one is going to tell you that you’ve done badly”, but reality has to hit them at some point, and that happens when they go out into the world of work and find that the cosy story they have been told behind their school gates does not match up to the reality outside. What the Secretary of State has said is therefore massively important. I am extremely pleased that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) has acknowledged that grade inflation has been taking place.

I would like the House to acknowledge that we have seen the creation of a two-tier system by stealth. Any two-tier system is bad, and this one has IGCSEs and the international baccalaureate for the well-off and the sharp-elbowed, with the less sharp-elbowed left with GCSEs, or their equivalents, that will not get them a job at the end of the day. That is absolutely appalling. No one can defend the status quo, and anyone who tries to do so has a much lower opinion of the country’s children than I do. I want to concentrate on a premise that underlies a lot of the debate about this two-tier system. Of course, every child must have the opportunity, and must be pushed, to do the best they can at core academic subjects; I am a great supporter of the E-bac in that respect. However, to suggest that unless a child does those core subjects they are thrown on to the scrap heap, as Labour Members have repeatedly done, betrays an extraordinary attitude towards so-called vocational education.

Again, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central. If we did not have people who did not find grammar and algebra books the most interesting thing in the world, we would not be standing in a building that is so intricately and beautifully built, with incredible craftsmanship. I object to the term “vocational”, which has arisen in the past decade or so, because it is a euphemism that betrays a slight embarrassment about the kinds of skills that have made our cities and our country great, and a reluctance actually to name practical, manual and technical skills, crafts and tradesmanship. In future, I should like the term “vocational” to be abolished and replaced with something far more honest. In terms of equivalence, we have been doing nothing for tradesmanship, craftsmanship and so-called vocational trades and everything for academic qualifications. Nail technology is not studied to get a job, because there are not enough nail technology jobs to go round for all the hundreds of thousands of people who are doing these courses. It has been all about the exam results, not the jobs.

There has been an overwhelming need to get real, and the Secretary of State’s bravery in tackling the underlying problems in our GCSE system is a welcome attempt to do so. I hoped for a moment that Labour Members had got real, but it seems that they may not have done.

Safeguarding Children

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

I am delighted that there have been some fantastic contributions from both sides of the House on this incredibly important issue. As we have so little time, I will not attempt to emulate them. Instead, I shall turn the debate to an aspect that we have not discussed so far. We talk about a child-centred service, but what has been lacking from the debate is the view of the children themselves. In the brief time that I have, I shall share a couple of perspectives on their experiences of the care system from children whom we as members of the Select Committee met, and what we learned from that.

The first thing that the children said, which is borne out in the recommendations, is that having one simple single point of contact where they could go if things went wrong was invaluable. I repeat the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) that the NSPCC and ChildLine do an excellent job. They provide a brand that is widely recognised and if we are to do anything, our resources would be well spent supporting their increasing caseload and making sure that those resources are spread as widely as possible. It is not worth trying to reinvent the wheel when we have such a good wheel already in existence.

The second thing that emerged from our meetings with the children was that their complaints were often not listened to. They felt isolated from a world of adults. That is particularly concerning when we consider the circumstances under which those children would come forward to make complaints. Abuse is sophisticated and complex. It is a deep psychological issue. Legislation needs to recognise that victims of abuse are often made to feel by their abuser that it is their fault, that they deserve it, that someone is going to come and get them if they tell anyone in authority, or that it is perfectly normal. So when a child comes forward with a complaint against the adult world, that should be taken extremely seriously. Professionals need to recognise that.

On the point about being told that abuse is normal and becoming acclimatised to what is, in fact, unacceptable behaviour, there is a case to be made to infiltrate into young people’s learning environments simple objective facts about what is and what is not acceptable behaviour. Abuse takes place in the world of the subjective, where children, as well as partners in abusive domestic relationships, no longer know what is right and what is wrong.

Thirdly, we learned that key individuals can make a difference in lives, so the focus of the recommendations on the professionalism of social workers hit the nail on the head. A good professional can sometimes literally save lives. Fourthly, continuity matters. Often these children have been let down again and again, and trusted relationships have broken down. I very much welcome the Minister’s focus on more stable caring environments such as adoption and fostering. From the children’s perspective, that would make an enormous difference.

We should recognise that, in the continuous care cycle, the problem does not end the minute the victim is removed from the source of abuse. The horror of abuse is that it can result in a cycle of abuse, with the abused becoming abusers. The echoes of trauma and terror can reverberate a long way down the line. In our continuing care for victims, we need to look into the long term to make sure that that is recognised.

The recommendations and guidelines are massively helpful. The complexity of the issues that abuse and victimisation raise cannot be left to simplistic tick-boxing. Those issues should be the subject of sophisticated professional expertise and I am delighted that from across the House there is momentum to make that happen.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. There are two speakers left. If they could share the time available and perhaps take just three minutes each, it would help enormously and everybody would get in.

Oral Answers to Questions

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful for your advice, Mr Speaker, but I always try to answer the questions that I am asked by the hon. Gentleman—I know that that is sometimes a novel approach, but I believe it to be right.

It is also right to remind the hon. Gentleman, as he reminded the readers of The Observer on Sunday, that the last Labour Government wasted money on Building Schools for the Future. As a result of eliminating that waste, we have made £500 million available this year, and £600 million next year, for primary school places for which they never provided. They failed to look ahead and navigate a way through hard times, and now that there is a captain at the helm who knows in which direction to take this ship, I am afraid that we need less rumbling from the ratings who want to mutiny below deck.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

5. What recent progress his Department has made in implementing the proposals in the special needs Green Paper; and if he will make a statement.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

7. What recent progress his Department has made in implementing the proposals in the special needs Green Paper; and if he will make a statement.

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[Sarah Teather]

When all that has settled down, we have established a number of local pathfinders to test the best ways of implementing the key reforms, and are providing support to local authorities in developing local provision for children and young people with special educational needs.

We will publish a response to the consultation on the Green Paper shortly. This will set out the progress we have made and the next steps in taking forward our reforms.

[Charlotte Leslie]

Given that two thirds of the August rioters have special educational needs—a rate well above the national average—and that a disproportionate number have been subject to school exclusions, what steps has the Minister taken to ensure that if a child is subject to permanent or repeated exclusion, they are assessed for special educational needs, so that if such needs exist they are catered for and met, and we can ensure that children such as those involved in the rioting can do basic things such as reading?

[Sarah Teather]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I know that she feels strongly about this issue, which she discussed with me when we were consulting on the Green Paper. The whole purpose of what we are trying to do with the Green Paper is to focus better on early intervention. She will be aware that, in particular, we are ensuring that the forthcoming guidance on behaviour and exclusions makes it clear that a multi-agency assessment should be carried out if a pupil displays behaviour that does not respond to normal classroom management techniques. We have asked Charlie Taylor to do work specifically on alternative provision and attendance, and all those issues are relevant to the matters raised by the hon. Lady.

School Places (Bristol)

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Scott. I am grateful for the opportunity to debate a matter of great concern to many of my constituents and to parents across Bristol. I thank the Minister for having a meeting earlier today with all four Bristol MPs, the council cabinet’s lead member on schools, children and young people and the council officer who deals with those issues. It was a useful meeting, although, unfortunately, the Minister did not produce a large cheque at the end of it.

As I explained to the Minister this morning, Bristol faces a crisis in primary school provision: there simply are not enough primary school places. The number of four-year-olds—that is the age at which children start reception class—has increased by 20% in Bristol over the past four years. This year alone, we needed an additional 14 reception classes. Demand is projected to rise steeply over the next couple of years, tailing off a little, but then taking off again. It is estimated that Bristol will need a minimum of an additional 3,000 places by 2015.

Bristol has seen the fastest growth in pupil numbers in the country. The council estimates that the percentage change in primary school numbers is three times the rate across England. According to Office for National Statistics projections for population growth between 2008 and 2015, the increase on 2010 levels will be 11 times higher in Bristol than the national average. Judged against its own historical standards and national comparisons, therefore, there has been unprecedented growth in Bristol, and I ask the Minister to consider the city’s special case for urgent funding.

There are a number of reasons for the rapid increase in the primary school-age population. Bristol is a popular place to live for many reasons, including economic and cultural reasons. Immigration is also a factor, although it is not the only cause. This is a city-wide problem, as the Minister will have seen from the map we showed him this morning; it is not a problem just in the inner-city areas, where black and minority ethnic populations are traditionally concentrated.

In areas such as St George, which is in my constituency, the pressure on school places has come about as a result of gradual demographic change, as older people who have lived in these areas all their lives have died or moved to sheltered accommodation, and younger people have moved in because these are cheap places to live. Obviously, those younger people go on to have families.

The recession has meant that parents who might previously have opted for private education can no longer afford it. Equally, improving education standards in Bristol mean that parents might be less likely to opt for private provision or to take their children out of the Bristol local authority area and to schools in north Somerset or south Gloucestershire, which has been a major factor over the years. There have also been major housing developments, and there is an urgent need to build more housing in Bristol, so this problem will not go away.

This year, Bristol city council had to find an additional 250 places to ensure that all reception-age children could start school in September. It has had to resort to adding modular classrooms to already stretched schools. Although those classrooms are an improvement on the Portakabins and huts we might remember from school, they are still not an ideal, permanent solution. One school has had to convert its information and communications technology suite to classroom use, which, again, is not ideal.

The council has had to spend £5.3 million on such temporary solutions. There is no guidance from central Government and no clear view on the way forward to enable the long-term planning we need. Spending money on temporary classrooms, rather than permanent school buildings, is a quick-fix solution, and it might prove to be an inefficient use of scarce resources in the long term.

Some schools, such as May Park in my constituency, have increased from two to four-form entry. Obviously, that does not solve the problem in itself, because the new pupils will move up next year, and so on through the school, creating an additional need for classrooms if each year is to have four forms. Schools such as May Park are doubling in size, which creates additional pressures, because the dining halls and other facilities—particularly the play facilities—are not designed to cope with the numbers. When I visited Air Balloon Hill primary in my constituency last week, I was told that it had to spend £90,000 on a new electricity generator because the addition of a few extra modular classrooms meant that the existing generator was unable to cope with the demand.

The local authority has been quite imaginative, and it has done all it can to put in place temporary quick fixes, but we need more radical and lasting remedies. The task is becoming greater with year-on-year growth in the four-year-old population. By 2015, it is estimated that Bristol will need a minimum of 100 additional classes, which is equivalent to 14 one-form entry schools. Depending on housing development and migration patterns, the 3,000-place shortfall could be quite a significant underestimate, and it is suggested that the figure could be as high as 5,300.

The pressing priority is September 2012. The council has 11 months to find 15 additional reception classes. Legally, it must provide those places, but that is not the only reason why failure is not an option. As all the other MPs in Bristol will confirm, parents are coming to us because they simply cannot get their children into a school that they could physically deliver them to in time each morning. I have met parents who have a child in a school at one end of the city and who are being told that their next child, who is starting reception class, has to go to a school several miles away. However, public transport in Bristol is pretty abysmal; we have the worst traffic congestion of any city in the country. Parents tell me that they will have to give up work, particularly if they work shifts and can no longer use breakfast clubs and after-school clubs because there are fewer of them. Parents are also having their child care credits cut, so it is more difficult to fund child care. Physically, parents are not able to be in three places at once; they cannot get to work on time, get one child to school and get another child to a child minder. Parents cannot manage the logistics of getting their children to their schools. Even though the new term has started, some children still do not have a school place to go to.

On a more positive front, the local authority has a strategy to resolve the crisis, as the Minister heard this morning. Its children and young people’s services have been working with the local education partnership and developers. They have detailed plans for rebuilds and have identified potential sites for new schools. The standardised designs can be constructed quickly and efficiently. Importantly, estimates suggest that they offer a 20% reduction in building bulletin guidance. Unfortunately, the stumbling block is a £110 million funding gap.

To give an example that I mentioned to the Minister this morning, Air Balloon Hill primary school has spent £500,000 on working up detailed plans for the major building works it desperately needs if it is to continue as a four-form entry school. The work must start by February next year if the school is to be ready for a four-form entry 2012 reception class, but it needs £4.5 million if that is to happen. As I am sure the Minister will tell us, the figures will be looked at in November, so it could be into the new year before the school has any idea whether it will get the additional funding it needs. Obviously, other schools across Bristol will be in the same position and will be seeking similar sums.

Capital funding for 2011-12 has been reduced by 20%, and the budget was necessarily strained by September’s pupil increase, leaving the council in a position where it cannot begin to address next year’s shortage. The Secretary of State announced an extra £500 million in July to fund basic need nationally, but the council needs a degree of certainty about what its share of the money will be and when it will receive it.

The methodology for allocating basic need funding also means that Bristol is unlikely to receive its fair share. The Department judges basic need according to the surplus of all primary school places across the local authority. That will change in the next few years as the increased population moves up through the school, but there is technically a surplus in primary school places in Bristol at the moment because there are spare places—classes of 25 or 26 pupils—in years five and six. However, that does not really help someone with a four-year-old who needs to start school immediately. I urge the Minister not to do this netting off of surplus places against shortfall, but to look at how many pupils we need year on year, because children will otherwise be sitting at home unable to go to school.

Bristol has recently—this September—received funding for a new school, but it is not the school that the city desperately needs. Following concerted campaigning from some parents in one part of the city and the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), Bristol can now claim to have the largest free school in the country. However, it is a secondary school and it does nothing to address need in the city.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, given there is a need for primary school places in the area, obviously there will be a need for more secondary school places in the future and that we have learned the lesson that forward planning goes a long way? Does she also agree that it was most unfortunate that discussions were not progressed more by the city council when it considered having an all-through free school on the St Ursula’s site? That would have been able to attract capital funding from the Department for the primary school places that she is making a good point in saying we need.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The point I am making is that there is a surplus in secondary school provision that is predicted to be in place until 2017. I suggest that the entire movement towards getting a secondary school in Bristol was misguided. The priority should have been solely to focus on the primary school need. I understand that the new free school has a capacity of 150 places and that only 82 children started there this September. The three closest secondary schools—Henbury, Oasis Brightstowe and Orchard—all have a significant surplus of provision. Indeed, the head teacher of Henbury, which already has about 145 spare places, has warned about the impact that the free school will have upon her school.

As I was saying, I do not believe that there was a need for a Bristol free school, particularly a secondary school. We should have focused on primary schools instead. The bizarre thing about what has happened with the Bristol free school is that the preferred site was the former St Ursula site bought by Bristol city council because it represented good value for money for a new primary school. However, it was confirmed last week that Bristol free school will remain on its temporary site on Burghill road, Southmead. It is worth noting that half the parents who supported the Bristol free school during the consultation stated that they would not send their children there if it were located on Burghill road, so not only is there no need for the school, but it may not even have the community support on which free schools are supposed to be based.

The strange thing is that the catchment area of the new free school is based on the St Ursula site that was the preferred location. Some 80% of the school’s places will be unashamedly given to the affluent BS9 community, which is in the top 5% of the most affluent areas in the country. At the same time, access will be restricted for families living directly around the school in the less prosperous area of Southmead. The school is actually outside its own catchment area. There seems to be a strange sense of what the priorities should be. We should be focusing on the need for a primary school instead.

There is now an E-ACT primary academy on the St Ursula site, but it has had to restrict its intake to two forms rather than the preferred three or four-form entry in case the Bristol free school also moved to the site. Bristol free school has diverted much needed resources from Bristol’s existing secondary schools and has enabled the Government to concentrate on the wealthier areas while completely ignoring Bristol’s actual needs.

[Charlotte Leslie]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, given the passionate case she is making for primary school places today, it is a great shame that the Labour Administration and the Building Schools for the Future programme concentrated on secondary schools and completely neglected primary school need? In 2008, it was a Labour council that oversaw a primary review that cut all surplus places in the primary schools. Although I very much welcome her concern for primary school places and for the really upsetting plight of parents in Bristol, does she not agree that it is a great shame that the matter was not sorted out when her party was in council power and in government?

[Kerry McCarthy]

Our party was leading on the council for a very short time, as I am sure the hon. Lady knows. I will not in any way apologise for the Building Schools for the Future programme and the academies programme in Bristol, as they made a phenomenal difference to standards in our secondary schools. She will know that there was a real problem with people taking their children out of schools in Bristol, particularly in years 5 or 6 of primary school, because they did not want them to go to Bristol state schools. We have seen a huge increase in standards in those schools built under Building Schools for the Future. That programme was not about addressing the places issue and the shortage of places; it was about addressing school standards. It is really important that we did that.

The case for investment in Bristol’s primary schools is not only pressing, but urgent. Building works must start within the next few months if we are to have enough classrooms in September. Some schools have been hesitant to commit to additional classes in case that pushes them into debt. We therefore need decisions to be made as soon as possible.

Bristol city council has made several representations to the Department for Education and, as I mentioned, local MPs met with the Minister responsible for schools earlier today. That meeting was originally set up just to discuss the case for extra funding for schools in Bristol West. That is the wrong way to approach the matter. This is a city-wide problem and all four Bristol MPs should be working together to help to resolve it.

It is also unfortunate that the letter from the Liberal Democrat council leader to the Secretary of State making the case for additional funding gives the erroneous impression that the problem is specific to the north of Bristol. As the Minister will have seen from the map that he was shown, the problem is not restricted to any particular area of the city. The issue occurs in pockets across the city and, although it is particularly a problem in the inner city, it affects all four Bristol constituencies.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Dawn Primarolo) is sitting here watching the debate because her post as Deputy Speaker means that she is not allowed to take part. However, she has told me that she has about 30 constituents who were not offered a school place in the local area and that the problem is particularly acute in the Southville and Bedminster wards. As in Bristol East, there are very limited opportunities to expand schools in Bristol South on their current sites, and my right hon. Friend rightly joined us this morning to make the case to the Minister.

There are major shortfalls in the number of primary school places across the city. It is a city-wide problem that needs to be resolved at a city-wide level in the best interests of all families in Bristol, not just a select few. I urge the Minister to work with the local authority to secure immediate and lasting solutions. I look forward to hearing what he has to say today.

Public Disorder

Charlotte Leslie Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

When Parliament was recalled, a couple of my constituents, having watched awful scenes on television, said to me, “Oh great, so the cities are burning and the politicians are going to talk. That is really going to fix things.” But I have been really pleased that this has not been a talking shop today and some really tangible provisions have come out of this. In many ways, the communities around our country feel that politics has been sleep-talking into this situation.

Although no one could have predicted the manner in which these riots arose, communities up and down the country have seen something that the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) pointed out: once kids see that they can do something and get away with it, the problem suddenly becomes an awful lot worse. Throughout communities, and certainly in my constituency, people have been terrorised in their own homes and prisoners in their own neighbourhoods because kids have been allowed to get away initially with low-level stuff, then a bit more, then a bit more.

So the frustration and despair that was felt in many communities at seeing that there were no consequences to these actions was suddenly writ large over the entire nation. The people of Britain know that there cannot be a situation in which actions have no consequences. That is one of the major lessons that we have to learn. It is like a broken window policy. We have to start low-level to avoid reaching the high level. Actions have consequences.

As chair of the all-party group on boxing, I cannot talk about the riots without mentioning the amazing role that boxing clubs have played. Moss Side boxing club and the boxing academy have been on the media. They reach out to young people with energy and aggression who are prone to activities such as rioting. Boxing clubs show them that actions do have consequences. There is discipline and if kids train and do well, they get better at something and they can take control of their life and do something with it. That is testament to fact that the concept that actions have consequences can work in a positive way.

How have we got to this stage? How have we got to the “You can’t touch me” approach that can be seen in schools when teachers try to discipline kids and on the streets when policemen try to move on or discipline kids in the street? It has to be down to an abuse of the very valid concept of human welfare and human rights. Over the past years we have seen the rights of criminals come above the rights of victims such as my constituent Helen Stockford. She has suffered terribly and the state has not been there for her, while it has been there to safeguard the rights of her attacker.

How has this been allowed to come about? Well-meaning human rights legislation has been taken out of context, perhaps by people who do not live in the daily reality of the consequences of a distorted human rights concept. The worst thing about a human rights concept that takes away action and consequence, and boundaries and discipline, is that not only our country suffers. Not only our cities burn when kids realise that they can loot stores and get away with it, and then get away with it again; those children themselves suffer. As everyone knows, without boundaries, we cannot know achievement. By taking away discipline, we are taking away from children the basic rule by which one can achieve, and that is simply wrong. It is a lesson that we must all take away from this wake-up call of a week.