Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

May I correct the hon. Lady? Her predecessor was not the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell); it was the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), and I regret that she felt it necessary to resign. The academies programme is very successful, even without taking the powers that we had suggested. The programme is moving at pace—there were 200 academy conversions last month—and sponsored academies are improving faster under this arrangement. I hope that the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) will support a programme that began under the Labour party, although it began under a new Labour Government, not this old Labour Opposition.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

4. What progress her Department is making on ensuring that funding is fairly distributed across schools.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

11. What progress her Department is making on ensuring that funding is fairly distributed across schools.

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[Christopher Pincher]

As the funding formula consultation progresses, will my right hon. Friend listen carefully to the voices of parents in Staffordshire—a county that has done relatively badly out of former formulas because it has areas of social deprivation—so that schoolchildren from the Kerria and Glascote estates in Tamworth have the same opportunities as those from Wolverhampton?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and I know that he is a powerful champion on this issue. Of course we will listen to the views from Staffordshire, and I know that the Schools Minister has met a number of delegations from Staffordshire already. As I said earlier, the intention is that children with the same needs do not attract different amounts of money simply because of where they live. The new formula will ensure that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds receive additional funding. The reforms are significant, so we are determined to get them right, which is why we will consult extensively.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

T3. Dig-iT, the dyslexia group in Tamworth, tells me that while provision can be good, it is all too often uneven across local schools. What can the Government do to maintain not just the quality of dyslexia and dyspraxia provision, but its consistency in schools in Tamworth, Staffordshire and England?

[The Minister for Children and Families (Edward Timpson)]

I commend the work of the dyslexia group in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I can reassure him that we are investing heavily in practical and financial support for SEND—special educational needs and disability—including funds for a project run by the British Dyslexia Association to address issues such as early identification and effective provision, and funds to enable the Dyslexia SpLD Trust to provide expert advice, information and training for schools and parents. I can also tell my hon. Friend that we are procuring a new contract in 2016-17 so that we can continue to support children and young people with dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties—including dyspraxia—in schools and post-16 institutions.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

The problem, as the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge, is housing supply. Because of the failure to build homes under this Budget, I fear that the interventions that the Government may make, which I often welcome, may force up prices, rather than allowing access to homes. The hon. Gentleman shares with me the desire that young people should be able to afford a home, and with me he should campaign now for more housing construction. That means investment, and sometimes you have to borrow to invest.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

Will the shadow Chancellor give way?

[John McDonnell]

I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.

On disability, I am appealing to the Chancellor to think again. We will support him in reversing the cuts in personal independence payments for disabled people. If he can fund capital gains tax giveaways for the richest 5%, he can find the money to reverse this cruel and unnecessary cut.

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[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and his typically thoughtful contribution. Both he and I will know that the great disadvantage of speaking late in a debate is that everything that can be said has been said, although of course not everybody who can say it has said it. I will try not to be too repetitious, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I commend both Front Benchers for taking so many interventions during their speeches. That set a very good tone for the debate. I trust that that will continue. Perhaps the shadow Chancellor will even extend me the generosity of allowing me to intervene on him next time.

When I was listening to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor make his eighth Budget speech yesterday, I was thinking about how different the world was six years ago when he made his first Budget speech. At that time, unemployment in Tamworth was rampant. Businesses and jobs were going to the wall. Walking down Glascote high street, one would see notices of repossession in the windows of people’s houses. When Gordon Brown left office not only were people losing their jobs, but their homes too.

After eight Budgets, the situation has been transformed. Unemployment in Tamworth is now at fewer than 300. Just about everybody who can work in Tamworth is working in Tamworth. The Jobcentre has turned into a recruitment agency, going out looking for people to do better-paid, better-skilled jobs. House prices are going up and people are better off. Having continually raised the income tax threshold, my average constituent is now £1,000 better off than he or she was in 2010.

I heard Opposition Members, in particular my otherwise good friend the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), criticise the lifetime ISA. This savings initiative sends a very good message to young people about the importance of the savings culture. As the Chancellor was making his speech, I got a message from a young constituent of mine called Dan Ball, aged 19 from Amington. He said, “How can I get one of these ISAs?” I will be writing back to him before the end of this week to tell him just what he can do to save and invest in his future.

The support that the Chancellor has given to businesses—for big businesses, in the form of corporation tax; and for small businesses by reforming and changing the business rate—will help businesses in my constituency, from small newsagents in the high street to companies such as Tame Plastics and Invotec. That will help jobs and growth, so I commend what the Budget has to offer.

If I could make two pleas in the time I have left, they would be these. Given that we want to create a Budget for the next generation, part of it must be about infrastructure investment. The Chancellor made great play—rightly so—of the midlands engine. One of the overlooked pieces of infrastructure in the midlands is the A5 corridor running through Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire. Much of the A5 is single carriageway. It would benefit from being dualled, so that we could open up developments and house building along the corridor. There are plans for such development and house building. I hope the Exchequer Secretary will make a note of that and use all is artistry and eloquence to prevail on the Transport Secretary to put the dualling of the A5 in the next road investment strategy.

May I also encourage more house building? Hon. Members on all sides of the Chamber have mentioned the need for more house building. Some 88,000 new houses are needed in the west midlands. We are building, and are planning to build, more houses in Tamworth, but one of the challenges—even though we have reformed planning, introduced Help to Buy and are selling public land to private developers—is the number of small and medium-sized enterprises in the development supply chain. Many were wiped out during the crash, and we need to get them back in. I would like the Government to encourage big developers, such as Bovis, Persimmon and Redrow, to franchise some of their land bank to smaller developers so that they can build houses on that land. It would de-risk the big developers, because they would not have to take the risk of building the houses, and help smaller developers, because the planning activity would already have been undertaken and so would not cost them so much. That would get more SMEs into the supply chain and help us build those homes for the future in the midlands and beyond.

I listened attentively to the Budget, and I was not carried away by the doom-mongers on the Opposition Benches, and I listened attentively to the Leader of the Opposition, who I thought began rather well but then, like the rest of us, lost interest in his own speech halfway through. He can do better next time by listening to and learning from the Chancellor and by supporting our plans for a Budget for the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I am constantly having meetings with all sorts of business groups, large and small. I know that representatives from major oil and gas companies have been in those meetings. I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady and the industry, and to carry on meeting any industry, to reassure them that the apprenticeship levy is an opportunity not a threat.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

9. What recent steps he has taken to (a) promote regional growth and (b) create a midlands engine.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)]

I was delighted to help launch the midlands engine prospectus in December, setting out our programme of action to deliver our long-term economic plan, which aims to add an extra £34 billion to the midlands economy by 2030.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his commitment. Excellent universities, a history of manufacturing and some world-class businesses make the midlands a great place to set up a business, but those businesses need to export more. Will he say what he is doing to help businesses—particularly manufacturing businesses, such as Invotec in my constituency—to do better business abroad?

[Sajid Javid]

In my hon. Friend’s constituency, UK Trade & Investment has provided support for some 250 businesses in the past years, including for companies such as Invotec, which have been given support to help export to India, Russia, Japan and other places. He will know that my noble Fried Lord Maude made a statement in the other place last week, which talked about the new whole-of-government approach to exports. My hon. Friend may also be interested to know that, later this year, I will lead the first-ever midlands business trade delegation overseas.

School Expansion

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

In welcoming my right hon. Friend’s excellent statement, may I ask her to encourage good academy chains, such as the Mercia Primary Academy Trust, to expand their remit into secondary education so that we can better vertically integrate our primary and secondary schools?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my hon. Friend very much for that. I welcome the work the Mercia Primary Academy Trust does. One of the most exciting things we are seeing now is the growth of good multi-academy trusts across the country. Like him, I believe in the power of all-through schools. I visit schools where the primary and secondary are working together, and it is inspirational to watch the older pupils supporting the younger ones and for the younger ones to have the aspirational role models that the older pupils provide.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

As my hon. Friend raises a specific issue, I will have to take a closer look at it. I am glad that she has written to the Competition and Markets Authority, but if this is a competition issue, it should be dealt with by the independent regulator. However, if there is more that she thinks I can do, I shall take a closer look.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

4. What assessment he has made of the contribution of tourism to the economy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)]

The tourism industry was worth an estimated £127 billion, gross value added, to the UK economy in 2013. Some £56 billion of that is direct contribution. Tourism supports 3.1 million jobs in the UK.

[Christopher Pincher]

The economy of Staffordshire and Tamworth has a growing leisure and tourism component, but that is putting an increasing strain on our transport infrastructure. Will my hon. Friend encourage the Department for Transport and Staffordshire county council to invest in local roads so that they will be fit for our leisure economy?

[Mrs Grant]

Last December, as my hon. Friend knows, the Government announced £1.4 billion for road investment in the midlands, creating about 900 new construction jobs for the area. That will help to support the leisure industry in the whole of the region, including Tamworth.

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[Sajid Javid]

I warmly welcome the report, which I shall study very closely. It is an important contribution to the future of the BBC, and all its suggestions, including the one the hon. Gentleman mentions, will be taken account of when the charter review process starts.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

T5. Two weeks ago, Tamworth won growth funding to regenerate its town centre and build an enterprise and creative quarter. Will my hon. Friend say what more the Government can do to help our creative industries and allow Tamworth to take full advantage of this wonderful opportunity?

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

We will work incredibly hard with my hon. Friend as the excellent local MP for Tamworth to support that creative cluster. We will also work with the local enterprise partnership and Creative England, which supports the creative industries outside London.

Technical and Vocational Education

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who is very knowledgeable about educational matters, and to speak in this important debate. I enjoyed the rhythm of the shadow Education Secretary’s speech, liberally laced as it was with quotations from Sir Winston Churchill, but the speed with which he rattled through his speech did on occasion remind me of Churchill’s observation about Ramsay MacDonald: he had the great ability of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought. Notwithstanding that, however, there is some startling honesty in Labour’s motion because it says that it believes that

“transformation in vocational education has eluded governments for decades”,

so clearly Labour takes its share of the blame for any failure to deliver the sort of vocational education and qualifications that we want to see in our country.

For far too long, far too much stress and pressure have been put on the traditional route through A-levels and into university. Parents have for too long been left with the impression that, unless their children go to university, they have failed. Schools and teachers have been left with the impression that, if they do not get their students into university, they have failed, and the students themselves have been left with the impression that, unless they pass their A-levels and go to university and find a room in a hall of residence, they, too, have failed. That is a corrosive narrative that has undermined the importance of the vocational qualifications that R. A. Butler envisaged in 1944. As the shadow Education Secretary said, on 3 August we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of Royal Assent to the 1944 Education Act.

It is important, therefore, that we focus anew on vocational qualifications, and I am pleased and proud that the Government are focusing on expanding the number of apprenticeships—the figure is 1.8 million since 2010—that they have introduced the higher apprenticeships fund, which will create 10,000 places for state-of-the-art degree level apprenticeships, and are introducing the technical baccalaureate at the end of this year. I am pleased that Labour appears to be supporting that proposal, but I hope it has a less bumpy ride than the English baccalaureate had. I see the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) is in his place. In 2011 he said that the EBacc was a measure to be praised because it might reverse the decline in children studying languages, but by 2012 he was saying that education could not be improved by the EBacc reverting to a system that was considered out of date 30 years ago. I rather hope Labour will not flip-flop on the tech bacc as it appeared to flip-flop on the EBacc.

[Stephen Twigg]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman as we do not have much time, but what I will do is say that if I am wrong he should write to The Guardian, and make sure he has lots of spelling errors in the letter, which will ensure it is published.

I am very pleased by what the Government are doing with the tech bacc, because in my town we suffered terribly in the recession. A large number of young people found it difficult to find work and did not get the qualifications necessary to find work, so it is going to be important. When Labour left office in 2010, the main source of vocational qualifications in Tamworth was South Staffordshire college, which the shadow Education Secretary visited earlier this year. Now we have a sixth-form and Tamworth enterprise college, which together provide BTEC courses on everything from construction to IT. South Staffordshire college offers 33 courses and 24 apprenticeships, ranging from veterinary husbandry to bricklaying. That college has a 97% pass rate and a 91% satisfaction rate among students, so it is doing really very well. It is no wonder therefore that Jaguar Land Rover and JCB are recruiting in Tamworth and BMW has come to set up in Tamworth, bringing over 100 skilled and professional jobs. So I welcome what the Government are achieving.

My hon. Friends on the Front Bench should be pleased. They should be pleased that Labour appears to be supporting much of what they are trying to achieve. Labour appears to want to get aboard this vessel because it thinks it is rather a good one. Unfortunately for Labour, however, I fear that vessel has sailed, carrying my constituents to a better and brighter future, and all the shadow Education Secretary can do is wave from the quayside.

Birmingham Schools

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend has made an important point. Some of the most outstanding schools in Birmingham are currently academies and free schools. Indeed, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central has previously praised Liam Nolan, the head teacher of Perry Beeches school, who runs an academy chain and has opened free schools. I think that the hon. Gentleman’s attempt to conflate the growth of academies and free schools—and the consequent improvement in school standards—and a risk of extremism constitutes an attempt to jump on an opportunistic bandwagon, which, sadly, is becoming a characteristic of his approach to opposition.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

On 6 June, Labour’s police and crime commissioner for the west midlands, Bob Jones, issued a press release on Trojan horse which many believe ignores the dangers of extremist teaching in schools. Given that, under Mr Jones’s leadership, the West Midlands police have been criticised by Ofsted for consistently failing to attend more than 50% of child protection meetings—indeed, at one stage attendance was down to 9%—does my right hon. Friend agree that that is one example of local oversight and accountability that certainly needs to be improved?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend has made a very good point. I have been disappointed by some of the comments made by the west midlands police and crime commissioner. I hope that today, following the publication of the reports, the commissioner will have an opportunity to reflect, to think again, and to discharge his responsibilities more effectively.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman has a huge personal interest in this issue, and he made an excellent contribution to that debate. He is right that we need to ensure that, where there is excellence, it can be spread as widely and deeply as possible. That is why we are providing £1.1 million of funding to the National Sensory Impairment Partnership, to help to benchmark local authority service and provide guidance on good practice to support sensory support services, in an effort to get more children to benefit from the excellence that we know exists.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will pay tribute to Dig-iT, the dyslexia group in Tamworth, which does great voluntary work for dyslexia sufferers in the town. Does he agree that we need a level playing field in the teaching of children with dyslexia and dyspraxia, so that they get the best possible chance of success?

[Mr Timpson]

I have no doubt that Dig-iT in Tamworth is doing some incredible work to support children with dyslexia and dyspraxia, and we recognise that we need to do more to ensure a level playing field for those families who require extra support. That is why, over two years, we are providing £5.5 million to a number of voluntary organisations, including the Dyslexia-SpLD Trust, so that they can give free advice and training on key aspects of SEN, to make that level playing field a reality.

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree that there is no harm in the trend we are observing, which is that consumers are now more confident and are therefore spending and generating demand—I think we have both agreed over the last three years that the generation of demand is a key part of recovery. As far as exports are concerned, there is rapid growth in British exports to the big emerging markets, such as Russia, China, India and Brazil—indeed, I am going to Russia next week to pursue this course.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

T3. Tamworth borough council is doing its bit to back small business Saturday by promoting “created in Tamworth” and offering free market stalls to business people and free parking to customers. Do the Government agree that local authorities have a hugely important role in helping rather than hindering small business growth, not least by offering more free parking?

[The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

We in Government are huge and enthusiastic supporters of small business Saturday, which has cross-party support. I encourage local authorities of all political persuasions to follow the lead of Tamworth and introduce policies that can help to support small businesses across the board, and especially on Saturday 7 December, small business Saturday.