Energy Tariffs

Debate between Clive Efford and John Hayes

Thursday 18th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I think that the Prime Minister was crystal clear yesterday. [Laughter.] The Opposition are often behind the curve. We believed in one nation when they had not heard of Disraeli. The truth is that the Prime Minister was very clear. This is a policy intent, which will be delivered through the necessary mechanisms. Luckily, the Energy Bill is to be presented to the House, and that will allow proper scrutiny and consideration by Opposition Members and others.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the Minister arrange for the impact assessment of the Prime Minister’s announcement to be placed in the Library, so that we can all have a look at it?

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of the House. When the proposals are presented, of course there will be an impact assessment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Efford and John Hayes

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

T3. Following the abolition of education maintenance allowance, further education colleges are finding it difficult to plan ahead for pupils on low incomes, those who may have been on free school meals and those from low-income households. How on earth will colleges be able to plan ahead if they are not receiving information about the people trying to enrol? Can the Minister say what he is going to do about that?

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

That is a perfectly fair question. It is important that colleges have information as soon as possible to make the kind of provision that the hon. Gentleman suggests. I will ensure that further discussions take place between my officials and colleges to guarantee that they have that information.

Funding and Schools Reform

Debate between Clive Efford and John Hayes

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman knows that we are protecting school funding in the system. I am talking about flat cash per pupil before adding the pupil premium. He knows what flat cash per pupil means. It means that as the number of pupils increases, the overall budget increases in line.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the education maintenance allowance, so let us get to the bottom of that. I have the research here, although I know he has not read it. It clearly shows that the EMA did increase participation at the margin: 90% of pupils in receipt of it said that they would have participated in education regardless of the EMA. We are going to target resources more effectively at disadvantage. We are going to help people the previous Government failed to help. I do not need to take any lessons from the right hon. Gentleman—Cambridge-educated and pulled up on the shirt-tails of Lord Mandelson and Mr Blair—about what it is like to move from a council estate to a decent education to this place. When he lectures us—

[Clive Efford]

rose—

[Mr Hayes]

It could be a council estate in Eltham; I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Clive Efford]

I recommended an amendment to our education legislation on the pupil premium and the then Government did not accept it, but nor did I have the support of the Liberal Democrats at that time. The pupil premium was meant to be additional. In addition, it was meant to follow the pupil, which would mean that even schools in affluent areas could take pupils that need additional help and get additional money. That is not what the Minister is offering.

[Mr Hayes]

That is exactly what we are doing. The three things mentioned by the hon. Gentleman are all part of the pupil premium: it is additional, it is targeted at the pupil and it allows the local discretion that he cites. The hon. Gentleman’s amendment was not supported by those on his Front Bench—it was not supported by those who were in government and who had power over these things when they were prepared to let the dead-weight cost of the EMA disadvantage learners across the country.

I welcome the opportunity to debate these matters, because the Government understand that it is time for fresh thinking. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, young people’s education today will have a profound social, economic and cultural impact on what Britain becomes tomorrow. A person’s learning, however, does not—indeed, must not—end with their compulsory schooling. Much of what has been said by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and other hon. Members resonates with the Government’s agenda for further education.

I have just returned from the Association of Colleges conference where yesterday we launched a new strategy for skills that sets out a profoundly optimistic vision for the future of further education and practical learning. I know that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) will welcome that positive approach to practical learning: from the burning fire of ambition to the warm glow of achievement, a future nurtured by professional guidance from an all-age careers service with clear routes for progression; a future for colleges in which their primary responsibility and accountability will be to their learners; and a future in which colleges are free to meet the needs of learners, building confidently on what has been achieved by a better, fairer schools system driven by learners’ needs and teachers’ skills with standards raised ever higher through diversity and choice.

That is why we are pushing ahead with opening more academies, including, for the first time, primary academies. A record 144 academies have opened so far during this academic year and there are many more to come. That is indeed record progress—it took four years for the first 27 academies to open. We know that academies are working, as results continue to rise faster than the national average. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) told the House, academies, specialist schools and other reforms across the world have shown that giving schools autonomy and allowing teachers and head teachers, rather than politicians and bureaucrats, to control schools is what drives up performance.

The early focus has been on outstanding schools, as we want the best schools to lead by example, sharing best practice and working with other schools to bring about sustained improvements to all schools in their area. We will do much more in our determination to tackle the problem of endemic disadvantage that we inherited from Labour. Our pupil premium will rise progressively to £2.5 billion by 2014-15, supporting the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and incentivising good schools to take on pupils from more disadvantaged backgrounds. The pupil premium will target extra funding specifically at the most deprived pupils to enable them to receive the support they need to reach their potential and to help schools to reduce inequalities, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) urged us to do.

We trust schools to make good decisions about how to spend the money to support deprived children and to narrow attainment gaps, and we need to, because the gaps that we inherited from the previous Government—the widening gap between rich and poor and the failure to address social mobility—were shocking. They were a damning indictment of that Administration and of the people sitting on the shadow Treasury Bench.

I respect all Members who contributed to this debate. I respect the experience of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) and the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson). I know that people across the House want the best for our future and for our children. However, although some Opposition Members have woken up to the truth that the way to get the best is to put power in the hands of the teachers and to drive the system through the needs of learners, some are wedded to a failed past orthodoxy and we heard it again tonight. I hope that, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) is not one of those who will defend the failures of the past. I hope that he will embrace reform and that he will come on the journey with us to a better schools system and a better future for our young people. I do not say that all those on the Opposition Benches are without heart. No party has a monopoly on concern or compassion, so I do not say that Labour Members are heartless—I say that their Front Benchers are witless.