Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Conor McGinn and Nadhim Zahawi

Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am very pleased to hear that the London Electric Vehicle Company had record sales in September. I spoke to the CEO recently and was very impressed with their capability. I understand their sales have grown month on month since April. They have capacity to produce 20,000 vehicles a year and his message to this House when I spoke to him was, “Let’s get Brexit done.”

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Some London boroughs have hundreds of electric vehicle charging points while whole towns in the north have none, but given the lack of public transport options in places such as St Helens, would it not be economically and environmentally better to invest in places such as mine to get people out of their cars?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this issue. Our grant scheme and the £400 million charging infrastructure investment fund will see thousands more electric vehicle charging points installed across the whole UK.

Social Mobility: North-west

Debate between Conor McGinn and Nadhim Zahawi

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend makes the point about engagement by local councils eloquently. He pursues such engagement passionately, locally and nationally.

We take action in every region and at every stage of a young person’s life to close the opportunity gap. I will now take each of the stages of education in turn, reflecting in particular on the progress that we have made in the north-west of England.

Good early years education is the cornerstone of social mobility and we are making record investment in that area. Too many children, however, still fall behind early, and later in life it is hard to close the gap that emerges. Today, 28% of children finish their reception year without the early communication and reading skills that they need to thrive. The Secretary of State has set out his ambition to halve that figure by 2028. We have announced a range of initiatives to deliver it, including a local authority peer review programme, which we piloted in Wigan, and a professional development fund for early years practitioners in 54 local authorities.

The Government are committed to help parents to access affordable childcare, which is why we will spend about £6 billion on childcare support in 2019-20, a record amount. That will include funding for our free early education entitlements, on which we plan to spend £3.5 billion this year alone. I am pleased to say that, in Wigan, take-up of all the Government childcare entitlements is high: 93% of eligible children there took up care that we made available for two-year-olds, which figure is substantially higher than the national average of 72%; equally, 95% of three and four-year-olds took up an entitlement place, which is also higher than the national average. During the first year of delivery, more than 2,700 children in Wigan benefited from the places that we made available under our policy offering of 30 hours of free childcare.

On school education, we target extra support at the poorest areas of the country to raise standards and to attract great teachers to our primary and secondary schools. I know that schools have faced cost pressures in recent years, but I am happy to report that schools in the north-west will attract an average of 2.8% more funding per pupil by 2019-20 compared with 2017-18.

[Conor McGinn]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am trying to make headway, but if I have time, I will come back to the hon. Gentleman towards the end.

This year, the north-west received more than £369 million in additional funding through the pupil premium, giving more than 300,000 disadvantaged young people extra support for their education.

On post-16 education, our efforts do not stop when school comes to an end. Social mobility means that everyone must have the right level of ongoing support to help them on to a path to a skilled job. That could be via university, but it could also be a more practical, technical path. I am sure that the hon. Member for Leigh and I agree that getting that right is critical to boost regional growth and to expand access to opportunity for all. In the current academic year, we invested more than £750 million in the education of 16 to 19-year-olds in the north-west, with £80 million of that funding allocated specifically to support disadvantaged students in reaching their potential, whether that is for employment or ongoing education.

For those who want to take the academic route, we will ensure its availability as well. We therefore welcome the fact that more disadvantaged pupils than ever before go on to university. In 2010, more than a quarter—27.6%, in fact—of 18-year-olds from the north-west entered university; by 2018, that figure had risen to one in three, or 33.1%, so the north-west outperformed all English regions outside London and the south-east. Data released by the Department for Education in November of last year showed that 23% of students eligible for free school meals from the north-west had entered higher education by age 19 in 2016-17. That compares with 26% for England, with only London and the west midlands having a higher rate.

In the north-west, the Office for Students has invested more than £15 million through its national collaborative outreach programme, with key programmes in Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Merseyside. The Government have also embarked on a long-overdue overhaul of technical education, which is why we are acting to expand high-quality apprenticeships. In the 2017-18 academic year, the 58,120 apprenticeship starts in the north-west were 15.5% of all such starts in England.

Skills challenges and priorities differ not only across the country, but within regions such as the north-west. We heard that from the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate. We must therefore collaborate with local partners in order to ensure our reforms make sense on the ground, which was very much his point. That means working with employers and providers, and supporting individuals who want to succeed in life and work. We have also introduced skills advisory panels, which will bring together local employers and skills providers to pool knowledge on skills and labour market needs in the regions. That will help to address local skills gaps more effectively.

We are to introduce a national retraining scheme, an ambitious and far-reaching programme to drive adult learning and retraining. It will be in place by the end of this Parliament. The Chancellor recently announced £100 million to roll out initial elements of the scheme across the country. That accompanies funding announced in the previous budget for the Greater Manchester combined authority to test different approaches to encourage and support adults to undertake training.

I am happy to take an intervention if the hon. Member for St Helens North still wishes to make one.

[Conor McGinn]

The Minister is so generous to take one intervention from the Opposition in the 10 minutes for which he has spoken. None the less, I appreciate it.

When I visit schools in my constituency, teachers and headteachers tell me that they have less money, fewer resources and larger class sizes. Does that have an impact on social mobility?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

We have protected the schools budget. I hope that I made that clear earlier in my remarks, when I also recognised that there are financial pressures on schools.

Progress on social mobility is critical to our shared prosperity. No progress is possible without action in every part of a young person’s education and in every part of our country. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Leigh for beginning the year with a debate on a subject that is fundamental to our future success as a country. Again, I thank my colleagues for their contributions—my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West and the hon. Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston, for Enfield, Southgate and for St Helens North—and congratulate my brilliant PPS, my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale, on his ability not only to build a great business but to be a very successful musician. He has delivered real social mobility in Leigh.

Question put and agreed to.

Draft Social Workers Regulations 2018

Debate between Conor McGinn and Nadhim Zahawi

Monday 2nd July 2018 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Nadhim Zahawi)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Social Workers Regulations 2018.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. These regulations are crucial for delivering the Government’s social work reform agenda. At its heart, social work is a vital profession that promotes social change and individual and collective wellbeing, and that challenges social injustice. We are committed to do all we can to develop a strong and consistently effective social work profession that is well trained, competent and properly supported to transform the lives of the most vulnerable.

Establishing Social Work England, as provided for under the Children and Social Work Act 2017, as the new single profession regulator for social workers in England is vital to achieve our ambitions for the profession and for this country’s most vulnerable children and adults. Like the other health and social care regulators, Social Work England’s primary focus will be public protection, but we aim to enable it to operate streamlined, proportionate and efficient systems and processes. It needs to be able to adapt to emerging opportunities and challenges, and to promote best practice in social work. Providing for a specialist regulator that sets profession-specific standards will ensure that regulation reflects the changing reality of delivering social work practice safely and effectively.

Introducing these regulations signals another significant step forward in establishing Social Work England, although we have already made great strides in that respect. In March, we appointed Lord Patel of Bradford as its chair, and in June, we announced that Colum Conway had been appointed its chief executive. Those appointments bring significant experience in social work practice, education and regulation, and have been warmly welcomed by the sector. The momentum continues with recruitment for other senior posts and non-executive board members.

I want to pause for a moment to acknowledge the significant input from the social work sector, other professional regulators and hon. Members during the passage of the 2017 Act and in developing the regulations.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Does the Minister share the concern of many in the sector that by introducing that change through delegated rather than primary legislation, it is something of a power grab by the Secretary of State? We want a strong independent regulator that works with the sector; we do not want Whitehall to take control through the back door.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I eagerly disagree with that sentiment. As I hope to share with the Committee, professionals in the sector and many stakeholders support and applaud the steps we are taking to create the regulator.

In December 2016, we established the Social Work England advisory group, which has representatives from sector organisations, social workers, employers and, of course, service users. In October 2017, we established the regulator expert group, which brings together experts from the world of professional regulation to shape and challenge our thinking. Those groups have been invaluable in advising us on this complex task.

We consulted on the regulatory framework for Social Work England in February and March, and we received nearly 200 responses that were overwhelmingly in favour of our proposals, including 43 from sector and regulatory organisations. We also held 11 events to consult directly with social workers, education providers and interested parliamentarians. I welcome those contributions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Social workers are ultimately answerable not only to their employers, but to the young people and adults they serve in the work that they do. The level of cases has to be appropriate, but it is decided by the practice leaders and those professionals who work with them. I have discovered in my six months in the job that those social workers who perform at the highest quality are the ones that are the best supported. I have seen it in Hackney, Doncaster and other parts of the country, where the profession has been really effective by being supported well by its leadership and having the confidence to make those decisions that are crucial in safeguarding children, certainly in my area.

Maintaining the quality of professional education ensures that students meet the necessary standards for registration and public protection. That is crucial for both initial education and post-qualifying courses. Importantly, Social Work England will be required to reapprove courses over time, and be able to consult on and determine its own role in the post-qualification space. Legislative provisions allow the regulator to approve post-qualifying courses through existing approval processes set in regulations and rules.

An effective fitness-to-practise system is also critically important, both in public protection and public confidence in social work as a regulated profession. As the PSA has pointed out, existing fitness-to-practise systems can be expensive and overly adversarial. We have taken account of this and the PSA’s and Law Commission’s proposals for reform, by designing a more flexible and proportional fitness-to-practise system for Social Work England. This system ensures that investigatory and adjudicatory functions—it is a bit of a mouthful, Mr Pritchard—remain separate, while providing the regulator with new tools to deliver public protection more flexibly and efficiently. That includes streamlined approaches, such as automatic removal where registrants are convicted of serious criminal offences, such as rape or murder, and swifter processes where registrants have been convicted of criminal offences with custodial sentences.

Social Work England will also be able to resolve cases without a hearing where the registrant accepts the facts of the case and the outcome proposed by the regulator. The regulations make it clear that this can only be used where it is in the public interest and the registrant has provided explicit consent, thereby ensuring adequate safeguards. The PSA has been clear that it wants oversight of such cases and I am pleased to confirm that that will be provided as soon as a legislative vehicle can be found to amend the PSA’s primary legislation. We will also explore extending such oversight to other regulators operating similar accepted outcomes consensual disposal systems.

I want to provide reassurance about the role of the Secretary of State in relation to Social Work England. Social Work England is a separate legal entity in the form of a non-departmental public body, operating at arm’s length from Government. The Secretary of State will, therefore, necessarily have a role in two specific areas. The first is oversight of regulatory rules and powers in the event of default by the regulator in the performance of its functions. We have provided Social Work England with flexibility on how it makes those rules—the detailed procedures and requirements that set out how its functions will be carried out. That will allow Social Work England to change its operational processes efficiently. Rules will be subject to public consultation and to oversight by the Secretary of State. The flexible oversight procedure in the regulations, which has been refined drawing on feedback received through the consultation, provides for a 28-day review period for the Secretary of State. The rules come into force automatically if no objection is raised, or earlier if the Secretary of State agrees. Social Work England is also able to specify a later date to provide maximum implementation flexibility. The Secretary of State may also draw on independent advice from the PSA.

[Conor McGinn]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. Has he not just given an elegant description of the fact that the Secretary of State’s word will be final? If the Secretary of State wants any new regulations amended or modified, the regulator has to do it. The Minister talks of arm’s-length independence and the advisory role of the Secretary of State, but that is actually not the case, because the Secretary of State’s word is final and he or she can make the regulator do what he or she says.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Again, respectfully, I disagree because, as I hope I have demonstrated, we have taken on board the views of the Law Commission and the PSA and have consulted deeply to ensure that the new regulator is modern and meets the demands and requirements of the profession.