Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
At the start of the new term, we all wish everybody well for the academic year ahead. What will Ministers say next September to parents who, because of Labour’s education tax, find that class sizes are bigger and more schools are full, and that fewer children are able to get a place in their first-choice school in Bristol, Bury, Salford or Surrey?
Stephen Morgan
I welcome the right hon. Member to his place, and I very much look forward to working with him to ensure that every child gets the best start in life. The number of children in private schools has remained steady despite a 20% real-terms increase in average private school fees since 2010, and an increase of 55% since 2003. We cannot predict closures, but we will use indicators such as occupancy to monitor that. My Department works with local authorities to help them to fulfil their duty to secure places.
Bridget Phillipson
I know that my hon. Friend cares deeply about the life chances of children in Macclesfield and across Cheshire East. I would be happy to meet him to discuss the matter further.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
The Opposition share the Secretary of State’s good wishes to all for the new term and the new year, but does she recall that last time Labour was in office, not only did England tumble down the world education rankings, but we ended up as the only country in the developed world where the literacy and numeracy of recent school leavers was worse than that of the generation who were about to retire? If she continues to follow the same failed Labour approach, does she expect a different result this time?
Bridget Phillipson
The right hon. Gentleman, as a former Minister in the Department, knows all too well that he and others were cautioned about how they should be using data. When we look at the raw numbers, we see that under the last Conservative Government, reading standards were going down, as were standards in maths and science. One in four children did not reach the required standard at the end of primary school, and one in five young people was persistently absent from our schools. We will drive high and rising standards right across academic subjects, but we will also ensure that all our children and young people have a range of opportunities in music, sport, art and drama, not just those with parents who can afford it.
Education and Opportunity
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, may I first welcome you to the big Chair on behalf of the Opposition? It is great to see you there, and may you have much success. We will no doubt all enjoy serving under you.
May I also welcome the Secretary of State and her entire team to their places? They have among the most important jobs in government and, without doubt, the best jobs in government. While their colleagues will be out visiting wind turbines and distribution sheds, they will be spending time with children and the inspirational adults who teach them, which is a much better way to spend a day. Although we have our differences, we do not for a moment doubt the ministerial team’s commitment to this crucial endeavour, and our exchanges across the Dispatch Boxes will always be in the spirit of seeking the very best for children, and for our society and country. We want the Government to succeed, because the success of the British Government is the success of Britain. That is true in every discipline, but it is especially true in education, where the effects of what happens are felt for many years to come and over the course of multiple changes of Government. We will scrutinise and hold them to account, as they know, but we will also support them where they look to build on what has been achieved.
Listening to the Secretary of State, I was wondering from which country or era she was drawing her material, because what has been achieved is that we now have nine in 10 schools in this country rated good or outstanding—up from just over two thirds when there was last a change of Government—with 27,000 more teachers, 60,000 more teaching assistants, a major upgrade in technical and vocational education through T-levels, higher-level technicals and reformed apprenticeships with employer-set standards, minimum lengths weeks and minimum off-the-job training time. We have also been rising up the international results table. At secondary school, England’s young people have risen from 27th in the world to 11th in mathematics, and from 25th to 13th in reading. At primary school, England’s children are the best readers in the western world.
Debbie Abrahams
Does the shadow Education Secretary accept the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ recent report? It says that although we have seen an improvement in average attainment, there remain educational inequalities, particularly for children on free school meals, children from ethnic minority backgrounds and disabled children. We have not seen any improvements, and the educational inequalities are stark
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady, as ever, makes important points. It was the mission of Conservative Governments from 2010 onwards always to pursue two goals: first, to raise attainment overall and, secondly, to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor—between the advantaged and the disadvantaged or those with particular needs. Although those gaps are still too big, there was a decade of progress, as she knows. I think the IFS report that she mentions will almost certainly have said that there was a decade of progress right up until covid. I am afraid that covid struck a blow—[Interruption.] Labour Members may shake their heads, but believe me, covid struck a blow to education right throughout the world, including in our country, and there is yet more—[Interruption.] I think my point stands. There is yet more work to do.
The point I was making before the hon. Lady made her important intervention was that a great deal has been achieved but there are still challenges. In the aftermath of covid, we know that there are particular challenges on the attainment gap and attendance—by the way, those two things are related—but a great deal has been achieved. So my ask of the Government is that, while we acknowledge that they have just won the election with a big majority, we nevertheless ask them to be mindful and careful not to change things just because they can.
Of course, Ministers do not educate children. It is the teachers who educate children, and those great achievements are their achievements, but teachers exist within a framework and a system. There are dedicated teachers not just in England but in Scotland and Wales, but in those two countries we have not seen the same advances that we have seen in England. Indeed, in Wales, with a Labour Administration running education, we have seen declines. We have long had dedicated teachers in England, too, but the fact is that in the Labour years before 2010, England’s results actually declined relative to other countries, even though—some Labour Members may remember this—in new Labour’s target-rich but I am afraid highly gameable environment, it was made to look like the results were all getting better.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
First, may I congratulate you on your appointment, Madam Deputy Speaker?
Further to the point that the right hon. Gentleman has just made, I think it is fair to boast that Scottish education used to be the envy of the world, yet we now have so many staff vacancies in four of our highland secondary schools—Ullapool, Kinlochbervie, Farr and Gairloch—that the kids simply are not being taught what they ought to be taught and are having to rely in some cases on online learning, which is scarcely satisfactory. That is why the parents have banded together to form the Save our Rural Schools campaign. Is that not a damning comment on the Scottish Government’s delivery of education north of the border?
Damian Hinds
As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point incisively and speaks up powerfully for rural communities—he was here the other night talking about rural health services and the challenges that they face—but this is already going to be a wide-ranging debate and I think I might try your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, if we moved into a debate about the Scottish education system and the SNP Administration, much as he and I would relish that opportunity. However, he is quite right to say that Scottish education has had massive historical strengths but has been let down by the SNP Administration.
When politicians on the left talk about a progressive agenda in education, I understand how that can sound beguiling and benign, but we must not forget that the legacy of the last Labour Government was for England to be the only country in the developed world where the generation approaching retirement was more literate and numerate than the youngest adults just entering the workforce and those who had just gone through their education under new Labour. But that is the past, and this team and this Government will be assessed and judged on the present and the future.
Damian Hinds
At the risk of widening the debate, I will very briefly give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Stephen Gethins
I hope the right hon. Gentleman will welcome the Scottish success in having more children and students going on to positive destinations after school. Does he also acknowledge the damage that has been done by years and years of Tory austerity and by removing the rights and opportunities we had through freedom of movement following our withdrawal from the EU, which, according to Labour figures, has cost £140 billion? He should have some reflection on his own record.
Damian Hinds
I admire the hon. Gentleman’s ability to turn everything into a discussion about Europe, but I have to tell him there are other things at play. If I were an SNP politician, I would not come to the Floor of this House boasting about the record of the SNP Government given their woeful performance on behalf of underprivileged children in Scotland. Nor, by the way, would I be complaining about the finances, when the Scottish Government are well financed for the things that they should and must do. Until recently it was us sitting on the Government Benches making these points, but now it will be Labour Members.
This is a debate about opportunity, and the point of greatest leverage in spreading opportunity is what happens in the very earliest years, as the Secretary of State said. Since 2010, we have had five major extensions in early years and childcare entitlements, and a sixth is now on its way. I think I heard the Secretary of State say that she was committing fully to our plan in each of its phases. Unless she corrects me now, that is certainly how I will interpret it. She then went on to say there were some difficulties and so on—[Interruption.] I can assure the Secretary of State, who speaks from a sedentary position, that there was indeed such a plan, and we look now to the Government to see that plan through. I would also like to hear from her colleague the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), when she sums up, about the 3,000 nurseries to be established in primary schools. It is important for us to know what proportion of those she expects to be full-time, year-round nurseries as opposed to term-time only.
We know that however much time young children spend in nursery or in childcare, they will spend more time at home, and the social mobility literature is clear that what happens at home makes a big difference to opportunity later in life. This is a difficult area for Governments and requires great care, but I hope that this new Government will look to build on the home learning environment programme—Hungry Little Minds—that we put in place and then reprised during covid, and do so in a supportive and non-invasive way.
I also hope that the Government will continue with the family hubs, recognising that while they are vital for the 0 to 2 age group, many issues go on right through childhood and adolescence. The supporting families programme is actually a cross-party story because it was brought in during the Cameron Government from 2012 following a pilot under the previous Labour Government. With its key worker approach it has so much potential, and it now covers 300,000 families, not the original 120,000. Bringing it into the Department for Education presents a great opportunity for the Secretary of State, and I hope she will make the most of it.
In schools, the success story we have been discussing, which can be seen in the results in the programme for international student assessment, the progress in international reading literacy study and other studies, has been based on three legs of a stool. The first is school autonomy, with transparency and accountability. The second is a knowledge-rich curriculum and proven learning methods such as phonics and maths mastery, with the Education Endowment Foundation evaluating and accrediting programmes. The third is the spreading of good practice through academy trusts and through schools learning laterally from other schools, with teachers learning from teachers rather than things being imposed top down, through a nationwide network of hubs in key subjects and in key areas such as behaviour. It is not yet clear exactly what the new Government’s plans are in each of those three areas, but if they seek to undo what has worked and what does work, we will argue the counter case robustly.
The Government have, as the Secretary of State said, announced a review of the curriculum, as of course they can, and as we did in the past. But again, I would urge them to reflect on what has worked and what does work, and in particular not to see a conflict between skills and knowledge. Clearly, when children are growing up, developing and being educated, they need both, but it is through having a depth of knowledge that they best develop skills. As to what knowledge, I hope the review will also acknowledge that a strength of our national curriculum is that, unlike what a lot of people think, it is not in fact a detailed specification of everything a pupil will learn in history or literature. Rather, it is a framework. That guards against political interference, and that is a principle that absolutely must be maintained. I hope that Labour did learn the lesson of the literacy hour and the numeracy hour—that seeking to set out to schools in 10 or 15-minute segments exactly what should be taught to children is a Bad Idea, with a capital B and a capital I.
On behaviour, a calm and ordered environment is a basic requirement for learning, and that is what children tell us they want. Of course, no one wants pupils to be suspended, still less expelled, but that option needs to be available as a last resort. Yes, we must think of the child’s wellbeing, but we also need to think of the wellbeing and life chances of the other 27 children in the class.
Having school leaders in the driving seat is essential, but that also brings a need for transparency so we can see whether children in some areas are not getting as strong an education as children in others. Progress 8, which we brought in, measures the progress of all children equally and is far better than the blunt and much-gamed approach of measuring how many children got over the five-plus C-plus at GCSE hurdle. It is also materially better than the old contextual value added measure, which effectively lowered expectations for entire groups of children.
We also need a threshold to trigger intervention, so that underperforming schools can be moved into a strong trust that can better support them. That is standing up for parents and children, who will get only one shot at schooling.
There are challenges to address and, as I said to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), high on that list post covid is attendance. It is much better than it was, but there is further to go. I hope the Government will keep and build on the measures that we put in place, together with schools and the wider education family.
We always need to strive to do more to support children with special educational needs and disabilities and enable them to maximise opportunity. I was encouraged by what the Secretary of State said. I call on her and the Government to keep and grow our capital programme for more special school places, as well as, as she rightly said, to strive to support inclusion in mainstream education, where that is possible and beneficial.
Today there is a greater prevalence of mental ill health in young people. Crucially, this issue is not specific to this country. We see it in most comparable countries, or at least those where there is data we can look at; we see a similar trend there. The Labour manifesto spoke about having mental health professionals in schools. When we were in government, with the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS, we were already rolling out mental health support teams to clusters of schools and I urge the Government to look at that.
Of course, we and other countries must also ask why there is this increased prevalence of mental ill health in young people. Because it is international in nature, some of the ready answers that might otherwise be thrown about cannot be correct. We will work constructively with the Government as they work to build on the landmark Online Safety Act 2023, for example, and ensure its most effective implementation.
Schools are all about teachers and we welcome the Government’s plan to recruit 6,500 more. Of course, 6,500 is a large number, but it is not quite so large in the context of the total number of teachers, which is 468,000, and it should be noted that the increase in the number of teachers over the last Parliament was considerably more than 6,500—in fact, it was more like 15,000. However, it is true that it has been tough to recruit for some subjects, such as computer science, physics and modern foreign languages, and I welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on that area.
Damian Hinds
If the hon. Member will forgive me, I had better press on, as I might be stretching Madam Deputy Speaker’s patience. Early in my time facing her in the Chair, I do not want to get off to a bad start.
We will be looking to see exactly what the 6,500 target covers, by when and, crucially, how it will be achieved.
The one subject in education that got a lot of coverage in the media and elsewhere during the election campaign was the taxation of independent schools. We recognise that that was in the Labour manifesto, but it is still wrong-headed. It will not hit the famous big-name schools, but it will hit small-town schools, families of children with special educational needs and certain religious faiths. Most of all, in the biggest way, it will hit state schools. We do not know how big the displacement effect will be of families who can no longer afford to send their children to their independent school, and we cannot know because there is no precedent, but we know that it will be a material number.
Mark Garnier
One thing that has not been discussed in this debate about extra taxation on private schools is that they generate £1 billion a year in export wins: this could have an effect on the country’s current account deficit.
Damian Hinds
We must not get into a long debate on this, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that export earnings is part it, as is multinationals’ choice of this country to site their headquarters. All these things are considerations, including the Ministry of Defence.
I inadvertently skipped over the hon. Member, so I give way to him now.
Chris Vince
I thank the right hon. Member for taking my question. His figures on teacher numbers are very interesting. Does he not recognise that, over the last Parliament, the teacher retention rate was at an all-time low, with a third of teachers leaving within five years of going into the profession?
Damian Hinds
Again, I must not get into too lengthy a debate on this—[Interruption.] But I can. In the last couple of years, we actually found that retention was better than had been anticipated. We want teachers to stay longer in the profession, which is one of the reasons why, during my first spell in the Department for Education, we brought in the early career framework specifically to address that issue. The Secretary of State has said that the Government will continue to evolve that, which I welcome too, but the fact of the matter is that we have 468,000 teachers in the profession. Part of that is to do with retention, and part of it is to do with people returning to the profession, which at times has been better than anticipated. It is also to do with the significant programme to get people into teaching in the first place through bursaries and scholarships.
Returning to taxation and independent education, I ask the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), at the very least today when she sums up, to confirm that the Government will not bring the measure further forward so that we end up with in-year disruption for families, and for state schools trying to cope with a potential influx of large numbers of children. Can she also guarantee that the large number of spending programmes that have been linked to this taxation income stream, including the 6,500 teachers, are protected, regardless of what happens on that VAT income?
I am close to the end. We set about a major upgrade in technical and vocational education. The Secretary of State said something important and, I think, new about what was going to happen. I hope the Government will see through T-levels and the reform of technical and vocational education on the blueprint—we always did this in government: we took a cross-party approach—of Lord Sainsbury. The Secretary of State mentioned that she will update the House tomorrow. Will the Minister of State confirm in summing up that that will be an oral statement, giving hon. and right hon. Members a chance to question the Minister on exactly what is proposed?
We will also scrutinise the Government’s proposed changes to apprenticeships and the levy. I understand that businesses want more flexibility on what they can do with levy money, but the two crucial things about the apprenticeship levy is that, first, it dealt with what economists call the “free rider problem,” under which some businesses historically invested strongly in training their staff, while others did not, but benefited when staff left those businesses to join them after two or three years. Secondly, the levy ensured that human capital investment went into incremental training; it did not just rebadge training that would have happened anyway. In whatever reform the Government undertake, those two things will have to be delivered.
On Skills England, we just need to know what it is. We understand the desire of a Labour Government to say, “In an emergency, break glass, reach for quango” but what will it do that is different from what is done today by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, by local skills improvement plans and by the Unit for Future Skills?
I am proud that disadvantaged youngsters are now much more likely to go on to higher education than they were—despite of course predictions of the opposite at the time the student financing system was brought in. I remember very well that, when in opposition, Labour Members of Parliament said repeatedly that fees should never go as high as £9,000, or £9,250, and we will be watching for consistency in their approach in the months and years ahead.
We need to ensure high-quality provision for students. It does no favours to a young person to go to university if it is for a course where we know a high proportion of students do not even complete the course. We spoke during the election campaign of our plan to build on our foundation of the Office for Students to ensure that, in whatever subject it might be, students could be confident that their course was of high quality. The new Government need to set out how they, in their way, will ensure that that quality is guaranteed.
To conclude—[Hon. Members: “Hooray.”] Come on. It is often said—it was said earlier this afternoon—that the first duty of Government is to defend our country and our national security and to keep people safe. It is the most fundamental function of Government to have sound management of the economy and the finances. The noblest drive in government is to strive to spread opportunity as far and as equitably as possible. Ultimately, education is the key to almost everything. We wish the new Government and this team of Ministers well. We will work positively and constructively with them. We will scrutinise what they say, monitor what they do and hold them to account for what they deliver.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(10 years, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am afraid the hon. Gentleman has got his figures wrong. The number of housing starts is 89% higher than the trough Labour left us in 2009. We have already delivered more than 100,000 affordable homes and will deliver 170,000 in total by 2015, and the rate of affordable house building will soon be the highest it has been for two decades, which is a massive contrast with Labour, under which housing waiting lists almost doubled. If he does not believe me, he might want to listen to this quotation—and guess who it is from:
“We refused to prioritise the building of new social housing”.
Who said that? Anyone? It was the Leader of the Opposition. Thank you very much.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Q15. May I commend the Prime Minister for his firm action against unscrupulous payday lenders and for driving the credit union expansion project? Will he now urge more employers to consider partnering with their local credit union so that many more people can access affordable credit and convenient savings direct through the payroll?
The Prime Minister
I commend my hon. Friend for his consistent campaigning and speaking out on this issue. We are taking the tough action needed on payday lending, but, as he says, the positive side of this is that we need to expand credit unions faster, and we should be looking at all the ways that can be done, including through other organisations partnering with credit unions and encouraging their work.
Post-2015 Development Agenda
Damian Hinds Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I thank the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and the Backbench Business Committee for finding time for this debate, which is timely given where we are with the high-level panel.
I start by reflecting on some of the positive stuff that has happened, partly through the millennium development goals. According to the World Bank, the poverty target will be met, with the population share of extremely poor people in developing countries falling from 29% in the baseline year 1990 to 12% in 2015. The target of halving the proportion of people without access to improved water sources has been met, and parity between girls and boys has been achieved in primary education.
In other spheres, life expectancy in Africa has risen by a tenth over the past decade, and there has been remarkable progress on child mortality, which The Economist recently called
“the best story in development”.
That story has barely been recognised. Real income per person has increased by more than 30% over the same period. Secondary school enrolment grew by almost half between 2000 and 2008, and the average number of children per mother is projected to fall from about 5 in 2008 to 3.9 in 2020.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) rightly pointed out that the simplicity and focus of the millennium development goals has been instrumental in helping to forge a shared vision and in mobilising the world around those goals. Obviously, in formulating the next set of objectives, the world collectively needs to learn from that, but I am afraid it will be quite a challenge when we consider all the different bids that people have made for things that should be focused on. Of course, I will add my own bid in a moment.
The panel has already made great progress on the key points, such as poverty reduction, inclusive growth and sustainable development. The panel is clearly right that the first objective must be to finish the job on the existing millennium development goals, including on income, poverty, education—my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) talked about education—and health, which the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) addressed in detail. And there is equality for girls and women, which we know is fundamental to so many other things. The new agenda must address the underlying causes of poverty, such as strong institutions and the rule of law, which the panel refers to as
“the building blocks for sustained prosperity”.
In all such discussions the different levels of aspiration are often conflated. At the top level are the ultimate aspirations, such as eradicating acute poverty, getting rid of preventable child and maternal mortality, ensuring personal safety for all and the self-fulfilment and realisation of the potential of entire populations.
A level down are the fundamentals of a good, effective society and economy, which are the things that facilitate those ultimate aspirations. In that group are the creation of liberal democracy, the rule of law, a market economy and social security. A further level down are the deliverable programmes, which build towards those fundamentals of a good, effective society and economy. Those programmes include land reform and agricultural productivity—to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford alluded—access to micro-finance, roads and bicycles. There are also the fundamentals of infrastructure, health care and immunisation, and essential goods. Critically, of course, that includes education and entry-level jobs.
In the current millennium development goals, and in most of the material I have seen from NGOs and others—I am not an expert on this, unlike so many of the Select Committee members who are here—those different levels of aspiration get grouped together. People need ideas for where they are going at each level, but in a sense, it is mentally useful to separate the levels and know where the real focal point is. I suggest that the real focal point should be at the middle level—in other words, the essentials of building a good, effective society and economy. When the Prime Minister talks about the golden thread of development, I think he is talking about the middle level. We need to do that in parallel with programmes that are focused on the essentials of life, which are health, education and nutrition.
We are talking about human life, and it is difficult to talk in such terms, but one of the great things about the involvement of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett is that they bring an analytical approach to finding the things on which the limited amount of money we have to spend can have the most effect.
The danger is that, most of the time, debates such as this are between people who agree on the most important aspects of the subject. I am sure that everyone in Westminster Hall today agrees that although charity might begin at home, it certainly does not end there. We have a shared humanity and a moral obligation to the poorest people in the world. However bad things might ever be in Britain, they will not be as bad as they are in Bangladesh or Burundi. The second thing that everyone participating in this debate probably believes is that official development assistance plays a key part in addressing the entrenched problems of poor parts of the world, but it is clearly not true that everyone else believes in those two things, too.
Doubters ask three questions that have to be addressed. First, why do this at all? Secondly, why do it through their taxes? Thirdly, why have this 0.7% target, why now and why should this country be in the lead? There are answers to all of those questions, but if we are to carry people with us through the agenda, they are not questions to which we can assume an answer; we have to take the questions head on.
On the question of why do it at all, to some extent the agenda is just something that we feel, rather than something we can argue, debate or explain. However, we need to spend more time explaining to the public some of the successes in development. In the public street and the pub, the conversation is often about the hopelessness of Africa and the idea that however much money we throw at the problems, things will not materially improve. However, that is clearly not true, given some of the statistics that I and other Members have given. I would also argue—this is perhaps slightly more controversial—that we can tie our explanation a little more to the national interests of this country, the United States, France, Germany, the European Union and all wealthy nations, and I will return to that in a moment.
The second thing someone might say is, “Okay, you’ve persuaded me that we should spend money on helping the poorest people in the world. That’s fine, but go and do that with your own money. Why do it out of general taxation?” Answering that question is a harder sell, not least because the British public are extraordinarily generous off their own bat. We have to explain that official development assistance can do things that private charity cannot, particularly by leveraging what other countries do. From the point of view of the recipient nations, there is also the predictability and long-term nature of such development and aid.
The most fundamental issue, however, is the free rider problem, which we do not talk about enough. If the 0.7% target was working perfectly and everyone was meeting it, it would be precisely the vehicle to help us get around the free rider problem. The free rider problem is this: if I, as a country, spend a load of money helping poor countries to develop their economies and societies, that will benefit the world to some extent, but I will never notice the benefit that I get as a nation; but if everybody does the same, I will get a big benefit. As long as everyone else is pulling their weight, therefore, it is perfectly rational to spend quite a lot of money on overseas development; but if I am going to be the only one spending a lot and nobody else is going to, it is not. That is why I said that if the 0.7% target works well, it is in everybody’s interests. However, we need to demonstrate to the public that even though most countries have not, sadly, reached that target, they are making progress towards it. While it is right for us to be proud of our leadership position and of reaching that target first, some of our constituents would, in many ways, rather prefer that we were joint first and that there was more progress from others.
Meg Hillier
We should be proud of what we have achieved in leading the way. Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that many of our constituents provide a lot of money through remittances, which are often under-counted? Those remittances are very much an example of charity beginning at home.
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady makes an extremely good point. Another reason why I am particularly proud about Britain being in the lead on this is that it gives our Prime Minister and our Government extra authority in international discussions. That gives this country more influence over what happens in terms of world policy on overseas development.
Key to all this is the need to emphasise the ways in which foreign aid is in our interests too. When I say “our”, I mean not just the United Kingdom, but all wealthy nations, although this happens to be the British Parliament, so we will focus on ourselves. To maintain support for what the Government do on overseas development, at least a subset of the goals focused on after 2015 should talk about the world’s shared interests. Of course it is right that the headline focus must be on the poorest people and the poorest nations, but there is some value in explaining these other issues to people and showing the progress being made on things that will also benefit people in the wealthier parts of the world.
There are four groups of key development deliverables—things that happen as developing nations get somewhat less poor and, eventually, a little richer. Things happen that benefit them, but there is also a direct benefit to the rest of the world. The first area is the most obvious: economic growth, specialisation and trade. As long as those things happen in a properly inclusive way, they will benefit the country itself through rising incomes. However, that also grows the world economy, leading to a higher world GDP and new export markets for countries such as ours.
The proof of that is that, over the past five years, 28% of the growth in UK exports came from countries classed as low and middle-income, excluding countries such as India, large parts of whose population are very poor. Government projections show that, over the next 10 years, today’s major aid recipients will contribute about £3 trillion to the global economy, accounting for 11% of global growth. If we look at a bar chart showing where global growth comes from today compared with in the 1990s, we see that the pattern has changed substantially, from being focused on richer countries in the 1990s to being focused on middle and lower-income countries today. Eventually, of course, low-income countries become middle-income countries and then contribute even more to the world economy.
The second area is population. We talk a lot these days about food security, about oil and energy more generally and about the resulting strains. While a growing world population is only one of the pressures on food—people who move into the middle classes and who have higher incomes tend to demand different sorts of food—the sheer number of people has an obvious effect on the demand for world resources. It is clearly in the interests of all of us that world population is at a sustainable level.
There are obvious ways in which aspects of development programmes directly impact on population, and the accessibility of family planning is one. Less obvious—this relates to child mortality—is the fact that the more likely a mum is to see her children grow into adulthood, the less likely she is to have more children. Another clear, although even more indirect, relationship relates to the fact that, as nations get richer, mothers tend towards having two children in the very long term, and it has been said many times that development is the best contraceptive. Regardless of one’s view of family planning programmes per se, the overall effort on international development contributes to having a sustainable world population.
The third area is self-sufficiency against disasters and in defence. Ultimately, that means countries making fewer emergency calls on the wealthier parts of the world. We hope that those countries will eventually be able to contribute to the security and defence of the world. The fourth area relates to making places safer, with fewer opportunities for radicalisation, less lawlessness and, ultimately, we hope, fewer wars for countries such as ours to have to intervene in.
My argument is that, somewhere in the 2015 goals, the world—this is not just down to our country—should find space to demonstrate to donor nations how the development and progress I have described is in their interests too. I am proud that this country is a world leader on development, and I hope we will remain one. However, we need to carry others with us, so we should see development goals not only as ends in themselves but, in the way we use them and demonstrate progress, as means to those ends.
Overseas Aid (Private Sector Contracts)
Damian Hinds Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree with the business leaders who are quoted in today’s Financial Times as saying that the prospects of the world’s poorest people are increasingly being defined by what businesses do, alongside the established work of Governments? Cannot private sector development simultaneously help those people, and economies throughout the rest of the world—including our own—through specialisation, trade and economic growth?
Justine Greening
The short answers to that question are yes and yes. As was pointed out in the Financial Times, aid and business constitute a crucial alliance, which we must try to bind more closely.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I will leave the Latin to the Mayor of London, if that is all right, but I will certainly have a word with the Education Secretary. What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that school capital budgets as a whole are equivalent to what the previous Labour Government did in their early terms. The money is there. In terms of the banks, evidence now shows that the funding for lending scheme from the Bank of England is having an effect on lowering interest rates. We are reforming PFI, but we are also offering infrastructure guarantees—something that the Treasury has never done before—to help projects go ahead.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Q7. Nothing is more important in early-years education than the caring people who deliver it. Does the Prime Minister agree that raising the bar and elevating their status will help to add prestige to the profession, support parents and give children the best possible start in life?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to the Department for Education, which yesterday published a series of proposals to expand the availability and affordability of child care while also ensuring that there is an offer of real quality.
When we look across Europe, we see countries that provide very good and very affordable child care, and there are lessons that we can learn from those countries. I suggest that the people who say that changing the ratios is wrong should look at the ratios in countries such as Denmark and France. We are coming into line with those countries: we too can provide more available, more affordable child care, so that people who want to go out to work are able to because they can find the child care that they need.
Global Poverty
Damian Hinds Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It is a privilege, if a little daunting, to speak in the same debate as my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral West (Esther McVey) and for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk), who made outstanding and passionate maiden speeches.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, aid is not the final answer. Nations become sustainably prosperous not through our charity or redistribution, but when they can create their own wealth. My hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) mentioned the letters and e-mails that a number of hon. Members are getting from people who are unhappy that, at a time when the Government are having to cut back severely on spending programmes, we are still committed to spending money on aid. I do not know whether, as the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) said, those people constitute a small or a significant minority, but they certainly exist, and we have to work hard to carry them with the programme.
The line “charity begins at home” holds a certain attraction, but, as we see again and again from the generosity of the British people when called upon, charity here certainly does not end at home. The moral and altruistic argument for aid is strong, but as politicians we can, and must, do better than hitherto in explaining to, and convincing, people why aid can also be in our own interests when properly targeted and as long as we know that other wealthy nations are also making their proper contribution alongside ours. A larger world gross domestic product benefits not just newly developing countries, but the entire world economy, through bigger markets, specialisation and trade. It ensures that the world’s scarce resources, including human resources, are put to better use, and through the promotion of stability in otherwise volatile parts of the world, it contributes to our security. Furthermore, there are benefits in terms of climate change, economic migration and so on, and often direct benefit can be had from strategic bilateral relationships, which of course are competitive exercises between countries.
Private enterprise is the single most important driver of development. It creates jobs, wealth and opportunities. It also harnesses the talents and the enterprise of entrepreneurs, who in turn, through their ingenuity and drive, will create opportunities for their countrymen and women to prosper. However, in the world’s developing economies, just as here at home, that hinges on access to credit.
Like everybody else, poor people need money if they are going to start businesses. However, mainstream banks often do not want to deal with them, because the sums of money involved are so small and because it is difficult to find an attractive return once the full operating costs have been factored in. A key to successful development is microfinance, providing loans to some of the world’s poorest people and playing a key role in generating a real private sector. In some countries, such as India and Bangladesh, the microfinance sector is already well established. The Grameen bank, which is the best-known example, having pioneered the sector in 1983, has since made loans to more than 8 million borrowers. In other countries, however, there is still a lot of work left to do.
My introduction to microfinance came in Rwanda in 2008. Like a number of my hon. Friends this afternoon, I have had the opportunity a couple of times to join my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on two of the volunteering projects that he has organised in that country, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) referred earlier. In the short time spent on such a project, the contribution that one can make is tiny. However, although one’s contribution may be modest, it is fair to say that what we learned could hardly be overstated.
One of the things that I learned about was microfinance. I had the opportunity while in Rwanda to pay a short visit to the country’s largest microfinance institution, the Urwego Opportunity microfinance bank. We saw the two extremes of that organisation’s operation. The first was the bank’s flagship city branch, which looked a bit like a small branch of Barclays and was very high-tech, with all sorts of fingerprint identification technologies. The second example, at the other extreme, was what one might call the field operation—quite literally—in a market on the edge of the city, where no such technology would be available. Instead, gathered on a patch of ground were the 30 or so members—most, but not all of them, women—of a microfinance circle. The majority were sole traders in that market.
Microfinance there works in cycles of four months. People get the money at the start of the period and, so long as they pay it off at a rate of 3% a month, they can borrow again in the next four-month period. Critically, each member of the circle vouches for the others, and if someone defaults, the other members have to pick up the slack. The system is therefore largely self-policing, and before someone joins a circle, Mr Deputy Speaker, you can bet that the other members will ensure that their business is viable.
In that circle and that cycle, a lot of money changed hands. For example, 9.6 million Rwandan francs, which is almost £10,000, was brought to the circle by a female Urwego employee in a paper bag—it is quite astounding that there is not more theft on such occasions. The biggest borrower—a lady called Veronique—had borrowed almost £800, which, when we consider that this would be almost £2,500 over the three cycles in a year, is quite a lot of money. She uses that money to finance her bar and pay for the satellite television service, so that she can charge keen Rwandans to watch English premiership football teams—notably, I am pleased to say, the Arsenal—on her television set.
The sums of money involved in such projects are now such that one could say that they straddle microfinance and mainstream finance. Indeed, one needs credit at all levels to finance the development of such an economy. In rural areas of Rwanda, there are much smaller-scale operations, sometimes involving loans as small as just £1. Around the world, microfinance programmes have shown again and again that poor people can and do have a strong repayment record—in most cases over 95%. However, according to the World Bank, the industry is not even close to meeting the demand for its services. There could be up to 500 million poor people in the world for whom a small business loan would be a great opportunity, while two thirds of the world’s population have no access to a bank account at all. The problem is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa.
The chance to witness microfinance in progress in Rwanda left a great impression on me. People talk about developing market economies, but there was a market economy developing before our eyes. I hope and trust that, in our programme of help for the poorest of the world, we will focus very much on those helping-hand programmes, which enable people to help themselves. I also hope that more airtime is given to those programmes, so that the British public can increasingly see aid as an investment in the future and in a rising rate of world growth, and not just as money spent.