Education

Debate between Damian Hinds and Jeremy Quin

Thursday 8th February 2024 Ministerial Corrections

[Damian Hinds]

We have launched 32 attendance hubs, to reach more than 1 million pupils. And we will be expanding our attendance mentor pilot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) rightly mentioned, to reach 15 priority education investment areas.

Topical Questions

The following is an extract from Education questions on 29 January 2024:

[Sir Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

Educational psychologists are enormously important. What progress are the Government making on their current recruitment drive to increase their number?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Jeremy Quin

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I agree that it is great news that the Cabinet Office, among other Government Departments, is relocating jobs to Scotland. We have a hub in Glasgow; the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and many other Departments also have a Scottish hub. That is good news. I have been assured that our UK apprenticeship programmes are available across the UK, and I believe that we are in dialogue with the Scottish Government. Where we can work together to provide good apprenticeship opportunities across the public sector, that must be a good thing.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to reduce public sector fraud.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Jeremy Quin)]

I was so entranced by the brilliant advocate of civil service jobs in Scotland, the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier), that I had forgotten my old friend, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). I apologise to him and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

The Cabinet Office co-hosts the new Public Sector Fraud Authority with His Majesty’s Treasury. It will work with public bodies to better understand and reduce the impact of fraud against the public sector. In its first year, it will deliver £180 million in outcomes and agree targets with other public bodies. I hope that was worth waiting for.

[Damian Hinds]

It was well worth waiting for; I warmly welcome the Paymaster General to his place.

There is a lot of commonality between different types of public sector fraud and between public sector fraud and regular consumer fraud. Often, there are the same professional enablers, there can be the same criminal gangs, and of course, there are the same routes out for money laundering. Can he reassure me that he and his Department will continue to seek every possible synergy between what different Departments are doing, and between the Government and law enforcement?

Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Debate between Damian Hinds and Jeremy Quin

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He has beaten me to it, because I was going to say suitably warm words about my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow when he addresses the House later in this session. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that that report in 2018 was incredibly influential and very helpful in setting out not only the prosperity agenda that was announced in March 2019, but this paper. Two changes should warm the heart of the right hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] I will do my best. The first is that as we look at new procurements right from the outset we will be looking to think, “What are we going to get out of this, not just for the kit we need for our forces—what is the broader impact? What else can we do to secure prosperity, which, after all is a defence task, through the orders we place and how we go about it?” We will be taking that nuanced approach, looking at each one in turn, on a case-by-case basis, to see what can be achieved. Of course there will be occasions when off the shelf is the best option, but for every one that needs to be tested, considered and thought through. Secondly, I am very proud that we are going to be ensuring that social value is always applied to our tender process. So this will be a minimum of 10%. It will be compulsory from 1 June, in respect of DSPCR—Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011. This is about making certain that through that mechanism we catch the whole benefit that a procurement can make.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I strongly welcome my hon. Friend’s statement and the strategy, including what he outlined on the deepened working with industry and academia. Can he say how the strategy can help build the UK’s skills base in key STEM subjects, which is obviously very important for defence industries, but also for important parts of the wider civil economy?

[Jeremy Quin]

This is a great opportunity to build our skills base and our number of apprentices. My right hon. Friend will have heard what I said about FCAS and Team Tempest and that new generation coming through—people are very excited about the prospect of working on this new system—but it is broader than that. I particularly pay tribute to the work of the RAF across Wales in bringing on STEM skills. The whole of the armed forces are acutely aware that our future is going to be digital, cyber and highly technological, and we as a country need to have that STEM support. I know that this strategy, with its £6.6 billion minimum spend on R&D over the next four years, will help to deliver just that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Jeremy Quin

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

We have to look at this and consider value for money. My hon. Friend the Minister is absolutely right to say “not at any price”. The UK, including Scotland, remains an extremely attractive destination for these research projects.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

T2. What support has the Department provided to schools to help them to address cost pressures?

School Funding

Debate between Damian Hinds and Jeremy Quin

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I did not want to interrupt his conversation with the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins).

While I, and many other Conservative Members, may have individual issues about individual schools or how the funding formula might work out in practice in certain circumstances, I welcome the principle—which was agreed by Labour Members—of a fair funding formula that is allocating more money where it is required. It is going to pupils on the basis of need, and that is something that we should all support.

[Damian Hinds]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. It is a historic challenge to have taken on, and it is not without its difficulties, but it is right to ensure that funding goes where it is most needed, not according to the way in which various funding settlements have accumulated over the years in different areas on the basis of accidents of history and geography.

I had better make some progress towards the conclusion of my speech, Madam Deputy Speaker, because otherwise you will do it for me. We have the best-qualified teachers we have ever had, backed up by the largest amount of money that we have ever had in the schools budget. We are protecting schools’ per pupil funding in real terms over the next two years, at a time when pupil numbers are rising. Working alongside a brilliant set of teachers and other education professionals, we are striving for a world-class education for everyone, whatever their background.

Since 2010, the Government have helped more children to go to good schools. We have helped primary school children to become better readers, we have helped secondary school children to gain higher-quality qualifications, and we have helped more students than ever to go on to university. We have extended early years education so that more children are school-ready, and we have raised the participation age so that everyone can build up the education and skills that they need for life. Through academies and free schools, we have given our frontline professionals, local communities and parents more freedom and choice. We have invested and are investing—with £7 billion committed in a six-year period—to create the quality of extra school places that we need, and let me repeat that more revenue funding is going into our schools than ever before.

The benefits of our reforms can be seen in schools up and down the country, thanks, of course, to the hard work and dedication of our teachers and education professionals. In its most recent annual report, published in December last year, Ofsted stated that

“the quality of education and care provided to young people today is better than ever.”

Since 2010, we have increased the number of children in good and outstanding schools by 1.9 million. The attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has narrowed by 10%, and 95% of three and four-year-olds are benefiting from early years education. We have introduced the pupil premium and have extended free school meals to further education colleges and 50,000 more schoolchildren, as well as introducing universal infant free school meals.

However, the job is far from done. We are ambitious for all our schools, and for all our children. Someone’s background does not dictate their talents, and it should not limit their dreams. The attainment gap between children from different backgrounds has narrowed, but it is still too wide, so we are continuing our commitment to the pupil premium and the opportunity areas programme. Some places have seen dramatic gains, but others still need extra assistance. We must spread opportunity to the parts of the country where children are still let down by the limited depth and breadth of the education that is available. Every child should be able to go to a great school, which is why we are putting more than £300 million into support programmes over the next two years. To ensure that our economy has the skills that it needs to be fit for the future, we will do more to encourage the take-up of science, technology, engineering and maths by, for instance, introducing the maths premium and teacher bursaries for priority subjects.

By improving our nurseries, schools, colleges and universities, we can build a society in which it does not matter who people are, where they live or who they know. Alongside school leaders, governors, teachers, parents and pupils, we are striving for a world-class education for everyone, whatever their background, so that we can make our economy fit for the future in a world of rapid technological change. We want to boost our productivity and our children’s future prosperity, so that they are better equipped for their own futures and more of them can achieve their potential and lead fulfilled lives. That is what a world-class education can bring and that is what we are working for.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Debate between Damian Hinds and Jeremy Quin

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

It is a system that is replacing a deeply flawed system and striving to face up head-on to endemic problems that we have had for decades and that were left in the “too difficult to deal with” tray—an old system, where complexity and bureaucracy had so often served to stifle the independence, limit the choice and constrain the outlook of its claimants.

[Jeremy Quin]

Would my hon. Friend agree that, unlike the disaster that was the tax credit roll-out in 2003, the Minister and the Government had built into this process a slow roll-out, and the Minister has proved himself adaptable on the landlord portal and on the advances and the ever-increasing speed with which these payments are being made?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is quite right. We will not remake those mistakes of the past, and that is why this is such a careful and gradual process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Jeremy Quin

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

Minimum wage compliance is, of course, vital, and work in that regard is ongoing. Universal credit encourages people to work more hours, and, in general, they should be doing higher-paid work.

[Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the fact that this Government, more than any other, have made quality childcare accessible to hard-working families?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is right. The suite of childcare support that the Government are providing for families is unprecedented. It includes the doubling of provision for three and four-year-olds, the extension of provision under universal credit, and tax-free childcare.