Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, and he is absolutely right that we intend to issue a full public consultation shortly on how best to provide the legal protection that we want to see against caste discrimination. When we do that, I am sure that my hon. Friend and his community will want to participate fully in the consultation.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It took the Government almost a year to come up with a very thin eight-page review on the care and management of transgender offenders. That referred to

“a number of events linked to transgender prisoners”

that attracted attention last year. Those so-called “events” were, in fact, the deaths in the space of a month of two transgender women held in men’s prisons. Will the Minister tell us why the Government failed to acknowledge those tragedies in their review, and why their proposals are so meagre?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I question all those statements. The response is not meagre; it is thorough. The Government are firmly committed to ensuring that transgender offenders are treated fairly, lawfully and decently, and that their rights are respected. A revised instruction drawing on the conclusions of the Ministry of Justice’s “Review of care and management of transgender offenders” was published on 9 November. It is already being applied, and will be implemented fully by 1 January.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

I think we can all agree that students should be able to challenge those they disagree with by means of open and robust debate. Academic freedom and freedom of speech are central to our higher education system. There is no place for intimidation to attempt to shut down open debate. Universities have a clear legal duty to secure freedom of speech for students, staff and visiting speakers, and they must have clear policies for how they will ensure that that can happen. Should my hon. Friend wish to discuss this further with either me or the Minister with responsibility for universities, I would be happy to oblige.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Sadly, bullying occurs in most schools. In some cases, it leads to young people effectively self-excluding from school, which puts themselves and their parents in a particularly difficult position. Groups such as Red Balloon in my constituency do very good work. What support would the Minister give to such groups?

[Edward Timpson]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We can safely say that every school will have bullying at some point in some form, and we need to ensure they have the tools available to tackle it in the best way possible, particularly with the additional threat of cyber-bullying outside the school gates. ChildLine, which the Government help to fund, is receiving more calls. This will remain a very high-profile issue for years to come. That is why we support organisations to help schools more effectively tackle these issues, but we need to be alive to the new ways that bullying will emerge in the future. We will continue to work on that with all organisations, including Red Balloon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question; it is progressing extremely well. In 2012, 58% of six-year-olds passed the check. This year, 81% passed the check. That is a huge improvement in the quality of the teaching of reading in our primary schools.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T4. Can the Secretary of State explain how allowing schools to select all their pupils by religion, abolishing the 50% cap, will in any way help to bring communities together?

[Justine Greening]

The current rule is generally inoperative for many free schools when they begin, because they are not over-subscribed, and it only kicks in if they are. We are proposing to put in place much stronger, more effective controls to ensure that faith schools that are opening will be community schools. I would very much encourage the hon. Gentleman to read the consultation document, which sets out proposals, including that those schools should demonstrate clear parental demand from parents of other faiths or no faith and that they should twin with primary schools and other schools.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 19th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bath (Ben Howlett). Bath is another beautiful university city. I live in Cambridge, a city of universities. Of course, almost everyone knows of the University of Cambridge, and most people now know of Anglia Ruskin University, which has expanded and improved dramatically over the last decade, particularly under the excellent leadership of the recently retired Vice-Chancellor, Mike Thorne. In Cambridge, we have also enjoyed the Open University and the University of the Third Age, so there is something for everyone, and a precious eco-system that we do not want to risk being disrupted.

Cambridge also has a number of other educational establishments that feed off the Cambridge brand, and one of my concerns is that if we rush to encourage new providers, we must make sure that the quality of the Cambridge brand and others is not tarnished. I am told that when a similar exercise was undertaken in New Zealand a few years ago and a couple of new entrants did not stay the course, the reputational knock-on effect led to a drastic fall in foreign students for the established institutions over the following years—along, of course, with the consequent financial costs—so I say we should be careful here.

Let me start by following on from the excellent points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). In facing the Brexit challenge, it is absolutely clear that the sector is suffering from instability and uncertainty. I echo the suggestion of many of my hon. Friends that now might not be the time for undertaking more major reforms. Our research institutions and universities currently face a real challenge to maintain our global reputation, and we should not make it any more difficult for them.

I am not saying that the existing regulatory frameworks in place for our universities and research are perfect. Of course they are not, and of course they could be simplified and improved. What I do say, however, is that now is the time for safeguards and support for our higher education providers and research councils—not for further disruption. Let us not rock the boat when we are already faced with such unsteady waters.

Plenty of people are making this point. Perhaps not surprisingly, the University and College Union has asked the Government to stop and wait. It sensibly called for an “immediate nonpartisan inquiry into how we can ensure that our colleges and universities remain open to staff and students from around the world.”

I rather agree. Even putting aside the minor matter of our uncertain place in Europe at the moment—one has to say, what price the great aspirations for the Bologna process and a pan-European higher education system?— there are real problems here.

The impact assessment for the Bill outlines that a single market regulator, the office for students, will be established and says that it will provide

“competition, choice and the student’s interest at its heart”.

That sequence of phrasing raises a further problem—that competition is being put first, and the student’s interest put last. Let us take, for example, the provision that would see new entrants into the higher education market given the ability to compete on equal terms with existing institutions and to immediately possess powers to award their own degrees, albeit on a probationary basis. As I have suggested, there are real risks here. It could dilute the trusted UK brand, risking our country’s reputation for educational excellence on the international stage. The Public Accounts Committee has already found standards at some private providers to be lacking, saying:

“The Department has failed to protect the interests of legitimate students, and the taxpayer.”

The Russell Group has urged the Government to consider a longer period of enhanced scrutiny and peer review to help maintain the UK’s reputation and high standards, and I agree that ensuring the high quality of any institution afforded degree-awarding powers is paramount.

The increased marketisation that this proposal signifies could also threaten providers, and could, in some cases, lead to what we call “market exit”. That might be quite dramatic. The closure of such institutions, whether they are vocationally orientated or traditional international-facing universities, would have a significant, and possibly more than significant, impact on local communities and students. A survey undertaken by the now defunct Department for Business, Innovation and Skills showed that less than half of alternative providers had a student protection plan to implement in the event of “market exit”. Moreover, if providers fail, who will pick up the tab? What will be the effect on the other institutions? I think we need to know the answers to some of these questions.

The National Union of Students has called the marketisation of higher education a “failed experiment”, and has chastised the Government for trying to “turn students into consumers.” I hope that the Government will think again, and will recognise that creating a conveyor belt of higher education providers risks doing real damage to the dynamic, trusted institutions that have been built over so many centuries in our country.

The proposed teaching excellence framework will allow some universities to charge tuition fees rising in line with inflation. While it is fair, and welcome, to highlight the importance of teaching quality, the removal of the fee cap in what can only be described as a slightly underhand way is not very welcome. Another issue of concern relating to the TEF is the splitting of research and teaching oversight between the office for students and UK Research and Innovation. The Royal Society rightly points out that

”today’s PhD content is tomorrow’s course content”,

and, as the University of Cambridge tells me, the close and mutually beneficial relationship between teaching and research—their interdependency—is a central tenet of UK university excellence. Consequently, it is important for the TEF to recognise the value of research-led teaching in its assessment criteria.

I appreciate that the review of the research excellence framework is currently under way and expected soon, and I am sure we all await its conclusions on how the assessment of teaching and research quality will be streamlined and interlinked, but I think that there must be a strong requirement for co-operation between the office for students and UKRI.

The implications for wider research are profound. Let me say in passing that an omission in the Bill is the lack of provision for post-graduate student supervision: there is more to be said on that, I think. The Bill restructures our country’s research base by revoking the royal charters of the current research councils and bringing them under the umbrella of the new body that will be created when UK Research and Innovation is merged with Innovate UK. Lord Rees, who has already been quoted today—a very wise voice from Cambridge, and a former president of the Royal Society—has observed that while reshuffling the administrative structure of our research councils is “seductive”, it

“may not prove either necessary or sufficient, and may indeed be counterproductive.”

It is positive that the Bill at least hints at codifying a long-standing convention, the principle of dual funding, but many have observed that the wording is vague, possibly less clear than that in the White Paper, and that the “reasonable balance” referred to in the Bill is insufficient. I hope that the Minister can give us a stronger commitment today, because dual funding is key, and quality-related funding for research is essential.

The integration of Innovate UK into UK Research and Innovation also raises questions. While we are assured that Innovate UK will retain a separate budget and its own business-facing outlook, I think I am right in saying that Members of the House of Lords have already queried the merger and its impact on the independence of the research councils. I am sure that that will be examined closely in Committee.

Let me end by returning to my opening observations. Our research community is already under great pressure, despite the Government’s reassurance that the European referendum result has “no immediate effect” on those applying to or participating in Horizon 2020. As a net recipient of EU funding, science research in particular will be hit hard by Brexit, and although the Universities Minister said recently that “nothing has changed overnight”, we are hearing just the opposite from those on the front line of research in our country, as other Members have observed. We are hearing that—literally overnight—they have been forced to the back of the queue when it comes to forming the collaborative links with European partners that are necessary for applications for EU research grants.

Research and higher education are intimately intertwined with free movement, European alliances and investment, but we may still be years away from knowing what kind of settlement will finally emerge. Before we can begin to think about reforming our vital higher education and research sectors, we must be absolutely sure of our place in Europe and in the wider world. The Government say that it is business as usual, but I say that these sectors are just too important to our country’s economy, and to our society, for us to take further risks in such uncertain times.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The UK is the world’s largest offshore wind market today, and it will still be the largest by the end of the decade, with 10 GW expected to be installed. Despite the decision to leave the European Union, I am confident that we can still co-operate on science and research, as many countries outside the European Union do with their EU counterparts. I believe that that will ensure that this sector remains very strong.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Innovation and research are inextricably linked. Yesterday, when I asked the Prime Minister about the impact on our research institutions of the decision to leave the European Union, he assured me that existing contracts would be honoured. However, researchers are applying for funding on a daily basis. What support can be put in place to deal with the uncertainty that exists today, tomorrow and next week?

[Sajid Javid]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there will be no change immediately; the current structures will stay in place for at least two years. Of course companies are concerned about what will replace them, and that is exactly what we are working on now with many researchers, businesses and others. The Minister for Universities and Science is taking this very seriously and he has already been speaking to a number of stakeholders.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

As I have said, there will be a full consultation, but I think that the hon. Gentleman has got the wrong end of the stick. The funding formula to be consulted on will absolutely take into account the needs of disadvantaged pupils. If he wants to talk about working-class boys, let me say that it cannot be right that there are schools in Knowsley that are receiving hundreds of pounds less than schools in Wandsworth, and that is just one such example. We must end that inequity, and this Government have taken the difficult decision to do that.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I echo the concerns raised by the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). Cambridgeshire schools, like Suffolk schools, have suffered historical underfunding. As 2017 is some way away, will the Secretary of State tell us what happens between now and then?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He will not be surprised to hear that I have also been lobbied by Cambridgeshire MPs, as well as by many other MPs from across the country. The £390 million extra that was announced for 2015-16 will continue to 2016-17. That amount of money will continue into the baseline for the rest of this Parliament. We must strike a balance between ensuring that we make swift progress on something that is demanded by MPs from across the House and getting it right, so that we do not end up having to untangle things again in a decade’s time.

Further Education

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Yesterday, I was at an all-day seminar with the Education Select Committee in Coventry, where we had the opportunity to meet the heads of primary and secondary schools, the regional schools commissioner and local government education officials. It was clear to me that our education providers understood the importance of working together and learning from one another and that they understood the link between education and jobs. I would therefore like to highlight one part of the motion before the House and to challenge it. The motion states that

“many colleges are…no longer offering courses in subjects key to our country’s competitiveness”.

I want to focus on that assumption, because I think it undermines the valuable work that our sixth-form colleges are doing.

I want to highlight three very different further education colleges that serve my constituency and that are doing extremely valuable work. First, we have the Cambridge regional college, which has more than 5,500 apprentices in training and works with more than 800 local employers to provide apprenticeships. Yesterday, it held a science, technology, engineering and maths—or STEM—seminar for year 10 and 11 students from the village colleges around my constituency. Secondly, we have the Cambridge university technical college, which opened in September 2014 and which specialises in biomedical and environmental science and technology. It teaches core GCSEs alongside technical qualifications. Thirdly, there is Hills Road, a highly academic sixth-form college that specialises in STEM subjects. In its A-level provision this year, it had 1,000 students in year 13, 92% of whom got grades between A* and C. For the 22nd successive year, it is at the head of the sixth-form college A-level league table for points per entry. The motion is therefore wrong to suggest that we are no longer offering courses that are key to our country’s competitiveness. In my area, we are offering precisely that.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The hon. and learned Lady has pointed out that the Cambridge regional college is very successful, but will she acknowledge that it took a big hit financially when the changes made by the UK Visas and Immigration service stopped it recruiting international students for a period? That cost the college some £1.5 million. Will she join me in making representations to the Home Secretary to ask her to sort this out?

[Lucy Frazer]

I must declare an interest in this matter. There is an issue with international students, which we need to address.

The hon. Gentleman and I share some fantastic colleges in our constituencies, and it is also wrong to suggest that the Government are not supporting education that leads to employment. They are undertaking a review of sixth-form education to ensure that it meets the needs of the regions it serves. They are also encouraging maths and physics through bursary schemes, and they are working to expand the apprenticeship programme, making £1.5 billion available for apprenticeships this year. Of course we can always do more. We should be encouraging not only teachers and businesses but students. The Government should look at ways to incentivise students to study the courses that will give them the right skills, so that we can continue to compete in the international markets in which our country operates.

School Funding

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I hope to take considerably less than 10 minutes, Mr Walker, although I may take one or two interventions.

We all agree that every child and family deserves the same chance in life when it comes to state-funded education; but at present, as the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) has so graphically shown, that is not the case. He chose to give figures rounded up or down to zero, but I will give the exact figures produced by the Association of School and College Leaders, which show that, on average, the 10 best-funded areas received grants of £6,297 per pupil this year, compared with an average of £4,208 per pupil in the 10 most poorly funded areas. That means that schools in the best-funded areas get 50% more per pupil than those in the worst-funded areas. As he said, for secondary schools of typical size, the gap amounts to nearly £2 million, the equivalent of 40 full-time teachers.

Devon schools are among the worst funded in the whole of England. We receive £23.4 million less than the national average, and our three and four-year-olds receive £3.7 million less. That means that each individual Devon schoolchild receives £270 less per head than the average for England, and three and four-year-olds receive £620 less per year than the average for England.

The situation in Exeter is even worse, because it is the only urban area of any significant size within the former Devon education authority area. Because of the extra cost of providing school transport or of maintaining small village schools in rural areas, my schools in Exeter are, in effect, hit by a double whammy: they are in one of the lowest-funded counties in England, and they lose out again because they have to cross-subsidise the cost of providing education in what is a largely rural county. Places such as Oxford, Norwich, Cambridge and Ipswich suffer similar double discrimination.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving me a helpful cue. Does he agree that shire areas in the south-west and the east of England, such as mine, have long suffered from underfunding? That has seeped into the public consciousness, thanks to some powerful campaigns. In my county, the Cambridge News has run a fantastic campaign, and we are beginning to win the argument with the public.

[Mr Bradshaw]

I entirely agree, and I will come to some of the historical reasons for the underfunding in a minute, but first I want to mention one of my fantastic headteachers in Exeter, Moira Marder, who is the executive head of two of my high schools: St James school and Isca college. She has done comparisons of funding with two cohorts of very similar schools around England and found that St James and Isca are the worst funded of their cohorts in the whole of England. All Members’ local authorities will have suffered big cuts, but our local authority has suffered a 27% cut in funding—nearly 40% in real terms—and we still have to find £135 million over the next four years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Tuesday 15th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I always listen carefully to what the hon. Gentleman says. He did a great job as Chair of the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee and he makes some important points, but he will be fully aware that manufacturing crashed as a proportion of our economy under the previous Labour Government, almost halving in size. Under this Government, the proportion has gone up as we rebalance the economy. He is right, however, to identify the question of exports, and we have set up an export taskforce to come up with new initiatives that will make a huge difference.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Last week the World Economic Forum published its “Inclusive Growth and Development Report”, which states that

“efforts are required to improve access to education as well as its quality, which would be important for tackling…the low levels of social mobility in the country.”

What efforts is the Secretary of State making to achieve that?

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Gentleman might not have noticed, but we are investing a huge amount of effort and money, through an apprenticeship levy that will be coming in in 2017, in the expansion and improvement of apprenticeships to create opportunities for young people and people in later life. I very much look forward to his contributing to the debate on this subject and supporting the apprenticeship levy in the Lobby.

Trade Union Bill

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and my membership of Unite.

Like many Members, I have had conversations with thousands—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has the right to be heard by both sides. He must and will be heard.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Like many Members—although I am not sure about the previous speaker—I have had thousands of conversations with constituents over the past year, including, in my city of Cambridge, at 30 or 40 hustings during the general election, and to my recollection not once were the issues addressed in the Bill raised, not even by my opponents, including those who tried to paint my employment by Unison for a dozen years as something of which I should be ashamed. Well, I am not. I saw thousands of people working in hospitals and town halls up and down the country giving up their time and often their careers to help their colleagues through the inevitable disputes that arise in workplaces. I am talking not about political disputes, but the day-to-day stuff that happens everywhere. Yes, sometimes they had facility time to do it, because pay-gradings, pensions, disciplinaries, the lot, take time to prepare for—that is why human resources allocates time to such matters. These people should be celebrated and praised, not denigrated.

I shall say a word about the provisions on political funds. In my job at Unison, I dealt with the political fund. Reading the Bill, I have a strong sense that those drafting it do not understand how the system works, and I urge Government Members to think through the unintended consequences. Thanks to previous Conservative legislation, unions have been forced to maintain political funds to carry out their mainstream functions. Unison’s predecessor union, the National and Local Government Officers’ Association, famously had to do that to campaign on behalf of its members just for public services—core union business. Yet the Bill muddles maintaining the political fund with links to the Labour party, and in attacking the latter muddies the waters still further.

The Bill will only add greater uncertainty to what can and cannot be done and, in my view, is likely to lead to greater politicisation, not less. I am not bothered about that, but Government Members might come to regret such a false move. They should also think hard about tearing up the long-held convention that we change the basis of financial support for political parties by agreement. The long battle involving Hayden Phillips is all too familiar to many of us, but Labour, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) said, would not impose a solution without agreement. The Government are now doing exactly that, legislating to party advantage, meaning that the next Government will feel they have the right to do the same. The country deserves better than such tit-for-tat playground politics. This is a mean-spirited Bill. The Conservative party won the election and took the spoils, but with this Bill it reveals its weakness, not its strength.