Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Of course we will look at this application as we look at all applications. Every time my hon. Friend has recommended that I meet a head teacher from Ealing, whether Lubna Khan or Alice Hudson, I have been overjoyed to do so. I am delighted that outstanding head teachers working in our schools are being celebrated by my hon. Friend, and that people such as Alice Hudson are providing the opportunity to open new free schools so that more children can benefit.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

The Secretary of State and the shadow Education Secretary have visited and praised Cuckoo Hall academies in Enfield. Does my right hon. Friend share the frustration felt by me and by parents in my constituency that when there is the opportunity to spread the excellence of free schools in my constituency—for example, in the old Southgate town hall—it is repeatedly blocked by the Labour council?

[Michael Gove]

I do share my hon. Friend’s frustration. It is incumbent on Labour Front Benchers to show leadership and to call out the local authorities, from London to the north-east, that are standing in the way of opportunity. Until they do so, I am afraid that we will have to conclude that Labour is still too weak to govern.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Has the Minister had an opportunity to attend a school that is participating in the Anderson Foundation schools challenge, which is encouraging pupils and teachers to complete 50 tasks to celebrate the 50 years in which the National Autistic Society has been raising awareness of autism?

[Mr Timpson]

I am aware of that schools challenge. I suspect that my hon. Friend’s question constitutes an invitation to visit Enfield, Southgate on some future date. I should be happy to learn more about the work that is taking place to support the National Autistic Society and many other autism charities for the great work they do, and I look forward to learning more with my hon. Friend’s support.

Children and Families Bill

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

The hon. Gentleman has written to me about the campaign, as have many Members. As part of the pre-legislative scrutiny process, from the inception of the Green Paper right through to the publication of the Bill, we took into account all the concerns and views that were put to us. Later in my speech, I shall set out some of the measures we have taken as a result of the pre-legislative scrutiny and consultation process. They have considerably enhanced the Bill, and we can discuss them further in Committee.

The majority of children, most of whom do not need such support, will benefit from the introduction of a shared parental leave system and reforms to flexible working and child care. Those changes will help to create a truly family-friendly society.

Today, we published a young people’s guide to the Bill. It sets out the driving principle of the Bill in straightforward language. For example:

“We want to put children and young people right at the centre. We want things to work out right for children...We want services to meet children’s needs, not professionals’ needs.”

Some Members have found previous young people’s guides extremely useful as a nutshell, given their time-constrained existence. If they do not have time to read the text of the whole Bill, I encourage them to use the guide as a very good substitute.

The Bill is all the stronger for the fact that we consulted children and young people on the key proposals throughout, and we continue to do so. I put on record my thanks to Roger Morgan, the children’s rights director, for enabling many of them to contribute.

We have, of course, also listened to adults. The Bill evolved in its current form through extensive partnership working. Numerous consultations over many months sought a wide range of views—from those who provide services to those who benefit from them. That is particularly true of provision for special educational needs. Pathfinders have tested and continue to test our reforms to make sure they are delivering on our aims.

I am grateful to colleagues both here and in the other place for all the care and attention that have gone into preparing the Bill. Large sections of it have benefited from and been enhanced by the scrutiny of four parliamentary Committees and the advice and guidance of hon. Members on both sides of the House.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I recognise the importance of my hon. Friend’s commitment to taking account of the concerns of parents, such as a constituent who came to see me on Friday. Her son has Asperger’s and when he was aged between six and 10, she spent £25,000 trying to get a basic level of provision for him. He could not have a statement and now, in the transition from primary to secondary school, she is struggling to find an appropriate placement. As she says, however loud she speaks and however sharp her elbows, she also speaks on behalf of those who cannot afford £25,000 for basic provision and care. Will the Bill address some of her concerns?

[Mr Timpson]

The story of my hon. Friend’s constituent is one that I have heard from many Members who have, in their constituency surgeries or elsewhere, come across the many battles that parents of children with a special educational need find that they must face, day after day. Those parents are having to provide duplicate information and tell their story time and again, and rather than working in partnership with local authorities, the health service and schools, they often find themselves in conflict with them. The Bill is designed to tackle that head-on, and to ensure a much more child-centred, family-oriented SEN system, with a single assessment and planning process for those aged nought to 25, to make sure that those difficult transition periods are dealt with in a much more smooth and co-ordinated way. There will be a much reduced probability of many of the problems that people such as my hon. Friend’s constituent have had to face, even quite recently; in fact, we hope that they will not happen at all.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

As we announced in the mid-term review, we will help hard-working families with the cost of child care and we will announce measures on that in due course. As a country we spend more than £5 billion a year, more than countries such as Germany and the same amount as France, and we are not yet getting value for money. My other aim is to make sure that we use the money in our system much better to ensure that more money goes to the front line and that our hard-working child care workers in nurseries and our child minders receive more of the money coming from parents and the Government.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

21. In the Minister’s focus on the quality of child care, will she not forget the value of parents and relatives looking after young children at home?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My role is to make sure that the child care provided in this country is of the highest quality and provides value for the money that the Government are putting in. My hon. Friend is right: many parents choose to look after their own children at home. That is important, too, but my role is very much to ensure that child care is of the highest quality.

Autism

David Burrowes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. I also agreed with the hon. Member for South Swindon when he said that the current system was not working as it should. I understand why local authorities are reluctant to award legally binding entitlements. They are concerned about how they will pay for them. The underfunding of local authorities at the moment is a scandal, but that is another debate.

When a parent needs support for their child, nothing other than the support that they require will do, as I think we can all recognise. There is some wonderful specialist provision in this country—when it can be accessed. Last September, my son transferred from mainstream education to a special school that is outstanding. To know, as a parent, that one’s child is finally getting the support that they need is an indescribable feeling, but our mission must be to ensure that more parents know that feeling.

The main point I want to raise concerns parents’ rights, and I shall also talk about the length of time during which we support young people with autism. The Minister will be aware of the concerns raised by some parents that the draft Bill, rather than extending parents’ rights, gives the impression of wanting to cut them. Parents need the continued right to request statutory assessments and to have statutory time scales for receiving them. I understand that the Government have given evidence saying that they do not want to diminish these rights, but feelings are running high on this issue. Rumours abound that, in some areas, local authorities are receiving training that might allow them to refuse assessments to children of average cognitive ability. This would completely exclude from the system children with Asperger’s syndrome and those with dyslexia or visual or hearing impairments. I would be grateful if the Minister could provide some assurance on this matter and, ideally, tell us that the draft provisions will be amended to include these rights.

I would also be reassured to know that the new education and health care plans, which will replace statements of special educational needs, will carry the same legal force. This means making it a mandatory duty for a local authority to deliver what a child needs, and not simply to use “best endeavours” to secure appropriate provision. In the current funding climate, my worry would be that that will not be sufficient to get children what they need.

In addition, I would like it to be a requirement that parents will be informed of their right to appeal the results of a statutory assessment and will have some clarification of what the process will be. Is it correct, for instance, that the education part of the EHC plans will be appealed to the special educational needs and disability tribunal, but that the plan’s health and social services provision can be appealed only by judicial review? It would seem odd to separate these two vital areas of provision when the plans are partly designed to integrate them. Again, this would mean added complexity for parents.

Finally, any new legal regime inevitably means that important points have to be fought over again, as new case law is required. For instance, are speech and language therapies educational or health provision? Where does something like physiotherapy count? All these issues could be made much simpler through Government guidance, reducing the amount of things parents have to fight over. I am sure that many charities and this House, through such groups as the all-party group, could play a role in helping to deliver some of that.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

There is often not much advocacy when it comes to the issue of funding for speech and language therapy. I know from my professional life as a solicitor that a disproportionate number of young people in the criminal justice system have autism. They are often not even able to communicate owing to the lack of speech and language therapy and indeed to the lack of proper assessment and identification of the problem, particularly when they are in custody. Does the hon. Gentleman think that this is another issue in respect of which we need at the very least continuity of care when young people go into custody and also better identification of autism and better provision of speech and language therapy?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, and I absolutely agree with him. It reminds me of the previous point about how, because the system does not work adequately, so many young people—and older people too—have ended up in inappropriate areas, whether it be in the justice system or in behavioural therapies, when what they need is the right support: it may be available, but they have been unable to access it.

As I have highlighted a number of concerns about parents’ rights, I would like to say how incredibly heartened I am—the hon. Member for South Swindon mentioned this, too—by the Government’s proposal to increase the age at which we support young people with autism up to 25. Let us not stop that support for a young person when they leave school or further education; let us keep it there so a young person can still get support if they return to education after taking on an apprenticeship or employment.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

No numbers have yet been announced, but we will announce figures in due course. I wish that project every success. We need a school system that is diverse and that offers a range of educational opportunities to address all children’s interests and abilities.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

Last week I issued some direction on how we can encourage local authorities to prioritise the concerns of children in care who need to be adopted; today my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning has issued a written ministerial statement on raising the quality of apprenticeships; and later this week we will be saying more about how we can help children in the weakest primary schools to aspire to a stronger education.

[Mr Burrowes]

On the subject of apprenticeships, may I thank the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning for his support of apprenticeship standards in his recent visit to my constituency? Could that enthusiasm be extended to support the expansion of the Department’s Let’s stick Together pilot programme, which recognises the value in respect of outcomes of mums and dads sticking together?

[Michael Gove]

I know that the Minister of State enjoyed his visit to Enfield, Southgate and was impressed by the quality of apprenticeships being offered to young people there. I also know that my hon. Friend has been a principal campaigner for supporting the family, and the voluntary organisation he mentions is just one of a number that we need to support in the valuable work they do in helping parents to do right by their children.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I certainly do believe in parity of esteem. In particular, I think that we should esteem working-class students in the same way that we esteem those from other backgrounds. The fact that under the previous Government working-class students were too often denied the opportunity to study the academic subjects that would lead them to university is a contributory factor in the freezing of social mobility over the course of the past 15 years. A fatal flaw in this country’s approach to education is that we automatically assume that just because children come from poorer backgrounds, they cannot succeed academically. At last, under this coalition Government, that unhappy prejudice is being uprooted from the education system.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

T4. Will my right hon. Friend send a message to Enfield council—two days ago, such a message would have been endorsed by my predecessor, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—which has a policy of opposing free schools despite a shortage of primary school places, and which decided last week to sell off the old town hall rather than offer it up for a free school?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. Just last Thursday, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby visited an outstanding free school in Enfield. I would have hoped that that would have been a powerful signal to the reactionary elements within the Enfield Labour party that they should support education reform in the interests of the poorest rather than stand against it. However, I am afraid that his words on Sky television will have given heart to those reactionary elements rather than put them in their place. He has a direct responsibility to reassure reformers that he is on their side.

Public Disorder

David Burrowes Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me an opportunity to speak about the appalling events that hit Enfield on Sunday night. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who gave a good account of those awful events. They also washed into Waltham Cross, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), who has taken a close interest in the issue, and into my constituency.

My constituents would want me to express a number of emotions on their behalf during the brief period available to me. Those emotions include, of course, sympathy for the businesses whose livelihoods simply went in a matter of hours. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) made the good point that we must never understate the importance of the livelihoods of those businesses, and that must be reflected in how we enforce the law and punish those who seek to denigrate it.

Another of those emotions is shame: shame that one of the oldest department stores in north London, and in Enfield itself, has had to bring in counsellors to counsel members of staff who are still traumatised by what happened on Sunday night, and a dog team to reassure staff and customers about future trade. A jeweller has put sandbags in front of a shop that was raided, and other shops are boarded up because their owners are still in fear.

A further important emotion is the feeling of support for the emergency services, which have made such a brave and sterling effort in Enfield: for the action of the local police, for the strong leadership of David Tucker, their borough commander, and for their bravery and—despite enormous provocation—extraordinary restraint. However, my constituents want, and wanted at the time, tougher action and more police. The wave of violence that hit Enfield was intolerable, and it then crashed down on Croydon, Clapham Junction and Ealing, and beyond. My constituents have a serious question to ask: why did it take until Tuesday for that particularly robust policing to arrive on the streets? They want to give their unqualified support to our police, in terms of not just numbers but empowerment. They want the police to be free from the time-consuming process of processing individuals from arrest to charge, and from the risk-averse culture that advocates containment rather than confrontation.

However, there is also the issue of enforcement. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) reported reassuring news in an evening paper about instant justice, but there is less reassuring news from today’s edition of the London Evening Standard, which has the headline “Riot Police Fury at Soft Sentences”. Members on both sides of the House have referred to the riots on their streets, but, although 400 people have been charged, there has not yet been a charge of riot. I am assured, and I recognise, that there is a heavy evidential burden and that there will probably be charges in future, but that raises the issue of the serious offence of riot.

Guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service lists the characteristics of riots. For instance,

“the normal forces of law and order have broken down”—

they certainly broke down in Enfield—and

“due to the intensity of the attacks on police and other civilian authorities normal access by emergency services is impeded by mob activity”.

That happened in Enfield as well. Next it says that

“due to the scale and ferocity of the disorder, severe disruption and fear is caused to members of the public”.

That happened in Enfield, too. It also says that

“the violence carries with it the potential for a significant impact upon a significant number of non-participants”.

That happened in Enfield and beyond.

We must ensure that when these offences come before the courts, even though the specific crime may be burglary or theft, they are all considered in the context that there was a riot, and the culprits are punished accordingly. We must look at the offence of riot to see whether it is fit for modern purposes.

There is little time left to consider the deeper issues involved here. Whereas in years gone by rioters shouted “Church and King”, they now shout for “Adidas and Nike.” The pursuit now is for appearance, possessions and brands, rather than meaningful relationships, where the father is influential. He may well now be absent. We must all reflect on, and then tackle, these questions of value and culture.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Burrowes Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

6. What steps he plans to take to provide relevant skills to offenders to enable them to find work when they leave prison.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

16. What steps he plans to take to provide offenders with relevant skills and training in order to help them find work when they leave prison.

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

On 18 May, to great acclaim, I launched “Making prisons work: skills for rehabilitation”, the report on offender learning that I commissioned last summer. It sets out a substantial programme of reform to increase the positive impact of offender learning on reoffending rates and on former prisoners’ capacity to reintegrate successfully into civil society.

[Mr Burrowes]

The Minister will be aware of the good work of National Grid in providing work opportunities to offenders upon release. Does he recognise the common complaint that too many offenders have not been trained with the right work skills to make them employable on release? What are the Government going to do about that?

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, I do recognise that, which was why, in the review that I published, we put the emphasis on employability skills. For someone to leave the life of crime, another life must pay for them, which means getting and keeping a job. I met National Grid this week, actually, to discuss skills issues, and I congratulate it on its work and my hon. Friend on championing the issue.

Religious Education

David Burrowes Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on securing such an important debate. As has already been noted, it is not actually a religious debate. It is also not just about a religious lobby wanting to fight its own corner; I always think that God is big enough to fight his own corner, on this issue as well as others. Nor is the debate about imparting faith. As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said, the best place for that is often the home.

This is a debate about humanities. The Government are keen, quite properly, to ensure that we return the rigour and the study in humanities, especially given the declining numbers studying geography. This is an issue of humanities, geography, history and culture. Religion, particularly Christianity, has shaped our buildings—not just the building we walk in, but those all around. Religion has shaped literature in our libraries, paintings in our galleries and relationships with our neighbours. The debate has looked beyond the classroom, and that is right.

However, we need to recognise what has been going on in our classrooms. There is a freeze on consultants, so I would like to help the Minister with a SWOT analysis—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. First, there are the strengths that one sees around in relation to religious education. Yes, there has been an increase in provision and quality since the mid-1990s. RE is also much more popular. Gone is the caricature of RE lessons as simply being the soft option, where pupils can have an easy ride, go to sleep or cause trouble for the teacher. There is now properly recognised specialist training for RE, and that is reflected in the fact that four times as many students take it up at A-level than was the case 15 years ago.

The statutory curriculum is a strength, and we need to look at it in more detail. In that respect, there is leadership from the Minister and the Secretary of State—including in communications that I have received, which have been more positive than hon. Members have suggested. In them, there has been a commitment to the importance of religious education and to continuing to safeguard its position in the curriculum. They have also made it clear that there are no plans to change the current legal requirement for a daily act of collective worship.

Another strength, which has not been mentioned, is standing advisory councils for religious education at the local level. Local agreed syllabus conferences provide good-quality religious education, and one fine example is Birmingham, where people are being brought together to determine what is best for their community.

However, there are weaknesses, which we need to recognise. Despite a legacy of improvements, we face a difficult time, even leaving aside the concerns about the E-bac. Last year’s Ofsted report “Transforming religious education”—it did not receive a response from the previous Government, and I question whether there will be a formal response from this Government—recognised that there was a lack of systemic monitoring by Ofsted of statutory compliance. It also recognised the inadequacy of professional development and the fact that the quality of religious education is still patchy. That was particularly true—this is the key point—where teachers were non-specialists and there were short GCSE courses. The concern is whether that weakness will predominate around the country with the result that the strengths that have been built up over the years are lost.

However, there are opportunities, as I have mentioned. The Government are quite properly committed to local determination as regards religious education. I could also mention this debate, the 115,000 people who have signed petitions and the people who have lobbied us. It is important to harness that debate and interest to ensure that communities fight the corner of religious education locally so that it is in our schools. We must also ensure that funding streams continue for the religious education advisers who are under threat. There is also greater freedom in the curriculum, and that, too, provides opportunities.

The threats involved in RE’s not being part of the E-bac have been mentioned, and I will not repeat them.

[Mr Lammy]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman mentioned the British Humanist Association, but does he recognise that although we would not generally agree with some of the things that it says, it is also concerned about the loss of religious education in our schools? The association believes that it is important for people who are not of faith—atheists or agnostics—to understand religious views and to hear them put across in schools.

[Mr Burrowes]

I do indeed recognise that. Many associations take part in the local agreed syllabus conferences.

The rebuttal to the concerns about RE’s not being part of the E-bac is that schools still have the time in their curriculums to allow pupils to take RE as a GCSE option. I see that as an option for pupils at successful schools, which have the necessary capacity and time, but it may not be an option for less successful schools and for pupils who are more challenging, who will inevitably go for just the core requirements in the curriculum. The unintended consequence of such an approach could be that RE is not taken up as an option. The concern then is that we would go back to having a lack of specialist RE teachers.

There is a concern that the freedoms set out in the funding agreements for academies and free schools may entail a lower take-up of RE in some areas. There is also a concern that the current statutory requirement is not being followed through to implementation. As has been said, where is the true rigour in inspections? The limited focus on maintaining the statutory requirement in future inspections may have a negative effect on the curriculum. I recognise that the national curriculum review does not include religious education, but one should not ignore the crossover and the links between the basic curriculum and the national curriculum in terms of the whole life of a school and exam options.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister to walk carefully and cautiously in considering the possible impact of not having RE as part of the E-bac. I ask him to recognise the strength of the crucial argument that if RE is important enough to be required by law, it is important enough for us to include it as an exam subject in the English baccalaureate. That would be just one simple and practical way of acknowledging the importance of religious literacy and a proper understanding of our humanity.