Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to increase the status and prestige of adult vocational learning.

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

The aesthetic of vocational learning is at the very heart of our ambitions. I want apprenticeships to become the primary work-based learning route and apprentices to be recognised for their achievements. For too long, we have allowed the myth to be perpetrated that only academic accomplishment can lead to work. That is not so, and it is certainly not so for this Government.

[Mr Evennett]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work he has done in this area, and I thank him for that answer. However, does he agree that community and vocational courses are absolutely invaluable, not only for career advancement and upskilling but for younger people not in education, employment or training.

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, we spoke earlier about the importance of using those skills to create a bridge from disengagement to engagement. No one has been a doughtier champion of the need to stand up for those people than my hon. Friend. That requires a raising of the status of apprenticeships, but it also requires better progression, which is why I want to build an accessible, navigable and seductive vocational ladder that people can climb.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

8. How many apprenticeship starts there have been in the academic year 2010-11 to date.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

11. How many apprenticeship starts there have been in the academic year 2010-11 to date.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

12. How many apprenticeship starts there have been in the academic year 2010-11 to date.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

We are involved in an unprecedented campaign to promote the value of apprenticeships. Last week—apprenticeship week—450 events were held throughout the country. I met learners, employers and providers. Apprenticeships are top of the agenda for all those groups.

[Mr Evennett]

Last Friday, I visited the Just Learning day nursery in my constituency to see at first hand the benefits of apprenticeships for young people and employers. I was pleased to meet apprentice Jade Vale and manager Tracey Tomlinson, who were very positive about the apprenticeship scheme. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that people can progress to the higher level of apprenticeships to meet the needs of employers?

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend is right. The previous Government’s Leitch report made it absolutely clear that we need to boost intermediate and higher level skills as our economy becomes more advanced. I am working with the sector skills councils and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills to develop more high-level frameworks. The numbers doubled in the past year, but we must do more. Apprenticeships are critical to the nation’s growth and prosperity.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

In my constituency, when I was in opposition and the last Government were in power, a post office was temporarily closed and I worked with Post Office Ltd to get it reopened. We succeeded; the hon. Gentleman should do that.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

13. What progress he has made on preparations for the higher education White Paper; and if he will make a statement.

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[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

We are consulting students, universities and other experts and will publish a White Paper in the early part of this year. It will set out how we will sustain our world-class universities, encourage them to deliver high-quality teaching and improve social mobility.

[Mr Evennett]

I thank my right hon. Friend. As he knows, a significant number of higher education courses are now being provided at further education colleges. Can he advise me whether the White Paper will build upon that?

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend was, of course, a lecturer in a further education college, and it is only right that he should remind us of the contribution that FE colleges can make. He is absolutely right, and we do hope to encourage higher education in further education institutions as part of our White Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

Many part-time students are female, and it is already clear that our proposals to give a proper student loan entitlement to part-time students for the first time, in order to help with their fees, will particularly benefit women. We will publish the full impact assessment alongside our White Paper.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I welcome the steps that my right hon. Friend is taking to increase the number of student places at universities. He mentions increasing the number of part-time courses, and that is vital, but will he urge institutions to be more innovative in their approach to study?

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend is right. One of the main objectives of our reforms is to allow greater diversity of provision, which means more short two-year courses and more part-time opportunities. We want to see a new freedom for universities to innovate, and those possibilities will arise as a part of our reforms.

Academies Bill [Lords]

David Evennett Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 70, page 2, line 26, at end insert—

‘(1A) Payments may be made in respect of capital expenditure under an Academy agreement to an additional school only where the Secretary of State has first consulted with—

(a) local parents and children,

(b) the relevant local authority,

(c) any other persons deemed appropriate.

(1B) The purpose of the consultation under (1A) shall be to establish whether there are outstanding requirements for capital investment for existing schools in the area where the school is (or is proposed to be) situated.

(1C) Where a need is demonstrated the Secretary of State may not make payments with respect of capital expenditure under subsection (1).

(1D) A school is an “additional school” for the purposes of this section if—

(a) it does not replace a maintained school that has been or is to be discontinued, and

(b) it is not a school in respect of which an Academy order has effect.

(1E) For the purposes of subsection (1D)(a) a school does not replace a maintained school if it provides education for pupils of a wider range of ages than the maintained school.’.

It is a privilege to be back standing here as the hon. Member for Gedling—

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

We will never look at the shadow Minister in the same way again.

[Vernon Coaker]

I know. Perhaps it is the way I speak. Anyway, it is a delight to be back here. It does not seem long ago that we were finishing the debate last night—[Interruption.] No, it was not long ago. I am sure we have all had plenty of opportunity to enjoy ourselves in the intervening period and not think of anything but the Academies Bill and all the other relevant papers and documents.

Amendment 70 is an important amendment, particularly given the fiasco—frankly—of the past few weeks with respect to the Building Schools for the Future programme, the cuts to it, the reassessments and the other problems with the list. I will not rehearse those problems, but the relevance of and the need for the amendment are even more acute than they would have been had it not been for what has happened over the past few weeks. Schools up and down the country were expecting capital moneys to be provided for them to improve schools and tackle problems with school buildings. Many of those proposals were developed by local authorities, and many hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber will have helped to work up those plans over a number of months and, sometimes, one or two years, because the school-building programme was linked to school reorganisation for school improvement. But of course that was all dashed by the lists published and the review announced by the Secretary of State for Education in order to prove that he could cut budgets.

The Government are now looking to create new schools using money from their budgets. Their defence is: “Don’t worry, this isn’t coming from Building Schools for the Future money. It’s actually coming from cuts to low-priority computer programmes”, and they talk about £50 million. However, neither the Secretary of State nor the Schools Minister ever add that the £50 million is up until March 2011 only; and neither do they mention that there have been, I understand, 38 expressions of interest to the New Schools Network, which has since sought to talk to the Department. Is it 38? When he replies to the amendment, will the Minister tell us how many free schools he expects to open? I understand that the first is due to open in September 2011. How many such expressions of interest have there been so far? How many of those have changed from expressions of interest to applications? How many does he expect to open in 2011? Alongside that, how many does he expect £50 million will pay for? What will that £50 million mean for those 38 schools?

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[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) on making his maiden speech. I have been to his constituency and I used regularly to visit a secondary school there in Pitsea. I recommend that he should go and visit it. I am not sure if it still has the same head, but he used to sing in a famous pop group in the 1960s. I cannot remember the name of the group but it was very famous at the time—

[Mr Evennett]

Very memorable then?

[Pauline Latham]

Very memorable, yes. From time to time, he would entertain his school in assembly by taking up his guitar and singing some of the songs for which he used to be so famous. I suggest that my hon. Friend visit him. As that was one of the first grant-maintained schools to go, I am sure that it will become an academy school as soon as possible. However, it is in a poor area. My hon. Friend has not just got nice leafy areas in his constituency; it is quite a mixed area, so I wish him well.

There are to be guidance notes on SEN when the Bill becomes an Act. I have a few questions about SEN, because there are many children in schools who have not just SEN but health needs. I cannot see anywhere where that has been addressed; I guess that it will come in the guidance notes. I urge the Minister to clarify what legislation there will be that impacts on the health funding that currently supports special needs children, and how that funding will continue in academies. It is very important that health needs are met, particularly in residential special schools, because it is expensive to educate children in that way, and the health authorities have an obligation to fund the meeting of some of the needs. I am not quite sure how that dovetails with the funding for schools from the local education authority.

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[Mr Hayes]

Hon. Friend.

[Mr Evennett]

It is only a matter of time.

[Pauline Latham]

Sorry. Perhaps in time. I know that under the Academies Bill, special schools will not become academies immediately; they must wait another year. I think that was said yesterday. What about independent special schools that wish to become academies? Will they be allowed to become academies at the same time as schools in the maintained sector? Will they be allowed to become special schools within the academies system at that same time, or will they have to wait a bit longer?

Oral Answers to Questions

David Evennett Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I cannot make promises about individual colleges, but I hear what the hon. Lady says—she makes a powerful case—and I will be happy to meet her with my officials to discuss that matter further.

[Mr David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

May I welcome the Minister’s response and his plans to give further education colleges more freedom? Will the new freedoms that he is offering extend to capital projects, to make it easier for colleges to get alternative sources of finance?