Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Fiona Bruce and Edward Timpson

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

10. What steps she is taking to tackle bullying in schools.

[The Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families (Edward Timpson)]

This week is national anti-bullying week, an opportunity for us to come together in condemnation of bullying in all its forms and consider how best to tackle it, particularly in our schools. The Government are providing 10 organisations with £4.4 million to enable them to deliver effective anti-bullying projects, including for children with special educational needs and disabilities and the victims of hate-related bullying, together with support for pupils and parents to report bullying online.

[Fiona Bruce]

Do Ministers share my concerns that no platforming and other endeavours to shut out free speech at universities are becoming increasingly close to bullying? What discussions have Ministers had with universities about this highly disturbing trend?

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Fiona Bruce and Edward Timpson

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)]

16. Which provisions in the Education and Adoption Bill will ensure that more children in care are placed in loving and stable homes.

[The Minister for Children and Families (Edward Timpson)]

Every child deserves a happy and fulfilling childhood, including those who cannot be brought up by their birth parents. To ensure that for the many thousands of children every year waiting to be adopted, the Education and Adoption Bill will increase the scale at which adoption services are delivered by introducing regional adoption agencies to work across council boundaries. That will help to provide a greater pool of approved adopters with whom to match vulnerable children successfully into loving and stable families.

[Fiona Bruce]

What steps are being taken to ensure that advice about adoption is more widely available in local communities, including as an option for consideration by women with unplanned pregnancies?

[Edward Timpson]

I welcome my hon. Friend and neighbour’s interest in this important issue. In 2013, we set up the first ever national adoption advice and guidance service, First4Adoption, which to date has had more than 416,000 of what I am told are called “unique users”. The NHS website also has information on all the options to consider in the circumstances my hon. Friend describes, and makes specific reference to adoption. This is a very sensitive issue and we need to tread carefully. I am happy to discuss it further with my hon. Friend to make sure we get the balance right.

Strengthening Couple Relationships

Debate between Fiona Bruce and Edward Timpson

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) for raising this deeply important subject, and for stoically being here despite his heavy cold.

Like all those who contributed this afternoon, I believe that strong and stable families are the backbone of a strong and stable society—the key to ensuring that children grow up in a loving environment and develop into healthy and fulfilled adults. That is why the Government have invested significantly in supporting families and couple relationships, as well as the institution of marriage—because we understand the crucial role that the family plays in providing a foundation for a child’s development and success in later life. I saw that for myself in my own personal and professional life before coming to Parliament, so I need no persuading of the merits of a strong, stable and loving family environment in bringing about a better society.

Although the view that I have set out is based partly on what we know intrinsically works, and the values that help to improve and enhance lives, we also know from research that happy relationships lead to better physical and emotional well-being for all involved. The fact is that the quality of the relationship between parents is strongly linked to positive parenting and better outcomes for children. Family stability is key for children. Sustained parental relationships are associated with a range of positive childhood, adolescent and adult outcomes, including in respect of cognitive development, education—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State himself said that in his speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research in 2008—better job prospects and less propensity to commit crime, as well as in relation to health. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) raised important points about how health outcomes could be improved with the right support for relationships, and measures that we know help to achieve that. I will take away her comments about the health outcomes framework and the role of the health and wellbeing board, and I will discuss the matter with Ministers in the Department of Health to ensure that it is properly considered as those aspects of the health system develop further.

On attachment, which is a vital part of understanding whether a relationship is positive or not, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will for the first time produce guidelines on what constitutes a secure attachment, which will be an extremely useful addition. Conflict between parents is detrimental to children’s outcomes, hence the high priority we are giving to supporting all couple relationships, particularly those of people who are married. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot told us, evidence shows us that the children of married parents do better than those of cohabiting parents, particularly on measures of social and emotional development at the ages of three and five. We need to ensure that all under-fives receive the best possible support, so such evidence is important.

Centre for Social Justice reports, which many hon. Members have brought with them, have starkly illustrated the considerable emotional, social and economic costs associated with the breakdown of families. As my hon. Friends the Members for Aldershot and for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) have reminded us, those costs amount to an astonishing £46 billion a year, which is not far off the total annual budget for educating all our children.

Important life events, including the transition to parenthood, relocation or changes in employment, can contribute to relationship stress. We must do what we can to encourage couples to take up support at an earlier stage—the early prevention that hon. Members have mentioned in this debate—to ensure that they get through difficult events in their lives. My time at the family Bar has shown me the devastating consequences of not doing so, not only for adults but, perhaps even more importantly, for any children involved. To bring that about, and by virtue of the strong prime ministerial steer, the Government have committed £30 million over the spending review period from 2011 to 2015, which puts funding for relationship support on a much more stable long-term footing. That gives us greater encouragement that we can get couples to use relationship support services.

The Department is funding a range of providers to deliver relationship support services, including one that my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) highlighted: the Parents as Partners evidence-based intervention programme delivered by Family Action, which works with couples who are particularly likely to face relationship stress or be at risk of relationship breakdown. There is also a series of campaigns and culture change messages aimed at employers, new parents and young people to raise awareness and encourage them to seek help on relationships. There is training for early years workers and managers, to help them to encourage positive relationships between parents, and to engage better with fathers, in particular, on relationships and parenting. The public policy agenda is being developed—a point made by my hon. Friend—through the formation of the Relationships Alliance, which I know he has been instrumental in helping to bring together.

I take on board the point that my hon. Friend made about the need to scale up some of those excellent services, and the Relationships Alliance is well placed to help achieve that. In my ongoing discussions with the alliance—I am meeting representatives next week—I am sure that that will be on the agenda. All those valuable services are provided by expert organisations. Many hon. Members have praised the work done by such organisations, which include Relate, Marriage Care, the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships and OnePlusOne. Those four organisations, which launched the Relationships Alliance in the House of Commons in November, will be key in helping to establish a much more coherent and cohesive message on what is available to those who need support.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the Minister for his constructive personal concern and his comments so far. We have heard today that the issue straddles many different areas: education, local government, the criminal justice system and health and well-being. Would it not be helpful to appoint a dedicated Minister to tackle this issue? Care for the Family has said that it feels as though there is no one in government waking up every morning thinking about this key social policy as a priority. After all that we have heard today, should not there be?

[Mr Timpson]

As the Minister with responsibility for children and families, I have sympathy with the need to raise the issue across Government and to ensure that all Departments play an active role in establishing what works and delivering it, but as my hon. Friend will acknowledge, I am not in a position to start appointing new Ministers or Departments. Forums are available to bring the topic together across Government; in particular, the social justice committee, which is chaired by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has a strong interest in the subject and is well placed to hold such cross-government discussions.

We are doing a significant amount to support families but we must recognise that, sadly, parents separate. When that happens, it can be a difficult time in which families need support on a range of issues. That is why we are improving the information, advice and support available to separated parents outside the court system to help them focus on their children’s needs and to agree workable arrangements for post-separation parenting. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) rightly said, the Children and Families Bill, which is currently in the other place, includes provision to highlight the importance of a child having a relationship with both parents following family breakdown, provided that to do so is safe and in the child’s best interests. The welfare of the individual child must be the court’s paramount consideration, but, subject to that, the parental involvement clause requires courts to presume that the child’s welfare is furthered by the involvement of each parent who can be safely involved. By making clear the basis on which the court makes those decisions, that provision is intended to encourage parents to reach agreement themselves about their child’s care without recourse to the court.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Fiona Bruce and Edward Timpson

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

We know that that is still a problem in the adoption system. For example, it takes over a year longer for a black child to be adopted than a white child. There is also concern that there is still too much emphasis on getting a perfect ethnic match in the adoption system. That is why we will be legislating to ensure that all factors that are relevant to the characteristics of the child are taken into consideration, but that none, including the child’s ethnicity, should be overriding.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

4. What steps he is taking to raise awareness in schools of the dangers of human trafficking in the UK.

Rural Broadband (Cheshire East)

Debate between Fiona Bruce and Edward Timpson

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

I agree entirely. Chapelford, which I know well from my time as a Warrington councillor, is one such area. One cause of difficulties is that although approximately 85% of telephone exchanges can be upgraded, about 15% of telephone cabinets are deemed by the private sector to be uneconomic or unfeasible to upgrade. BDUK financial support will not necessarily include those, either. Will the Minister comment on how they will be provided for, particularly in the areas to which we have referred?

In some areas, broadband coverage appears on paper to be provided, but the area contains white spots. Timbersbrook in my constituency is a good example—it has no adequate coverage at all—as is the Congleton business park. In the neighbouring constituency, the village of Rainow, only a couple of miles outside Macclesfield, is similarly affected. I heard a councillor for the area say only this week that it is faster to post a letter than to use the internet there.

[Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I join the chorus in congratulating my hon. Friend on securing this debate, which is timely given the efforts being made in Cheshire East to introduce superfast broadband across the county. Will she add to that list some areas in my constituency? Businesses have contacted me that are already operational and want to expand, but are frustrated by extremely poor telecommunications infrastructure. If we are to attract new businesses to our county as well as keeping existing ones, we must ensure that we can provide them with that secure future.

[Fiona Bruce]

Absolutely. If we in the county of Cheshire are to achieve our aspiration to compete with the northern cities, we need that infrastructure in place for our businesses.

Funding is available from the European regional development fund—£43 million has been allocated to the north-west region as a whole—and Cheshire and Warrington will bid for £15 million to add to the £3.24 million in BDUK funding and the £430,000 secured from the rural development agency. It is hoped that the balance of the required money will be matched by the private sector. However, the £15 million bid to the ERDF is aspirational. We believe that Cheshire and Warrington have a strong case for the additional economic and social benefits that investment from the fund would secure for the local, regional and national economies, and a strong case within the north-west for securing that sum.

I am aware that there are other bidders to the ERDF funds for the north-west allocation for superfast broadband. Any comments or suggestions from the Minister on how funding towards superfast broadband in Cheshire East and the wider region might be secured from alternative sources, should our £15 million bid not be successful, would be appreciated. Will he also confirm whether today’s announcement from Europe of a further £8 billion in superfast broadband funding is new money? If so, how can our aspiration, and those of other areas of the UK, to attract money from that funding provision be improved?

I seek further support from the Minister on streamlining the time frame for the BDUK and ERDF funds. Also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) mentioned, interdepartmental help could be provided to streamline the complex application process for local authorities.