Education and Local Services

Gareth Snell Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady’s comment shows the reality, which is that Labour needs to pull together a strategy to improve education in Wales in the same way as our strategy of reform has improved standards in England. It has not been easy, but Labour has dodged it in Wales. Labour will never be credible to parents in England until it sets out why it feels it is failing children in Wales, including on opportunity.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Lady rightly talks about the need for Government strategy to be credible in the eyes of parents, but what credibility does she think her Government have with parents when schools are sending home letters requesting donations so that they can afford to buy books and computer equipment so that their children can have an education?

[Justine Greening]

I think that what most parents are interested in is the fact that independent school inspections by Ofsted say that nearly nine out of ten schools in this country are now good or outstanding. The hon. Gentleman’s intervention shows very clearly the difference between Members on each side of the House. On one side, there is a genuine intent to see standards rise; on the other, it is all about politics, not outcomes for children on the ground. We heard that in the intervention by the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), who had nothing to say about the standards in Wales, other than calling for an apology for raising the issue of falling standards for Welsh children. That is a disgraceful response from a party in government in Wales.

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[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I know the Minister of State, Department for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton), was not able to stay for the rest of the debate because she had an urgent meeting to go to, but I was very pleased to see her in her place earlier; the former Deputy Chief Whip will make an excellent addition to the Secretary of State’s team.

I am also pleased to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan), who speaks for the Scottish National party, because while she was on her feet the First Minister caved in and accepted that there will not be a referendum on Scottish independence until after Brexit. The credit should go both to the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition in Scotland; they can share the credit for having helped to save our Union, which is incredibly important.

It is also a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who, in her five minutes, spent a great deal of money but did not take a second to explain how our economy can generate the money to spend on our important public services. I am going to spend my remarks dealing with that now. First, let me say that it is still incredibly important that we keep living within our means, as countries that do not do so find that, over time, they are not able to pay for any important public services. That is why it is worth reminding the House that when we came into office in 2010 the deficit was 10% and we were spending £150 billion more than we were bringing in in tax revenue. By the time of the election, we had reduced the cash deficit by 70% and the deficit as a proportion of the economy by three quarters, and the debt will start falling as a percentage of GDP from this period. [Laughter.] I have to say to Labour Front Benchers who are laughing that they opposed every single spending cut we made, so the deficit and the debt would have been higher—incredibly so—had they been in government.

One thing we hear from the Opposition is that living within our means did not work, but the important things like growth and jobs have demonstrated that it did. Between 2010 and 2016, of the G7 countries our growth was second only to that of the United States; we grew almost twice as fast as our nearest neighbour, France. In 2014, ours was the fastest growing G7 country, we were joint top in 2015 and again the fastest growing in 2016. What does that mean for jobs and opportunities for our young people when they leave school? Three million more people are in work than there were in 2010; we have a record high employment rate; we have a better performance than others in the G7 and the OECD, and almost double the performance of our Eurozone colleagues. When we came to power, the unemployment rate among young people in Britain was just under 20%—the same as in the EU and the euro area.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a point about youth unemployment. Does he agree that it is scandalous that the work of a young person is so undervalued by the Conservative party that the living wage does not kick in until someone is 25? How is it right that a young person doing a job should be paid less than their counterparts who are over 25?

[Mr Harper]

It is partly to do with skills and experience. Someone who comes straight from school into a job has to get some training, experience and skills. If the hon. Gentleman talked to businesses in his constituency, he would find it interesting to ask them how someone coming straight from school with no experience and no work skills should be on £10 an hour. He would find either that that young person would not get the opportunity to work or that the business would not be viable. If he does not believe me, he should talk to some of those businesses, as that is what they will tell him.

Let me return to the Government’s performance on unemployment. When we were elected, the unemployment rate among young people was as bad as it is in the EU and the euro area, at about 20%. Seven years later, in the EU and the euro area the unemployment figure has increased, whereas in Britain, under a Conservative-led Government, it has gone down by six percentage points. There are millions of young people who have the opportunity and social mobility generated by having a job, either when they leave university or when they leave school and college and train in an apprenticeship. Even more impressively, and despite what the Leader of the Opposition keeps saying—it is not true—during our period in power income inequality has fallen. The country has become more equal, not less equal, which says a lot about the opportunities that this party delivers in government. This party makes opportunities for our young people and gives them the chance to succeed.

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[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Being called to speak at such a late hour has given me the privilege of hearing so many marvellous maiden speeches, particular that of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), whom I have had the privilege of knowing for many years, and who I know will be a strong advocate for Nottingham in this place.

When the Prime Minister went to the country on 8 June, she asked to be judged on her record, and she was found wanting. She should have taken the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) and not had the election, because what we now have is a Tory party with no majority in this House and a Government propped up only by the votes of the Democratic Unionist party, which, to paraphrase that great poet Robbie Burns, has been “bought and sold with English gold”. Actually, I want to congratulate the 10 hon. Members from the DUP—they are no longer in their places—on securing more resources for their constituencies, because ultimately that is what we come here to do. My fear is that the benefits about to be bestowed upon Northern Ireland will be at the continuing cost of austerity in Stoke-on-Trent.

We have had a Queen’s Speech that, at best, is a thin gruel of legislative programming. It contains 27 Bills, eight of which relate to the process of exiting the European Union, and none of which seeks to deal with the inequalities that are the root cause of most societal problems. Therefore, I will not judge the Government by their actions, but instead hold them to account for their inactions and the political decisions that they have taken or, in the case of this paralysed Administration, not taken.

In Stoke-on-Trent, schools will face a budget shortfall of around £11 million by 2020, so where in the Queen’s Speech is the measure to ensure an equitable, adequate and properly funded fair funding system for all schools across the country? I have met headteachers who are working under immense pressure to deliver the very best for the children in my constituency. Stoke-on-Trent’s young people are rich in talent and with the right support would have a bright future, but that future is being robbed by an uncaring Government. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State may chunter from a sedentary position, but it is true.

It is not just in relation to schools that the Government are showing a dereliction of duty. Where are the measures to help parents who go to work with proper, affordable and accessible childcare? The proposal for 30 hours of free childcare is in principle a good one, but the Government are implementing the policy on the cheap. Nursery and wraparound providers in Stoke-on-Trent have told me that it will end up costing them more to provide 30 hours because the amount that the Government are offering per child per hour is simply too little to meet the operating overheads. It is childcare on the cheap, and the Government should be ashamed.

It is not just infants who are being let down; the Government’s silence on further education is also deafening. Although the Queen’s Speech made some references to technical education, it said absolutely nothing about the future of further education. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State may smile, but this is the Queen’s Speech that she struggled to make a case for earlier because there is so little about education in it.

In Stoke-on-Trent we have two fabulous colleges, Stoke-on-Trent College and City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College, both of which do exceptional work preparing the next generation of Stokies for work. However, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, while acknowledging the impact on technical education, said that the Government’s plan

“fails to do anything for the rest of post-16 education, which is extremely poorly funded, and where many courses are being cut.”

The list of missing Bills and botched opportunities could go on, but time means that I cannot. The Queen’s Speech is a chance for a Government to lay out their priorities for the coming year. This Queen’s Speech suggests a Government who are out of ideas, devoid of aspiration and, at their very worst, indifferent to the people that I represent.

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[Mr Betts]

Will the Minister give way?

[Gareth Snell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Jones]

I will make some more progress before I give way.

We are also responding positively to help councils meet the cost of increasing service pressures. In the spring Budget we provided an additional £2 billion to put social care on a more stable footing, and allowed relevant authorities the flexibility to raise more income through the adult social care precept. My right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) raised the important issue of social care. The former mentioned the importance of social care for the working-age population and what more we can do to get people with learning disabilities, for example, into work. That is an extremely important aspiration for the Government. The latter talked about what more we can do to deal with the social care challenges that we face, on which the Government will bring forward plans during this Parliament.