Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Andrew Jones

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I am glad to see that the Government in Wales are following the example of what is being done in England. Hopefully they will be able to see an increase in standards in schools in Wales similar to what we have been seeing in England. We continue to ensure that we offer additional support, especially to those schools that are special schools and looking after some of the children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. Our interventions, including an additional £1.7 billion, go a long way to ensuring that children, especially those who are most disadvantaged, are properly supported.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

Hundreds of new courses have become available this month through the lifetime skills guarantee, across a very wide range of business sectors. How is my right hon. Friend ensuring that the voice of business is heard in identifying priorities so that skills development takes place where the skills are needed most?

[Gavin Williamson]

It is absolutely vital, as we make more courses and support available—people may have to look at re-entering the labour market in a different area from the one they previously worked in—that we are matching that up with where the skills needs are. We work very closely with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Work and Pension, but most importantly, we work with employers on the designation of what courses are available. I would be happy to take any representations from my hon. Friend if there is more work that can be done together to ensure that this process is best honed to ensure people get into work as swiftly as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Andrew Jones

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend tempts me into a discussion that I probably have to have first with the Chancellor, but he is absolutely right to highlight the important role that early action and early support plays in children’s lives. That is why I was delighted to see that we will take action to invest in the Nuffield early language interventions, which have already shown that they can deliver so much for youngsters. Building on that into the future is an important part of the work that the Department is doing with our schools and so much more.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to help children and young people catch up on the education they missed during the previous school year as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to help children and young people catch up on the education they missed during the previous school year as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)]

The Government have announced a catch-up package worth £1 billion, including a catch-up premium worth a total of £650 million, to support schools to make up for lost teaching time. That is in addition to the national tutoring programme, which is targeted at those children who are most disadvantaged in all our constituencies.

[Andrew Jones]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. There has been huge variation in the amount of school missed, often caused by the amount of online learning available and the capacity to access it. The amount of catch-up needed is therefore individual and diverse, and that is challenging for both families and teachers. How is my right hon. Friend supporting schools in their assessment of individual need and their response to it?

[Gavin Williamson]

I very much point to the work of the Education Endowment Foundation, which we issued with our guidance. It has undertaken evidence-based work to ensure that, while schools will make the assessment of the individual needs of children and what help and intervention can be put in place for them, there is clear guidance on what works in the classroom environment. That might mean extending the school day for some; it might mean Saturday classes for others. There are so many different interventions that can deliver significant results in terms of helping youngsters catch up on the learning they have lost.

Beer Duty Escalator

Debate between Gavin Williamson and Andrew Jones

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. In addition, pubs are an important part of the economy and employ young people. In my constituency, 50% of those employed in the beer and pub industry are under the age of 25.

We all talk about the beer duty escalator. Just the other day, I was in a department store. I went up an escalator, and then I noticed that I went down one. So I say to the Minister that we could keep a beer duty escalator, but perhaps put it in reverse.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is being very generous and possibly setting a world record in taking interventions. A suggestion that might meet the requirement from the Treasury Bench to raise revenue and which builds on the points made by colleagues about supporting the industry and supporting pubs is to remove the escalator just from cask ales. Those ales are available only in pubs. British pubs are of course part of our heritage and we are talking about a British product with a British supply chain, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) said. We have great pubs, particularly in the Yorkshire area.

[Gavin Williamson]

Unfortunately, they are not as good as those in the county of Staffordshire—although I am sure the pubs in Yorkshire are not bad.

I would love the Minister to stand at the Dispatch Box and announce to the whole Chamber that the beer duty escalator will be frozen or reversed. I know that she carries many burdens on her shoulders and may not be able to give us that promise, so I ask her to meet me and other colleagues who have such concerns in order to listen to the arguments put forward by the industry and by people who feel passionately not just about our pubs but about our beer and our great breweries—a part of our industrial heritage that is living and breathing today.

I am quite sure that if the Minister can take the arguments to the Chancellor and to all those in the Treasury and convince them that we need either to freeze beer duty or to let it rise only in line with inflation rather than at inflation plus 2%, she will be able to provide an enormous boost not just to British breweries and British beer but to the great British pub. I am quite sure that, if my hon. Friend can achieve that, when she next enters the pub every punter will be raising their glass to the Boadicea of British beer.