16-plus Care Options

Debate between Graham Stuart and Craig Whittaker

Thursday 17th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I am particularly proud of this piece of work. I think it is one of the best that we have done as a cross-party Committee, of which I am a member. Does my hon. Friend agree that for far too many years the long-term prognosis for far too many of our young people in care has been bleak, and that the recommendations based on the evidence in the report go a long way to rectify some of those injustices?

[Mr Stuart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his hard work and commitment in this area and others on the Committee. I know he would join me, as would Members across the House, in recognising the personal commitment of the Minister to make a difference in this area, and that significant improvements have been made under this Government. None the less, outcomes for young people in care in this country for far too long have been bleak, as my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) puts it. When we look at how many people who have been in care end up in prison, in prostitution, or struggling with drug and alcohol dependency, that does not say a lot about the parenting that we have put in place for those young people, and we know that other countries manage to do a lot better, both educationally and in broader terms, to prepare people for adult life.

What better test of a civilisation than how it looks after young people whose families may have disintegrated and failed to provide them with support? What better way to judge that civilisation than by its ability to meet the needs of those young people and make sure that those most vulnerable people get a fair crack at life and are supported all the way into adulthood, rather than too often abandoned at a young and vulnerable age?

Static Caravans (VAT)

Debate between Graham Stuart and Craig Whittaker

Thursday 26th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stuart]

That would be consistent, because the qualities of a mobile caravan are completely different from those of a static caravan or a house. What are static caravans used for? They are second homes. Someone who buys a £240,000 cottage in one of the rural areas represented by my colleagues, which often means pricing out local workers, will pay tax of 1%, whereas it is proposed that someone who buys a static caravan for £24,000, a tenth of that amount, should pay 20%— 20 times as much—on a home that is used for precisely the same purposes. That is not getting rid of an anomaly, as Treasury civil servants originally suggested; it is creating an anomaly.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

BCA Leisure is a large company in the Calder valley. It does not employ thousands of people, but it does employ a couple of hundred. It does not own caravan parks or manufacture caravans; it produces parts that supply the caravan trade. The chief executive officer tells me that the proposed measure will deal a huge blow to his company and to other employers in the Calder valley. Does my hon. Friend agree that it will be devastating not only to the tourism industry, but to manufacturing?

[Mr Stuart]

My hon. Friend is right.