Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

T2. What have the Government done to make schools more energy-efficient and to make pupils more aware of the need to cut carbon emissions? Will the Secretary of State voice her support today for the run on sun campaign of Friends of the Earth to install solar panels in schools?

[Mr Laws]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in his place earlier, but one hon. Member has already asked about this and I mentioned the £20 million Salix scheme, which has led to considerable savings in energy in English schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Willott]

I fully support competition in the retail sector, with its benefits for consumers. The competition regime in the UK is designed to ensure that competition works in the best interests of consumers; it is not intended to protect incumbent businesses from competition. The Government remain committed to a town centre first policy, but that does not mean that shops cannot be built outside town centres where appropriate. It is up to local authorities to ensure that their local plans identify the retail needs of their local communities, and that they provide a firm basis for any planning decisions.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to encourage UK students to study for postgraduate qualifications at UK universities.

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

The Government understand the importance of postgraduate study, which is why we are creating a new postgraduate support fund, worth £75 million over the next two years. This investment will allow universities to pilot innovative programmes to support access and participation.

[Hugh Bayley]

As the Minister knows, the UK will not remain competitive if we do not reverse the frightening trend of falling numbers of British students starting postgraduate qualifications, and I fear that the situation could get worse as the first cohort of students to have paid much higher undergraduate fees starts to feed through the system. How many additional postgraduate students will £75 million pay for? What will the Government do further to boost the number of British students doing postgraduate courses?

[Mr Willetts]

After 2016, graduates will be paying back less per month than under the current arrangements, so that factor should not deter postgraduate study. Our extra funding is paying for 20 programmes, in 20 universities, to explore different ways of encouraging more postgraduate study.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that school and its students.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

T8. When does the Secretary of State expect that builders will start on site rebuilding Carr infant school in York, which he wrote to tell me about last June? The school asks whether it will now get a dining room big enough for all 320 pupils who will become eligible for free school meals under the Deputy Prime Minister’s proposal.

[Michael Gove]

A feasibility study is being undertaken, and building work should commence within 12 months. I should say that thanks to the reforms introduced in our free schools programme, schools are being built more cheaply and faster than ever before under this Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

If I may say so, the hon. Lady is taking a rather pessimistic view of her region. There is plenty of money flowing from the regional growth fund to projects, two of which I have visited on the Tyne. There is plenty more support to come through the structural fund allocation, which has also gone to the local enterprise partnership, and through the invitation that has gone to the region to bid for the single local growth fund from 2015-16.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

16. What outcomes his Department is seeking through its science and society budget.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

Our science and society programme successfully engages people of all ages and backgrounds with science. It includes 25,000 science, technology, engineering and mathematics ambassadors providing positive role models for students to increase and widen participation in science; the biggest ever Big Bang Fair in March this year; and public dialogue supported through Sciencewise to inform public policy.

[Hugh Bayley]

The Science Museum Group, which includes the National Railway museum in York, has had its budget cut by a quarter over the last two spending reviews. It does immensely important work in encouraging young people to take an interest in science, leading to careers in science. Will the Minister meet people from the museum to consider how the science and society budget could be used to fund some of their outreach work, especially with young people?

[Jo Swinson]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the science budget has been protected because we absolutely recognise the importance of science and research to the future economy and in encouraging people to take on science. The lead sponsor Department for the Science museum and museums generally is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and colleagues in DCMS will have been engaging significantly with the Science museum and others. I am sure that the relevant Minister will be very happy to meet—

[Hugh Bayley]

Will you meet them? It is your budget.

[Jo Swinson]

I will happily do so. I am answering on behalf of a colleague, but I will happily have that meeting.

[Hugh Bayley]

Thank you.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are ahead of ourselves, notwithstanding the sedentary chuntering. All relevant personnel are present and correct so we will proceed with topical questions.

Surrey County Council and Adoption

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Westminster Hall

On resuming—

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

We have been absent for seven minutes, so the sitting will continue until 5.7 pm.

[Sir Paul Beresford]

I will scurry, Mr Bayley.

In March 2012, the adoptive couple discovered that their potential adoptees—the two little girls—were still on the list for adoption. They had been offered to other potential adopters but not accepted, for some reason. On that understanding, the couple approached the manager. They were told by the manager, once again, to forget the match and move on, even though Surrey county council had no alternative options for the children. Thanks to delays, at this stage the eldest girl was now nearly seven. At no time during the process were my constituents ever informed why they may or may not have been an unsuitable match.

In April 2012, my constituents ran out of patience with Surrey county council. They discovered, through Adoption UK, that there was an adoption exchange day in London, where a large number of adoptive agencies were present with the profiles of children for adoption. They discovered that it would be helpful to bring along a short biography to give out. This they prepared themselves, only to discover on arrival at the event that it should have been prepared with the assistance of Surrey county council. They still attended. Different Surrey county council staff were present, to whom they explained this long difficulty. They were assured that the staff were somewhat appalled.

Fortunately, on a Friday evening in April, the same manager—the one who had been there all along and who originally took them through the adoption panel—rang to say that she had had further discussions with colleagues. She said that Surrey county council now supported placing the two youngsters with them. The next matching panel took place in June 2012, which was a further delay of two months. Introductions were to commence in early July, but there was another two-week delay. To save the Minister the arithmetic, that was some 16 months after the first possible approach, after having first seen the details of the little girls. The two sisters latterly moved in with the adoptive parents, because of success, in August 2012. By this stage, the two girls had been in care for more than three years and had lived with two sets of foster carers.

Bad though that is, there is more. First, there was a shambolic lack of clarity over the contact arrangements with the birth parents. In broad summary, there were two differing opinions from two social workers. One social worker wanted up to six contacts a year for the birth parents with the girls, the other wanted no contact. Decisions were made, undone and remade. Confusion and upset reigned for the wee girls, for the adopting parents and for the birth mother. The final decision was no contact, which was backed by the court but opposed by the birth mother.

Surrey social workers decided at this stage that they needed to support the new combined family once the children had moved in with their adoptive parents-to-be. In September, the two girls were about to start at their new school. The elder of the sisters was going through a difficult settling-in stage. In its wisdom, children’s services decided that the mother would need more help, which was accepted. A social worker was allocated to the new family on a weekly basis, after school. She was, I understand, young and clearly inexperienced. Whatever advice was sought, or when changes were suggested in the strategy for caring for the children, she had to rush back to the manager, again, and return with the advice the following week. This support was so pathetic and inadequate that, by mutual consent, these support arrangements were shelved.

In addition to this inadequate support, the adoptive mother received visits every three weeks from the children’s social worker and from the parents’ own social worker—not together, but separately. The two social workers did not agree with each other’s approach. This, of course, made life challenging and every visit from the children’s social worker resulted in a period of unsettled behaviour from the children, who blamed the adoptive mother for the move. Fortunately, Surrey did something right. It bought in SafeBase, an external specialist organisation, which supported and helped the parents.

In January 2013, when the children were quite settled—they had got through their first Christmas with their new parents and the adoption process was about to begin—for some unknown reason, the children’s social worker decided that she needed to start visiting once a week to work on the children’s life story books. Why she needed to do this in conjunction, and in close proximity, with the children, I cannot fathom, and the timing was bad. Of course, predictably, that weekly visit, including pulling information together for the life story, had the immediate effect of unsettling the children yet again, as the social worker raked up their past on a weekly basis. That persisted for more than a month, until the social worker was signed off sick with a broken wrist—so they could not inflict other visits. The frequency of visits reduced and a semblance of normality started to return, and there was progress through to what one would consider proper normality.

To add to the problems, the children’s social worker delayed the commencement of the court process for the adoption by almost four weeks, by failing to provide the parents with the address of the birth parents. This was only resolved by going back to the manager again. To further aggravate the situation, the first court hearing was adjourned because the judge was not satisfied that adequate efforts had been made by Surrey county council to contact the birth parents, and he delayed the adoption by another six weeks.

In the middle of all that, the children were told about the contradiction of the contact with their birth parents. That was done by the children’s social worker in March 2013. I understand that it went through well.

The children are now adopted and in the home. I have met them, although the children do not realise it. It is understandable that Surrey county council children’s services department was concerned about how the parents would cope with the demands, but it seemed to make it worse at every stage. The adoption is now complete, and I should like the procedures that Surrey county council went through to be looked at, preferably independently, by somebody outside, if the Minister—if he acts—can persuade Surrey county council of that.

I have had dealings with Surrey county council’s social services in the past, and it was like banging my head on a brick wall. It shelters behind data protection, and progress is zero. A group of potential parents came together in November 2010, and I hope they can have their cases briefly looked at as a paper exercise and that the individual parents can then be interviewed, because if social services continue as they have been in Surrey, we are doomed when it comes to helping those children.

The children are now in what I know is a happy home. I wish them all the very best, but I must warn the parents, as a parent with adult children: just wait till those wee girls are teenagers. Then the fun starts.

Children and Families Bill

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Let me begin by thanking all Members who served on the Public Bill Committee. The debate was constructive and—dare I say it?—mature, exceedingly thorough and all the more encouraging for being the first such Committee for many of the newly elected Members on both sides of the House. We had 19 sittings, 397 amendments were tabled, and every issue was thoughtfully scrutinised. I am sure that we all agree with the hon. Members for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) and for Wigan (Lisa Nandy)—I extend to them my personal thanks for their responsible and fair-minded contributions —who told us that it was

“a hard-working, good-natured and somewhat consensual Committee. At times, we have agreed more than we have disagreed, which is for the good… the legislation we are shaping is extremely important for millions of our most vulnerable children now and in future.”––[Official Report, Children and Families Public Bill Committee, 25 April 2013; c. 815.]

I would also like to thank the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who has led jointly on the Bill with great aplomb in this House and before the four Select Committees that considered much of the Bill during pre-legislative scrutiny, even when the odd stray nut sought to scupper her endeavours.

The debates in Committee and today have reflected the importance of the issues the Bill seeks to address. It seeks to improve the lives of some of our most vulnerable children. Improving the life chances of every child, whatever their background, by putting their needs first in all that we do is at the heart of the Government’s agenda.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Timpson]

I will take a brief intervention, but I am mindful of the time and know that other Back Benchers wish to speak.

[Hugh Bayley]

I, too, am mindful of the time, so I am grateful to the Minister for giving way—I understand why he could not do so during his speech on Report. I rise on behalf of a constituent who fosters three children. As a consequence of the Government’s decision to exempt only one bedroom from the bedroom tax for foster carers, she is required to pay £14 a week to carry on fostering. If she moved into smaller accommodation, she could foster only one of those three children, and there would be a cost of about £3,000 a week if the children went into care. Will he, together with the Minister responsible for welfare reform, look at the issue and reflect on whether they can give a further concession?

[Mr Timpson]

Of course I am happy to look at the specific case the hon. Gentleman raises in the context of the changes that have been made. As he and Opposition Front Benchers will know, I have worked hard, both before coming into government and since, to try to ensure that foster carers are given the best possible support in their endeavours, because we want to encourage more people to foster, and we know from the research we have done that many more would like to take up that opportunity. The Welfare Minister, Lord Freud, and I have written jointly to all local authorities to explain the importance of this, with regard to both the single room subsidy and making the discretionary housing fund available to foster carers where appropriate. We have committed to an independent review of that progress, and I will be keeping a keen and close eye on how that develops. I know that the Fostering Network, which has done some excellent work on the issue, will also take a lead in ensuring that we have a clear understanding of the impact of the changes.

The Bill will overhaul services for vulnerable children and support strong families. It will raise aspirations and place children and young people at the heart of decision making and support in the SEN system. It will reduce delays in the adoption system. It is part of a wider set of reforms to improve children’s services so that everyone involved in a vulnerable child’s life—teachers, social workers, health professionals and the police—has a proper sense of responsibility for the child’s prospects, not just focusing on their precise duties and whether they have followed the correct processes and ticked all the boxes, but looking at the child’s overall welfare. That means refocusing the system on the child’s needs in a child’s time frame, foremost among which must be the need to keep the child safe from harm.

We often hear that the care system fails children, that it damages and betrays them. Too often it does, but, as I know from my family and the fostering and adopting we have undertaken, it can also transform lives. As the recent research report “Safeguarding Children Across Services” pointed out, when compared with those who are reunited with their birth families, the majority of maltreated children do better in care or accommodation. Looked-after children can and do achieve in care in a stable placement. We know, for example, that there is a marked correlation between the length of time in care and the stability of placements and achieving good educational outcomes at GCSE, yet we must remain resolute in ensuring that the child’s best interests, not administrative or personnel considerations, are always at the heart of the system.

Delays in care and adoption services mean that it currently takes, on average, 21 months to place a child. Those delays damage a child’s development and reduce their chances of finding the love and stability they need with a new family. The Bill will help to sweep away such barriers through measures designed to speed up the adoption process, help recruit more potential adopters and improve the support they can receive. It will enable children to be placed earlier with their potential adopters.

Building on the family justice review, we are tackling unacceptable delays in the courts, ensuring that children’s best interests remain at the heart of decision making, and encouraging parents to resolve disputes outside the court where possible. By introducing a 26-week time limit for care and supervision proceedings, the Bill will ensure that courts focus on the essentials and that the most vulnerable children are not damaged further by unnecessary drift and delay. This is already having an impact in our courts. As the president of the family division recently wrote to everyone involved in the family courts system:

“We must get away from existing practice. All too often, and partly as a result of previous initiatives, local authorities are filing enormously voluminous materials, which—and this is not their fault—are not merely far too long; too often they are narrative and historical, rather than analytical...I want to send out a clear message: local authority materials can be much shorter...and...should be more focused on analysis.”

We also want to improve support for children remaining in local authority care, and so the Bill will make the virtual school head a statutory role in local authorities. This sends out the strongest possible signal about the priority we attach to the educational attainment of looked after children. Changes to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner will help the commissioner act as a strong advocate for children, promoting and protecting their rights. For children and young people with special educational needs, the Bill will introduce a single system from birth to age 25; new education, health and care plans which ensure that health, education and social care are planned around the needs of the child or young person; new rights and protections for 16 to 25-year-olds in further education and training; and a clear focus on outcomes, including independent living and paid employment.

The most frequent complaint I have heard from parents about SEN is that the current system is opaque and inflexible, leaving children and families to battle for access to services in a fog of bureaucracy. By requiring local authorities to publish a clear and transparent local offer, families will, in future, know what support is available in their area and how to access it.

Crucially, the duty on clinical commissioning groups to secure provision of health services as part of an EHC plan strengthens the Bill’s creation of a more integrated approach to care and support, and it has been widely and warmly welcomed by the SEN charitable sector. I want to express my gratitude to the Secretary of State for Health and his ministerial team for their willingness to help to push the boundaries towards better health integration in SEN service provision.

We are committed to reforming child care substantially to increase the availability of high-quality, affordable provision. The enabling measures in the Bill will offer greater choice and flexibility for providers and parents. We are introducing shared parental leave, giving working parents greater choice over who looks after their child in the first year and offering fathers the opportunity to be more involved in caring for their children. Together with the extension of the right to request flexible working to all employees, these measures will make the labour market more flexible, equitable and family friendly.

We all share an ambition for this Bill to make a tangible, lasting difference to the lives of children and families. Many in this House and beyond have made important points about how we ensure that the Bill really achieves that. I am grateful for that valuable expertise and measured consideration. I particularly thank the Education Committee, the Justice Committee, the Adoption Legislation Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights for their valuable scrutiny of the Bill. I am grateful to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for its children’s rights impact assessment and to the children’s rights director for his superb version of the Bill for children, which is so jargon-free that it should make all of us in Westminster and Whitehall blush. I thank the many organisations that gave and submitted evidence in Committee and worked with me, my officials and hon. Members across the House to make sure that the many important issues that the Bill touches on are properly understood in terms of its content and implementation.

Throughout the development and passage of the Bill, we have listened and made changes so that the Bill we now pass to the other place is an improved one. This is a detailed Bill and it is vital that we take time to consider the points made and get the legislation and implementation right. Therefore, as I indicated earlier, we will consider some key issues over the summer and hope that progress can be made in the other place. In particular, we will look at these issues: clarifying whether, before local authorities can consider a fostering for adoption placement, they must consider placing the child with a relative or friend; introducing new safeguards through regulations to ensure that a local authority notifies the child’s birth parents when considering a fostering for adoption placement; seeing what more we can do to improve outcomes for young carers, ensuring that our approach complements the changes being introduced through the Care Bill; and identifying further improvements to the support that young offenders with SEN receive in custody.

As the Bill moves on to the other place, I am confident that it will be viewed as a Bill that all of us in this House can look back on, in whole or in part, and feel sure that we did right by giving our most vulnerable children, who all too often have the weakest voice, the chance to be heard and respected and the prospect of a better future. I commend the Bill to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. There are a number of British maritime heroes, and indeed heroines, of whom we should know more, from Grace Darling to Thomas Cochrane, and from Nelson to Mountbatten. We should be aware of the role that the Royal Navy, the merchant navy and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution have played in ensuring that people are safe on the high seas and, critically, that nations can enjoy liberty now in the same way we have enjoyed it for generations.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

9. What plans he has for the regulatory framework for under-fives provision.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

We are reforming the regulations for providers for under-fives in order to give greater freedom and flexibility to high-quality providers. New childminder agencies will provide additional support for childminders and more choice for parents. We are reforming the role of local authorities to focus more on disadvantaged children. On Friday, Michael Wilshaw announced that early years inspections will be improved through greater monitoring and that Ofsted will introduce clearer reporting on the qualifications of child care professionals.

[Hugh Bayley]

Those are laudable but contradictory ends. Last week the owner of a Montessori nursery in York told me that they believe that the dilution of staff-child ratios will lead to a two-tier system and result in fewer staff and lower standards for children from low-income households, yet we know that those are the children who need under-five provision most. What will the Government do to ensure that those children do not fall behind even before they start school?

[Elizabeth Truss]

At present, it is a sad fact that 33% of children arrive at school without the requisite communication and language skills to take part in school education. What Sir Michael Wilshaw has said, as well as Andreas Schleicher of the OECD, is that the most important factor in early education is the qualifications of staff. At the moment, only a third of nurseries have a teacher-led structure. Good providers, such as the Durand academy, provide quality, structured learning from age three, which really benefits children later on. We want to give more high-quality providers that flexibility, but we will do so only where they hire highly qualified staff.

Engineering Careers

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Westminster Hall

On resuming—

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that the debate will now conclude at 4.45 pm.

[Nadine Dorries]

For the benefit of Hansard, Mr Robinson has beaten the incompetence of First Capital Connect and—also for the benefit of First Capital Connect, which might see this debate—has now joined us.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

Order. May I remind all hon. Members that there is a convention that one does not make reference to people in the Gallery?

[Nadine Dorries]

I take that on board, Mr Bayley.

When the Division took place, I was speaking not so much about the reforms introduced by the Secretary of State for Education, as his rhetoric and dialogue about the need for courses to be more robust and for students to become more engaged in the core subjects of maths, science and English.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I certainly agree that encouraging more employers to be involved is critical. The apprenticeship grant for employers in small and medium-sized businesses that have not taken on apprentices before is worth more, at £1,500 per apprentice, than a national insurance holiday. I encourage companies to get involved.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

T7. The Secretary of State was briefed about the York central site next to York railway station when he was in my constituency last year, so he knows well its potential to generate growth and jobs, a potential improved by the Government’s welcome decision to join High Speed 2 with the east coast main line at York. Will he meet me and representatives of York city council to discuss what the Government can do to help the council bring the site into use?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, I am familiar with the site. It was strategically important for childhood trainspotting, as I recall, quite apart from its potential for housing and regeneration. I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman. I have already discussed this matter with the council leader and the chief executive. They need some support for infrastructure, although the scale of that is not terribly clear, but we are certainly keen to take this forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I am the personification of the relationship between the two Departments to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. It is essential that our strategy for growth and our approach to business work in tandem with what we do in schools. Although he cannot welcome it, as he has already asked his question, I am sure that he will want at least to contemplate the excellent advice to schools on this very subject that I issued just before the summer recess.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

7. What proportion of students at state schools in York achieved five or more GCSEs at (a) grade A* to C and (b) grades A* to E in 2012.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

The Department for Education will publish tables of provisional GCSE results for 2012 in October. In 2011, 84.3% of pupils in state schools in York achieved five or more GCSEs at grade A* to C and 94.3% achieved five or more GCSEs at grade A* to E.

[Hugh Bayley]

York’s schools continue to perform better than the national average, but I have faced many complaints from parents and teachers about the English marking fiasco. The head teacher of one of York’s best performing schools, Steve Smith, says:

“It is morally wrong to manipulate exam results in this way—it is playing with young people’s futures.”

Will the Secretary of State advise Ofqual to re-mark the papers according to the old criteria while the inquiry goes on and will he publish all his correspondence with Ofqual on this matter?