Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is quite right to hold my feet to the fire on that. The headcount for religious education teachers at key stage 4 has increased over the lifetime of the Government from 10,400 to 10,700 and there are two applicants for every available post for a religious education teacher, so there is no evidence of a decline in numbers or quality.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

7. How he plans to deliver more rigorous vocational education in schools.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

School performance tables are being used to incentivise the teaching of the highest-value vocational qualifications. From September 2012, the vocational qualifications taught to 14 to 16-year-olds have had to meet rigorous new standards. From next year, we will identify the highest-value vocational qualifications for 16 to 18-year-olds, thereby removing thousands of weak and poor quality qualifications.

[Iain Stewart]

Will my hon. Friend ensure that employers have a greater role in designing the vocational qualifications that are taught in schools?

[Matthew Hancock]

Yes, I absolutely will. I believe passionately that it is only when all vocational qualifications are high quality that all vocational qualifications are seen to be high quality. Employers have a critical role in making that happen.

Homophobic Bullying (Schools)

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, for what I think is the first time. Why do we need a debate on homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools? Is it not the case that any form of bullying is bad and should be tackled? I agree with that up to a point. Bullying is not a new phenomenon. It has always been the case that some children are cruel and will pick on others because they are perceived to be different in some way. Perhaps they are not wearing trendy clothes; they wear glasses; they are overweight; they have acne—there are all sorts of reasons. Schools should have in place effective anti-bullying policies, both to foster a general culture of respect, so that the likelihood of bullying is diminished in the first place, and to be able to nip bullying in the bud quickly when it does take place. That is certainly true, but I want to demonstrate today why I believe that there is a particular problem with homophobic bullying that needs to be tackled.

Research commissioned by Stonewall in 2009 and conducted by YouGov found that 90% of secondary school teachers and 40% of primary school teachers had regularly witnessed homophobic bullying in schools. An earlier survey of young gay people found that 65% had been bullied themselves and 98% were aware of homophobic language being used. Although we do not yet have the figures, Stonewall is carrying out a major research programme and will publish an updated set of figures in the next few weeks. That will demonstrate—I had a meeting with Stonewall last week—that the problem very much remains.

There is clearly a problem to be tackled, but statistics do not convey the human cost of bullying. I want to draw attention to the case of the Crouch family, which has been covered in the press in the past few months and certainly does show the human cost of bullying. Dominic Crouch was a 15-year-old schoolboy in Gloucestershire. During a school trip in 2010, he played a game of spin the bottle with his classmates. As a forfeit, he had to kiss another boy. That event was videoed on a mobile phone and quickly spread virally round the school. Dominic suffered severe taunting for being gay. It is not actually known whether he was gay, but the intensity of the bullying was so great that Dominic committed suicide by jumping off a tall building. His father, Roger, commendably and bravely, spoke up publicly about his son’s suicide, to help to raise awareness of the problem and to encourage people to take action. However, Roger’s grief was so intense that he could not cope and he took his own life last November. Those two lives were lost utterly needlessly.

Sadly, the Crouch family’s story is not an isolated case. Last year in my area of Milton Keynes, there were four teenage suicides. Of those, three were young gay men. Does that not tell us that there is a problem that needs to be addressed?

Homophobic bullying can leave very deep emotional scars that can take a long time to heal and sometimes will never heal. I know that from personal experience. At school, I knew that I was gay, but I did not dare admit it, either to myself or to others. It was inconceivable for me to do that as a teenager growing up in the west of Scotland in the mid-1980s. Indeed, with you, Mr Robertson, in the Chair, I will say that it was easier for me to admit that I was a Tory in Glasgow than it was to come clean about my sexual orientation.

[John Robertson (in the Chair)]

I find that hard to believe! [Laughter.]

[Iain Stewart]

I do not want to over-egg things. I was not physically bullied and the verbal bullying that I experienced was very mild and short-lived, but I was perceived to be different and it left deep scars. It was enough to make me feel isolated and introverted, and it took me a very long time to overcome. It is clear from the research that Stonewall and others have done that those consequences of bullying can severely impair a young person’s academic and social development. Further evidence shows that, where there is a culture of bullying in schools and particularly homophobic bullying, it drags down the performance of the class and the school as a whole, so it is not just those who are bullied who suffer; it is their classmates as well.

Social attitudes have changed enormously in the two decades or so since I was at school. Thankfully, we live in more enlightened times. However, it is wrong to think that homophobia does not exist among young people. I challenge hon. Members to read some of the horrifying stories in the recent special youth edition of Attitude magazine. Some pretty appalling things have gone on and are going on in classrooms in our schools today.

In preparing for this speech, I took the time to speak to some of the pupils in my constituency to find out what their experience of bullying in schools was. I found some pretty surprising and appalling things. One girl told me that she was doing a media studies class and part of the research involved looking at the portrayal of homosexuality in the media. The class had to view an episode of, I think, “EastEnders” in which two men were kissing. The phrase “dirty faggot” was shouted out in the classroom and clearly heard by the teacher, but the teacher did nothing about it. Such incidents take place; they are happening today. The girl also told me that a Facebook page was set up so that pupils at the school who were thought to be gay could be outed.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on talking so personally about this issue. Bullying, in whatever form, is a terrifying experience for those who suffer it. Sadly, one of my friends committed suicide because of bullying, although it was not homophobic bullying, and that had a profound effect on me personally. My hon. Friend mentions Facebook, and there is also Twitter. In this age of modern technology, there seems to be no escape for some bullying victims, because even when they go home, whether through the mobile phone in their pocket or the laptop in their bedroom, the bullies are ever present. Does my hon. Friend think that that is another aspect of the issue that needs serious consideration?

[Iain Stewart]

My hon. Friend, as ever, makes an important point. Cyber-bullying is very much with us. It takes place in many different forms. It extends the boundaries and the times of the school, as my hon. Friend said, so that pupils feel victimised in their own homes and not just when they are within the school gates. From what I have been able to research, I do not think that there is a particular problem with homophobic bullying in cyberspace—it is just another vehicle through which homophobia and homophobic bullying can take place—but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that it needs to be part of our response to the problem.

What can we do to tackle this important problem? The Government have made a good start. It was very good that the schools White Paper included a specific reference to preventing and tackling homophobic bullying in schools. I am aware that new anti-bullying guidance has been produced for schools to use. I am glad that within the Ofsted inspection framework is the expectation that schools should create a safe learning environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. I certainly applaud all those initiatives, but more needs to be done.

For all the toolkits available, research by Stonewall found that the vast majority of teachers want to combat homophobic bullying but do not feel that they have the appropriate training or support. If we isolate only one thing that needs to be done—many more things need to be done—it is to improve training for teachers, so that they have the skills to prevent bullying from happening in the first place and to tackle it when it does.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I apologise for arriving late, but I have been attacking the Church of England on a very similar issue.

An organisation called Diversity Role Models, which plays an important role in London schools, would like to be able to play a role more widely around the country. It provides role models to go into schools who are expert at talking about such issues. In one class, 95% of the kids at the beginning of a session said that they would never have a gay or lesbian friend, but by the end, only 20% said that they would not have one. That is the kind of difference that we need to make, is it not?

[Iain Stewart]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point; indeed, he has anticipated my mentioning Diversity Role Models. I spoke to it yesterday and it sent me some reports about its work. I agree that it performs an excellent role by going into schools, as does Stonewall.

Sometimes, it is not that schools do not want to tackle such bullying, but that they do not perceive it as an issue that they have to deal with. Part of my reason for initiating the debate today is to put on record that there is a problem that should be tackled. Every school will have gay pupils who need support. I want schools to realise that there is help from the Government and organisations such as Stonewall and Diversity Role Models to assist them in tackling the problem.

The record in schools is mixed. There are some very good schools, with very effective policies. The evidence shows that when schools have good policies in place, instances of bullying drop dramatically, so it is not some airy-fairy idea that would be nice, but something that shows tangible results. I do not have a preconceived idea of how this should be done, but we need to do more to share best practice from the schools that have policies to those that either do not have such policies or have policies that are not delivering.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. On his point about teachers, in the 1970s and ’80s, teachers faced the same problem with a different issue—racism in schools—and it was dealt with. It was not just about training, which he alludes to and is fundamental, but about teachers feeling that they had the support of the wider community, whether governors, education authorities, councillors or Members of Parliament. In a classroom, teachers need to feel that they have the support of wider society to be able to deal with the issue. We dealt with racism in schools in the ’70s and ’80s, and we can deal with this.

[Iain Stewart]

My hon. Friend makes an important point and brings considerable experience as a teacher to the debate. The analogy with racist bullying is powerful. It goes back to my opening remarks about why we need a specific policy on homophobic bullying. No one would dare to argue now that we did not need a specific policy to tackle racist bullying; the same can be said for homophobic and transphobic bullying. His point about the reflection of wider social norms is important. Teachers cannot exist in isolation; they are part of the broader community. Tackling such bullying requires everyone—parents, teachers and everyone in society—to challenge it and say that it is not right and cannot be allowed.

Sport has an important role to play. Rightly, there are lots of campaigns to stop racist abuse on the terraces at football games, and we have seen some of the controversy with Euro 2012 at the moment. We do not hear as much about homophobic chants at grounds. If young people go to football, they will pick up on it and think that it is acceptable, so this is not only about schools; there is a broader challenge to society to say that homophobia is not acceptable, because not doing so creates the breeding ground for such sentiments.

I will conclude my remarks now, because I want to give the Minister enough time to respond. I hope that by securing the debate today, I have helped to give the issue the publicity that it deserves and that more schools will take steps to address bullying, which blights far too many young lives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We have already acted. The hon. Gentleman was the distinguished principal of an outstanding further education college, so I know that he will be pleased that we are equalising funding between all sixth-form institutions. Sixth-form colleges and further education colleges do wonderful work. For too long, they have been Cinderellas, but under this Government they are at last going to the ball.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

20. How many schools did not offer GCSE history to pupils in 2011.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

In 2011, 57 mainstream maintained secondary schools in England entered no pupils for a full course GCSE or iGCSE in history or ancient history. We have introduced the English baccalaureate to encourage schools to increase opportunities for pupils to study history as part of a core of key academic subjects and early evidence suggests that the measure is already having a positive impact on pupils’ subject choices.

[Iain Stewart]

I recently spent a day shadowing an inspirational history teacher at the Hazeley academy in my constituency. If my hon. Friend would like to see a good example of a school offering history in its curriculum, may I urge him to visit the school?

[Mr Gibb]

I would be delighted to return to my hon. Friend’s constituency to visit the Hazeley academy. I agree that it is vital that the history curriculum should enable pupils to know and understand the key events of our country’s history. It is one of the issues that the curriculum review is destined to address, and I look forward to seeing inspirational history being taught at the Hazeley academy.

Apprenticeships

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It would be remiss of me not to add the votes of the Milton Keynes South jury to the league table of improvements in apprenticeship numbers, as we are up 70% over last year—not quite as good as for my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), but it compares favourably to a 58% national increase and a 44% regional increase. Clearly, good progress has been made in Milton Keynes.

I shall focus my remarks on a discussion I had at a dinner I recently had the great privilege to attend for the principals of further education colleges in the Thames valley. One issue that came out of the discussion was the hesitancy among employers at times to take on apprentices because of concerns about the cost and the bureaucracy involved. The measures outlined by the Minister—particularly the £1,500 incentive payment and the simplification of a lot of the bureaucracy—goes a long way to address those concerns, but more needs to be done.

Another interesting point that came out of the discussion was that Members of Parliament can play a huge role in encouraging employers to take part in these schemes. Individually and collectively, we all have a duty there. The evidence presented at the dinner showed that where MPs took a proactive lead in encouraging employers to take on apprentices, the results were very encouraging.

We have made good progress, but as I said, more needs to be done. I want to follow up the point ably made by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew)—that we need to achieve a cultural shift in thinking about apprenticeships. There is still a snobbery about not going to university, so that taking an apprenticeship somehow appears as a lesser option. The problem often starts at school. Not every school is guilty, but too many careers advice services in schools focus on the academic route and not on the vocational route with apprenticeships or other training options. I believe that for the long-term health of the UK economy we need to move away from that and to value apprenticeships and the learning that goes with them.

A company in my constituency, Two Trees Photonics, is a start-up company with only a handful of employees. Its chief technical officer—whose name, Dr Christmas, is very seasonal—started off as an apprentice and gained all his academic qualifications through the apprenticeship route. He is now developing this cutting-edge technology, which is potentially transformational. There are examples like that, and it is the duty of companies, as the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) said, to get into schools and open the eyes of young people to choosing that route. I encourage the new National Careers Service and note the statutory duty on schools to provide impartial and independent advice, which should go a long way to help us to develop this strategy.

In the few remaining seconds, I want to refer to University Centre Milton Keynes, which is pioneering innovative ways of delivering new products to meet skills needs in the nascent parts of the economy such as low-carbon and telemedicine. In my last nine seconds, I would like to add to the Minister’s lists of visits, already including to Stevenage and Burton; he should come to Milton Keynes to learn what UCMK and others can do.

Business Support (Lancaster and Fleetwood)

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I raised the issue of a direct rail link in a Westminster Hall debate a couple of weeks ago, and the only other transport link is a single-lane road, the A585, from the motorway. The overriding story, as everyone in Fleetwood will say, is that the town has suffered significantly in recent years, largely as the use of the port has declined.

Lancaster, at the other extreme of the constituency, is also an old port city, and it has a great heritage. Its medieval castle includes the only example left in England of anything that was built by John of Gaunt, and its tourist potential is strong. Lancaster university is ranked in the top 10 by The Times, it has a large campus and its research is driving many business developments in the area. What Lancaster lacks is a large modern department store, meaning that its retail business pales in comparison with places such as Preston, which is increasingly taking business away. I hope that a proposed development, known as Centros, will resolve that in the next few years, so long as English Heritage can overcome some points of detail which have held up the project.

We also have a large rural area, with small hill farms and various other businesses established around the city boundaries, but again there is a problem with a lack of rural broadband, particularly in the hills surrounding Lancaster, so the question is: how do we help business and the private sector in Lancaster and Fleetwood to grow?

Much of what is needed is the same as what businesses need all over the country, and I will start with the generic, throw in some local examples and then move on to some more constituency concerns. The outcome of Project Merlin, to get the banks to lend more—an extra £11 billion this year compared with 2010—is obviously welcome, but perhaps one of the biggest complaints that I still receive, from small businesses especially, is that they continue to struggle to secure finance from the banks, whether new capital or just an overdraft extension. In many cases there is simply a lack of good customer service, with bank managers and decision makers not being available.

For example, Mr lain Bailey, a small businessman based in Lancaster, says that he still struggles to engage productively with his bank when he needs to; that

“many businesses feel banks have left us all adrift”;

and that it is simply

“up to the businesses themselves to sort things out!”

My local chamber of commerce, Lancaster chamber of commerce, in its most recent members survey on finance and banking, received a number of disconcerting comments. Here are just a few examples from individual businesses in Lancaster. One said:

“Our bank is very unhelpful at the moment and have no leeway and appear to be too inflexible.”

Another business person said:

“I was refused a formal overdraft increase but allowed excess at punitive cost.”

A further business noted:

“Even though we had a business account with our bank for over 25 years they refused to even give us an answer when we applied for a loan.”

And finally, one more business explained:

“I asked to increase my overdraft to help ease cash flow but our bank forced us to reduce it by £10,000 instead!"

It is clear that in some cases the banks are still not living up to their end of the bargain, so perhaps the Minister will let me know where we are on bank lending, and whether there is any mechanism that will allow businesses, or perhaps MPs acting on their behalf, to report ongoing problems for his Department to follow up.

I welcome the end of the Northwest Regional Development Agency, and the new local enterprise partnership structure should lead to more targeted, specific and relevant assistance for places such as Lancaster and Fleetwood. One problem with the Northwest Regional Development Agency involved the fact that, for many of us in the region, the view rapidly developed that the north-west began and ended in Manchester and on Merseyside. Sadly, I will have to return to that theme later, but if I do nothing else today I hope to make it clear to the Minister that that is definitely not the case.

I also think that the new local enterprise partnership—LEP—structures can lead to more direct input from local businesses, and that can only be good for ensuring that schemes are of real practical value. In Lancashire we have taken slightly longer than some other places to get our LEP agreed, but I thank the Minister’s Department for its help in finally enabling us to bring the various parts of Lancashire together. I put on record my personal thanks to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) for his efforts in trying to ensure that Lancashire finally got a Lancashire-wide LEP.

However, in the interim period local businesses are very uncertain about how the new regime will work. The Lancaster chamber of commerce—and it is not alone—says that it needs more clarification on what support there will be, who will deliver it, and how to access it. Once Business Link regional services close, people wonder what vehicle will be used to keep businesses informed of what support is available. They need to know more about the mechanisms that will be available to support and encourage new businesses, to assist potential high-growth businesses and to encourage business development in areas of deprivation, and about how the interrelations between the various councils, regenerations and Government bodies is to develop. There is still work to be done, especially as our LEP has only just started to be set up. I urge the Minister to ensure that there is as much communication as possible with local businesses, and particularly local chambers of commerce, over the next few months so that the various communities can begin to plan properly for the future.

According to the Library, 42.2% of the population of Lancaster and Fleetwood is employed in the public sector—the 37th highest proportion in the UK. As cuts are made to public spending, the Government’s agenda for growth in the private sector will be disproportionately important in constituencies such as mine, and I want to ensure that we get our fair share of resources and that all that can be done to encourage private sector growth in my area is done.

The regional growth fund is a big opportunity for businesses, an opportunity for individual companies, and a help in regenerating the whole area. In the north-west we have welcomed the Government’s recognition of the distinction between the south-east and the east and the rest of the country, and the fact that the regional growth fund’s priority is our kind of area. The first round of successful regional growth fund bids lists an impressive number of jobs that the supported first round schemes will help to create or maintain in the wider north-west.

However, my concern about the first round process is that a lot of the criteria are determined by European subsidy rules, which in effect means that support for large companies can be offered only to particularly low-employment or deprived parts of the country. Assisted areas in the north-west include Liverpool, St Helens and parts of Manchester. The other parts of the north-west are missing. For example, a major manufacturer based in Lancaster that employs 150 people wanted to expand, and was looking into the possibility of bidding for regional growth fund money to do so. It was determined that it could provide 50% more jobs through its expansion. However, its turnover was above the threshold for assistance outside the special assisted areas, and it was effectively hamstrung in terms of accessing regional growth fund money. I remind the Minister that this is about the possibility of new jobs.

Those rules have thus resulted in most of the resources of the first round regional growth fund bids going to big city areas such as Manchester and Liverpool—precisely the situation that I had hoped the break up of the RDAs was going to help to avoid. We accept that this will help my constituents, many of whom either already commute to Manchester each day or would be prepared to do so. However, I hope that phase 2 of the bidding process will include more support for north-west companies outside Manchester and Liverpool—companies that can show that they can provide the extra jobs and growth that I understood were this Government’s priority.

Perhaps that would be more likely to happen if more bids were accepted from small and medium-sized enterprises, but the return on investment required for a successful regional growth fund bid has in some ways limited applications from that sector. SMEs often do not have the resources to compile the data required for entering into the bidding process—at least not on their own—and so we come back to support for businesses in terms of information and guidance to help them through the bidding process.

That brings me on to the related subject of enterprise zones. I broadly welcome the Government’s creation of enterprise zones. They have the potential to bring much-needed investment into areas that need jobs and regeneration. They also have a key role to play in closing the north-south divide and rebalancing the economy, which is a major aim of the Government. Of the 11 zones that have been announced, the two in the north-west are in—you’ve guessed it—Manchester and Liverpool. Although I welcome those zones because they will drag business northwards and create hubs of industry that neighbouring areas can feed off, I am concerned that, yet again, it is the big cities of the north-west that will get the immediate benefit. I hope that more original locations will emerge when the remaining 10 enterprise zones are allocated, possibly helping areas further north than Manchester. An enterprise zone on the Fylde coast, for example, would be welcome, because it would help to provide jobs not only for my constituents in Fleetwood, but in the wider areas of Blackpool and Fylde, as well as providing new business orders for local businesses.

Transport infrastructure is also necessary for businesses to thrive. The coalition has done well in that area so far. After years of underinvestment in our transport network under Labour, in just one year there has been a lot of good news for the north-west, and for my constituents in particular. The renewal of the west coast franchise offers extra capacity for the overcrowded rail services on that route. In the longer term, High Speed 2 offers more capacity, speed and choice for journeys to London and, ultimately, Scotland. It might also open a direct link to Heathrow and the channel tunnel.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

As usual, my hon. Friend is making a passionate case for his business community. He makes an important point about high-speed rail. Is he aware that evidence from other countries shows that the success of a high-speed line often depends on the degree of connectivity to the termini of those lines from areas such as his? We should do all we can to encourage businesses to make their voices heard in the current high-speed rail consultation.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

My hon. Friend makes a significant point. High Speed 2 is critical to the north-west and to Yorkshire. We should talk about it as a line that will go from London to Manchester and from London to Leeds, and eventually from London to Glasgow and from London to Edinburgh. As hon. Members may know, I have said in other places that I do not see why we do not start building south from Glasgow and Edinburgh now, while the areas around London argue about where their terminus will be. The point is clear: High Speed 2 is vital in the long term for business in my area, and in my constituency in particular.

The other helpful development is the proposed northern hub, which will allow faster and more frequent services between the cities of the north and bring an estimated £4 billion of benefits to the region. That will be good for business and for job creation. In particular, the electrification of the line from Preston to Blackpool will be a major help to the growth of business in my area.

I am also pleased that the Department for Transport has finally agreed that the M6 to Heysham link road should go ahead. It has been on the drawing board for 50-odd years. When it is finally built, it should lead to better communication to the port of Heysham, which will help businesses and attract new businesses on both the Morecambe and Lancaster sides of the River Lune, and along the M6 corridor.

Schools Admissions Policies

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

Tonight, I shall try to find the balance in schools admissions between the right of schools to set their admissions policy and the right of parents to get their children into a local school. In Milton Keynes, a growing city with many in-year admissions, that is no mean feat. Hopefully we can find a resolution tonight, but it is fair to say that for many, school admissions is a sore subject. It preoccupies parents, has the power to inflate house prices and has even been the stuff of TV drama.

In Milton Keynes, schools admissions has gained renewed controversy since changes were made to the allocation process. The previous Government said that those changes would ensure fairness, but combined with other factors, they have had the unintended consequence of leaving scores of children out of education or having to travel miles across the city to get to school. The delays and distances endured by many of my young constituents are simply not fair.

From September, local authorities were charged with co-ordinating all applications for foundation schools and academies for those applying outside the yearly round. Previously, these in-year applications, usually from people moving into the city, were submitted directly to schools. Now councils must match each child’s three preferences with the schools’ admissions criteria and capacity, and allocate a place. Nationally, councils have reported concerns to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator about this new role. Pressure group Parents Outloud even championed the previous system, and admissions staff at schools have bemoaned the new layer of bureaucracy. Locally, the impact of the change has been compounded by the fact that all our 12 state secondary schools are foundation schools, with one voluntary aided and one academy. Milton Keynes council only has a team of five to deal with its new responsibility.

Since September, I have been inundated with complaints from parents about delays in the process, as well as about what has been offered. Children are now sitting at home for weeks while the council finds them a place, and then further weeks for the school to induct them. When places are offered, many of them are on the other side of the city.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is raising an important topic. Is he aware that on my side of Milton Keynes I have received a similar number of complaints, and that some of the complaints about admissions relate to primary schools as well as secondary schools?

[Mark Lancaster]

I am aware of the problem, because it is the same in Milton Keynes North. However, I am also aware of my hon. Friend’s sterling efforts in getting many of his constituents into school. I congratulate him on that.

This is a particularly timely debate. The Government are reviewing the school admissions framework and the school admissions code, with a view to making it simpler and fairer. A White Paper on “The Importance of Teaching” has just been published, putting the onus of fair access to schools on local authorities. Fairness is the driving force of the White Paper. I want therefore to outline the situation in Milton Keynes and consider how we can make admissions fairer for schools, authorities, parents and, most importantly, pupils.

As I have said, many of the complaints I have received relate to the delays in council allocation and school induction. This year, Milton Keynes council received 327 secondary school in-year applications. This influx is to be expected in our city, which is an area of rapid growth. The Department for Education—or the Department for Children, Schools and Families, as it was then—recommended that places be allocated within five school days. Milton Keynes council aims for a turnaround of 15 days. Owing to this year’s influx, however, parents have seen a reported six-week wait for their child’s three preferences to be processed. Then, once a place is allocated and accepted, there is a further delay as the school conducts its induction arrangements.

Schools White Paper

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The short answer is no. I am under the impression that Newham is an outer London borough and it will definitely benefit from the additional resources of the pupil premium. If it is in inner London, it will definitely benefit as well. The pupil premium will go—[Interruption.] Everyone will benefit, because there is more money overall.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement that he will prioritise action to tackle homophobic bullying, which terrorises many vulnerable young gay men and women. Will he set out his plans for this in a little more detail?

Building a High-Skilled Economy

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make my maiden speech as the first Member for the new Milton Keynes South constituency. I regret that I do not have any poetry to share with the House this afternoon, but I am pleased to contribute to this debate on building a high-skilled economy. The motto of Milton Keynes is “By Knowledge, Design and Understanding”, and my constituency has always been at the heart of learning and technological innovation.

Before I turn to those themes, let me first pay tribute to my predecessors. I use the plural deliberately because, thanks to the work of the Boundary Commission, I have two. The bulk of my constituency was in the former Milton Keynes, South-West seat, represented for the last 13 years by Dr Phyllis Starkey. I got to know her quite well, having been her opponent in the 2001 and 2005 elections, as well as in the poll last month. Over the 10 years in which we were political sparring partners, it is fair to say that there were few policies on which we agreed. However, I pay tribute to her for her service to Milton Keynes. To represent such a diverse and dynamic constituency for more than a decade is no small achievement. I also know that she had a strong reputation in this House for pursuing her causes with tenacity and determination.

My other immediate predecessor is, I am delighted to say, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster). He was a diligent and well-regarded representative for the two wards that I have inherited from him—Danesborough and Walton Park—and I look forward to continuing his good work. Indeed, we are planning to work very closely together to provide a seamless service to the whole of Milton Keynes. In these financially challenged times, we are endeavouring to save on the public purse by sharing a constituency office.

Hon. Members may think that they know about Milton Keynes, but I would like to use this speech to challenge a number of misconceptions. In an economic debate, it would have been neat to follow the widely held view that Milton Keynes is named after the two distinguished economists, Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes, but that is not the case. The city takes its names from the historic village of Milton Keynes, which is in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

It is true that Milton Keynes is a new city that is just over 40 years in age, with plenty of modern housing estates, and the roundabouts and grid road system with which hon. Members may be all too well acquainted if they have not followed the logic of the layout. However, that modernity belies a rich history stretching over many centuries. Stony Stratford, for example, is an ancient coaching town on the Watling street roman road. The House may not know that the origin of the phrase “cock and bull story” lies in Stony Stratford. On the high street, there are two hotels—the Bull and the Cock. Legend has it that, as travellers stopped to break their journeys between London and cities in the midlands and north, the ale flowed freely and stories became more and more embellished before being relayed, in their exaggerated state, to their destination. I pledge that my contributions in this House will have a sounder factual base.

Bletchley, which forms about one third of my constituency, is of course the home of Bletchley Park and the code breakers, whose brilliant work certainly shortened the second world war and saved many hundreds of thousands of lives. Indeed, it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that their work changed the outcome of the war and, had they not succeeded, we might not today enjoy the freedom of speech that we do. I am delighted to report that, after many years of neglect, important restoration work is being carried out at Bletchley Park, under the expert guidance of its director, Simon Greenish, and I shall do what I can to ensure that the restoration project is completed.

I also wish to use this opportunity to pay tribute to the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), for what he did to right the wrong against the brilliant code breaker and mathematician, Alan Turing, a national hero who was so persecuted for being gay that he ultimately took his own life. While the right hon. Gentleman and I share little political agreement—although, in the interests of full disclosure, I should declare that I was christened by his father—I pay tribute to him for making that national apology for the wrong done to Alan Turing.

Bletchley Park is also the home of the modern computer, which is just one of my constituency’s major contributions to the UK’s high-skilled economy. That tradition has continued with the Open university, which is also located in my constituency. Many hundreds of thousands of lives have been transformed by the Open university, and it has long-embodied the vital principle of lifelong learning, reskilling people as their careers evolve and giving a second chance to those who have, for whatever reason, missed out on a more traditional form of higher education. The new vice-chancellor of the Open university, Martin Bean, is making an excellent start in preparing and updating the university to meet the ever-evolving challenges that lie ahead. His appointment is significant, because as a former senior director of Microsoft, his move from a high-end private company to the world of education illustrates the vital links that must exist between the two if the UK is to sustain a high-knowledge economy.

Milton Keynes is home to another pioneering model of higher-level learning that I believe will play a major part in the skilling of our economy—University Centre Milton Keynes, under the wise leadership of Professor Keith Straughan. When fully established, this exciting new concept will enable young people to access top-quality learning close to home and integrated with their learning at work. It is a model of partnership working and came about as a result of demand from the local community, local employers, civic partners and the voluntary and community sector. Will the Minister, as well as visiting the Open university, visit UCMK? I am sure that he will find a lot there that fits with the Government’s agenda.

I have long believed that to unlock the full potential of people in the UK, we need to break down some of the barriers that sometimes exist between higher and further education, and the needs of skilled employers. To ensure that the UK can beat both our traditional economic competitors and the fast-rising challenge from emerging economies, we need much greater flexibility in our education system, and in that Milton Keynes is leading the way.

Milton Keynes has a high-skilled economy, with many exciting new projects, such as the electric car scheme being piloted there. However, our success does not rest alone on its dynamic economy. For a relatively young new city, we have a fantastic, positive, can-do attitude and enjoy a rich tapestry of civic society, with more than 1,200 voluntary and charitable organisations. That spirit is embodied by Milton Keynes’ successful bid to be a host venue should England be successful in staging the 2018 World cup. And let this Scotsman put it on the record that I want England to triumph in South Africa and to go on to host the tournament in eight years.

After my electoral disappointment in 2001 and 2005, I could easily have moved on and sought a securer passage to this place, but I did not want to. Having made Milton Keynes my home, I wanted to be the Member for that area, and I feel honoured to be given a chance to represent it in the House. I began my speech by paying tribute to my immediate predecessors, but I would like to conclude with a reference to another former Member—Bill Benyon, who is the father of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) and was Member for the Milton Keynes area for 22 years until 1992. Nearly two decades after he retired from this House, he is still remembered with great warmth and affection by many of my constituents as a kind, compassionate and hard-working man who believed in Milton Keynes and did whatever he could to champion this exciting new city on a wider stage. I hope that, in my time in the House, I can achieve a similar record of service.