Safety of School Buildings

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

I place on record my sincere thanks to every school governor, headteacher, teacher, member of the support staff and teaching assistant, as well as everyone who works on the school estate in my constituency. They do a fantastic job under very trying circumstances.

Those who have preceded me have eloquently explained the perilous state of the school estate across our country. In my constituency of Wansbeck, it is no different. While a few schools have been replaced or renovated, many children are taught in classrooms not in keeping with the modern age. My own high school has a new facade, but behind that there are the same classrooms that I was taught in 40 years ago—they were not new at that time either. I ask the Minister, what is there to hide? What is he afraid might come forward with the data for each and every school in this country?

The idea that schools could collapse is terrifying; that they could collapse releasing clouds of asbestos is shudderingly worrying. I want to focus on asbestos for a moment, and the fact that asbestos in schools is still killing teachers. Mesothelioma is the dreaded disease caused by asbestos. The Government are fully aware of the situation with mesothelioma and what is happening in our schools. I could focus on a range of health and safety issues regarding schools, but let us just focus on asbestos.

A staggering 87% of schools are reported to have asbestos in at least one of their buildings. The idea that that stuff is safe in situ, and that it is fine if it is not moved, is a convenient and dangerous lie from a Government that want to wish yet another major issue away.

The Government might be disturbingly surprised to hear that many school teaching professionals are now dying of mesothelioma, at an average of 21 per year—up three per year since 1980—yet they persist in burying their head in the sand. I invite the Minister to come to the schools in my constituency that have been in desperate need of repair or, in many cases, complete replacement for years. I invite him to join me, because I am not sure how some of those buildings are still standing—mebbes he could come and have a look for himself.

Getting back to the innocent people working in the schools, getting back to the kids and getting back to the teachers, I have to tell the Minister that people are dying because of asbestos in schools. Mesothelioma is a disease with a latency period of 10, 20, 30 or 40 years, and there are still people dying as a result of asbestos in schools. He must do something about it. It is not good enough to continue to say that as long as we do not touch it, it will be fine, because people—teachers and kids—are dying as a result of mesothelioma. We need the data; we need the information. Parents have a right to know if our schools are safe and if their kids are safe when they leave their door in the morning and go into the educational environment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

The autumn statement announced significant additional investment in core schools funding. The core schools budget will increase by £2 billion in 2023-24 and 2024-25. That will be paid into schools’ bank accounts in April, and I am sure they will welcome that additional funding.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

17. If she will make an assessment of the adequacy of the level of school rebuilding programme funding allocated to schools in Northumberland.

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

Two schools in Northumberland are prioritised for the school rebuilding programme, including Ringway Primary School in the hon. Member’s constituency. Schools were nominated by local authorities and trusts, and selected according to the condition of their buildings following a robust assessment process. This is in addition to the £5.8 million of school condition allocation funding for Northumberland County Council in this financial year.

[Ian Lavery]

The Department’s own report now reclassifies the risk of school buildings collapsing as critical and very urgent. Despite the sterling efforts of headteachers and staff to keep school buildings in decent condition, many children in my constituency are taught in buildings far below the standards they should expect. Despite what the Minister has just said, can he tell the House when adequate funding will be made readily available to bring all schools in my constituency up to scratch?

[Nick Gibb]

We have allocated £13 billion since 2015 to school buildings and maintenance. In May 2022, for example, the Government announced the outcome of the condition improvement fund bids for 2022-23. That will provide £500 million for 1,400 projects at 1,100 schools and sixth forms. The CIF is for individual schools and groups of schools. In addition, £1.1 billion of school condition allocations was made to local authorities and large groups of academies. We take this issue very seriously and we want to make sure that all our schools are in the best possible condition for pupils to be able to learn.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)]

I would be delighted to join my hon. Friend to meet Amy and Ella to discuss their idea and the resources they have created through their Plastic Clever Schools campaign. Only last week, in a debate in the House, I discussed the importance of teaching about climate change and sustainability in schools. I am looking forward to visiting, this Friday, the Rivers multi-academy trust, to learn about how it incorporates sustainability into its curriculum.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

T2.   Schools in my constituency of Wansbeck and right across Northumberland already face a backlog of repairs of up to £80 million, and now face a huge hike on energy costs—48% on gas and 26% on electricity. The dilemma for headteachers in constituencies such as mine might be heating or learning. Where is the support and how does this fit in with the Government’s levelling-up agenda?

[Mr Walker]

I point the hon. Gentleman to the Government’s £1.8 billion investment in the condition of schools this year. We continue to invest in schools. I was delighted to see in the spending review that £2.6 billion additional funding to drive up provision in high needs and special needs.

Catch-up Premium

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab) [V]]

The pandemic has only exacerbated the inequalities in the education system. Huge praise goes to the teaching profession and everyone else who has worked their socks off during these very dark times—absolutely outstanding.

The catch-up funding plans proposed by Sir Kevan Collins suggest that a £15 billion package was required. The Government offer is 10% of that—that is an insult, man. Make no mistake about it, the students, especially the most disadvantaged, are set to suffer again. Crumbs from the table does not adequately describe the situation that we face.

The revealing, alarming regional education disparities highlight the effect of the pandemic. Reportedly, learning losses are huge. Again, they are much higher for disadvantaged pupils from poorer backgrounds. That is why adequate funding is essential. The Government have already robbed millions from schools in the north-east, with their changes to the pupil premium funding. It is estimated that schools could lose up to £7.26 million as a result of the Department’s fiddling of the dates.

In my constituency, 19% of pupils received at least two As and a B at A-level. That is compared with 14% as an average across England. Despite that, only 28% of the pupils attended secondary schools rated good or outstanding, compared with a huge 80% across England as a whole; and 26% attended secondary schools deemed inadequate, compared with only 6% across the country.

I am really proud of the pupils here. They are incredibly smart and talented, yet the schools lack the required funding. I wonder: does the Prime Minister think that the parents in my constituency should work harder to pay for private tuition to fill the gaps, as he suggested only the other day?

We need breakfast clubs and extracurricular activities. The students need quality mental health support to transition back into school life. We need manageable class sizes. We need to ensure that no child is going hungry throughout the school day. Those are all things that only the Labour party has to offer.

We have to ask: what have the Government got against our children? Why did the education recovery commissioner feel the need to abandon the educational ship? Maybe he saw the system heading for the rocks.

Let’s get on with it.

Child Food Poverty

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for leading this very important debate.

Can I begin by saying that child poverty is a political choice? It could be eradicated within weeks if there was the political will. We live in the sixth-largest economy in the world, but the wellbeing of our kids is not a priority. We have to ask ourselves why that is the case. Why has it taken time for the Government to come forward with legislation on the right to food—the right to eat? We know that the Government should be ashamed that kids are going hungry, food banks are on the increase, schools’ food budgets are continually being cut, and class sizes continue to get larger. Unemployment is on the rise, and precarious work is more common now than it has ever been. There is a lack of quality housing, and mass evictions are just around the corner. Fire and rehire is running wild, and the benefits system is not fit for purpose. Soon, the £20 uplift in universal credit will be cut. What an absolute mess.

I understand better than most that we should never believe what we read in the newspapers, but we heard only this weekend about a senior Member of Parliament getting £27,000-worth of takeaways delivered to his house by a delivery driver on a hired pushbike. That figure is utterly amazing. It is more than the average yearly salary of many of my constituents, some of whom have more than just one job in order to make ends meet. For the record, the MP voted against free school meals to feed our kids.

We live in a society where 4.3 million children—31%—live in poverty. That figure is up 200,000 from the previous year, and up half a million over five years. Some 37% of children in the north-east live in poverty, which is the second-highest rate in the UK, behind London. The north-east saw the UK’s steepest increase in child poverty—a rise from 26% in 2014-15 to 37% in 2019-20. All 12 north-east councils are in the top 20 such local authorities in the UK; there have been huge increases.

Let me reiterate that child poverty is a political choice. Despite the tiring and monotonous rhetoric about levelling up, the Government have shown no sign of tackling the endemic child poverty in left-behind communities across the country.

A Brighter Future for the Next Generation

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab) [V]]

I am very pleased to be able to respond to Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech and to highlight the issues facing my constituency of Wansbeck, and of course, the north-east as a whole.

Nothing is more important than this nation’s young people—our children—but, sadly, millions of them are being left behind as we speak. I want to focus on the real world of child poverty, not some rose-tinted parallel universe that many people appear to be living in. This issue needs to be addressed as a major Government imperative; for any Government, child poverty should be of extreme importance, if not top of the agenda.

The Queen’s Speech proclaims

“Measures will be brought forward to ensure that children have the best start in life, prioritising their early years.”

It also says that the Government

“will address lost learning during the pandemic and ensure every child has a high quality education and is able to fulfil their potential.”

Those are noble aims, but the Government could do a lot worse than look to reverse their own dismal record over the past 11 years.

The Government cannot dare talk of levelling up unless they tackle the gross inequalities in opportunity affecting our young people right across the length and breadth of this country. A decade of brutal austerity and cuts has taken its toll. When children in my constituency look around at communities that are spoken about with such pride and nostalgia by their parents and grandparents they can be forgiven for scratching their heads and wondering why. The schools are overcrowded, underfunded and in many cases absolutely falling apart. The high streets are ghost towns, and the traditional industries that once fostered such a strong sense of community are ghosts of the past, leaving these young people with no clear idea of what to do with their futures. We also lack reliable systems of support and these young people often look around and find they simply have nothing to do.

These are serious issues. In part of Wansbeck, in my constituency, almost half the children grow up in poverty. That is not acceptable—it really isn’t. In 2019 we decided with the National Education Union to produce a child poverty report including the testimonies of teachers and others on the frontline. It found that teachers were routinely providing food and basic supplies to children, and their testimonies were heartbreaking. There were tales of children without winter coats, without proper shoes, with holes in their shoes, with different sized shoes, with different shoes and of course issues with school uniform. What does that actually mean? What does it mean for child poverty? It means that kids are going to school without any food in their bellies, and that really is not fair, and politicians of all colours and of all political persuasions need to push this to the top of the agenda. I am sure in my mind that, despite the fact that some people decided to vote against free school meals, there is not one Member of Parliament who wishes to see any kid going to school hungry—starving, in fact. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the teaching profession and everyone in the education system who has worked tirelessly to help the kids.

We live in the fifth richest economy in the world, and our children should not be forced to live like this. Rickets is on the increase. In the north-east area, over one in four—35,000—children are living below the UK poverty line and are not eligible for free school meals under the current criteria. More than one in 10—about 13,000—north-east children who are currently eligible for free school meals do not take up the offer, and another 4,000 schoolchildren in the north-east are not covered by universal infant free school meals. There are families with no recourse to public funds, many of whom will be living well below the poverty line, but they are not usually eligible for means-tested free school meals.

To make things worse, this Government have changed the way funding is allocated to schools, which is leaving them thousands of pounds worse off in missing pupil premium funding, while those same schools are unable to take advantage of the Government’s catch-up funding. In the north-east alone, this amounts to a cut of between £5.16 million and £7.26 million—all this after a decade of cuts to our schools that has really hammered our schools and the school infrastructure. School funding in the north-east is down 2.6% in real terms since 2013-14, and class sizes have greatly increased.

To turn the tide, we need bold Government intervention and initiatives to breathe life into our schools, communities and industry to give our children a fighting chance and a fair chance to move on to honest work so that they can build a life for their families and break the cycle in the next generation. Our asks are modest: a fair chance for our children to find good, decent, dignified work that they can build a life and a family around. We should accept nothing less in a country as rich as ours in the 21st century. Levelling up will mean nothing if our kids continue to go to school hungry. Everyone has a right to food: it is a human right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

If he will implement the National Education Union’s education recovery plan.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

Our priority is ensuring that no child is left behind as a result of the pandemic, and that is why we have prioritised the return of children to school and why we are providing a package of £700 million to support children and young people who need it most to catch up on lost education, on top of the £1 billion package launched last June. We are committed to continuing to work with school leaders and unions, including the NEU, to develop our longer-term plans.

[Ian Lavery [V]]

There has been a worrying pattern during this pandemic where, time and again, the Government have ignored the science, closing schools too late and opening them too early. Many scientists are warning that the Government’s measures for schools are not strong enough on their own to protect pupils and staff against the risks of airborne transmission. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies recommended a phased return to schools, and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have listened. With this Government forging ahead regardless, so much more must be done to tackle the critical issues of PPE, adequate ventilation in classrooms, special educational needs and disability, and vaccination. We need to protect our key workers. Has the Minister got a grip on that?

[Nick Gibb]

Every step of the way we follow the science. We are focused on ensuring that we do everything we can to keep covid out of the classroom and minimise the risk of transmission. That is why schools are going to enormous lengths to increase hygiene levels and ensure that pupils wash their hands frequently throughout the day, and why there are bubbles so that pupils do not mix unnecessarily. There is increased ventilation. There are one-way systems, staggered lunch and break times, face masks in secondary schools, and we are testing all staff and secondary school pupils twice a week. As the Chief Medical Officer has said, the best place for pupils is in school, as that is best for their wellbeing and education.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

I echo the hon. Member’s sentiment about the true value that nursing students and graduates have given this country during one of the hardest times that we have faced. The Government are extremely grateful for all those students who opted into a paid clinical placement in the NHS during this extremely difficult time, and we have ensured that all those students were fairly rewarded for their hard work. Nursing, midwifery and allied healthcare students who volunteered were paid and received the appropriate pensions remuneration.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

What discussions he has had with stakeholders in the education sector on his Department’s decision to end the union learning fund in 2021.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

The Government are transforming the provision of skills. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and I regularly meet a diverse spectrum of stakeholders from around the further education sector to hear their views. On Unionlearn specifically, I met the TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, on 12 October to discuss this matter and our expanding commitment to skills through the national skills fund. The Secretary of State for Education met Frances O’Grady on 9 November for the very same reason.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

After the power cut, I think we have Ian Lavery back.

[Ian Lavery [V]]

This Government have a real strange way of levelling up, and education is no different. Since its creation in 1998 by the Labour Government, the Unionlearn fund has enjoyed cross-party support and the backing of dozens of businesses. It is a flagship policy that costs the Government £12 million and returns £1.4 billion to the economy. It currently supports 200,000 individuals per annum to access learning; it is absolutely huge. Minister, put your cards on the table—this is an out and out attack against the trade union movement and its members. What is it about this hugely successful programme, which helps low-paid working people, that so antagonises the modern Conservative party?

[Gillian Keegan]

I am the first to recognise that, thanks to the funding provided by the Government, Unionlearn has done good work in directing and supporting people to take advantage of education and training opportunities in the workplace, but with millions in this country still lacking basic skills that they need to progress, we need a solution at scale that can reach everyone, not just those able to access the Unionlearn network. We have therefore created the £2.5 billion national skills fund and the £500 million skills recovery package to transform lives up and down the country, and to build our country back better; and we are making that available to everybody across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

One of parents’ biggest frustrations with the old SEN system was not knowing about, or finding it hard to access, the right support for their children. That is why I recently announced a further £80 million of support for the SEN reforms in 2016-17, including an additional £15 million for the independent supporters who act as catalysts for change in enabling families and young people better to navigate the system. Some 45,000 families have already benefited from that extra support.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

T10. Free school meals are a lifeline for many vulnerable families in my constituency, yet there are still too few families getting the benefit. Does the Minister agree that local authorities that have the data required to identify these kids should have an automatic, perhaps a statutory, obligation to do so?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. I know that his colleague, the hon. Member for, I think—[Interruption.] His colleague, Frank Field, is proposing a private Member’s Bill on this issue. I agree that all families who are entitled to free school meals should be able to obtain them. There are issues to do with the collection of data and the sharing of information between different benefits, but I am keen, as I say, to make progress on this very important matter.

Further Education Colleges (North-east)

Ian Lavery Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise the problems in Northumberland? Northumberland College in my constituency is 60 miles from the Scottish border and 20 miles from the nearest fantastic city of Newcastle. Northumberland College has got fantastic results with 1,000 apprentices and £2.5 million invested in a new STEM centre. We have got fantastic results like we have never had before and a good rating by Ofsted. If there is any reduction in financing, or rationalisation, mergers or closures, does my hon. Friend agree that Northumberland could not be a part of that?

[Mr Jones]

I agree, but that is where the problem lies. I sympathise with the Minister. Having been a Minister myself, I accept that civil servants sometimes look at things through a London—not even a south-east—prism and think that if something is not happening in London or the south-east, it cannot be happening elsewhere. The idea that my hon. Friend has an outstanding college in Northumberland is perhaps something that they cannot comprehend. Any changes need to be right. One size will not fit all. We have a dynamic group of colleges. The issue is not about competition. That would be a retrograde step back to the bad old days when people were literally competing. That is not a good use of resources and not good for the learners themselves.

Another aspect that is important for the further education sector is to raise aspirations. If we are going to get people into engineering or hospitality and tourism, one thing that the north-east needs more than anything—the further education sector has a key part to play—is to raise aspirations. Sadly, in my own constituency, and in other constituencies as well, we have the problem of—it is a horrible word—NEET: not in education, employment or training. It is difficult to find out the numbers. There are individuals now who are not included in any statistics anywhere. They are not in the education statistics; they are not claiming benefits; and they do menial, part-time, casual work. That is okay while they are young, but they are missing out on the opportunities to get the qualifications that they need for the future, and in many cases they put themselves at great risk working on building sites or in conditions with no health and safety provision or any care for those individuals. Those are the people we need to reach. Sometimes, when the school system has failed them, the further education sector is a good way to access them.

I want to address two other points and how other Departments’ policies impact on the further education sector. Just outside my constituency, in the City of Durham constituency, is Finchale Training College. It was set up in 1943 for the rehabilitation and retraining of ex-servicemen. It does fantastic work with veterans who have mental health problems and physical disabilities. It has a long tradition of retraining them and getting them ready for work. It has also done other training work in the wider further education sector. It was a residential college until 2015 when the Government changed the rules in a move away from residential colleges, and we can argue the pros and cons of that.

In September 2015, the Department for Work and Pensions introduced the specialist employment service to help individuals who need extra help because of disabilities or other training needs. They would have gone into the residential system, but are now—I think positively—in the community. The system set up to deal with this is not only bureaucratic, but it has a detrimental effect on colleges such as Finchale. Contracts were issued nationally and large organisations such as the Shaw Trust, Remploy and others got the contracts. They have sub-partners and Finchale is a sub-partner for the Shaw Trust. The pathway for the people who need extra help into the system is via the disability employment advisers in local jobcentres. There are only two full-time disability employment advisers in the entire north-east; the rest are part time, and there is a problem. Access is gained through a computer-based system. On the first working day of each month, a number of places and contracts are put out. The employment advisers then have to match people to those.

In theory, there is a regional cap, so there should be 18 for the region, but that does not work in practice. So Finchale, which would have expected 70 students over the last period, has only got two, because as soon as a jobcentre in Croydon or south Wales logs on and gets in early, it can upload all its applicants to fill the places. So the idea that Finchale will access learners from south Wales or Croydon is not the case. There are an estimated 200 people in the north-east who need help.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

The story of the area reviews is one of a belated and, to be blunt, over-hasty response by the Government to a developing crisis that they should have seen coming over a period of time. I congratulate everyone who has spoken, including the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan). All the contributions were strong and compelling arguments for the vital importance of FE in the north-east. I particularly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing the debate in the first place.

Some of the common themes that have come out of the process have been about the nature of the north-east’s excellence, and the need not to jeopardise that in any way—not just the good manufacturing base, but also the service centre. It is not only for young people that that is important. In view of some of the statistics, such as that the average age of welders is 50, retraining and reskilling older people is crucial. I hope that the Minister did not miss the fact that virtually everyone who has spoken is worried about the unintended—I assume they are unintended—consequences of the over-hasty and rushed process I have referred to.

[Ian Lavery]

Is it not time that we cut to the chase? We have discussed Newcastle College, Northumberland College, Hartlepool College of Further Education, Bishop Auckland College, and colleges in Darlington, Durham and Teesside, among many others. All of them provide a brilliant education service to the people in their area. The reality is that we are here because we are extremely concerned that the area-based review will mean rationalisation or merger, which could both mean closure—or that it will simply mean closure. We are really concerned. We want some guarantees from the Minister that that will not happen in an area where the provision is much needed.

[Mr Marsden]

My hon. Friend repeats the eloquence that he and colleagues have displayed throughout the debate. Indeed, the questions he puts are essential, because what we have seen from the Government has been a continual process of cuts to funding both in-year and outside of it. An important point was made earlier about the inability to adjust in such a period of time. There has also been a lack of promotional budget for traineeships; cuts in the adult skills budgets, where the Government are still trying to find £360 million of efficiencies and savings; and the scrapping of the education maintenance allowance to which many colleagues have referred.

I am afraid that that theme continues, with the scrapping of higher education maintenance grants for some of the most disadvantaged students, which are crucial to many colleges in the north-east. I have looked at figures that show that will affect 380 students at Cleveland College of Art and Design, 377 at New College Durham and more than 50 at Bishop Auckland College—that is not to mention those at Northumberland, Tyne Metropolitan, Newcastle College and Newcastle Sixth Form College. Therefore a large number of colleges will be affected.

While all of that is going on, we have seen the Minister and the Government set timescales for the area reviews at unrealistic levels. The arbitrary nature of the way in which the reviews are being carried out does not point to a happy outcome, which is why in December the Public Accounts Committee expressed its concern that that will not deliver a more robust and sustainable further education sector. It said that

“The departments appear to see the national programme of area-based reviews, which they announced in July 2015, as a fix-all solution to the sector’s problems. But the reviews have the potential to be haphazard”.

That is rather understating it. On the basis of what we have seen and heard so far today, the words “bull” and “china shop” come to mind.

Colleges across the north-east have done great work to support not just young people, but older people in gaining skills and we have heard how vital they are to the sub-regional economy. That is why we cannot afford to see the Government’s area reviews damaging the link between colleges and businesses or the many decent networks of colleges and schools in the area. As I said to The Times Educational Supplement in October,

“FE is all about getting students”—

especially local people—

“into work in the local economy.”

However, the area reviews risk undoing all that hard work. In view of the potential for combined authorities in the north-east that may wish to take on skills, education and training powers, over-centralised, Whitehall-led area decisions taken now could hamper their ability to do so effectively. That is particularly the case for adult skills and community learning budgets, which are the ones most likely to be devolved under any combined authority umbrella settlement.

Reports from the many parties that have run reviews have raised concerns that there is no clear process for making difficult decisions. My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who is a former FE principal, expressed that view to FE Week in October. The steering groups look unwieldy and the reviews do not have to involve all post-16 providers. I am also concerned that groups of 25 are far too large. I would like the Minister to respond to those points.

We know that there are issues of financial inadequacy. The National Audit Office’s report shows that 29 colleges were inadequate in 2013 and that will rise to about 70 in 2015-16. That is a consequence of the many errors and failures of the previous Government, which have been continued by this Government. For many people, the idea that we have one law for sixth-forms and FE colleges and another for schools, academies and free school sixth-forms who are not participating in the process or affected by it, beggars belief. If the reviews were about the quality of teaching and maximising FE colleges’ apprenticeships and outreach in the community, surely they should include all education and training providers. That point was made by Susan Pember, who was a distinguished civil servant in the Minister’s Department until not so long ago. As Martin Doel from the Association of Colleges and others have said, it is illogical that the process should continue without them.

All of the concerns raised have been highlighted in our discussion and it is imperative, as we have heard, that the local geography and economic conditions are taken into account in such reviews. In the north-east, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland demonstrated, the changes may be very harmful to the social fabric and social mobility of young people.

It is interesting that when the ideas for mergers and so on came to the Minister’s distinguished predecessor as Minister for Skills, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), I am led to believe that he quietly shooed them away. He did that for a good reason, because he represents a rural constituency and therefore he knew well what some of the problems would be. The area reviews look set to force shotgun marriages on many colleges, with closures and mergers being put ahead of geography and economic sense.

It is also a pity, as my hon. Friends have said, that there has not been a broader role for learners, trade unions and the whole range of people affected by the changes. The National Union of Students has taken its own initiative and convened roundtables to mirror some of the reviews. An early report from its area review in the Tees Valley says:

“The travel infrastructure across Tees Valley needs to be improved significantly, particularly if learners are expected to travel further. At the moment, many colleges have to put on buses to enable students to come to college. With funding cuts and potential for a wider catchment of learners, this is not a sustainable model.”

It also mentioned an issue that we have not touched on today:

“We have significant concerns about the future of student support services, such as counselling, pastoral care and childcare, which are vital for widening access…and a commitment to ongoing support for disabled students…with physical and learning disabilities.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) mentioned the potential costs. Although the Minister said yesterday that he did not want such things to happen, we all know about the law of unintended consequences, so I hope that, if he does not answer that point today, he will write specifically to hon. Members to explain who will pay.

The truth of the matter is that all of the colleges we have heard about play a crucial role in partnering with businesses to provide the training and skills needed for the future in the north-east. We have seen that in the examples given and I could list many more, but I do not wish to add to those amply provided by my colleagues. We need to see the potential skills shortages and careers advice issue addressed, because they are crucial to sustaining those colleges. I was interested to see the recent Newcastle City Council taskforce report, which criticised standards as being inconsistent.

The experience of careers advice and training falls short not just in the north-east but across the country, yet the Government have continued their cuts, restricting the support it is possible to give young people. Just yesterday in the Chamber, the Secretary of State had no answer to my question on the adequacy of limited funding and volunteers for a national careers service and the area reviews may do little to help and plenty to hinder promoting FE in careers advice.

Critically, we cannot afford to let talented and skilled young people, and older ones, fall by the wayside because their colleges have closed and the funding is not there to develop the skills needed to boost regional and sub-regional economies. The Government’s area reviews, as they stand at the moment, are littered with problems and miss key components—they are simply a cost-cutting exercise. As we have heard, FE in the north-east is vital to improving the regional economy, so the Government must ensure that closures, mergers and cost-cuttings do not take place and do not destabilise the balance between education and work and that students do not lose the opportunity to go to a college near them. Otherwise, the Minister is in danger of presiding over a series of dysfunctional Rubik’s cube processes, which could do permanent damage to local economies and learners’ life chances in the north-east and elsewhere.