Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to encourage home ownership.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to encourage home ownership.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)]

The Government are committed to helping people own their own home. Our new mortgage guarantee scheme is increasing the availability of mortgages for credit-worthy households who only have a 5% deposit, helping them realise their dream of home ownership. The lifetime ISA provides a bonus to those under 40 saving towards a home, worth up to £450,000.

[John Glen]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. The Government are investing more than £5 billion in building safety, including an additional £3.5 billion announced this year for the remediation of unsafe cladding for all leaseholders living in high-rise residential buildings. We are also introducing a new tax on the UK residential property development sector and a new levy on developers of certain high-rise buildings to help pay for cladding remediation costs.

[Jack Lopresti]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the mortgage guarantee scheme has in a short time seen a dramatic increase in the availability of 95% mortgages, which will make home ownership a realistic goal for people aspiring to be homeowners?

[John Glen]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Since the scheme has been up and running—as he says, it has been a matter of only a few weeks—we have seen the provision of 95% mortgages expand from just five to 192. This is a significant change, and I am grateful to the industry for the moves that it has made, with Government support.

Social Mobility

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sir David Evennett]

I totally agree—and, of course, the opportunities have to be there for people to do it. That is what this debate is about.

Last month, the World Economic Forum highlighted the problem of poor social mobility around the world. It concluded that where someone is born still pretty much determines the opportunities they get in life. It also published a new global social mobility index, on which Denmark is ranked No. 1. The forum found that just a handful of Governments—specifically those in Scandinavian countries—have succeeded in laying the foundations for greater social mobility and more prosperous futures for their citizens. Rather disappointingly, of the 82 countries in the index, the United Kingdom is ranked 21st, behind Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland.

A lack of social mobility not only has a negative impact on an individual but affects the society in which they live. Now we have left the EU, it is more important than ever that we look seriously at how to improve social mobility further to harness talent across the country. I strongly believe that talent and hard work should determine how far people can go in life, whoever they are and wherever they come from. Opportunity should be available to all sections of our society.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on bringing forward this important debate. I want to reinforce his point about the economic cost of a lack of social mobility. We agree that that is a tragic waste of human potential and happiness, but let me quote the Sutton Trust, which said:

“A modest increase in the UK’s social mobility (to the average level across western Europe) could be associated with an increase in annual GDP of approximately 2%, equivalent to…£39 billion to the UK economy”.

[Sir David Evennett]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving us that informative statistic.

Conservative Governments have made considerable progress since 2010, particularly on education standards and opportunities. Education gives us a better understanding of the world around us, helps us to develop a perspective for looking at life and helps us to build opinions. It is key to social mobility. Some 86% of schools are now rated good or outstanding, compared with only 68% in August 2010. That is a real improvement, and the Government should be congratulated on it. More young people than ever go to our world-class universities, and the highest ever proportion of 16 and 17-year-olds participate in education. We will increase the schools budget by £2.6 billion in 2020-21, £4.8 billion in 2021-22, and £7.1 billion in 2022-23, compared with 2019-20. That will help schools to develop the talent of our young people.

We should all be proud of what the Government have delivered so far and what they continue to deliver. In my borough, Bexley, we are fortunate to have many brilliant schools, both primary and secondary, and a wide range of job opportunities, including apprenticeships. Bexley has been listed as a “social mobility hotspot”, as children from both disadvantaged and advantaged backgrounds achieve excellent results at school and benefit from a wide range of opportunities.

However, there is still more to be done, in Bexley and across the country. Clearly, there is still a social mobility postcode lottery in Britain: the chances of someone from a disadvantaged background being successful are still linked to where they live. I am concerned about underachievement. There are areas throughout the UK and in my constituency where many children do not reach their full potential. Young people—particularly young males—in certain areas of the country have become more disengaged from all aspects of society and, regrettably, have fewer aspirations. For some, their teachers, parents and peer groups do not expect them to do well, and there seems to be an acceptance of that. I believe that talent is uniform across all sections of our society, but opportunity is not always so.

I am particularly worried about the underachievement of white working-class boys. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) led a Westminster Hall debate on that subject this morning. I will not repeat what was said then, because he covered the issue very well and the Minister responded, but I share the concerns that were highlighted. We need to give young people from all backgrounds the tools and knowledge they need to succeed; then, the world will be their oyster, and the opportunities to reach for the stars, or whatever, will be there.

The “Elitist Britain” report published by the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Commission laid bare

“the lack of opportunities for so many young people”.

I will not go through the statistics, because I want others to be able to participate in the debate. Unfortunately, however, the elite still dominates, so we have a lot of work to do to give people an opportunity to rise up.

Apprenticeship Levy

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under you, Ms Nokes, and to be sat next to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who has done so much to support apprentices. Like me, he understands the importance of promoting the prestige of apprentices, which is why he employs one. My own apprentice, Dan Swords, is present in the Public Gallery. That prestige is incredibly important.

I will make a general point before talking about the levy specifically. The solutions proposed by my hon. Friend are very important, but a number of other things need to be considered. We can tune the apprenticeship levy as much as we want, but we have to address prestige and careers as well; otherwise the levy, however good or bad, will not succeed in the way we would like. Prestige is important. The fact that Mr Speaker is going to employ an apprentice in his office sends an important signal to millions of people across the country about how prestigious apprenticeships are. More parliamentarians should employ apprentices.

One of our biggest problems in terms of the prestige of apprenticeships and the number of people who want to do them comes from the fact that apprenticeship careers are so poor. One of the last things I did as Skills Minister in 2017 was to introduce the Baker clause, which compels schools to invite apprentices, apprenticeship organisations and further education colleges into schools, but that is not happening as it should be. I strongly welcome the letter that Lord Agnew is sending to schools, but a letter is not enough. The Ofsted guidelines must be much tougher and look at the outcomes. How many children in those schools are going on to apprenticeships, further education qualifications, or technical education as that comes through the system? We will not change the attitudes of parents and families unless we transform careers.

There is an incredible duplication of careers organisations from the Departments for Education and for Work and Pensions. I would like there to be one organisation—a national skills network—and a UCAS-type system for further education, skills and apprenticeships, which would also include universities. Rather than having separate education systems, there should be a one-stop shop for students or apprentices to get advice on the best FE college or kind of apprenticeship. That is the way to promote parity of esteem, not by having separate systems. We have talked for a long time about a UCAS-type system for FE, skills and apprenticeships, but it has still not happened.

Unfortunately, there has been gaming of the levy system. The Times Educational Supplement has published a report today saying that more than £100 million of apprenticeship levy funds have been spent on masters degrees for managers. New polling by YouGov for the Centre for Social Justice shows that in the last 12 months almost one in five businesses has used the levy to accredit skills that their workers already have. We need to reform the apprenticeship levy so that funds are used more productively. The Government could do that by restricting funds for employees who are already qualified to degree level, or by allowing employers more generous terms when they create apprenticeships for low-skilled workers. In other words, if employers used their levy for gaming the system, they would use a tiny part of it, but if they used it to get more young people, more 16-year-olds, doing apprenticeships that meet our skills needs, they would use much more of it. We need to look at the levy in that way.

We also need to do more to ensure that the disadvantaged have access to degree apprenticeships, which are my two favourite words in the English language, as those who know me know. I am not talking about the gaming of the system for masters degrees, but degree apprenticeships in law and engineering. Last week, during National Apprenticeship Week, I went to the TUI holiday store in my constituency of Harlow and met a degree apprentice who is doing law for TUI. She is an outstanding individual who wanted to earn while she learned, so she has no debt at all. She is virtually guaranteed to get a job with TUI at the end, so her career is made.

We should be doing more. We should have an ambition that at least 50% of our students do degree apprenticeships. We need to increase and ring-fence funds from the apprenticeship levy. We could do that by broadening its remit so that employers with a salary roll of £2 million qualify.

We have to be more imaginative in removing the bureaucracy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester has said. He touched on nursing degree apprenticeships, on which the Education Committee did an inquiry. There could be many more if the bureaucracy, the rules and regulations, and the apprenticeship levy were more flexible in all sorts of ways. We are missing an opportunity. We had an argument about the bursary—I am glad it has come back in one form or another—but it would be better if the vast majority were doing nursing degree apprenticeships, and if the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and the Department had the vision and provided strategic guidance and a more flexible levy and rules. There has to be flexibility.

Better-off families are two and a half times more likely than their disadvantaged peers to know about degree apprenticeships, and that is linked to careers advice. The Government should hardwire apprenticeships into all careers advice and we should enforce the Baker clause more stringently. In my previous job as a Minister, and in my current job as Chair of the Select Committee, I have gone around the country visiting incredible providers—private providers and FE providers—but in 2018-19 only 56% of providers inspected were rated good or outstanding. The Government should strengthen Ofsted’s capacity to carry out monitoring visits much earlier for new market entrants and across a large part of the market.

Let us think imaginatively. We have a research and development tax credit. Why on earth do we not have a skills credit to help companies that are doing the right thing, such as smaller companies employing apprentices? We need to look at wider issues, such as whether we should extend the levy across the board, as proposed by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, whose representatives are also in the Gallery, and get rid of the training costs for employers.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Could university technical colleges play a bigger role?

[Robert Halfon]

I support university technical colleges, and I think that the entry age should start at 16. My dream would be to have a technical school in every town in the country, because they have good outcomes, but they need to be reformed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester mentioned that from 2020 we have a £2.5 billion budget. We need to know what the apprenticeships budget will be over the next five years. If the Minister cannot provide that information today, I hope we will find out in the Budget.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My understanding is that, after negotiations, including negotiations involving the Scottish Government, the Tay cities deal is almost agreed, and we hope to see it signed very shortly. Of course, where there are large-scale redundancies in any area, there are other mechanisms by which we can provide support.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

21. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on maintaining entrepreneur’s relief. Does he agree that that not only helps to support people starting their own business but sends a strong signal that this Government are on the side of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and social mobility?

[Mr Hammond]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said in my Budget speech, after considering representations to scrap entrepreneur’s relief, I reached the conclusion that, unless we support entrepreneurs, we will not have a dynamic and vibrant economy that can support our first-class public services. Those two things go hand in hand.

Business of the House

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

I am disappointed that the hon. Lady seems a little churlish about what we are seeking to do. I hope that there are some issues on which we can unite across the House to do what is right for future generations. I caution her to wait and to get more information about what is being decided. I am sure this matter will be discussed at length across the House in the forthcoming business. She will learn more today and, I hope, more in the future.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

Earlier this week, a cable theft brought rail services at my local station, Bristol Parkway, to a complete halt, causing major disruption for commuter services across the south-west. May we have a debate on the effects of crime on rail services and on the contingency planning for the disruption that it causes?

[Paul Maynard]

My hon. Friend is tempting me back to my former pastures, but I must assiduously try to avoid returning to them whenever possible. I would simply urge him to apply for an Adjournment debate on that subject. Getting the balance right when rail services break down at short notice is always a difficult thing to perfect, but as he will know, the Office of Rail and Road has specific consumer powers relating to disruption, and I am sure he could take that matter up with the ORR to see what redress could be achieved.

Christmas Adjournment

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

I wish to address two very important constituency issues: transport infrastructure improvements, and education provision in Filton and Bradley Stoke.

The Metrobus scheme will provide a dedicated bus route from the south of Bristol to the northern fringe of Bristol, including my constituency, in order to provide an alternative to private car journeys. It should carry 600,000 passengers per year, which equates to roughly 820 two-person car journeys a day. It is a key element in encouraging economic growth and unlocking future housing potential. It is a £100 million project funded by the Department for Transport, South Gloucestershire Council and Bristol City Council. I have always been a keen supporter of the scheme and remain so.

However, the Metrobus works have caused major congestion, disruption and delays for the residents of Bradley Stoke and the surrounding areas. For example, one of my constituency team usually has a 10 to 15-minute drive home during the rush hour, but one evening she had a journey that took nearly two hours, most of which was stuck in stationary traffic. As a resident of Almondsbury, with my constituency office in Bradley Stoke, I have experienced and shared the frustration of people stuck in these jams during commuting hours without much evidence at times, it seems, of work actually taking place on the Metrobus route. Constituents have reported to me that, while stuck in their cars in traffic jams, they have seen workmen asleep on the site. The works have taken too long and are over time, and initially there was no understanding or appreciation that people have to get in and out of Bradley Stoke every day to travel to school and work. The project has suffered from a lack of communication by the contractors and the council with locals.

I organised and chaired a public meeting earlier this year to get local people face to face with the contractors, the council and First Bus representatives. A few weeks ago, I organised a meeting with the Alun Griffiths road contractors, MetroBus, South Gloucestershire Council, including the lead councillor responsible for transport in South Gloucestershire, Councillor Colin Hunt, and local Bradley Stoke town councillors, to try to find a workable solution to the congestion. I also met the Secretary of State for Transport a week or so ago to bring the issue to his attention and ask for his help.

Of course, I understand that major transport infrastructure projects and improvement works will cause disruption and jams occasionally. However, right next door to the congestion is the M4-M5 managed motorway scheme, which was constructed by Balfour Beatty on time and on budget. Often the contractors worked through the night and at all hours. One evening they removed a pedestrian bridge and replaced it that same night. The works were completed with minimum disruption to local residents.

I suggested to the Alun Griffiths contractors that those ought to be the methods that they should aspire to adopt, but I was told that they could not work longer hours due to health and safety considerations. Future transport infrastructure improvements should be done along the lines of the managed motorway scheme, with minimum disruption to local road users, rather than along the lines of the initially shambolic MetroBus works in my constituency.

Since the recent meeting that I organised with the stakeholders, greater efforts have been made to communicate with local residents, and progress has been made in assisting the flow of traffic to minimise the impact on local road users at peak times. However, the MetroBus works need to be completed as quickly as possible, so that we can start reaping the benefits of the scheme.

The other local issue that I want to raise relates to Winterbourne International Academy in my constituency. The Ridings Federation of Academies, which runs that academy and Yate International Academy in the constituency of Thornbury and Yate, was issued with a financial notice to improve and provide a plan on how it would achieve a balanced budget, as it has a potential deficit of £1 million. Winterbourne International Academy has had some issues with its leadership and management over the past year or two, and it now finds itself in a position where it needs to be re-brokered into a new academy structure.

During that process, parents, teachers and pupils felt that they were not being kept informed. I and my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall), were contacted by a large number of constituents who were very concerned about what was happening at the school. My hon. Friend and I met my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education to bring the matter to her attention. We also met Rebecca Clark, the regional schools commissioner for south-west England, and I met the chair of trustees, Claire Emery. That enabled us to get more background information about the situation in which the federation finds itself, and to respond to our constituents and reassure them that everything possible was being done to find a solution to the difficulties in which the schools find themselves.

Winterbourne International Academy will now be taken over by a new trust. The trustees of the Ridings Federation of Academies have considered their options and communicated their recommendations to the regional schools commissioner, who has taken them to Lord Nash, the Minister, for the final decision. There should be full clarity about who will run the trust early in the new year, but I want to place it on the record that, in future, better communication with parents, pupils and staff is needed.

I understand that the outcome that parents, pupils and staff are hoping for is that the school becomes part of a multi-academy trust managed jointly by the existing Olympus Academy Trust, which runs the successful Bradley Stoke Community School, and the Castle School Education Trust, which runs the successful Castle School in Thornbury. I welcome the recent news that, with effect from 3 January 2017, Dave Baker, chief executive officer of Olympus Academy Trust, and Will Roberts, CEO of Castle School Education Trust, will jointly provide interim leadership support for Winterbourne International Academy, with a view to appointing a principal at the end of January.

The third issue that I want to address ties in with my membership of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee and the Defence Committee. After the Good Friday agreement, hundreds of convicted terrorists were let out of prison in the name of peace and reconciliation. There are, therefore, lots of former terrorists walking the streets, some of whom have worked their way up into eminent positions in political life. We had the debacle over the on-the-runs letters and the John Downey case, where there is essentially a de facto amnesty for former terrorists, and yet the full force of the law is being used to prosecute people who were on the other side of events: former soldiers who were just doing their best, doing their duty and serving our great country. This is clearly wrong, and it smacks of victors’ justice. It cannot be right to let terrorists out of prison and give them get-out-of-jail letters at the same time as we pursue former British soldiers. Surely, if there is to be lasting peace and reconciliation, there needs to be fairness on all sides—not that I think for one minute that there is any moral equivalence between terrorists, and soldiers and security forces trying to keep the peace and protect lives.

My younger son, Michael, passed out of his basic military training in Pirbright a couple of weeks ago. Of course, I am immensely proud of him. When he is, as I hope he will be, deployed on an operational tour and he asks me for advice—not that sons are very good at asking their fathers for advice, but I have done an operational tour myself—do I say to him, “Be careful,” because if mistakes are made, if things go wrong or if the politics change, even 45 years later, he could be pursued through the courts in his retirement in nothing less than a politically motivated witch hunt? I do not think so. My advice would be the same as the advice I received before my operational tour: “If you feel as though your life is in danger or your comrades’ lives are in danger, do not hesitate to defend yourself.” Our Government need to support former servicepeople against this injustice, because what is happening is a stain on our country’s honour. We are letting down so badly the people who risked their life to keep us safe, protect our freedoms and preserve our way of life.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Stella Creasy. Not here.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

13. What fiscal steps he is taking to help people keep more of their earnings.

[The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

The Government have committed to raising the personal allowance to £12,500 and the higher-rate threshold to £50,000 by the end of this Parliament. At the summer Budget, the Government took the first steps towards meeting these commitments by increasing the personal allowance to £11,000 and raising the higher-rate threshold to £43,000 in 2016-17. Twenty-nine million people will pay less tax after these changes and 570,000 will be taken out of income tax altogether.

[Jack Lopresti]

Does the Minister agree that it would be better to encourage savings by allowing people to keep more of their own money by increasing the tax limit on pensions rather than reducing it, particularly at a time when savers are struggling to get decent returns?

[Mr Gauke]

As a Government, we want to encourage more saving. We have taken steps to reform our tax system so that pensions become more attractive, but we also need to ensure that the costs of pension tax relief are targeted in the right direction.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

T4. May I ask what the Government are doing to increase social mobility in the civil service?

[Matthew Hancock]

My hon. Friend has asked a very important question. If the civil service is to work to support the whole country, it needs to reflect the whole country, so we are taking steps across the board to increase social mobility as well as other kinds of diversity. One of the most exciting aspects of that is the huge apprenticeship scheme that now allows and encourages people from all backgrounds to pursue successful careers in the civil service.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Commons Chamber

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was asked—

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

1. What fiscal steps he is taking to support businesses.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

11. What fiscal steps he is taking to support businesses.

[The First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)]

This Government know there cannot be a successful economy without support for business and enterprise. That is why we are cutting corporation tax, increasing the employment allowance and setting a permanently higher investment allowance. It is also why last week we increased our support for industrial policy, including a boost for science, and announced that we had doubled small business rate relief again next year, helping 600,000 small businesses.

[Jack Lopresti]

How will my right hon. Friend help small businesses compete with the de facto subsidy that businesses with complex overseas tax structures get, which result in their paying no, or very low, tax in the UK, particularly given that Small Business Saturday is coming up this weekend?

[Mr Osborne]

Small Business Saturday is an incredibly important initiative that everyone in this House should, and I am sure will, support on Saturday. My hon. Friend makes a good point about the international tax rules. The good news is that they have started to change. We have an agreement in the OECD, and Britain is among the countries implementing those changes first. The best example of that is the diverted profits tax, which is already raising revenue and tackling the big multinationals that do not pay their fair share of tax in the UK. At the same time we are cutting taxes for small businesses, for example by increasing the employment allowance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

Yes, my right hon. Friend is exactly right. Universal credit is a major reform that will transform the welfare state in Britain for the better. It will replace the current complex system of means-tested working-age benefits, including tax credits, and make 3 million households better off by on average £177 a month.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to invest in infrastructure.

[The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Danny Alexander)]

This Government have revolutionised the approach to infrastructure through long-term planning via the national infrastructure plan, which we conceived and published, that sets out an infrastructure pipeline worth more than £460 billion of public and private investment. In the 2013 spending round, I committed over £100 billion to support infrastructure investment across the United Kingdom.

[Jack Lopresti]

I am delighted that the Government have made significant commitments to the south-west region, such as the fantastic £50 million-worth of investment for a new junction on the M49 in my constituency. Will the Minister confirm what further investments he is making for improvements to transport across the south-west region as a whole?

[Danny Alexander]

Investment in the transport infrastructure of the south-west has been a much higher priority for this Government than, I think, for any previous Government. We have committed £7.2 billion-worth of investment in the transport infrastructure of the south-west, including £2 billion in roads—for example, dualling the A303 and the new tunnel at Stonehenge, sorting out the A30 all the way to Camborne and the electrification of the Great Western main line with new inter-city express trains. I have recently asked the south-west peninsula rail task force to bring forward more proposals for investment in strategic rail schemes for the region.