Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill

Debate between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Craig Whittaker

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this important debate and would like to start by thanking the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on taking this Bill forward.

Every year some 30,000 people in the UK have cardiac arrests outside of a hospital or associated care setting, but, at present, fewer than one in 10 of them survive. With a current ambulance target response time of eight minutes, time is of the essence, so acting quickly is essential because for every minute that passes in which immediate CPR is not given, the survival chance falls by 10%. However, if immediate CPR action is taken, the chances of survival rise threefold. Furthermore, it is estimated that 150,000 people die every single year in situations where their life could potentially have been saved if someone with an understanding of first aid was on hand to act quickly.

We will all have our own experiences of family and friends who have had accidents or fallen into difficulty and required urgent first aid. Very recently, a close friend of mine collapsed while playing sport. Thankfully, there were qualified professionals close at hand to assist and my friend now continues to make a recovery. However, such was the seriousness of the situation that it could have been very different if medical assistance had not been on hand. Many people, however, are not so fortunate. Thousands of lives are lost every single year because people do not have the knowledge or the confidence to intervene in such circumstances.

The Bill, of course, is about equipping our young people with the range of emergency life-support skills that are needed to keep somebody alive in such circumstances until professional help arrives. Depending upon the situation, the range of skills and knowledge which such training could provide may well prove to be the difference at a time of a cardiac arrest or a serious accident, when every second counts.

We all appreciate the importance of ensuring that as many people as possible are adequately equipped to assist in such situations, should they be required to do so. Indeed, I wholeheartedly agree with those hon. Members who have suggested that this process needs to start in schools to ensure that all of our young people are taught the life-saving skills that will remain with them through the rest of their lives. Ultimately, the question becomes: how do we encourage schools to teach these vital skills to our young people?

Earlier this year in the last parliamentary Session, the Education Committee, of which I was a member at the time, published a report regarding the teaching of PSHE in schools. PSHE covers a wide programme of learning through which our young people acquire the knowledge, understanding and skills they need to manage their daily lives. Among the various topics taught in our schools as part of this broad subject area is life-saving skills, which include CPR and more general first aid training. While it is up to individual schools to determine how they deliver PSHE, the Committee’s report makes it clear that this is an important part of the curriculum and that the Government should take various steps to improve the quality of provision in schools.

The final recommendations from the Committee cited a number of key steps that are required to improve the quality of PSHE in schools. These included formally measuring the quality of provision, incentivising schools to improve the way in which they deliver PSHE, and the need to ensure that appropriate curriculum time is devoted to the subject.

I was pleased to see that the Government welcomed the report’s findings when they set out their initial response in July on improving the quality of that education in schools. They made it clear that they want all schools to put high-quality PSHE at the heart of the curriculum. In March, before formally responding to the Committee’s recommendations, the Secretary of State announced new measures to improve the quality of PSHE, including the development of a new, rigorous PSHE quality mark and working with the PSHE Association to help them to quality-assure resources. The new PSHE quality mark will be brought in line with similar accreditations of this type that require schools to provide evidence of the depth and quality of their teaching in a particular area. That includes first aid training.

As part of the Government’s initial response to the report in July, they stated that they will work with Ofsted on how best to capture evidence of the quality of PSHE education in schools. They also acknowledged the importance of schools publishing the relevant information about their PSHE curriculum on their websites, and they have indicated that they are considering options to further strengthen schools’ compliance with the current requirements.

In the longer term, the Government have now indicated that they want to go further and that they will work with the sector to develop further measures to improve quality. Indeed, the Secretary of State made it clear that she wanted to make significant progress on this issue during this Parliament and would consider in full the arguments put forward by the Committee as part of that work to ensure that PSHE is taught well in every school. I have alluded to the Committee’s report, and to the assurances that have been provided by the Secretary of State in response to it, in order to make clear the Government’s commitment to enhancing this education, of which life-saving skills are an integral part.

Along with other hon. Members, I look forward to seeing what steps the Secretary of State will take further to improve the quality of PSHE education in schools, but I am somewhat reassured by her commitment to take this work forward throughout the duration of this Parliament. Given the Government’s commitment to improving this provision, the delivery of first aid training and its role within the wider subject area may well be part of the Secretary of State’s report. It might therefore be somewhat premature to consider the question of first aid training in schools while we are still awaiting her report on the wider subject area, of which first aid forms an integral part.

According to research by St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross, only 7% of the UK population have the skills and the confidence to carry out basic first aid in an emergency. We all agree that starting early and providing training in schools is absolutely key to changing that situation in the longer term, but we must not forget the need to raise awareness of the issue throughout the wider community as well. Indeed, even if the Bill were approved, it would take many years to improve the degree to which life-saving skills were common among the general population. Surely we need to start now by raising the profile of this issue, and not only in schools.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is making the crucial point that people might have had first aid training at school, but many of them will have left school quite a long time ago. What efforts does he think could be made, without resorting to heavy-handed legislation, to encourage people to renew those skills?

[Craig Whittaker]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I myself have been on retraining courses over the years since I left school—although, as hon. Members can see, that was not so many years ago. [Laughter.]

As I was saying, surely we need to start now by raising the profile of this issue, not only in schools but in all parts of society from the workplace to voluntary clubs and places of worship. A number of organisations, including the British Heart Foundation, the British Red Cross and St John Ambulance, already work with thousands of people up and down the country to provide these skills and raise awareness of this issue. Those three organisations in particular work with a plethora of voluntary groups and organisations across my constituency, and I am sure that all Members will join me in paying tribute to the work that they do throughout the United Kingdom.

However, we have a long way to go in complementing the work of these charities and working alongside them to raise awareness of these issues and to further promote first aid training among the wider adult population. As MPs, we have a role to play. During a Westminster Hall debate earlier this year, my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) revealed that she had written to all her local schools and colleges about installing defibrillators. Today, other Members have talked about doing that. I recall my hon. Friend saying that a number of schools had subsequently taken her up on that offer as a result. Along with our local councillors, we can have a role in working alongside schools, local authorities, community groups and voluntary organisations to encourage them to consider the provision of first aid training. Following the example set by my hon. Friend, I have written to all my schools within the Calder Valley—and I will do so again—to raise awareness of these issues.

I am pleased that a number of hon. Members have mentioned the availability of defibrillators. While their presence on their own is clearly not enough, particularly in the absence of adequate training, they are an important part of the jigsaw puzzle. My own local authority, Calderdale, has taken steps to increase the number of defibs in public buildings and in places that experience high footfall. This has been an important and welcome first step. Local authorities have a key role to play and it is important that they take these issues seriously and consider how they can work with schools and other stakeholders to promote the wider availability of defibs throughout the community.

We have heard harrowing statistics and personal stories from hon. Members which speak for themselves. We all agree on the need to ensure that more people are first aid trained, and the arguments in favour of providing training in schools have been accepted by all. I commend the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead for introducing the Bill and for allowing us this opportunity to discuss, and raise awareness of, these important issues.

Many schools already teach CPR and more general first aid training as part of their delivery of the PSHE curriculum, and the question is whether that should be prescribed in law as outlined by the Bill. The Government have accepted the concerns about how PSHE has been delivered in the past, and they have made it quite clear that they are committed to working with the sector to develop further measures to improve the quality of PSHE in schools. Indeed, the Secretary of State has indicated that she wants to make significant progress on this issue during the course of this Parliament. To approve legislation relating to first aid training in schools before the Secretary of State has reported back on her development plan for the teaching of the subject area of which this forms a constituent part is, I feel, somewhat premature.

It is up to individual schools to determine how they deliver PSHE. I am pleased that the Government are looking closely at provision in this area with a view to raising standards, but it is important that schools retain the ultimate right to deliver the curriculum in the best way they see fit. It is the professionals, our teachers and headteachers, who are best placed to decide what is most suitable for their students, and they need the flexibility to deliver PSHE, including CPR and first aid training, in a way that is appropriate for their school environment.

The national curriculum creates a minimum expectation for the school programme. Indeed, it does not seek to prescribe everything that a school should teach, but rather, creates a structure and a framework around which the professionals working in a school environment can tailor a programme that works best for their students. We must also remember that schools do not have a monopoly on the provision of education to our children. Parents, grandparents and voluntary groups outside the formal school environment have just as important a role to play.

Let me return to the Education Committee’s report of earlier this year, which recommended putting CPR and first aid on a statutory footing in the curriculum. What Members who served on that Committee have not mentioned is that we stopped short of recommending that that should be done provided we extended the school day. There is a real risk here in terms of a plethora of high-profile issues. I recall discussing the curriculum in 2011, when there were high-profile campaigns for a number of things, such as PSHE, life skills, road safety, financial literacy, advanced technology and even Latin.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend has suggested something that would break my rule of not legislating for specific subjects; to have Latin on the curriculum must be an advantage.

[Craig Whittaker]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I recall that when I was at school—that very short time ago—Latin was not my most favourite of subjects. Some people would say neither was English, but there we go.

The Government have been called on to include many similar subjects in the national curriculum. Simply having this long and overly prescriptive list of compulsory subjects that must be taught could easily lead to a tick-box exercise, as has been said, and to schools being prevented from focusing on what is important for their pupils and their communities. Schools should be encouraged to, and supported in, teaching vital skills such as first aid, but forcing them to do so in law may not be the best way to achieve the outcomes we all desire, unless we have a serious think about extending the school day.