Breaking Down Barriers to Opportunity
Jacob Young Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Jacob Young)
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson). Both she and I entered the House of Commons aged just 26, grew up in working-class families in the north-east and think that she would be a better leader of the Labour party than the current one.
The title of the debate is “Breaking down barriers to opportunity”. It is testament to the progress that the country has made that myself, the Secretary of State for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), the deputy leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), and the shadow Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, are all from working-class families in northern towns and are now responding to the King’s Speech in the mother of all Parliaments. I think that is a good thing.
It is a huge honour to close the debate on His Majesty’s Gracious Speech, the first in over 70 years, and on the vital issues of unlocking the great potential of our young people and unleashing opportunities across all parts of our country, on behalf of the Government. As has been widely acknowledged during the debate, education is one of the most powerful levers we have to help achieve this Government’s defining mission of levelling up economic growth, improving people’s quality of life and restoring the pride in the places they call home.
I thank everyone for their contributions to the debate, in particular my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) and for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), and who could forget the chair of the APPG for Shakespeare, my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris).
Like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education, I started my career as an apprentice, before spending nine years in Teesside’s chemical industry, so I am especially passionate about ensuring that the next generation has the best possible choices and opportunities.
As the Prime Minister has said, for the next generation, and indeed for our country, that means taking difficult decisions for the long term, so that we lay the foundations for sustained success, enabling people everywhere to build a brighter future. And in that, as my right hon. Friend, the Education Secretary, has rightly said, we are building on a proud record.
Huge credit must go to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) and the Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), for their ambition and vision back in 2010 for taking on the soft bigotry of those who believed that some are pre-destined for success while others are not.
None the less, we know that there is more to do to equip children starting school today to take up the jobs of tomorrow, starting with no more rip-off degrees, no more arbitrary targets for university, and no more assumptions that university is the only route to success. Instead, we are giving every generation real choices and a commitment to a real return on their investment.
Jacob Young
The hon. Lady has spoken many times in this debate, so I think I shall make some progress.
Jacob Young
We are giving a commitment to a real return on their investment, their hard work, their hard cash by delivering more high-quality technical education—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
If the Minister was going to give way, I am sure that he would give an indication that he wishes to do so.
Jacob Young
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As I was saying, we are giving every generation real choices and a commitment to a real return on their investment, their hard work and their hard cash by delivering more high quality technical education than any other Government, through T-levels, Higher Technical Qualifications and apprenticeships. We are also delivering for adults looking to learn new skills through skills bootcamps, the Lifelong Learning Entitlement—bringing universities, colleges and businesses together through Institutes of Technology. We are demanding excellence all round for academic and technical routes.
Our family hubs and “Strong Start for Life” programmes will also provide wide-ranging support that joins up services, including targeted help during those first critical days of a child’s life, giving the next generation the best possible start in life.
Just as we are making sure that all children and young people are set up to succeed, so we are making sure that every part of our country is set up for success. The White Paper that preceded our great Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which I am delighted to say is now on the statute book, recognised a fundamental truth: that while talent is spread equally across the UK, opportunity is not. Although our country is such a success story, not everyone shares equally in that success. We are putting that right by shifting opportunity and power decisively towards working people and their families. We will empower local leaders and invest billions to: create high-skilled, well-paid jobs; improve transport; improve health outcomes; protect community spaces; invest in research and innovation; and increase pride and belonging. Since taking on the job of Minister in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, I have seen what a difference this is making in places such as Middlesbrough, where I grew up, Keighley, Grimsby and Hull, because, for prosperity to be shared, we must first attract the good jobs that our towns and regions need by creating the right environment for businesses to operate in.
A wind farm manufacturer who is looking at where to base their next production facility needs a reason to pick Redcar or Hull over Antwerp or Rotterdam. Only by investing in the full package of incentives—from skills to infrastructure, business environment to quality of life—can we make this happen. That is exactly what we are doing through the UK’s network of freeports, which offers a comprehensive package of measures, comprising tax reliefs, customs, business rates retention, planning, regeneration, innovation and trade and investment support. They also create opportunities in left-behind communities. I am thinking of my own constituency of Redcar and Cleveland and the Teesside freeport where BP is investing in carbon capture and storage. It has partnered with Redcar and Cleveland College to provide scholarships for young people to train as clean energy technicians. We are providing the skills that are preparing people for the jobs of the future, so that they can embrace the opportunities that are being created by this Government. But that is not all. We have listened to those who feel that their communities have been left behind. Through our £1.1 billion long-term plan for towns, we are putting power and flexible funding in the hands of local people, so that they can invest in what is most important to them. Towns such as Mansfield, Great Yarmouth, Blyth, Oldham, Grimsby, Merthyr Tydfil are just some of the 55 communities that will receive this support.
As this Government invest in creating opportunity and driving aspiration across our Union, we are channelling the investment that our towns and regions need to succeed, led by local leaders who know their communities best. In 2010, Greater London was the only area in England with devolved powers. We want more to follow, bringing decision making closer to the people it affects. Now, under this Government, we have 10 areas with implemented mayoral devolution deals, and five deals in the process of implementation.
Devolving education and skills is at the heart of our devolution framework, because unless there are good schools with high standards, and institutions offering qualifications that employers value, prosperity cannot be shared across all communities. When we think about disadvantage, all of us will be acutely aware that disadvantaged children have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. We are determined to support them to catch up and reach their potential, which is why we have invested in education recovery programmes such as the recovery premium, the national tutoring programme and the 16-19 tuition fund.
Unlike the Labour party, we will never accept that family background or geography should ever dictate destiny. Long before there was a levelling-up Minister, levelling up was exactly what we had been doing over the past 13 years in our schools, in our world-class universities, on skills and through apprenticeships, reversing a decade of decline, low expectations and low ambition. The rewards that we are reaping now are very real. We have better schools than ever before, with schools in some of the most deprived parts of the country producing some of the best results. More young people from state schools are going to our best universities. Our nine and 10-year-olds are topping the league for reading in the west. We have the best universities in Europe.
While others talk the talk, we walk the walk, and just as we have succeeded in turning the tide in education and skills, so we will succeed in turning the tide for people and places long taken for granted by the Labour party. As we have seen from today’s debate, levelling up growth, opportunity, prosperity, pride and belonging for everyone in all parts of our country to contribute to and share in is a mission for us all—but there is only one party that can be trusted to deliver.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Andrew Stephenson.)
Debate to be resumed tomorrow.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jacob Young Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Walker
Our increases in school funding have been front-loaded to get money to schools rapidly, so this year core schools funding is increasing by £4 billion—a 7% cash boost per pupil. Our national formula also targets that funding towards areas of deprivation. It includes an FSM factor, which means that all pupils on free school meals will attract additional funding. The total amount allocated through deprivation factors in the national formula is increasing by £225 million, or 6.7%, in the next year, compared with last year.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
The TS6 postcode area in my constituency is one of the most disadvantaged in Teesside, and there are not enough secondary school places for TS6 children this year, next year or the year after that, with kids having to travel miles to the nearest school with capacity. While understanding the inflationary pressures on schools, will the Minister work with me to ensure that there are enough school places for young people in the TS6 area in the years ahead?
Children’s Education Recovery and Childcare Costs
Jacob Young Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
We have heard lots of Members saying how important children are, and I think we genuinely feel that across the Chamber, but how sparsely populated is the Chamber for this important debate? This is not the first time, as the Minister will recall from the last debate, that I have commented on how sparsely populated a debate is, particularly on the Government Benches. I am really disappointed. [Interruption.] The Conservative party has 350 MPs. Sadly, the Liberal Democrats has only 13, so proportionately there are far fewer. I am really disappointed that more people are not in the Chamber for this important debate.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady look to her left and tell us how many Lib Dem MPs are in the Chamber with her today?
Munira Wilson
If the hon. Gentleman is good at maths, perhaps he could work out that one out of 13 is a far higher percentage than whatever it is—six—out of 350.
With children and young people having disproportionately suffered the impact of pandemic restrictions, and the Government having scrimped and saved on supporting their recovery, millions of children across the country are bearing the brunt of the cost of living crisis that we face. They cannot be let down again, which I why I tabled an amendment to the motion about the provision of free school meals. It is utterly shocking that in one of the richest countries in the world, in April this year more than 2.6 million children were living in households that had experienced food insecurity in the past month, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by the Food Foundation. That was an increase of over 5% in the three months between January and April 2022. No child in the United Kingdom should be going hungry, let alone 2.6 million of them. That is why, given the cost of living crisis that we face, the Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to extend free school meals to all children in primary education and to all those secondary school children whose families are in receipt of universal credit.
I am proud that the Liberal Democrats in government delivered universal free school meals for every child between the age of four and seven regardless of income. All the evidence shows that hunger has a severe negative impact on children’s mental health, with studies linking it to increased anxiety and stress in primary children—and we know that is off the charts at the moment. It was bad before the pandemic, and it is even worse now. International studies have also demonstrated the need for well-balanced meals, which many families are simply unable to afford, to ensure strong brain development. It is important for children’s wellbeing and for their learning, yet we know that increasingly cash-strapped families are struggling to put food on the table. The policy outlined in the amendment would give a much-needed boost to families who are really struggling to put food on the table every day and ensure that every single primary child and all disadvantaged pupils in secondary education get at least one decent, healthy, hot meal a day.
There are also the social benefits of children coming together and eating the same meals together at the same time without, say, parents opting out at the primary level—it is a really important social intervention as well as academically and for their wellbeing—but there are already reports that some school meal caterers are talking about cutting portion sizes to cover the costs of free school meals. As I pointed out to the Chancellor a couple of weeks ago—needless to say, he did not address my point and he did not seem to take much interest in how children are going hungry and will get hungrier—the Tory Government have increased funding by a measly 4p over the past seven years since universal infant free school meals were introduced by the Liberal Democrats in government in 2014. So, yes, that is 4p in those years, and food prices have risen by almost 6% in the last year alone, so is it any wonder that we are hearing about caterers having potentially to cut school meal portions?
My concern is that for schools already struggling to make ends meet with spiralling energy bills, insufficient catch-up funding, rising children’s mental health needs and food price inflation, we will see cuts to teaching assistants and other staff, and less money spent on books, computers and other essentials. That is especially true of schools in rural areas, which are disproportionately underfunded. Councillors in the south-west of England regularly point out to me the inequality of school funding in their region.
I urge the Minister to look at this area and ensure that children from lower-income backgrounds do not suffer academically and in their wellbeing because they are going hungry during the cost of living crisis. Will the Government please consider expanding the remit of free school meals beyond infants to the many other children who are struggling with hunger daily? Every child deserves to grow up happy and healthy regardless of their background.
I want to touch on childcare costs. I cannot better the speech by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), and the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) also made some important points. Here in the UK, we have the highest childcare costs in the world. We know that parents up and down the country are struggling to pay their childcare fees, and the crippling costs mean that many are unable to return to work. Earlier this year, Pregnant Then Screwed, which has been mentioned several times, did a survey of 27,000 parents and found that two thirds are paying more for their childcare than for their rent or mortgage. That is simply unsustainable for many households. That has resulted in 43% of mothers stating that they are considering leaving their job, and two in five said that they are working fewer hours than they want because of childcare costs. Some 80% of families who responded to the survey expect their childcare costs to increase in the next six months. That worry is backed up by research undertaken by the children’s charity, Coram.
The Government are trying to address the issue by looking at tweaking the ratios. Quite apart from all the safety issues thrown up by reducing the number of staff to children, if the Government think that the savings will be passed on by childcare providers to parents, they are living in another world. I have a three-year-old son and am absolutely delighted that I will not have to keep paying childcare costs after September, when he starts school. I pay for 27 hours of childcare a week. When he turned three, I thought, “Happy days! Apparently, I get 30 hours of free childcare, so I don’t have to pay for it anymore.” No: I am still paying at least half the bill I was paying before he turned three.
As many others have pointed out, the funding the Government give for those so-called free hours does not begin to cover childcare providers’ costs, particularly in London and particularly given that they are rising. It is a complete red herring when Ministers say, “We’re going to tweak the ratios and that will help to save money and provide more childcare.” Childcare providers cannot afford to pass that on.
I am in the fortunate position of being able to afford to still pay the £500 a month, as opposed to the £1,000 a month I was paying before, for 27 hours of childcare. Many families simply cannot afford that. I am also in the fortunate position of having an amazing husband who will stay at home and look after my son for two days a week; many families are simply not in that position. I urge the Government to address this issue head on and, instead of tinkering with ratios, look at offering a fair deal for parents in terms of quality childcare provision to give children the best start in life.
I could not possibly sit down, Madam Deputy Speaker, without saying a couple of words about children’s and young people’s mental health. Many in this Chamber will know that I have been banging on about that since the day I got elected two and a half years ago. We hear time and again from Ministers about how much they are doing to support children’s mental health, given the spiralling numbers. I give credit to the Government: they have put money into this area. The problem is that we are not necessarily seeing the impact on the ground. That is why I was so disappointed in the last Session when Conservative Members talked out my private Member’s Bill on presenting an annual report to Parliament on children’s mental health.
We have a fragmented system. We have some mental health support provision— we need far more at an early stage in the community and in schools—and then we have the NHS provision. The data is not joined up. It is sparse and patchy: we do not see what it translates to per head at a local level and we do not see granular detail of what some of the waiting times are for treatment at a local level. If we want to measure the impact of what the Government are doing and what we need to bridge the gap when children need to be suicidal before they get mental health support, we must measure and track far, far better the provision being put in place for our children.
Making Britain the Best Place to Grow Up and Grow Old
Jacob Young Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). I congratulate him on Ofgem’s recent announcement that Ellesmere Port, as well as Redcar, will progress to stage 2 of the hydrogen village trials.
Today’s debate is on making Britain the best place to grow up and grow old, and we are doing just that. However, the Queen’s Speech must be viewed in the context of a war in Europe and a growing energy crisis, which is why the energy security Bill is one of the most important Bills in the speech. Defence and energy security go hand in hand. Putin has been emboldened because of Europe’s collective reliance on Russian gas and he uses it as a weapon, as can be seen in his rash reaction to Finland’s desire to join NATO. Not only will our energy Bill enable us to achieve energy sovereignty in a dangerous world, but it moves us further along the path to net zero and creates thousands of jobs in the process, in places such as Teesside.
In Teesside, we are quickly becoming the centre of excellence for green technology through: offshore wind; the world’s first industrial-scale carbon capture utilisation and storage project; hydrogen production, with 5 GW of hydrogen planned and the hydrogen village trials that I mentioned a few moments ago; and, of course, our nuclear power station at Hartlepool. It was commissioned in 1983, a whole 10 years before I was born. Only three power stations have been commissioned in the UK since then. In the 13 years of the Blair-Brown Government, not one new power station was constructed and six were decommissioned. New Labour turned its back on new nuclear, and we are righting its wrongs with a new power station every year for the next decade. This Queen’s Speech will help us to address that great national challenge, ensuring that our critical infrastructure remains future-proofed to the evolving needs of the 21st century.
Investment in infrastructure is a key signature of this Government’s commitment to levelling up, but I think we can go further. I look particularly to HS2, which currently has no commitment to using UK-sourced steel in its construction—that is wrong. It is nonsensical to have a situation where every few years the steel industry finds itself in further hardship and us MPs with steel constituencies go knocking at the Treasury’s door. Surely a better use of taxpayers’ money is for procurement rules to benefit foundation industries in the UK over international counterparts, and I hope that that is what the Procurement Bill allows. It is not an excuse for UK industry not to be competitive in its pricing, but we should acknowledge in any procurement decision the economic and social value that investment in UK industry brings and the levelling-up effect that such investment can have.
The purpose of our levelling-up programme is the next generation, which is why this Government are also investing in a world-class schools system to deliver the high-quality education that our young people deserve. The Schools Bill will absolutely set us on a path to achieving that. In Redcar and Cleveland we have made great strides under this Government to invest in our local schools, particularly at a primary school level, with more than £20 million invested to revitalise the 48 primary schools over the past decade, and Newcomen Primary School remains one of the best in the country. Despite that, more still needs to be done to ensure that every child has the education they deserve; in my part of the world that particularly relates to our secondary schools and I hope the Schools Bill will help to achieve that.
Finally, I wish to thank the Government for bringing forward the conversion therapy Bill again. I speak as a gay Christian who cannot wait for this Government to finally outlaw conversion therapy. Everyone, LGBT or otherwise, deserves to grow up and grow old being who they are, without the threat of disgusting, outdated and, I hope, soon-to-be criminal practices labelled as “conversion therapy”.
We are three years into this Prime Minister’s leadership. We have faced the biggest political challenge in the post-war era with Brexit and the single biggest health challenge in 100 years with covid. We now face the dual challenge of our energy security and war in Europe once again. This Queen’s Speech demonstrates our willingness to tackle the big issues of the day—becoming energy secure while levelling up across the whole of the UK. We have been tasked with delivering on the people’s priorities, and we are doing just that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jacob Young Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
The Minister will know of Westgarth Primary School in Marske, which is in desperate need of urgent building works. May I invite him to visit Redcar and Cleveland in the near future, to meet me and the Galileo Trust to see what can be done to support the school, its pupils and its fantastic teachers?
Budget Resolutions
Jacob Young Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Kate Green
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The levy to fund social care is one more tax that will hit hard-pressed families in the spring and will do nothing about the deep-seated need to address the social care crisis and the increasing pressure from an ageing demographic—it will not even touch the sides.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Is it not the case that the Labour party still has no plan for social care? When we put forward a plan only a few weeks ago, Labour Members voted against it.
Kate Green
The hon. Member may not remember the Dilnot plan, which had cross-party support until Conservative Members torpedoed it. He may not have read the five principles that Labour has set out to underpin our approach to social care, including preventive investment to keep people at home and living independently for as long as possible, as we all want to. We have a plan that would invest in the workforce. It is not enough just to wish for better social care; the people have to be there to deliver it. That is Labour’s plan, and if the hon. Member would like more details, I am very happy to send them to him.
Despite 1.6 million people waiting for treatment, there was no guarantee in last week’s Budget that mental health will receive its fair share of NHS funding. Health stakeholders were most critical of the lack of a workforce strategy or a multi-year funding settlement to support it. We cannot deliver world-class healthcare if we do not invest in recruitment, retention and staff development. It is no wonder that the NHS is struggling when the number of adult health and care students declined by 15% in the three years before the pandemic.
The pandemic also shone a light on the problems that our schools, colleges and early years providers were already facing. No doubt it exacerbated them, but it did not create them. Last week, the Chancellor set out a £3 billion investment in skills, and the Secretary of State claimed that it was the biggest in a decade—but it comes after a decade of cuts to post-16 provision. The Learning and Work Institute calculates that funding over the spending review period will still amount to only 60% of the 2010 figure.
It is astonishing that at a time when our economy has to adapt to the challenges that the Secretary of State referred to—globalisation, digitisation and climate change in the post-Brexit environment—investment in skills remains so lacking. Four in 10 young people are leaving education without the level of qualification they need, the number of apprenticeships has fallen by more than 40%, and 9 million adults lack basic skills in literacy or numeracy. No wonder the Chancellor can promise only a paltry 1.5% increase in growth in the final three years of the forecast period.
At the same time that it is talking up the importance of vocational education, the Department for Education is scrapping most BTECs—well-recognised and respected qualifications that give opportunities to hundreds of thousands of young people.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome). It is fitting that she is the youngest female MP and I am the youngest male MP given the steps that we are taking to invest in the future of our young people.
I am pleased to speak in today’s debate as the Chancellor, as well as being a friend, is my constituency neighbour, as is my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The Budget, delivered for the whole country by a northern Chancellor, certainly reflected that. It ensures that the areas that Labour forgot are not just recognised, but central to the Government’s mission for a safer, cleaner and healthier Britain.
The Budget sets us back on track, with new fiscal rules of borrowing only to invest and returning to debt falling by the end of the Parliament. While the Labour party carps about the difficult decisions that the Government have to make, we are getting on with the job. The public are backing us, too: they see the changes that we are trying to make and understand that the road to a high-skill, high-wage economy comes with initial challenges.
We voted for change, both in 2016 when 66% of people in Redcar and Cleveland voted to leave and in 2019 when Redcar elected its first Tory MP, and the Government are getting on and delivering that change. The Budget announced £310 million for transport across the Tees valley, which will mean improvements to Redcar and South Bank stations and the station at British Steel; new active travel with better cycle routes across Teesside so that people can get to work more easily without a car; the new Tees crossing, which will decongest the A19 going north; and support for the roll-out of new hydrogen and electric vehicles.
On top of that, the Chancellor cut domestic air passenger duty, which is a boost for Teesside airport. We are getting a direct train link to London from Middlesbrough next month, and next year, the TransPennine line will be extended from Manchester to Saltburn. By air, road and rail, Teesside is becoming more connected day by day, thanks to our Conservative Government.
Alongside that huge investment in our transport infra- structure, the Government made a specific announcement of a UK and world first. The UK Infrastructure Bank, which the Chancellor announced in March, has made its first investment of £107 million in the new offshore wind quay at South Bank. That will enable us to get on with the job, build out the quay, regenerate the site and create the jobs of the future on the south bank of the Tees. On that site, we will manufacture blades for wind turbines almost as tall as the Eiffel tower and huge turbines that make Big Ben look like Little Ben. They will form part of the largest wind farm in the world at Dogger Bank.
The Budget also contained Teesside freeport’s approval as a tax site and the green light for it to become operational from mid-November. I declare my interest as an unpaid member of the Teesside Freeport board. I am now almost certain that that means we will be the UK’s first post-Brexit freeport. That is a pledge that I made and a challenge that I set myself when I made my maiden speech just along this Bench 18 months ago—delivered for the people of Redcar and Cleveland.
The real icing on the cake was the announcement made by Gezza on Wednesday evening. Of course, I refer not to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) but to the noble Lord Grimstone, who is working night and day to make Teesside great again. He announced that Sabic is to invest £850 million in its Teesside petrochemicals site, creating and protecting more than 1,000 Teesside jobs and confirming the parable that investment in the north-east from Saudi Arabia is like buses: we wait all day and then two come along at once—apparently that is a football joke.
That investment stands at the heart of our Conservative ideology that it is not the state that delivers the jobs of the future. We deliver strong public services, we level up infrastructure, we drive forward economic growth and we support the innovators, the entrepreneurs and, yes, the lenders to ensure that those who want to build something in Britain can get on and do it. It is not the Government who create jobs; it is businesses. That is why the Chancellor is supporting them and has supported them throughout the pandemic.
Finally, I was so pleased to see the Chancellor’s backing for research and development in the Budget, taking our investment in the technologies and jobs of the future to 1.1% of GDP. However, I want to see that increase going towards the D in R&D. So many brilliant ideas are killed by their inability to be demonstrated. Redcar and Cleveland is home to two world-leading development sites: the Centre for Process Innovation and the Materials Processing institute. They are two fantastic organisations, the latter established days before D-day as Churchill’s Government prepared to have the best steel innovation available to meet the challenges of rebuilding Britain after the war.
In the March 2020 Budget—that seems like a lifetime ago—the Chancellor backed the programme of research and innovation for the UK steel and metals sector. Page 85 of the 2020 Red Book referred to £22 million for the Materials Processing Institute for innovation in decarbonising the steel sector. That funding, alongside support from Innovate UK, has created 25 high-skilled jobs. PRISM will go on to make huge strides in decarbonising our foundation industries. That is what we can achieve when we invest in research and, crucially, in development. We can create the jobs of the future, the technologies that will help us tackle climate change, and level up across the country.
Bridget Phillipson
Let me say to the hon. Gentleman that sometimes when the Whips come calling and they have a piece of paper that they would like you to read out in the Chamber, just say no. We have had far, far further to climb because of the massive hit to our economy—the worst of any advanced nation. Much of that, sad to say, comes down to the Chancellor’s resistance to adopting the measures that were necessary back last autumn to control the virus.
Labour has set out our climate investment pledge not only to get us on track with our commitment, but to avoid greater costs in the future and to ensure that we can seize opportunities, too. That means developing our domestic hydrogen sector, greening our steel industry, building the cycle lanes and infrastructure, creating new jobs to retrofit homes, ensuring that electric vehicles and their batteries are manufactured here, and that all our families can enjoy the local environment, clean air and open space. We are ambitious for Britain to lead the world with the jobs and technologies of the future, creating prosperity and opportunity in every corner of our country. Under Labour, we will work with business and trade unions to make this a reality.
Jacob Young
Just before the hon. Lady concludes her remarks, I just wanted to give her the opportunity to welcome Sunderland’s levelling-up fund bid, which was granted by this Government.
Bridget Phillipson
Absolutely. I supported the bid, so of course I welcome it; that is hardly a revelation. I will always welcome additional investment coming to my constituency, although I notice that the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) is also in his place, and I am sure that, like me, he was disappointed that our restoring your railway fund bid to look at reopening the Leamside line, which would create benefits for the wider north-east, was sadly knocked back by his Government. I am afraid that it is not entirely good news for Sunderland and the north-east.
Covid-19: Impact on Attendance in Education Settings
Jacob Young Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
I am not sure whether the hon. Lady is arguing for more restrictions or fewer—her question did not seem to be that coherent. Perhaps if she can write to me to clarify whether she is pro restrictions or against then, I would be happy to answer.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his update, and for the promise of ending bubbles and school isolation. Does he agree that it is surprising to hear the Labour party’s latest change in position on pupils attending schools, especially given that only earlier this month it was advocating moving away from formal learning, rather than catching up on crucial lost lessons?
Gavin Williamson
I suppose one of the great advantages of opposition is that consistency is not something that has to be adhered to. There has been an element of inconsistency there. What we are focused on, as we come out of the pandemic, is ensuring that we do everything possible to support schools, teachers and, most importantly, children, to help them catch up on what they have missed over the last year and a half.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jacob Young Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Michelle Donelan
The changes to the level of official development assistance quality-related funding made available to universities has been applied equally across the four nations of the Union, as the hon. Member will know. The Government’s research ODA spend includes the global challenges research fund, which has been allocated in line with the thematic, rather than geographic, priorities of the strategic framework for UK ODA, as outlined by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, while prioritising high-value-for-money projects and existing legal commitments. I will be delighted to meet the hon. Member along with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary responsibility for science, innovation and research to discuss this matter further.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)
Alongside the £8 billion high needs budget, we fund the Autism Education Trust, which develops autism awareness training for education staff. Over the past decade, over 300,000 staff have been trained. We have also worked with the Department of Health and Social Care to include children in the autism strategy, which will be published shortly.
Jacob Young
The Mackenzie Thorpe Centre is a school in South Bank which provides autistic and neurodiverse young people from across Redcar and Cleveland with the support they need in their education. It is a great example how local authorities, working in partnership with specialist charities such as the North East Autism Society, can provide this type of enhanced support closer to home. Will the Minister come to Redcar and Cleveland to meet me and the North East Autism Society to see how it can expand its current support and replicate it elsewhere?
University Students: Compensation for Lost Teaching and Rent
Jacob Young Excerpts(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Michelle Donelan
We are confident that in-person teaching and learning can be delivered in a covid-secure environment; the area of concern has been and always will be the mass movement of students and the formation of new households. As the hon. Member pointed out, many things are indeed opening up, but most of them are outside and involve social mixing outside, and the key thing is that they do not involve the formation of new households.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
I thank the Minister for her work throughout the pandemic to support students from Redcar and Cleveland and those studying at Teesside University. Just like in all walks of life, regular testing will be vital to getting life at universities back to normal. Can she confirm that no student will have to pay for covid tests to return to their studies?
Michelle Donelan
I can indeed. I agree with my hon. Friend that testing plays an important part in mitigating the risk of transmission and assure him that under no circumstances will any student have to incur financial costs as a result of participating in our testing programme.
Educational Settings
Jacob Young Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
Certainly. The reason why we have announced the response that we have is to ensure that it covers a broad range of children, including not just those of key workers, but those who are vulnerable. The hon. Lady may like to write to me with specific suggestions and actions that she feels the Department should consider taking. My concern and interest is making sure that we do everything in the interests of both stemming this virus and protecting the interests of those children no matter where they live in this country.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend clarify whether the children he outlined earlier will continue to attend the same school, and what considerations have been given to children-teacher ratios and class sizes? Small schools such as Zetland Primary School in Redcar may struggle in the current climate.
Gavin Williamson
As part of the Bill that we are bringing forward, we will be removing the ratios that present some of the challenges to schools. I would be wrong, though, to give my hon. Friend the promise that children will necessarily be able to continue to attend their current school. We do not know at the moment the consequences of the spread of this virus, and we may need to show a high degree of flexibility in how we provide that support and care. Sometimes that may require children attending different schools, hopefully in close proximity to their home. None the less, we do recognise the challenges that are going to be raised as a result of this announcement.