Free Childcare

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Thursday 12th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I will definitely take only four minutes, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) on obtaining what is a key debate. I do not doubt that she has had feedback; I have had similar feedback in South Suffolk, where we have excellent provision. It is difficult for me to avoid receiving representations, particularly from Yorley Barn, a beautifully located nursery in my constituency, in a village called Little Cornard. The proprietor, Donna Row, recently came up and made representations while I was dropping my three-year-old twins off at the nursery. She made the key point that she feels funding is going down while, as has been said, core costs are rising.

I want briefly to focus on Suffolk, because while I accept that many broader political and national arguments are made, there is a national funding formula by which our county seems to have been particularly disadvantaged. The sense of unfairness in Suffolk is compounded by what has happened with the schools formula over the years.

I want to quote from a couple of my providers. A particular issue in Suffolk has been the drive for graduates in early years. This is from Springfields pre-school. Amy Jacobs emailed me to say:

“All research has pointed towards the positive outcome for children who attend an early years setting that is led by an early years graduate. Suffolk…were therefore extremely proactive in encouraging settings to employ graduates to run their settings. This was supported in the early years funding and we were paid £4.24 per child per hour in order that we could pay our staff”

at that rate. She goes on to say that they now receive only £3.87 per child per hour.

I should add that this is something that all Suffolk Members have been working on, and I am grateful to the Minister, who has taken the time to meet us and go through our concerns with his officials in great detail. We also held a meeting at County Hall, for which unfortunately I was ill and unable to attend. However, again, the core point is that funding seems to be lower at a time when costs are rising, so we as MPs have been trying to understand exactly why that is happening and whether it is driven by factors at a county level or because of the national formula.

I will quote from one other provider. Cheryl Leeks, who runs Woodland Corner, said:

“As you are aware, Suffolk County Council reduced our funding for 3 and 4-year-old children by 11% on 1 April with only 7 week’s notice. Historically the rate received from SCC has been higher than the rate we charge for non-funded children—or additional hours. We were always keen to have funded children as we used to receive £4.24 and a block funding allowance of £550 per term.”

She goes on to say that only £3.87 per child per hour will now be provided.

There are complexities—that is showing one side of the picture—but the key point for us in Suffolk at county level is that we feel that, in comparison to other counties, and particularly neighbouring counties, we seem to be doing particularly badly. Like all Suffolk MPs, I received a note from Gordon Jones, the cabinet member for children’s services at Suffolk County Council, with a table of all our neighbours who get a better allocation than we have received through the early years national funding formula.

This issue is obviously important to me personally because I have children in early years, but in Suffolk we have had a huge amount of feedback from very worried providers. I support in principle the drive for 30 hours—it is really important for our economy to achieve the dynamism we want and flexibility in our labour market that we have this greater provision—but there are clearly issues to address. I believe the Minister is aware of that. I do not want to go on too much longer, because we are in the middle of a discussion about it with him. I simply say that we would like him to recognise that there are these pressures not just of the money going down but of costs going up.

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

Order.

School Funding

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Small primary schools in my constituency very much welcome the fact that sparsity has been taken into account. They think that they have a Government who understand the needs of the countryside.

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The formula recognises that different schools face different costs, particularly in rural areas, so the sparsity factor recognises that rural schools often have a higher cost base. That sits alongside a lump-sum element that is built into the formula to make sure that schools have the money that they need to be able to function effectively. Colleagues in rural seats will recognise that small rural schools have gained an average of 1.3% under the formula. Primary schools in sparse communities will gain 5.3% on average.

National Funding Formula: Schools/High Needs

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am not sure whether the hon. Lady supports the living wage, but the Government think that it is important. We also think a further two things, however: first, it is important to introduce this national funding formula—I hope that MPs can support it as a mechanism to make sure that the funding flowing into schools is delivered fairly—and secondly, it will ensure that children growing up in deprived areas see additional funding. I hope that she will reflect on that. In addition, wherever they grow up—whether or not in a deprived community—children who need to catch up will receive additional funding through this formula.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. One group we must not overlook is parents. In my constituency, parents work hard and often tell me, “I’m paying the same rate of tax as people in other areas. Why am I getting so much less money for my children in the state school system?” I urge her, when she gets the backlash from the more generously funded areas, to stand fast, particularly on support for rural schools, and to deliver this in full and in practice.

[Justine Greening]

We are at the beginning of a 14-week consultation, and it is important that everybody looks at the formula we are proposing. I think that it strikes the right balance, and I hope that it can command the broad support of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

As I said, by 2020 we will be giving more funding to further education than at any time in our island’s history. It will have increased by 40%, which we should be proud of. Our investment is working. As I said, we have the lowest youth unemployment and the lowest number of NEETs on record. The hon. Lady should be celebrating that.[Official Report, 20 December 2016, Vol. 618, c. 12MC.]

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

13. What progress her Department is making on the provision of 30 hours of childcare to working parents.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)]

We are committed to ensuring that we have the high-quality affordable childcare that families need, and we are on track to deliver 30 hours of childcare to working parents. We announced a record funding of £1 billion extra per year by 2020; we have consulted on a fairer and more transparent funding system; and eight early implementer areas are already providing more than 3,500 places—one year early.

[James Cartlidge]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the greatest potential impact of extending support for childcare is helping families to make the transition from being on benefits and into sustainable employment?

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We must tackle the causes of poverty, and the Government have set out stretching ambitions to remove barriers to work and to increase employment. The 30-hours offer will contribute significantly, helping families with the cost of childcare.

Education, Skills and Training

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I beg to move an amendment, at the end of the Question to add:

“but respectfully regret that the Gracious Speech contained proposals to enable further increases in tuition fees; believe that there should be no further increases in tuition fees; and further believe that no good or outstanding school should be forced to become an academy.”.

I am reeling from the prospect of public hair playing and from considering whether we should have a rule against it in this House.

Last Wednesday, we saw the age-old ceremony of the State Opening of Parliament. It was all done with the usual pageantry, and it was timed and executed to perfection as we have all come to expect. The only flaw was the one thing over which Her Majesty has absolutely no control, and that is the actual content of the Gracious Speech. When the Speech was finally unveiled, after all the build-up and ceremony, it was yet another anti-climax. It outlined a mere 21 Bills—this from a majority Government barely one year into their five-year term of office. They are running out of steam before our eyes.

We could sense the dismay on the Government Benches. The Speech was hastily described as “sparse”, “bland”, “threadbare”, “pretty thin gruel”, “uninspiring”, “managerial” and “vacuous”, and that was the verdict of the Government’s own underwhelmed Back Benchers. Others were less diplomatic. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), so recently a senior Cabinet Minister, called it “watered down”, blaming a Government who have surrendered to the “helter-skelter” of the EU referendum campaign. Former Tory Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo was even more scathing about the first majority Conservative Government elected since 1992. He told Andrew Neil:

“After 23 years of careful thought about what they would like to do in power, and the answer is nothing.”

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady think that the introduction of the national living wage is nothing?

[Ms Eagle]

The introduction of the national living wage is a con, because it is not a living wage. An increase in wages is obviously welcome, but it does not apply to those who are under 25. The national living wage describes itself as something that it is not, so we have a healthy degree of scepticism about how useful it will be.

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[Joseph Johnson]

We are delighted that we are able to put nurse NHS bursaries on the same footing as measures that have enabled a widening of participation in higher education in recent years. It will enable us to address the shortages that have arisen in the nursing profession as a result of the current system. Our funding reforms have enabled us to lift the number controls that have been affecting the nursing profession. We committed in our manifesto to ensuring the continued success and stability of those reforms. We also committed to ensuring that universities deliver the best possible value for money to students, and we said that we would introduce a new framework of incentives to recognise universities offering the highest quality of teaching. The Higher Education and Research Bill, which was introduced in the Commons last week, will deliver on those and other manifesto commitments.

[James Cartlidge]

Until this month, Suffolk was one of the only counties in the country without an institution that could technically be described as a university. May I, therefore, offer the Minister my profound thanks, and that of my county, for giving permission for the creation of a brand new University of Suffolk? Will he congratulate all those who have worked for it and join me in wishing them well for the future?

[Joseph Johnson]

I happily join my hon. Friend in congratulating the new University of Suffolk. It is terrific that one of four counties in this country that did not have a full university now has one. There are three other counties and we hope to encourage new institutions of similar quality to the University of Suffolk to come to the higher education cold spots that we have inherited.

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[Joseph Johnson]

We are committed to supporting refugees as they enter the higher education system, and we will look closely at whether there are any gaps in their support with respect to English language provision.

To turn to the Opposition amendment, we have been able to take steps to widen participation in higher education only because of the difficult decisions we have made as a Government to ensure that our universities are sustainably financed. [Interruption.] They are. Total funding for the sector has increased from £22 billion in 2009-10 to £28 billion in 2014-15, and is forecast to reach £31 billion by 2017-18. The OECD has said that our approach means that we are one of the few countries in the world to have found a sustainable approach to financing a modern system of higher education.

Our economy needs a world-class higher education system, and we cannot allow a situation to arise in which our universities are once again underfunded. The £9,000 tuition fee introduced in 2012 has already fallen in value to £8,500 in real terms. If we leave it unchanged, it will be worth £8,000 by the end of this Parliament. We want to ensure that our universities have the funding they need and that every student receives a high-quality experience during their time in higher education.

I am not the first Minister to note the variability of teaching quality, or indeed the imbalance between teaching and research in our higher education system. Labour Ministers in many Governments have made exactly the same point, but a Conservative Government will actually do something about it. We want to shine a spotlight on good practice, to give applicants more information about the type of teaching and graduate outcomes they can expect, and to raise the status of excellent university teaching. That is why we are implementing our manifesto commitment to introduce a teaching excellence framework to drive up the quality of teaching and spread best practice across our system.

In relation to the Opposition amendment, it is worth noting the irony that it was a Labour Government under Tony Blair who, in 2004, sensibly put in place the new legal powers that have allowed Governments to maintain university fees in line with inflation. For the 2017-18 academic year, I can confirm that the rate of inflation applying to maximum fees for institutions demonstrating high-quality teaching is 2.8%. The measure of inflation we are using is RPIX, as set out in regulations which, again, were introduced by Labour in 2006. The Labour party may have changed its views on that entire era and may no longer support the policy it introduced, but the Conservatives will refuse to allow students’ learning to suffer.

As Universities UK and GuildHE have made clear in statements ahead of today’s debate, allowing the value of maximum fees permitted by legislation to be maintained in real terms is essential if universities are to continue to be able to deliver high-quality teaching.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend is making a very credible case. Does he agree that if we do not fund better degrees and the growth of higher education through the current system, the only alternative will be to do so through taxation—or borrowing—levied across the whole populace, including those who do not necessarily benefit from higher education?

[Joseph Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes the point perfectly. It is hard to improve on the way he put it. The alternative to what we are doing would be to place a greater burden on general taxpayers whose lifetime earnings will be lower than those of people who have benefited from a university education. In the case of women, graduates’ lifetime earnings will be £250,000 higher than those of non-graduates, and in the case of men, graduates’ lifetime earnings will be £100,000 higher than those of non-graduates.

“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

The announcement on Friday was not timed exactly for my hon. Friend’s meeting with Hampshire local authority, but he had made clear to me when he was having that meeting. He is right to say that in the White Paper and subsequent discussions it has become clear that children in some parts of the country are getting a great education, but that is not the case everywhere. I cannot say strongly enough how much I feel that we must ensure that such educational excellence is shared by all children in all parts of this country.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I had my concerns about compulsory academisation, but she has clearly taken the time to listen to all her colleagues and I welcome that approach. I also welcome the £10 million fund for small rural schools that need support in conversion, but when will that be made available? If a number of schools are looking to form a multi-academy trust, will the money go to the lead school or to them all?

[Nicky Morgan]

We still need to work out the details, but the idea is for the fund to be available sooner rather than later, and some small schools are already thinking about their future. The fund would be for things such as legal costs. I will not set out all the details, but it is important that the fund supports all schools, because they will all need that support, not just the lead school.

Schools White Paper

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

On the Conservative Benches, we are grateful for the fact we have finally made progress on the issue of fairer funding, which is incredibly important—particularly in rural constituencies. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the progress on fairer funding does not depend in any way on enforced academisation?

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that those on the Opposition Benches had 13 years to sort out the inequities in our school funding system and that we heard absolutely nothing from them. On the trajectories for moving on to the new funding formula, we hope to start in the 2017-18 financial year, and on academisation we have six years for schools to become academies and to work out the best way for them to do so and the collaboration that that will involve.

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[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I welcome the White Paper and the broad thrust of policy, which is about standards. If England were a school, it would not be “outstanding” and it would not be “good”, and that is not good enough. We owe it to our children to raise education standards across the board, especially in the most disadvantaged areas.

However, while I certainly see a role for academies in transforming schools that are failing, I have many reservations about the specific proposal for enforced academisation, and like many other Members, I have particular reservations in relation to rural primary schools. I recently visited All Saints Primary School in Lawshall, near Bury St Edmunds. Its excellent headmistress, Clare Lamb, is a national leader. The school is outstanding in every sense of the word, and it has told me that it does not want to become an academy. What I fundamentally struggle with—this is a very simple point—is the idea that I should go to that school and say, “Although your school is outstanding, and all your staff are working brilliantly and delivering a fantastic education, we are now going to force you to become an academy.”

I understand the reasoning behind this, and I understand the point about sustainability. The White Paper argues that as more and more schools become academies, it will become harder to sustain those that do not. However, it is forecast that only a third of primary schools will be academies by 2022; in other words, two thirds will not. There is an answer to the question of sustainability, which is fairer funding. I have written to all my local schools telling them I will campaign for fairer funding so that they can look forward to a better funded future. That has been our answer. We have never linked it to academies, and I was grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for confirming that there was no direct link.

During Prime Minister’s Question Time, I asked the Prime Minister about the principles underlying consultation on fairer funding. In his answer, which I sent to all my local primary schools, he specifically stated that he would support small rural schools in sparsely populated areas, and made no mention of academisation.

I know that both the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have a passion for education, but many of us have serious reservations about enforcement. We believe in choice, and we find it hard to defend the idea that we should force schools that are good or outstanding to become academies. A one nation education policy involves a national funding framework. A one nation education policy transforms the worst schools, making them become academies in the hope that that will improve them. However, I do not think that, at its heart, such a policy should mean forcing schools that are already good or outstanding to change their status, thus putting at risk the excellent standards that they are delivering.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I join my hon. Friend in welcoming that news. It is good to hear positive news about school places, because there is too often a lot of scaremongering about places and place need.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

11. What steps the Government are taking to support the educational attainment of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

[The Minister for Children and Families (Edward Timpson)]

We are determined to deliver educational excellence everywhere so that every child reaches their full potential regardless of their background. That is why we are protecting the pupil premium at current rates for the duration of this Parliament, giving schools billions of pounds in additional funding to improve disadvantaged pupils’ attainment.

[James Cartlidge]

I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, and I very much welcome today’s announcement on fairer funding in schools, which many of us have campaigned for since our election. Does he agree that the best way to support pupils from a disadvantaged background in rural areas is precisely by having a national funding formula that is based on need, irrespective of where that need arises?

Student Maintenance Grants

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marsden]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has great experience in these matters. The Institute for Fiscal Studies and other organisations have commented on that matter.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

It is wonderful to hear Labour Members talking about unfunded liabilities. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the £1.5 billion cost of this measure, which is the money that will be saved. Is it his party’s policy to reverse the measure, and if so, where would it get the money from?

[Mr Marsden]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is so looking forward to the arrival of a Labour Government that he is already asking us detailed questions on this matter. I would remind him, however, that today is a day for the Government to be held to account for their failures.

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[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

The problem with today’s debate is simple: no alternative is offered to the measure that has been laid before the House. For all the huffing and puffing from the Opposition, their idea of social mobility is, “We’ll just give lots of money and let lots of people go. We’ll worry about paying it back later, even though the economy will crash like it did before.” Social mobility went down 13% over 13 years of Labour government.

The game was given away last week at Prime Minister’s questions when the Leader of the Opposition made it clear that he thought it was a bad policy for this Government to try to improve social housing and get rid of some of the sink estates. The policy of the Labour party now seems to be, “Where you’re born is where you should stay because we will look after you by printing money.” It is nonsense.

I worked in the higher education sector for many years. I once asked what would happen if we did not increase tuition fees. The answer was that we would limit the numbers of people who could go to university. That is abysmal. The hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) says he was from a working-class background. Guess what? So were lots of Members on the Government Benches. The Opposition are trying to bring class warfare into the argument, which is nonsense.

[James Cartlidge]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just about the number of students? If we had not increased the funding, the quality of the degree that each student receives would have suffered.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. That is why such efforts have been made to address the A-level and exam system. As someone who was outward-facing in my career at the University of Leeds, I was shocked to go to countries in Europe such as Germany and be told of worries about the standard of UK degrees because of the A-levels that were done to get on those courses. As a prime example, we had to lay on two extra modules of basic maths in year 1 of our engineering degree because we had students who could not cope with the mathematics used in engineering, although they had good grades at A-level.

That is part of a bigger picture, and the point of today’s debate—opportunity for everybody to go to university. It is all very well to say that grants should not be cut without proposing an alternative way of raising the money, but the system would become unaffordable as a consequence, limiting the numbers of people going to university. I went to a comprehensive school. My parents were teachers. I became a professional engineer and then a Conservative MP. My sister qualified two months ago as a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. No money was spent sending us to private school. We went out and got our own part-time jobs to fund our way to university. I took on a private job at WH Smith when I was still at school.

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[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) and, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), whose speech combined expertise and passion.

I am going to follow in the footsteps of the Leader of the Opposition and his new style of reading out emails from constituents. I am well aware that students are concerned about this measure. I have had an email from Jack Lay, who lives in Glemsford in my constituency and is vice-president of the Kent student union. He is worried about

“making sure young people from South Suffolk are able to access higher education”

and fears that

“if grants are removed young people from poorer backgrounds will accrue more debt from no fault of their own.”

My answer to Jack and to all hon. Members concerned about this is that it will not hinder access to higher education for those from poorer backgrounds, and for five key reasons. First, we are increasing the cash that they will have in their hand to sustain university life and deal with the day-to-day costs they will face. Secondly, we have increased the level at which they will repay their student debt from £15,000 under the previous Government to £21,000—if they do not earn that, they do not repay. Thirdly, the statistics show that this is not having the impact that Opposition Members are warning about. As we have heard, there has been a 35% increase in the access rate of people from disadvantaged backgrounds to university. The figure has risen from 13.6% in 2009-10 to 18.5% last year—an incredible increase. If the Opposition’s alarmism were based on fact, that would not be happening.

The fourth key reason is that, under this policy, the beneficiary pays. That is a key principle.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Is this debate not taking place basically because it sticks in the gullet of Labour Members that we have increased social mobility? Does not that echo the words of the Prime Minister, who said, “If you want a lecture on poverty, talk to the Labour party; if you want action on poverty, speak to the Conservative party”?

[James Cartlidge]

That is absolutely right.

The principle that the beneficiary pays is about not getting the poorer working-class people who have chosen not to go to university to pay for the education of others who will go on to earn significantly more than them. That is a fair principle, and that is why this is about fairness.

The key reason why I support the measure is that it is about the quality of the education. What really matters to the student from a disadvantaged background is that they achieve an excellent degree that enables them to earn a good salary and get on in life. That is the single most important thing. If universities are well funded, students will have more chance of a good-quality degree. I also believe profoundly that when people pay for something—when they contribute—they take it more seriously and therefore get more out of it. [Interruption.] SNP Members are laughing. I am delighted to see so many of them, because only two or three of them were here yesterday when we were discussing the crisis in North sea oil. I was quite surprised about that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell talked about his experience. Before I came to this House, I ran a small business as a mortgage broker. For many years, we were very fortunate to have an exclusive arrangement with Britannia building society for a range of graduate mortgages called Graduate Network. Having seen thousands upon thousands of applications from graduates—many of whom, I am pleased to say, went on to buy a home—I never failed to be astonished that the more debt they had, the higher their earnings were. That was often because they had undertaken professional studies. Those who had had professional studies loans from the banks and gone on, for example, to do law and study at the Bar had the highest earnings.

Of course we do not want people to have ridiculously high debts. That is why, as my hon. Friend said, the debts would be cancelled after 30 years if not repaid. However, we have to get our heads around the key point that what really matters is the quality of the education that our students have.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that extending the system of finance so that more part-time and postgraduate students can receive funding is helping social mobility and providing greater opportunities for people who would otherwise not be able to have access to higher or postgraduate education?

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[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The Minister is introducing for the first time masters loans, and that is incredibly important. In my experience, those who had borrowed eye-watering sums to do professional studies and courses that led to the biggest salaries, such as a masters of business administration, often had very high earnings indeed. That is a reality of life. It is about the quality of degree someone gets.

I am pleased to see that the time remaining to me has frozen at three minutes and 13 seconds, but I will wrap up because lots of hon. Members want to get in. On the broader economic issue, the number of graduate jobs has increased by 7.5%. The most important contribution the Government can make to higher education is to have a strong economy offering lots of opportunities for our graduates to ensure that they can earn salaries and therefore repay the cost of the education that they have benefited from.

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[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

I went to Aberdeen University in 1977. I was the first member of my extended family to go to university, and I was able to do so because the tuition was free and I got a full maintenance grant. If it had not been for the Wilson Governments of the 1960s, I would not have had the opportunities I have had in my life. I can understand people from privileged backgrounds protecting privilege, but what really sticks in my throat is that those who have climbed that ladder of opportunity themselves are now determined to kick it away from other students. That is a disgrace.

We should be in no doubt that these decisions will have layers of consequences. On an individual level, they will result in lives less fulfilled and opportunities forgone. On a community level, people will see this pathway out of poverty being barricaded before their eyes. Most of all, the effects will be felt on a national level. How many surgeons, architects, doctors and writers will not emerge because of the denial of this opportunity?

Let us make no mistake: this is an attack on the poor. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), who is no longer in his place, asked whether poor people could not simply take out loans. Well of course they can, and, by the way, they are more used to doing so than many Conservative Members are. But the real question is this: is it fair that people from the poorest backgrounds should have to take on more debt to get the same opportunities as their counterparts in well-off families? That is iniquitous, and we should not tolerate it.

The Government seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that students are all rich, and that they benefit from their education so much that it is okay to charge them whatever they want to. That is not the case. A small minority do extremely well and become rich—

[James Cartlidge]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tommy Sheppard]

I have been told not to take an intervention.

A small minority do become rich, and if the Government want them to pay, they should introduce a progressive taxation system whereby people pay more when they start to earn those high wages. Instead, of course, they are cutting taxes for the highest earners in our communities. Nowhere is this thrown into sharper relief than in the situation of nurses and midwives. The abolition of grants for nurses and midwives will not only penalise the people who want to contribute to our national health service but undermine our NHS itself. Not for the first time, I am so pleased that in Scotland we have a Scottish Government who stand between the young people in that country and the mal intent of this Government here. We will not abolish grants for nurses or midwives. We will maintain maintenance grants. Most of all, we will keep tuition free and we will make sure that people are not saddled with the debts they are saddled with in this country. If ever there was a case for a measure not applying and not being certified, it is this, because I have more than 2,000 constituents directly affected and it is unfair that my vote will be disregarded.

Trade Union Bill

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

I agree with that. Seasoned veterans of the House will know what I mean when I say that this is Keith Joseph, phase 3. This is an ideological attack on the largest group in civic society that stands up against exploitation.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

It was a pleasure to serve on the Bill Committee and the hon. Gentleman was a wily performer. He talks about Keith Joseph and says that we are not in the real world. I remind him that we heard evidence right at the beginning of our consideration from the chief executive of Arriva buses, who said that on a vote of 17% of the staff of his firm, 50% of all buses in London were stopped. Think of the disruption that that caused for real people out there in the real world.

[Chris Stephens]

The key issue was not the number of people who were balloted, but the number of fellow workers who then came out to support them. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there was other evidence of employee intimidation and blacklisting, and the Government need to answer that point later in our debate.

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[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I well remember as a young boy how my mother’s trade union helped her when she got a hernia from lifting tables as a dinner lady. Without its help, she would never have got the support she needed, and might even have lost her job. That experience of what trade unions actually do is something that Government Members often do not understand.

[James Cartlidge]

Talking about women, who do we seriously think is most affected when schools close because of ballots with low support? In Committee, we heard about the effect of school closures in 2011 on millions of parents. In most cases, those strikes had the support of well under 40%.

[Kevin Brennan]

I take it, then, that the hon. Gentleman wants higher turnouts in ballots and so will be supporting our new clauses and amendments allowing for workplace balloting and e-balloting.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

I will not give way, as I wish to press on.

I was not a member of the Bill Committee, but I have read some of the submissions on this issue from the unions. The Fire Brigades Union said that it had met the thresholds in its recent ballots. Such unions, which are already ensuring an effective turnout, need not be concerned about this proposed legislation. Furthermore, they do not need to be concerned about the provisions as they currently stand, unamended in the Bill. Indeed, where it is right that action should be taken—it is clear that this method of negotiation is needed—they should be confident that their members will make every effort to vote for it.

These measures are meant to ensure that, where there is not such support, the interests of the public are protected and weighed into the balance. In one intervention in this debate, it was suggested that the thresholds have been met in transport. In fact, the bus drivers strike earlier this year took place at the behest of a turnout of 21%, inconveniencing all the workers who were attempting to get to work. Transport for London reported that there were 6.5 million passengers in London who needed to make alternative arrangements.

[James Cartlidge]

I am sure my hon. and learned Friend will agree that those people will be among the most vulnerable and lowest paid in the city who rely entirely on that transport system.

[Lucy Frazer]

That is absolutely right. When there are strikes, the people who suffer are the low paid workers who have to get alternative childcare, whose hospital appointments are affected and who cannot get to work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Lavery]

We are in a time when more than a million people, most of them in work, are claiming family tax credits, and more than a million people who are in work and have families need to use food banks. I mentioned gagging and eradicating dissent. The Bill is about keeping people quiet.

[James Cartlidge]

The hon. Gentleman has slightly widened the debate, with tax credits and so on. He talks about us putting our foot on the neck of the poor. Does he think we are doing that by delivering the record lowest number of workless households that this country has ever seen?

[Ian Lavery]

That comment would give me the opportunity, if the Deputy Speaker were to allow it, to diversify my contribution. The Conservative Government have increased to record levels zero-hour contracts, lower-paid work and the number of apprentices, but before Mr Deputy Speaker chastises me, I will move on from that immediately because it is nothing to do with the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Lavery]

That is absolutely correct and spot on.

I will very briefly mention one other issue. The Conservatives are suggesting something that happens nowhere else in society—that those who do not cast a vote will be classified as voting no. That is outrageous and horrendous. It is undemocratic. It is against International Labour Organisation conventions and against European Court of Human Rights decisions. That will— I repeat, will—be challenged.

I end by simply saying that, in my view, there is no place in today’s society for this unbelievably brutal attack on hard-working men and women in the workplace. I predict one thing: that when ordinary people are pressurised too much, there will be a reaction. I predict from the Floor of the House of Commons that there will be civil disobedience because bad laws need to be changed.

[James Cartlidge]

I will speak primarily to amendments 15, 16 and 21, tabled by the Scottish National party, which relate to the clauses on thresholds and the termination of the ballot mandate. My understanding is that if they were added to the Bill, they would, in effect, be completely redundant because they would require the provisions to be agreed by all the devolved authorities and, interestingly, by the Mayor of London, who I expect would very strongly agree.

It was a privilege to serve on the Public Bill Committee, my first as a Member of Parliament. I can genuinely say that I, for one, have a great admiration for the union movement. As a new MP, I found it stimulating and interesting to cross-examine the five most powerful union leaders. I went up to them afterwards and shook their hands. In fact, Sir Paul Kenny, perhaps sensing my inexperience in these matters, asked me whether I would like to come and join him on a picket line to find out what it was like. I am not sure which picket line he was referring to—perhaps the Chief Whip’s—so I declined it on that occasion.

[Kevin Brennan]

You have made that illegal, haven’t you?

[James Cartlidge]

Well, he gave me an invitation.

I must confess that there are many parts of the Bill on which I would not have been an expert had I not sat on the Public Bill Committee, but many members of the public think the same. If we were to talk about parts of the Bill to people who were not au fait with the details of unions or who were not themselves unionised, they would not necessarily be familiar with or see its significance. I do not say that with any disrespect to such issues, which I recognise are important to many Opposition Members.

For most members of the public, the key issue is the threshold. This is about the large strikes that, although relatively small in number, have had a massive impact, such as the London tube strikes. I would say to the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), who made a very impassioned speech, that if he wants to see fury and people considering civil unrest, he should go and watch London commuters trying to fight their way on to a bus because the tube was out of action because of a ballot on lower than the threshold we will require.

[David Rutley]

Too often, we hear Labour Members talk about the inconvenience of a strike. In fact, a strike can cause major disruption. Surely we should focus on that. We need clear accountability to ensure that such disruption is minimised wherever possible.

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend puts his point very well.

I would remind the House that when we took evidence, we heard from Roy Rickhuss—I hope I have pronounced that correctly—the general secretary of the Community trade union. He is of course very busy, at this very difficult time, with the steel industry. When asked about thresholds, he said that

“it is about having proper industrial relations and having a partnership approach. I do believe a threshold of 50% plus one is fair and reasonable, because that is what we have—that is our democracy.––[Official Report, Trade Union Public Bill Committee, 13 October 2015; c. 26-27, Q66.]

[Mr Anderson]

The hon. Gentleman has commented a few times about the fury of commuters. I understand that completely; we are commuters as well. If the provision goes through and the Bill is enacted, and a strike then takes place legitimately, is he really saying that that the people he represents will no longer be furious?

[James Cartlidge]

No, I am not saying that. If the strike took place with the strong support that has to be achieved under these provisions, the public would at least understand that it had full consent. They are angry about the strikes—we heard about them in evidence given to us by bus companies, rail companies and others—in which, on relatively small turnouts, massive disruption has been caused to millions of people.

[Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill does not ban or prohibit strikes, but ensures that the hundreds of thousands or even millions of people who are affected by strikes in vital public services can be reassured that there is a genuine mandate for such action?

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend puts it extremely well.

I finish with this point. The hon. Member for Wansbeck asked what support there was for the Bill. We have heard from the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce, bus companies, rail companies and, above all, the people who use the services. Even Len McCluskey issued a letter to the Committee supporting the 50% threshold. I accept that that was with e-balloting, but there is strong principled support across the country for changes on thresholds. I will leave it there.

[Ian Lavery]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Has the hon. Gentleman given way or finished? We need to get this right.

[James Cartlidge]

I am happy to take this point.

[Ian Lavery]

I need to clarify the point about Len McCluskey. Unite the union suggested that discussions should take place. It wrote to the Prime Minister suggesting that thresholds would be irrelevant if the Government introduced e-balloting in the workplace. That was the precondition.

[James Cartlidge]

I thought it was fair to give way to the hon. Gentleman, given that I had mentioned him a couple of times, but the best person to take those points forward is the Minister. On that point, I am happy to conclude.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

On Second Reading, I asked a question to which I have had no answer to date. Quite simply, what problem is this proposed legislation designed to solve? What calamity do we have in our land in the field of industrial relations that means that the Government of the day must prioritise this legislation? I cannot find any. The average worker in the United Kingdom goes on strike for one day every 15 years. It is therefore ridiculous that this matter should be the priority of the Government.

I believe that the only reason the Bill is before us, with so few Government Members listening to the debate, is purely ideological. I do not say that all Members or all strands of the Conservative party are against trade unions, but there most definitely is a strand that is very unempathetic to trade unions and that sees the ability of people to combine together in the workforce to prosecute their interests as an impediment on the rights of employers to make their profits and run their enterprises as they see fit. There is a hostile attitude to trade unions. That, unfortunately for the working people of this country, is the strand within the Tory party that is in the ascendency and in the driving seat in respect of this legislation.

It is a great irony, is it not, that to introduce this legislation, the Conservative party will have to have an unprecedented degree of state interference in the affairs of private enterprise? There will have to be state regulation of trade unions that is more akin to a totalitarian than a democratic regime.

I support the SNP amendments that would require consent from the local and devolved authorities in the United Kingdom for the provisions of the Bill to be implemented. In parallel with this discussion, we have been having a debate on the Scotland Bill about the competences and authorities that should go to the Scottish Parliament. In fact, we argued that this entire area should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament simply because it would mean that proposals such as this Bill would never see the light of day. However, we know that there is not a majority in this House for devolving these powers and I want it to be clear that we are not arguing for that today.

What we are arguing for goes to the heart of the debate in this country about who runs public services. It has been the will of this Parliament that many of our public services should be devolved to local and devolved administrations. It is therefore not right for this Parliament to hinder the ability of the managers of those services to deliver them by interfering and setting requirements on the most important resource that is available to them: the workforce. Just because the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has a problem managing relations on the London underground, the rest of country should not have to suffer.

A series of amendments seek consent on each of the major provisions in the Bill. I will speak about some of those measures, but I will try not to repeat what has already been said by my hon. Friends, much of which I completely agree with. A number of mechanisms in the Bill are designed to make it harder for a trade union to win a ballot to go on strike—let us be clear about that objective. However, Conservative Members are mistaken if they think that that will make a problem go away.

It seems that among the authors of this Bill there is great ignorance about the process of managing industry. Often, if a concern or dispute arises among the workforce, and members go to their trade union and the union decides to do something, that can be a way of resolving a dispute or problem to the benefit of the industry or service concerned. The additional measures in the Bill will make it harder for unions to go on strike, but that will let problems fester and dysfunction continue, which will not benefit the trade, industry or service in which the dispute is taking place. When a union eventually passes those hurdles and gets a mandate for a strike, that strike will be bigger, longer and more vicious than it ought to have been had the matter been attended to at an earlier stage. I contend that measures that the Government think are about making it harder for unions to take strike action will have a deleterious effect on industrial relations and make it harder for the management of public or private services to deliver and get the consent of their workforce.

Given the way that the issue is being discussed, it seems that Conservative Members conceive of facility time as some sort of stipend whereby union officials spend all day organising strike action and trying to bring industry to its knees. It is nothing of the kind, and if those Members had worked in a public service for one day, they would understand that often, union stewards and officials play an extremely constructive role at local level in the delivery of that industry or service. In many ways, their role can be described as that of a welfare officer, and officials often help out individual employees who may have problems with management or at work, but who may also just have personal problems that are affecting their work.