Post-16 Education Funding

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes a very constructive point. We are going to consult on implementation. In the process of designing the new scheme, we have worked with the Association of Colleges, the Sutton Trust and others. I will be looking for evidence on the ground to ensure that all barriers are removed, and I would be very happy to work with the hon. Lady in the future. If she encounters any specific cases of students being unable to access the support that they need, we will ensure that they receive it.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I welcome the Education Secretary’s statement, particularly in relation to the more targeted support for those in real need. Josh and Georgia from Huddersfield New college in Salendine Nook came to see me on Friday in my constituency office. They were concerned about travel costs, including their train and bus fares, in our rural constituency in west Yorkshire. I see that the new arrangements will come into effect in September. How soon will colleges and sixth forms have the details of how the new arrangements will help with travel costs?

[Michael Gove]

I know my hon. Friend used to be a lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan university, and he has been committed throughout his career to ensuring that students from poorer backgrounds enjoy appropriate access. I hope the arrangements announced today will give his constituents the flexibility they need to meet the specific travel costs that his rural part of Yorkshire compels students to meet.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Prisk]

We got there eventually, Mr Speaker.

The RDAs have brought forward assets plans, which the Government are looking at. In the growth plan, we set out clearly how we will deal with them. The idea that we will be selling off the silver is a nonsense. I am sorry that Labour Members have nothing positive or intelligent to say about the matter.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to encourage entrepreneurship.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The Government have actively encouraged enterprise, including doubling the amount of small business rate relief for one year, launching the new enterprise allowance, and initiating a new programme in universities, Enterprising Academics. With support and practical input from my entrepreneurs group, I am developing further measures to support entrepreneurship around employment regulation and start-ups.

[Jason McCartney]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. I welcome, as do my constituents, the new enterprise allowance—in fact, my constituents have been asking me about that for the long-term unemployed. A recent graduate from Slaithwaite also asked me whether we might extend the scheme to recent graduates, to take advantage of their skills, especially if they have studied business or engineering.

[Vince Cable]

That is an excellent suggestion, which we will pursue. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the new enterprise allowance is being trialled in Liverpool, and will give people who would otherwise face long periods of unemployment the opportunity to start their own businesses with financial support, mentoring and access to loans. It is a very good scheme, which I want to encourage and expand.

Schools Admissions Policies

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lancaster]

I am aware of the problem, because it is the same in Milton Keynes North. However, I am also aware of my hon. Friend’s sterling efforts in getting many of his constituents into school. I congratulate him on that.

This is a particularly timely debate. The Government are reviewing the school admissions framework and the school admissions code, with a view to making it simpler and fairer. A White Paper on “The Importance of Teaching” has just been published, putting the onus of fair access to schools on local authorities. Fairness is the driving force of the White Paper. I want therefore to outline the situation in Milton Keynes and consider how we can make admissions fairer for schools, authorities, parents and, most importantly, pupils.

As I have said, many of the complaints I have received relate to the delays in council allocation and school induction. This year, Milton Keynes council received 327 secondary school in-year applications. This influx is to be expected in our city, which is an area of rapid growth. The Department for Education—or the Department for Children, Schools and Families, as it was then—recommended that places be allocated within five school days. Milton Keynes council aims for a turnaround of 15 days. Owing to this year’s influx, however, parents have seen a reported six-week wait for their child’s three preferences to be processed. Then, once a place is allocated and accepted, there is a further delay as the school conducts its induction arrangements.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. In September and October, I was inundated with problems from parents, particularly in the Holme Valley, Honley and Brockholes, with over-subscribed schools. Does my hon. Friend agree that consistency in admissions policy would be particularly helpful, especially when it comes to siblings being able to go to the same school?

[Mark Lancaster]

That is absolutely right. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point that I will come on to.

We can all agree that the last thing we want is children out of school. In fact, parents could be prosecuted for keeping their children at home for such lengths of time. However, according to a Mail on Sunday investigation in September, bureaucracy was barring up to 15,000 primary and secondary pupils from the classroom nationally. Each school calculates its own published admissions number—known as a PAN—every year. This determines the number of pupils that can be admitted to each year group. However, such is our shortage of places that 120 of this year’s 327 secondary school applicants did not get any of their three choices.

One school is bearing the brunt of the city’s scarcity of school places. The Radcliffe school in Wolverton does not fill its PAN, so when the council cannot give in-year applicants any of their three preferences, it allocates them to the Radcliffe, seemingly regardless of where the children live in our ever-expanding city. Head teacher John O’Donnell is currently dealing with an influx of 140 allocations. A staggering 119 are from children who are out of area, many of whom will have to be bussed or potentially taxied in from outside. Understandably for students who are out of catchment, Radcliffe was not one of their three preferences. The council is fulfilling its duty—every applicant is being offered a school place—but this is turning the Radcliffe into a de facto community school. Whereas 5% of its intake came from outside the catchment area previously, that has suddenly increased to 10%, and is set to rise further.

That volume of allocations has taken its toll. Mr O’Donnell is devoting two days a week to dealing with the backlog. His induction arrangements involve meeting the pupils and families to determine their requirements, be they special educational needs, academic courses or even language—after all, 37 mother tongues are spoken at the school. The induction process has been criticised, but it is understandable that Mr O’Donnell wants to get his pupils off to the best start. His school finally broke out of special measures in October 2009, after a well-deserved record round of GCSE results, but do we want him to put children straight into lessons that are not appropriate just to get them into school, or do we want him to continue raising standards? Such is the backlog that pupils are now being allocated places at the Radcliffe, where they will not be able to start for months. The result is scores of children sitting at home—not studying, just waiting.

Why has the Radcliffe seen such an influx? It can be partly explained by the creation of the Milton Keynes academy—a fantastic new facility, and the city’s first—which opened in September 2009. As I told the Secretary of State after he delivered his White Paper on 24 November, the academy’s PAN is lower than that of its predecessor, the Sir Frank Markham community school. That has displaced people from the academy’s catchment area, who are instead being given places at the Radcliffe. For example, Mr O’Donnell is for the first time seeing applicants from the Netherfield estate, which is 1 mile from the academy, but nearly 7 miles from the Radcliffe. In fact, many of the Radcliffe’s new intake of 119 are from the academy’s catchment area.

It is worth taking a moment to consider why it is so important for children to go to a school close to home. Once they are 18, many seem to pick a university that gets them as far away as possible—or a continent that takes them even further afield, on their gap year—but most school kids just want to walk to school with their mates. The national Walk to School campaign highlights why travelling on foot is good for morale and health, taking congestion off our roads and promoting a more cohesive society.

Government Policy (NEETs)

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Tony Baldry]

Employers are crucial to apprenticeships, and we all have a duty to encourage employers in our constituencies to take on apprenticeships. Those who engage with apprenticeships realise that it is actually a really rewarding thing to do. That has been demonstrated by a number of employers in my constituency who have taken on apprenticeships as a consequence of their involvement with the Banbury and Bicester job clubs.

As it happens, a number of substantial construction projects are about to start in north Oxfordshire, and I suspect that it would be daft for the developers to rush to recruit people from eastern Europe when they start to run into skills shortages. It must be sensible to liaise with those doing the construction and development work locally, so that they consider the extent to which they would be prepared to work collaboratively with the local FE college, Oxford and Cherwell Valley college, the Construction Industry Training Board and others. By encouraging young people training in the construction industry, they can start to grow locally some of the skills they will need.

I also understand that the bizarre situation exists whereby youngsters, once they have completed their construction skills training, are required to buy a certificate demonstrating they have the necessary competences, which costs about £200, but if they are under 18 Jobcentre Plus cannot fund that. It is slightly bizarre that young people who have acquired skills are unable to demonstrate that because they cannot afford the necessary certificate.

I am glad to say that in Banbury, with the support of Cherwell district council and the national affordable housing programme, we are staring a self-build scheme at Miller road for young people who are NEET. The scheme is unique in providing a blend of education and learning opportunities, to level 1 diploma standard, in construction for approximately 20 NEET young people so that they can improve their employment prospects and life skills development. When the houses are built, the young people will be re-housed in the completed scheme. It is hoped that that pilot project will demonstrate a model that can be replicated on other affordable housing developments. There are several partners in the scheme, including Cherwell district council, Sanctuary housing association, Southwark Habitat for Humanity, Oxford and Cherwell Valley college, Connexions and the children, young people and families services at Oxfordshire county council. The college has designed a bespoke course to meet the requirements of the scheme and is in the process of recruiting young people to the course. The intention is that work will start this month.

In short, that new affordable housing scheme will provide 10 rented units for young people, who will all participate in the building process and receive training from the FE college, leading to a level 1 diploma in construction, and 20 young people, NEETs, will be involved in the building process. I am sure we would have no difficulty in filling more such construction apprenticeships, and there are other successful initiatives, such as SKIDZ, which encourages youngsters to learn motor mechanic skills that are now extremely difficult to fund.

There is clearly a need to keep NEETs engaged. They are often youngsters who, for all sorts of reasons, did not enjoy school or who do not want to try something new simply for fear of failing. As I understand it, Jobcentre Plus and Connexions run a red, amber and green coding system for NEETs: green is for those who are engaged and want to move forward, and red is for those who have simply dropped out. The predominant colour in my patch appears to be amber, verging on red, which suggests that for those who stay engaged there ought to be some incentive, such as the possibility of outward-bound adventure training, or even free swimming. They are young people, and research shows that if a youngster drops out as a NEET, over their lifetime in various ways they are each likely to cost the state and state agencies £1 million.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way—putting an amber light on his pacy speech—and congratulate him on securing the debate. Last week, I was honoured to be invited to present the school awards for Moor End technology college at Huddersfield town hall. The school has faced many challenges in recent years. For example, 27 different languages are spoken among its pupils. What really stood out was that the head teacher, Jane Acklam, who provides inspirational leadership, was proud to tell me that only one of the 150 pupils who left the school last year is currently a NEET. Does my hon. Friend think there would be any value in keeping such statistics coming, so that schools can retain some interest in what happens to the children after they leave at 16? That would bring an added motivation and could then link in with the colleges and the wonderful schemes he has mentioned.

[Tony Baldry]

The right hon. Member for Oxford East made the point that young people need support, and hopefully they will receive that from their schools during their school careers, but youngsters become NEETs for all sorts of different reasons. Time has prevented me from giving details—I have given them to the Minister—of young people in my constituency who are NEET for all sorts of reasons. They can be young mums, or they might have become offenders when they were younger. The reasons are not necessarily the result of the school’s failure, but the fact is that a combination of different factors has caused them to disengage.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady, because I am running out of time and I want to get to this point: child benefit for families without a higher rate taxpayer will be maintained and will be paid for children up to the age of 19 if they are in full-time education. The Government will use some of the savings from child benefit to help fund significant, above-indexation increases in child tax credit, which will be worth something like £30 in 2011-12 and £50 in 2012-13. That is in addition to the increases announced in the Budget: £150 in a year for 2011-12 and £60 in 2012-13.

I can also assure the hon. Member for Glasgow North West that none of us wants any young person to drop out of education because of financial difficulty. However, we cannot justify continuing to fund a programme that is so expensive, unresponsive and poorly targeted. Instead, we will introduce an enhanced discretionary learner support fund.

Currently, £25 million a year is given to schools, colleges and training providers through a discretionary learner support fund, to enable small payments to young people to help them meet the cost of their education. Colleges value the fund, because they are able to provide support to the young people whom they consider to be in most need. They can also respond to any changes that there might be in a student’s household income during the year. After the EMA is abolished, the fund will be significantly increased over the spending review period. The detail of the future arrangements is still being considered, but we envisage that the enhanced learner support fund will build on the principles of the current scheme to provide exceptional targeted support to students aged 16 to 18 who are experiencing financial difficulties.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for saying that. Students in my patch who go to Greenhead and Kirklees colleges will welcome those announcements that the help will be more targeted. Some of the scaremongering around the EMA can now hopefully be put to one side, and I am pleased to hear that it is all about targeting the help on the students who really need it. I thank the Minister for clarifying that.

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, because he encapsulated in one intervention everything that I have been saying for the past 10 minutes.

In conclusion, I ask the hon. Member for Glasgow North West to bear in mind the economic background to our decision to remove the EMA. In today’s economic climate, with a budget deficit of £155 billion, the highest of any G20 country, we have a particular duty to ensure that we continue to spend where spending is needed and to get the best possible value for taxpayers’ money. We cannot justify spending more than £556 million a year on an allowance 96% of the recipients of which would have stayed on in education even if they had not received it.

We will, of course, continue to support the most vulnerable and to provide help to those who need it. That is why all schools with children from poorer backgrounds will benefit from the pupil premium. That is why we plan to increase and enhance the discretionary learner support fund once the EMA is abolished.

The Government believe that we should trust the professionals working with young people to make the right decisions. Student support officers in schools and colleges are better able to identify those students who need support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

9. What recent representations he has received on access to finance for small businesses.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

15. What recent representations he has received on access to finance for small businesses.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

The Government believe that improving access to finance is vital for small businesses. In response to our formal consultation on access to credit, we received more than 170 representations, and we will respond to them shortly. In addition, yesterday the British Bankers Association published its taskforce report on business lending, which has 17 separate recommendations. The Government welcome the progress made by the taskforce to date.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Prisk]

My hon. Friend is right to raise that issue, which he has discussed with me in the past. This is a particularly acute problem for those in the construction sector. We have sought assurances from the principal insurers in this area that they have now put in place for the coming year a sufficient risk capability, and they have given us those assurances. As with the banks, we will be closely scrutinising this to ensure that what they have said they have done is implemented in the coming months.

[Jason McCartney]

I echo my hon. Friends in pointing out that one of the biggest issues that I am facing in my constituency is the lack of lending to small and medium-sized businesses. In addition, Lloyds TSB has announced in the past month that it is closing the only branch in a market town called Meltham. In stressing to the banks that they need to get lending, will the Minister also stress that they need to start serving our communities?

[Mr Prisk]

This is something that we have raised with the banks. On Monday, however, I want to go further—that is when we will convene our new small business economic forum with the express intention of bringing Government, businesses and the banks together so that we can deal with these issues and start to ensure that credit is available for all businesses, large and small.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

I am always happy to meet Opposition Members who have local difficulties with local companies; I have already done so and I am happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman about this. I do not know the details of the case, and I have to say at the outset that we are not in a position to make available large amounts of public money, but if we can help in other ways, we will.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

T9. Will the Minister confirm his commitment to ensuring that the nation has the right kind of skills for a sustainable economic recovery by supporting ambitious young people and adults such as those studying at Kirklees college to improve their education and skills in further education?

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, I do indeed recognise the excellent work of our colleges. That is why we want to give them more freedom, more discretion and more power to respond to the needs of learners and local businesses. We have begun to do that during our time in government, and I should like to draw the House’s attention to today’s written statement, which goes further along those lines.

Building a High-Skilled Economy

Jason McCartney Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

I welcome you to your position, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you very much for inviting me to make my maiden speech this afternoon. This is quite a nerve-racking occasion, but I feel a little more relaxed now that we have been talking about football, which I know a lot about. Like the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), who is a red through and through, I am a blue through and through: I am a fan of Huddersfield Town, who play in blue and white. There are some similarities between our clubs—for example, the great Bill Shankly began his managerial career at Huddersfield. I am not sure how many other similarities we will have over the years, but I look forward to talking to the hon. Gentleman about football for many years to come.

I should like to praise Conservative Members who made their maiden speeches earlier. Again, I will mention football, because my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) is one of those Members, and I certainly enjoy travelling around Milton Keynes trying to find the football ground. My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) also spoke, and I wish Southampton football club good luck in the forthcoming season without the deficit of 10 points that it had last season.

I want to pay tribute to two of my predecessors. Speaking of football, it was at Millwall football club, three weeks ago, that I ran into Graham Riddick, who was the Member of Parliament for Colne Valley between 1987 and 1997. While I was cheering on the Terriers in the play-offs down at the New Den, I looked along the terracing and, lo and behold, there was Graham Riddick cheering them on too. It was great to catch up with him and he gave me many words of advice and encouragement, so I thank him for that.

I should also like to say a few kind words about my direct predecessor, Kali Mountford, who spent a lot of time helping me and my office manager by talking us through all the casework that she so pleasingly handed over to us; she looked very relieved as she did so. I praise Kali for her work with the Anthony Nolan bone marrow trust, which she has promoted in recent years. As a result of her hard work there, I have signed up to the trust and I encourage all hon. Members and members of the public to do so. That campaign was motivated by the death of a campaigning journalist from The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, Adrian Sudbury, and I congratulate Kali on highlighting it. She has suffered from poor health in recent years and I wish her and her husband Ian the best of luck in the years to come.

Colne Valley is not the best name for a constituency, because those coming from south of Watford, for example, think that it is related to a town called Colne in Lancashire, but it is not. We are in West Yorkshire, and we are proud to be Yorkshire folk. The Colne valley itself is one of three main areas of the constituency. It has some lovely little mill towns on the River Colne, including Marsden, Slaithwaite, which we call “Slawit”, and Linthwaite. I also have some of Huddersfield’s suburbs, from leafy suburbs in Lindley to more densely populated areas such as that of my Kashmiri population at Thornton Lodge.

Then we get to the valley where I live—the Holme valley, which includes my village of Honley, as well as Brockholes and the big market town of Holmfirth. It really is a beautiful part of the world with lovely countryside, stone walls, lots of sheep and lots of traditional folk. That brings me to Cleggy, who has had a bad time in the past month. He has had an absolute nightmare—[Interruption.] No, not that Cleggy: I am talking about Cleggy from “Last of the Summer Wine”, who, along with his pals Compo, Foggy and Nora Batty, is no more because the BBC has ditched the long-running television series that graced our screens on Sunday evenings on BBC1. That gentle comedy about Yorkshire folk, usually going downhill in a bathtub, was very much a mainstay of our television and it helped to promote tourism in my constituency. In Holmfirth, which is just a mile up the road from where I live, we have a Compo’s caff and there is a Wrinkled Stocking café just two doors down from my new constituency office, so we will really miss that opportunity to promote tourism.

All that brings me to the subject of this debate: the high-skilled economy. Many people say to me—other Members of the House probably hear this too—that we do not make things any more, but I am proud to say that in my constituency we do. It is not on a large scale, but I have a number of enterprising, entrepreneurial and innovative businesses that have set up, sometimes in old mills, to create products that have a niche market and that are exporting around the world. I shall mention just a few. There are little engineering companies such as Dathan in Meltham, which produces specialist gear cutting equipment that is used in the Formula 1 motor racing industry. Allsops precision sheet metal work, which uses the latest laser-guided cutting tools, is taking on apprentices. It is not on a massive scale, but it has more than 100 employees and it is looking to expand.

I also have David Brown Gear Systems in Lockwood, which I visited with the then shadow Minister for Universities and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr Willetts), before the election campaign. It has its own in-house training scheme called the Gear Academy and it is training some wonderful youngsters up to work on making gear equipment. Those gears are now being used not only in our submarines but in the wind turbine industry. I also have pharmaceuticals, with Thornton and Ross on the River Colne. I have an ice cream factory, Longleys Farm, which makes the most wonderful ice cream. It has just opened a new ice cream parlour in Holmfirth.

Talking of “Last of the Summer Wine”, we even have a vineyard now—a real live Yorkshire vineyard. A wonderful enterprising young couple called Ian and Becky Sheveling gave up high-flying careers, bought a lovely plot of land and planted their vines. They have just produced their first bottles of rosé and have obtained planning permission for a tasting centre and an eco-lodge. That will help promote tourism and we shall have real bottles of wine from the area of “Last of the Summer Wine”. That is fantastic.

It is these sorts of little enterprises that we, in a high-skilled economy, must try to promote. We have to cut the red tape; we should support them with lower taxes; we must give them the skills in the work force and the local infrastructure so that their workers can live and work locally. We have got to support local rural post offices. In my village of Honley, I have a most wonderful couple, Brenda and Duncan Bodenhem. The post office is not only their livelihood but their way of life. They organise the Christmas lights; they help all the old people come in and out; they do dry cleaning. They do not provide just the usual post office services.

Post offices, especially the rural ones, are struggling, and our post office network was decimated in the last decade. It is important that we support them, because once they are gone, they are gone. We also need to support things such as rural bus services, so that people can live in my rural communities and work there as well. We need to support the health centres and health services. I am trying to get full maternity services back in the area of Huddersfield. That is really important.

I am proud to have been elected the Member of Parliament for Colne Valley. It is a beautiful part of the world with some enterprising businesses and a fantastic football team in Huddersfield Town. We also have just down the road in Huddersfield the birthplace of rugby league, so I have to mention the Huddersfield Giants, who are striving hard this season. They are having a bit of a poor run at the moment, but I hope that they will turn the corner.

Before I sit down, I should like to say that many of us here in this House, especially the new Members, have been through a gruelling and hard-fought election campaign. I and all my family and friends went through a lot to get me here. I know that the Speaker himself had a bit of a tough election campaign. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) had a straightforward election campaign; his is the safest seat in the House. I would love to know what that feels like, having stood in a three-way marginal.

I was lucky to have my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister visit my constituency—not so lucky to have the Deputy Prime Minister—during the election campaign. I finally pay tribute to my fantastic campaign team. John Travis was my campaign manager. I have a fantastic family. My parents live just up the valley from me. I pay tribute to them. My mum and dad have never walked so much in all their lives. It takes about an hour to deliver to just three cottages because they have such long walkways. It is a privilege to be here today, but I am itching to get back up to the constituency this evening. The office is up and running, and I am looking forward to being out in Holmfirth and through the valleys over the weekend, representing the people who sent me here. There is a lot to do and I hope that I can do it with vigour and vim—and cheer on Huddersfield Town to promotion next season.