Disadvantaged Children

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

In common with all colleagues, I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for Salisbury (John Glen) for helping to arrange this debate. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) and the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) for their reports. Before I was elected to this House, the hon. Member for Nottingham North gave an excellent talk in my constituency which opened my eyes to this subject for pretty much the first time. I am grateful that the Government have sought to enlist those Members’ expertise.

There is great expertise, too, among Government Front Benchers, to whom I also pay tribute. I remember a visit to my constituency by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who travelled an awfully long way to find out about a particular scheme that was going on at Wolgarston high school in Penkridge. He did not have to do it, but he did so because he was interested.

I should like to take up three points from the report by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead. The first is the key fact that we have to get more young men, in particular, into work. That is absolutely essential. The unemployment figures that came out yesterday were disturbing, and the Government must address that. I look forward to the Work programme coming into place, but I urge the Government to ensure that in the months before that happens people do not drop out of the system. I know that things have been done to address that potential problem.

I reiterate what my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and various other Members said about the importance of having men involved in primary teaching. This week, I was at St Michael’s first school in Penkridge in my constituency, where the head made that very point, saying that there were not enough men in primary teaching and she would love to see more come into it. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead makes the same point about children’s centres:

“The lack of male staff is an equally pressing issue needing to be addressed.”

[Sarah Newton]

Does my hon. Friend agree that to address that imbalance, we might encourage more men to volunteer? In my town of Falmouth, the Rotary club does excellent work in a local primary school to help with reading, which has really improved reading standards.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I remind Members that they must speak to the Chair and not in the opposite direction.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. In my constituency, the Rotary club does work on reading in Doxey primary school. I remember how much I enjoyed reading to my children. I am not sure whether the feeling was mutual, although they told me later that it was.

My second point, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and many other hon. Members, is the critical role of children’s centres. We should ensure that, with the changes, we do not lose what has been achieved. The report by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead states that Sure Start centres

“should maintain some universal services so that Centres are welcoming, inclusive, socially mixed and non-stigmatising, but aim to target services towards those who can benefit from them most.”

I urge the Government to take note of that, and I am sure that they will.

My third point regards television and media. I take up a point made by the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), who is no longer in his place, about Staffordshire university—[Interruption.] I beg his pardon; I missed him. He referred to a particular media studies course at Staffordshire university. I must say that Staffordshire university has a very high reputation in media studies and is one of the major institutions in the country for developing state-of-the-art video games technology, which is a major export industry for this country. I just want to give some balance to the impression that people may have got from his comment, which I am sure was not intended as a generalisation.

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead talks about the role of the BBC. He recommends that it kitemark the children’s programmes that are most beneficial to parents in the development of language. I urge the BBC and other broadcasters to pay attention to that.

I grew up in a house without a television, and indeed still live in a house without one. I do not recommend that for everybody, although it has certainly done me, my family and my children no harm. However, I do think that parents should be encouraged to consider their use of television, and whether it is necessary to have one in every room in the house, including the bedrooms. Perhaps television could become a social activity with the whole family watching it together, rather than an individual activity with everybody watching their own programmes.

I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Slough about reading. Again, that is absolutely essential and something that we must never forget. I underline the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) about character—something that is sometimes forgotten. We have to have qualitative, not just quantitative, measures in approaching this subject.

I and my family spent many years living in Tanzania. A Swahili proverb says, “It takes a whole village to raise a child.” Many hon. Members have made that point in various ways. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) talked about the importance of community as well as family. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) talked about the way in which the built environment can help or hinder the sense of community.

I look forward to several further debates on this matter in this Parliament. It is absolutely essential that we take note of everything that has been said today and return to it time and again to see what progress is being made. We are talking about something that is vital to the future of this country and of our children, and it is essential that we do not just leave it to one debate and one day in a Parliament.