Universities: Freedom of Speech

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

I have been very clear that we need to take a constructive approach and to listen to all views on this issue. We need to protect freedom of speech and academic expression, and that includes robust debate where necessary and challenging views that we may not want to hear. We are listening and we are determined to get this right.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act is not a Government scheme that is being paused, but an Act of Parliament that has received Royal Assent. It is a very serious decision to stop that in its tracks, so it must have been based on serious evidence. Will the Minister set out that evidence? Given the need to defend freedom of speech is now, how long will the process take?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I agree that this is a serious issue, and it was a serious and important decision to make. We need to have the right foundations in place to secure free speech in the long term in higher education. We will consult all the groups with an interest in ensuring that we get this right. We are listening to those who are concerned about the Act and its implications. We are also listening to those who supported many of the measures in the Act and would like action to be taken to ensure freedom of speech in higher education. It is because of the seriousness of this issue that we have stepped back, to ensure that we take that pragmatic, long-term approach.

Financial Education in Schools

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered financial education in schools.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Angela. Tip O’Neill was famously linked to the phrase “all politics is local”, but I can go one step further and say that this politics is personal, because I grew up with no financial education at all. I was given no education or instruction on how savings work or about interest rates. I was given no education about investment or what an individual savings account was—I had no idea. I did not know what pensions were; I had heard of them, obviously, but I had never been instructed on how they work, how to apply for one, what the options are, whether I should have a workplace pension, what a final salary pension is, what a defined-contribution pension is or what the differences between them might be—I had no idea.

I had no idea what mortgages were. I had heard of them, obviously, and I knew that people had them, but I did not know how to apply for them, the differences between an interest-only mortgage and a repayment mortgage, or what an endowment mortgage was—I had no idea. I had no idea about debt and debt management; I knew that I spent my money too quickly, but I did not know anything about debt management. If I got to a stage where I was in financial stress, as many people do during their lives, I had no training at all on how to manage that effectively.

I have children now—a 20-year-old who is just going off to university, a 17-year-old, and a 14-year-old. During the recess, I asked them whether they had received any financial education or training. Getting on for 40 years since my defective education, they have not received any education about financial matters at all, yet we know that that is a crucial part of our lives. A huge amount of research has been done by academics and the financial sector on how important financial training is for people’s ability to lead normal, high-quality, independent lives. I will go through a little of that research to give Members a flavour of it.

Cambridge University and the Money Advice Service did some work in 2013 in which they established that most money habits are embedded by the age of seven. They found that it was difficult to reverse those early-learned approaches later in life. If somebody does not have them by the age of seven, when they are at primary school, they are already on the back foot.

This year, Santander surveyed a large sample of adults in the UK, and 70% reported that better financial education would have improved their ability to manage their finances during the cost of living crisis. This is a real and present issue. Some 68% of adults think that financial education should be part of the primary school curriculum, so it has broad support from the general population. This is a real problem. I am not alone and I was not unique. I am the general public; I have not received financial education. That has a huge effect on people’s lives right now.

Back in 2021, GoHenry, Censuswide and Development Economics demonstrated at the very least a correlation between the financial education someone receives as a child and their later earning capability. Some 46% of those earning less than £15,000 had received financial education; among those earning between £55,000 and £65,000 a year, 77% had received financial education. It has also been demonstrated that if somebody receives financial education as a child, they save more into their pension pot. On average, people who receive financial education as a child save 44% more each month into their pension than those who did not. That is a startling statistic, and it is not just pensions, but savings more generally: of those who received financial education, more than 50% had saved more than £5,000 for a rainy day; of those with no financial education, only a third had saved that much.

I am sure Members are asking themselves whether that is correlation or causation. If it is causation the debate should finish now because the case has been made overwhelmingly for effective financial education in the school curriculum, but let us consider whether it is correlation. What we are really saying is that there is a middle-class secret to financial education and that those who receive such education at home get a huge leg-up throughout the rest of their lives. Even if it is correlation, it is the job of state education, universally applied, to overcome the deficit and level up so that we can close the middle-class leg-up and bring everyone up to the same standard.

I accept that the formal education system is not about proselytising—it is perhaps not appropriate for a teacher to say, “You must have a pension”—but it is about providing knowledge and information so that students can go on to make good decisions themselves. It is not the role of a teacher to say, “You have to do it.” I accept that. But where the outcome of a good decision is so profound both for the individual and for society it begs the question: how much of that knowledge should the education system focus on providing? A good decision in this area has a huge impact on society.

Let us look at the economy. In 2022, the pension wealth of this country was £5.4 trillion—in private pensions, not state pensions. Some 42% of all household wealth is contained in the pension system, 69% of which is invested in UK assets. If we made a small change in the amount of money going through the pension system, that would have an enormous impact on the level of productive investment in the United Kingdom economy.

Then we have the impact on mental health. We know that 11.5 million Britons have less than £100 in savings and that financial stress has a huge impact on mental health. I have had periods when I have been very worried about money. The worry is so profound that you cannot think of anything else. It dominates your life. We know that treatment for an individual mental health episode costs the state between £600 and £800.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on what would at any time in our recent history have been a timely debate. On the point about those 11.5 million people, most of them in the lower socioeconomic groups, does he agree that it is all the more important that teachers and those involved at the outset of people’s careers try to inculcate in younger people the need for and benefit of saving even small amounts initially, which build up to a long-term benefit in later years?

[Jerome Mayhew]

You are absolutely right. I will come on to the benefits of compound interest, which is part of the answer.

[Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

Order. I do not want to intervene too much, but if you say “you”, you are referring to me. As I am sure we all we know, he is “the hon. Gentleman”.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Of course he is. I am sorry for that slip.

Barclays, in its 2014 research, found that 17.5 million hours of productive work was lost because of financial stress. It came up with the figure of £120 billion of value lost to the economy because of financial stress in that year.

Then there is the impact on the individual. Last year, Standard Life did some research on the impact of compound interest on pensions. It created a worked example showing that if a 27-year-old got a relatively modest entry-level job paying £23,000 a year and contributed the minimum to their pension—3%—and their employer contributed the minimum that they could, which is 5%, they would, at the retirement age of 68, have a pension pot of £312,266, a very considerable sum to support them in their later years. However, if that person started saving into their pension just five years earlier, aged 22, their pot would be £424,618 at the age of 68. That is £112,000 bigger—an increase of 36%. The difference is profound not just for the person’s chances in later life, but for the state, because there are knock-on consequences for the cost of social care as we age as a society.

I come back to the point that I recognise that it is not the job of the state to proselytise or the job of educational establishments to tell young people that they have to have a pension, for example, but where the impact of failing to give people really good information on which they can take their own decisions is so profound, for the individual, for the economy and for society as a whole, surely there is a level of focus that the state should provide in giving detailed information repeatedly to young people during the educational process. The need is enormous and, in my submission, we do not go nearly far enough.

The answer, one would think, is that young people should be given financial education as part of the curriculum. “Job done,” we thought back in 2014 when the coalition Government did exactly that. For secondary education in England, it was made a statutory part of the curriculum. The devolved nations go further: they have it as part of the primary as well as the secondary curriculum. Yet the all-party parliamentary group on financial education for young people, which I am lucky enough to chair, undertook some research and reported earlier this year that, despite the legal requirement for financial education to be part of the curriculum, 56% of teachers in England did not know that it was part of the curriculum. That begs the question: how were they teaching it if they did not even know that it was part of the curriculum?

The Money and Pensions Service looked at the same issue but from the other end of the telescope. It asked children, “Do you remember ever having received any financial education?” We can forgive them a bit of amnesia, but only 38% of children recalled any. That means that 62% had no recollection of ever having received any financial education at all.

What has gone wrong? Why are we in this state despite the fact that financial education is part of the national curriculum? The first answer is that it is very easy to ignore. We know that there is a lack of awareness, because the researchers told us that the majority of teachers are not aware that financial education is part of the curriculum and they are meant to be teaching it. We know that it is not inspected by Ofsted. We know that it is something that is added in, perhaps as an afterthought, and not part of the core curriculum. There is an easy solution to that, and one of my requests today is that the Department for Education lead, or at the very least support, a determined campaign to raise awareness among educational establishments of the importance of financial education and the fact that it is indeed a statutory part of the national curriculum.

The second reason why financial education has fallen down is that teaching it is hard. Many teachers, just like me, did not receive any financial education themselves, and the survey evidence supports the fact that they do not feel confident in teaching a subject about which they know so little: 55% of teachers find it challenging. They went into further detail and said that there are time pressures and a lack of training—again, it is about their own financial confidence—and, of course, there are many, many competing priorities in the education system. We need to provide teachers with improved access to the training they need. Perhaps there is a role for teacher training colleges. Teachers are coming into the profession with no focus on financial education at all and a lack of confidence in their own abilities in this area. Could teacher training colleges have a focus on financial education as part of the curriculum?

There is a lack of time in schools. Can we integrate the teaching of financial education better into the other subjects that are already part of the curriculum, as part of applied learning? Again, I know that it is not the role of the Department for Education to dictate lesson plans to the 22,000-odd schools in this country, but it is the Department’s role to facilitate.

Using financial topics as the context of learning can increase engagement with mathematics. That is not my assertion; research has demonstrated it. In 2019, the OECD undertook a pilot scheme and found that where this subject was integrated, students’ performance on exam questions increased by 20%. That is very significant. Of the teachers who participated in the pilot, 81% said that it improved pupils’ understanding of financial matters, which we would expect, but about 50% said that their students demonstrated improved attitudes to maths as well. That is quite startling. It improves their ability to answer questions, and it improves their approach to the harder core subject of mathematics. Does the Minister agree with that analysis, and if so, what work is being done to develop this approach more widely within the maths curriculum?

Another piece of feedback, perhaps predictably, was that there is a lack of resources. There are loads of training aids out there. Every established and aspiring bank and financial institution is desperate for their environmental, social and governance departments to provide financial education to young people. Martin Lewis produced a textbook four or five years ago, which I know the Minister was involved in helping to create—more power to your elbow.

[Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

My elbow?

[Jerome Mayhew]

His elbow—I am so sorry. I am normally quite good at this!

I recognise that the textbook needs to be updated, but an improved textbook from Martin Lewis or the wider financial services sector could be taught for 30 minutes every fortnight for a couple of years during secondary education. Is that the sort of thing that the Minister and his Department could support? If so, what form would that support take?

One alternative to supporting the many multi-academy trusts out there, including in my constituency, with their internal teaching of financial education is to facilitate access for external financial education trainers to come into schools. Many of them are very keen to do so. Could we allow or even require schools that do not teach financial education internally to give access to accredited financial education training providers to do the job for them?

Let us bring that all together: we have learned that habits form early—by the age of seven. Should we not have financial education as part of the primary curriculum? Should we not learn from the good examples of what goes on in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, where financial literacy is measurably higher than in England? It is not by much, but it is measurably higher, and perhaps that is because they have financial education as part of the curriculum in primary schools. Should we not follow them?

Will the Minister actively support a campaign to increase awareness of financial education as part of the national curriculum for secondary education in England? Will he support the development of improved teaching assets, either within cross-departmental curricula at the moment, or through increased access for external providers? Will he encourage, perhaps in the first instance, voluntary access to external education providers? If that does not go far enough, will he mandate access if schools are not providing financial education themselves, as they are statutorily required to do?

I started this speech saying that politics is personal, and I believe that this is one of those small areas where a tiny change, relatively speaking, could make a profound difference to the lives of the people and economy of this country. We spend so much time here dealing with fluff—the latest 15-minute scandal, the eye-catching initiative. There are relatively few small, but very significant, tweaks that we can make to policy in this country that could have such a profound effect as tweaking the provision of effective financial education for young people. I know this is not an easy win, but it is an achievable win, and I encourage the Minister to grasp it.

[Dame Angela Eagle (in the Chair)]

I intend to call the Front Benchers from 10.30 am. If hon. Members who are not on the Front Benches bear that in mind, there will not be a need for a time limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew]

I have a number of thank yous, alongside those to hon. Members for their excellent contributions. I thank Young Enterprise—which provides the secretariat for the APPG on financial education for young people—and the Centre for Social Justice, the Money and Pensions Service and the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries for their briefings. The latter highlighted a point that has not been brought out in the debate so far: the transfer of risk from organisations to individuals, particularly in pensions, which has accelerated as we have moved towards defined contribution pensions and the ability to sell out our pensions at an earlier stage.

Financial education is a hugely important subject and it has been treated as such by all contributors. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) brought to the debate her experience as a teacher. The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) talked about the skills for life, and the need to use financial education as a tool for social mobility and to close the prosperity gap. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) mentioned important lessons on macroeconomics and tax, which may veer into politics in schools.

The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) shared her experience as an FE lecturer and spoke about the poverty premium. That is a really important point; there is a poverty premium in this country, and financial education is the kind of subject that can help to address it. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on her new position, and thank her for bringing her perspective.

Finally, I thank the Minister for engaging with me on this subject. There is so much agreement on the state of the problem, but in my submission there is more work to be done on the strength of the answer. I recognise the work of the Money and Pensions Service, and I hear with interest the plans for the Oak National Academy and the new work it has planned for next year. I look forward to many further discussions as we work together to improve in this policy area.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered financial education in schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

As I said, we are spending £1.6 billion each year on free school meals, which is targeted at the most disadvantaged children, but schools are able to use their pupil premium funding, which is worth £2.5 billion a year to schools, if they wish to extend the coverage of free school meals to more pupils. As I said earlier, we extended free school meals to all pupils in infant schools in an early decision of the Conservative-led coalition Government.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Children’s services in Norfolk have been judged as requiring improvement all the way back to 2008, so will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating executive director Sara Tough and all her staff, as well as Councillor John Fisher, on last week’s assessment that Norfolk’s children’s services are now good and well on their way to outstanding?

Careers Guidance in Schools

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to her place. Until last week, she was my Whip, so there may be a degree of Stockholm syndrome in my coming here to support her today. Even if she was not the Minister, however, I would be keen to take part in this important debate, because change has been afoot in our economy over the last 10 to 15 years. When I was at school, I was not asked, “the Army or the pit?”, but the choice was similarly limited. It is noticeable that, even at my school, there was no mention of going into business. It was just not expected, which is pretty devastating, and may explain some of the issues in the economy.

There is now a bewildering array of opportunities for the transition from secondary education to the next stage of life. I have never been more optimistic for the future of children and young people coming up through secondary education. There is a wealth of opportunity that did not exist even five years ago.

Let us look at my constituency, which is made up of largely rural farming communities in Norfolk. In the last few weeks, I visited a rocket company that specialises in testing satellites in microgravity conditions. Fischer Farms is building the world’s—or certainly Europe’s—largest vertical farm, which is wholly reliant on robotics and artificial intelligence. Some 17 GW of offshore renewable wind will be located in the southern North sea between now and 2030, a large chunk of which will come to shore in Norfolk, with all the attendant jobs and careers. There is not just one film studio; a second, and arguably a third, is being proposed. They are all exciting new opportunities.

I have not even mentioned the research going on in Norwich at the John Innes Centre, which employs 250 scientists at the cutting edge of gene editing, gene therapy and biosciences. There is also specialist engineering at Lotus in Hethersett. I could go on—and that is before we get anywhere near Cambridge, which is a huge hotbed of exciting developments.

School leavers have the world at their feet, but because that is so exciting, because there are so many opportunities, and because it is so different and new, it is daunting, and there is a correspondingly enormous need for support. When I was starting out, I had no idea what I wanted to do in life. If any young person is unfortunate enough to be listening to this debate, I reassure them that that is absolutely normal. In fact, the number of people who know clearly what they want to do in life is vanishingly small. Finding out is a process. As we develop through our experiences, our aspirations and ambitions develop as well.

The Government are right to have moved away from Labour’s 1999 target of funnelling 50% of all school leavers into tertiary education—into universities. In my experience, that was damaging, because many people were shoehorned into an educational environment that simply did not suit their academic inclinations or the line of career development that they would later take. At the same time, there was a proliferation of unsuitable courses, as academic institutions tried to maximise their fees. It is not surprising that 6% of all those funnelled into tertiary education ended up dropping out in the first year, which was a huge loss of their time, energy and money.

A very large chunk—not a majority, I am pleased to say, but up to a third—of graduates did not get the benefit of their tertiary education within the next three, five or even 10 years. Fully a third of them were not in graduate employment five to 10 years after their graduation. That illustrates a philosophical difference between the approach of Labour and that of the Conservative party. Labour’s go-to approach is one of social engineering via targets, whereas we in the Conservatives want to give people choices. We want to open up the world, and we trust people to make up their mind. We see that this very week in the Conservative party leadership election. The Labour party talks about diversity—they want targets—but they are led by a middle-aged white male. I have nothing against them, but look at the Conservative party—the most diverse group of people. I think we are about to have the third female Conservative Prime Minister, and if we do not, we are highly likely to have our first ethnic minority Prime Minister. Is that not wonderful? And it is achieved not through targets, not through telling people, but by providing choice, opportunity and personal responsibility.

[Mike Amesbury]

Also in the Conservative leadership contest, there have been promises of tax cuts totalling over £300 billion so far. Those cuts would have consequences for public services providing the advice and guidance that schools and pupils need in communities up and down the country. Some of those promises are folly, to be frank.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew]

I believe that the figure of £300 billion could come about if we had eight Prime Ministers all at once, rather than one at a time. If we take them sequentially, the offers range between £13 billion in tax cuts over the course of the Parliament, and £39 billion in tax cuts if my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) is elected.

I have talked about the opportunities in my constituency, but I also welcome the growth of apprenticeships as a viable alternative to tertiary education. It has already been mentioned in the debate, but it is worth mentioning again, that under Conservative-led Governments since 2010, more than 5 million apprenticeships have been undertaken—and the number is growing. Last year, there was an 8.1% growth in the adoption of apprenticeships, and that is an accelerating trend.

Earlier, someone mentioned—I cannot remember who—the problems with attitudes. It is parental attitudes primarily, not those of children, that need to be addressed. However, the data appears to suggest that that barrier is beginning to be broken down, which I heartily welcome. I also heartily welcome the universal technical colleges that have sprung up as a result of our innovative education programme, and the success through diversity in our educational provision. We have a UTC in Norwich; I am sorry to say that it is just outside my constituency, but we provide students to it. I visited it about six months ago and I was amazed by the links, and the dissolution of the barrier, between formal education and employment. Technical courses, on which there is a lot of work experience, are leading directly to employment.

Students are achieving T-levels, which are an excellent qualification that we need to build on. In some cases, the courses lead on to very well paid tertiary apprenticeships; but—there is quite a big “but” with universal technical colleges—pupils are drawn into the educational framework at the age of 14. I welcome the Government’s proposal to increase the age range during which careers advice is supplied, because some decisions have to be taken remarkably early. That applies particularly to those who are more capable of following the UTC route than other routes. We should think about that and build on it.

There are huge opportunities right now for people as they leave secondary education. Unemployment is at record lows—there is effectively full employment. In my constituency, the last time I checked, the unemployment rate was at just 2.1%; that is full functional employment. In fact, we have a need for more people. That creates opportunities.

Technical training through the UTCs and elsewhere is leading to the new industries that I have talked about. There is an increase in apprenticeships, whether they are tertiary apprenticeships or more technical ones. These are great; they are real opportunities. They are more diverse and complex, but I am really glad that the Government are getting behind them through careers advice.

Education does not stop when we leave school, and it does not stop at an apprenticeship. I particularly welcome the Government’s commitment to lifelong learning through the lifelong loan scheme and the lifelong learning entitlement. The modern economy requires that we develop and change our careers. I am on my third significant career, which may be one career too many for those on the Opposition Benches, but it is the modern way. It is exciting and a bit more nerve-wracking. We need to reskill, re-energise and go for additional careers. I am on the side of working people throughout their varied careers, and I am very pleased to be part of a party that supports that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mims Davies]

Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend, but I am conscious of the need not to overburden schools. Let us find the bridge here—the career services and the links to the local labour market. There are good ways to assist schools with this work—Jobcentre Plus, LEPs, growth funds and Mayors—but schools also have to be absolutely determined to look at careers and long-term outcomes for young people and not solely at exam results. We have to make sure that we do not judge whether a school is good based solely on exam results; it is about where young people come from and where they get to—their progression—and some people’s progression is not simply about exam results.

That leads me to the work of the kickstart programme. Despite the pandemic, we got 163,000 young people under 25, who were those most at risk of long-term unemployment, into their first jobs. How did we do that? We got the employers into the jobcentres and we put people together. We threw out CVs, because no one has experience until they have experience—of course they do not, particularly in a pandemic. That work provided life-changing opportunities for young people, but above all it stopped people asking for the finished article. Who here has gone into a role—this role, any role—as the finished article? We have to help employers to stop looking for the finished article and to think about how they were mentored when they went into that sector. We should take them back to where they were before they came into their grand or great role.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the full functional employment we have now, with many companies facing a dearth of staff—I refer to my former entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, in that I was an employer and often struggled to find staff—will help to change employers’ attitudes, so that they work with what they have, bring people on and help to develop people’s careers in situ?

[Mims Davies]

I say to my hon. Friend that there is nothing wrong with being an employer. We need people to take those risks, opportunities and leadership roles, but they have to have the experience and the start-up to get there.

I genuinely think we are seeing a sea change with careers and employers, and that lets me explain a little more about the kickstart roles that were created. We have heard anecdotally that around seven in 10 people have stayed with their existing employer, but we also found that many other people had undiagnosed health conditions, challenges at home or other issues that meant going into the wider labour market was simply never going to happen for them, and that was exacerbated by the pandemic.

When I was at the Department for Work and Pensions, we therefore opened over 150 youth hubs. Those were locally led, and included the careers service, local authorities, jobcentres and employers. People could go into a safer, more relaxed and more comfortable space to have a one-to-one conversation along the lines of, “What can you do, and what are you interested in?” If employers can spark that interest in our young people, or in anybody at any age or any career stage, rather than talking about what people cannot do, they can take a chance on people. With near full employment—employment is at almost 80% in some parts of the country—employers are having to do that. They are throwing out the usual way of doing things and putting time and training into people, and I do not think anybody really regrets that, do they?

On universities—my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) and others put this brilliantly—we really have to help those who perhaps feel that there is a stigma about not going to university. We are sending people to university who are potentially wasting their time there and who could be doing something much more productive and beneficial in the local labour market. However, that can be done only based on really strong, good reading skills and digital skills, and while many young people and many of us generally can hide behind our mobile phones and feel that we have digital skills, we simply do not.

We need to tackle the STEM challenge strongly, talking about the skills needed for different sectors and jobs and what is transferable, but we cannot do that without face-to-face support. We know that works in jobcentres and with training. Online courses do not equip people with enough to get into those sectors and areas, so they can do some of that training, but they also need practical, individual human support. It is vital that we give them that and tackle the STEM issue as a result.

In Mid Sussex, we recently had a STEM event, chaired by Phil Todd and linked to the Burgess Hill Business Park Association, where schools came to spend a wonderful day building bridges, weighing things, creating things, working on projects and working with local businesses that they simply would not have known were there. In fact, 70% of jobs in Mid Sussex are not on the high street; they are in small industrial areas, back bedrooms, villages and areas that are not seen, and they are exporting globally. People do not need to work in a big building to have big opportunities; it is important that young people see that.

On good careers advice, the main thing is to give people confidence that it is not about where they start but where they end up. I have enjoyed yoghurt making, selling kitchens, working in Little Chef and selling mobile phones and pagers—remember them? I want to return to the issue of job snobbery, because pubs, restaurants and hospitality are places that we love, and we miss them when they are not open and cannot serve us. When we go on holiday and go abroad, we see how those places are revered. People can progress quickly in that sector. So let us talk about careers as a whole. I will conclude, Ms Rees, as I am sure that time is against us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

That is absolutely right. I was delighted that Grantham College got £3 million to upgrade its facilities. My hon. Friend is right on the button to say that it is not just “degree or bust”, as it was once described by the Opposition. It is now not just about getting 50% into university and 50% into work; there is a third way called apprenticeships, which are the best of both worlds and lead young people into a new way of work.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to help facilitate collaboration between colleges and employers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Alex Burghart)]

The roll-out of new local skills improvement plans will forge new relationships between employers and the providers of skills to ensure that we have not only the right qualifications but the right qualifications in the right places.

[Jerome Mayhew]

The Government envisage as many as 600,000 heat pumps being installed every year, yet heating companies in my constituency are struggling to train or recruit sufficient staff for that growth sector. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a real opportunity for further education colleges to collaborate with local businesses and provide that training?

[Alex Burghart]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Local skills improvement plans, drawn up by employer representative bodies, will start to bring about that collaboration. There are already excellent training options for aspiring heat pump installers, such as the level 3 heat pump engineering technician apprenticeship or the T-level in building services engineering for construction—both of which are backed by Government funding.

Medieval History in Schools

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

I rise to argue that we need to consider the teaching of medieval history in schools. As every historian knows, when starting an essay we have to define the topic, so what is medieval history? At my university, I was in the last cohort to study so-called modern history, which was defined as everything after Diocletian split the Roman empire in 286 AD. In fact, I was in Diocletian’s palace in Croatia only last week, but I take a newer version of medieval history. More traditionally, medieval history is seen as the period following the fall of the western Roman empire in 476 AD to the start of the Renaissance and the age of discovery—a period spanning over 1,000 years. This period was one of the most important and turbulent times of human history, but this period is woefully neglected in our schools.

It is worth reminding ourselves about some of the key events, such as the settling of the barbarian invaders, the reconquest of the west under Justinian, the black death, the rise of Islam, the Viking invasions, the Reconquista of Spain, the east-west schism of 1054, the crusades, the travels of Marco Polo, the medieval warm period—the list is endless. However, our education system barely touches this, and when it does, it is only in the briefest of ways. How many people in England know of the initial defeat of the Viking invaders under Alfred the Great, the conquest of the Danelaw and the reunification of England under his grandson, the first ever King of England, Aethelstan? Where is the focus on the ultimate clash between east and west, the crusades, during which Edgar Aethling, the last Anglo-Saxon king, supported the first crusade, and Richard I led the third crusade successfully, or even the huge Anglo-Saxon component of the Byzantine Varangian guard? Why do we never hear about the triumphs of England in the late middle ages or the Angevin empire, when the kings ruled England, half of France and parts of Ireland and Wales in personal union—an early forerunner of our great United Kingdom of today?

Medieval history is all around us, in every single constituency and in most towns and villages, yet we do not readily recognise this fact. I look at my own constituency of Rother Valley, where we are rightly proud of our mining heritage. However, we rarely hear about our area’s medieval history, though I must say that local groups such as the Aston-cum-Aughton history group do a sterling job of writing it. If any area wants to stake a claim to mining longevity, it must surely be my area of Rother Valley. In Whiston, the mining of white stone was attested to in the Domesday Book, and many of our villages, such as Dinnington and Harthill, stretch back to Domesday and beyond. The owner of Firbeck Hall, Henry Gally Knight, was a Member of this House and a source of inspiration for the novel about the medieval knight Ivanhoe. Interestingly, Maltby in Rother Valley boasts Roche abbey, a medieval monastery that was later suppressed by the tyrant Henry VIII. Laughton-en-le-Morthen is home to Castle hill, the remains of a motte and bailey castle on lands granted by William the Conqueror. Anston also appears in Domesday as Anestan, for North Anston, and Litelanstan, for South Anston, potentially referring to a local feature known as “one stone”. The local limestone was perfect for use in buildings and nearly 1,000 years later it was used to construct the very building in which we are currently debating—the Palace of Westminster. Nearby Lindrick Common is suggested by some as the possible site of the battle of Brunanburh, when King Aethelstan overcame the Danes and became Lord of all Britain.

Elsewhere in Rother Valley, Aston was settled by Saxon invaders in the 5th century, with the village name meaning “the settlement among the ash trees” or “the eastern fortification”. Before the Norman conquest, a man named Lepsi had a manor at Aston. After 1066, William the Conqueror gifted Aston to his son-in-law, William de Warenne. In 1317, the village fell into the possession of the Archbishop of York, who held several leading positions in Government—Lord Privy Seal, Controller of the Royal Household, and Treasurer of the Exchequer. The villages of Ulley, Aughton, Treeton, Brampton-en-le-Morthen, Todwick, and Thurcroft were also all Saxon settlements in Rother Valley. That is just one constituency. There are so many constituencies across England. We all have medieval history in our bones and in our soil—including you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

However, we should not fall into the trap of teaching medieval history purely though the lens of England. We need to look at our wider place in the medieval world and at the wider impacts. I cannot think of a better example of the most important moments than the reign of the East Roman—some say Byzantine—Emperor Justinian the Great from 527 to 565 AD. His long reign exemplifies the beauty and importance of the teaching of medieval history, with which so many parallels can be drawn through the ages. Of peasant Illyrian stock. Justinian rose to become the most powerful and important man on earth—a lesson we can all learn from. He is remembered for building huge edifices and buildings that last and dominate to this day.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

I was listening with enormous interest to how medieval history surrounds us all. That got me thinking about architecture, which is one of the great examples of history coming to life. My hon. Friend mentioned the medieval period starting with the reign of Diocletian. Of course we see Diocletian windows in classical entablature. But more recently, we have the gothic and the neo-gothic—an example of which we are lucky enough to be in today. I am interested in his views on where we see the accents of medieval history in modern architecture.

[Alexander Stafford]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the beauty of architecture. We can look at some of the finest medieval buildings across this land. Westminster Hall itself was built under William Rufus, which shows the longevity of medieval architecture. How many buildings nowadays could last 1,000 years, as Westminster Hall has done, or 1,500 years, as Hagia Sophia has done, which Justinian himself rose up in praise of God?

But Justinian did not just raise up the Hagia Sophia, and many other buildings across the empire. He also did other great works, such as introduce the institutes of Justinian—the great codification and rationalisation of Roman law that, to this day, influences legal systems across the world. Perhaps above all, Emperor Justinian is rightly celebrated for his tenacious nature in refusing to accept decline, and successfully reconquering large parts of the western Roman empire: north Africa, Italy, Spain—not only was his reconquest vast, but it lasted for hundreds of years. The Byzantine empire, the East Roman empire, did not lose parts of Italy until well into the late 11th century. That shows the longevity of his conquests. Some historians claim that they were ephemeral —they were not; they were long lasting.

Throughout his reign Justinian was supported by his wife Theodora, who is one of the most inspirational female figures in all history, from whom we can all learn. Under his reign, there was the first recorded outbreak of bubonic plague, which is estimated to have killed about 40% of the population of Constantinople. The reign of Justinian clearly had it all, yet like so many other hugely important moments in medieval history, it is being forgotten and is not taught in our schools. Indeed, I think the lack of teaching about Justinian in our schools is an absolute travesty.

There is clearly an appetite for this history, as we have seen with the recent runaway successes of “The Last Kingdom” on Netflix, and “Game of Thrones”, which some say is inspired by the war of the roses. History bestows on us an understanding of the society, country and world that we live in. It explains why things are as they are today and provides a guide for where we are going. History is also wonderful for inculcating transferable skills, including the ability to reason critically, analyse, cross-reference, absorb and remember large amounts of complex information, and to write coherently.

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[Alexander Stafford]

Indeed.

Looking through the papers offered by exam boards, I was dumbfounded to find topics such as “Migrants in Britain: Notting Hill 1948 to 1970” and “Changes in entertainment and leisure in Britain, c.500 to the present day”. Those papers show the absurdity of the situation. The study of history should not be reduced to bizarre themes, modern niche events over very narrow timespans, or huge topics covering over 1,500 years of history. We cannot learn something like that.

I praise my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who during his time as Education Secretary insisted that more medieval A-level courses became available so schools could teach them if they so wished. The problem, however, is that most schools will not teach medieval A-levels because they do not have teachers with the relevant knowledge. The situation is self-perpetuating: as most universities do not have compulsory medieval sections, few history graduates have experienced the delights of medieval history. Therefore, each year, fewer and fewer teachers know any medieval history as older teachers retire and are replaced by younger ones. And the latter, of course, only studied modern history at university.

The teaching of medieval history can therefore be saved in schools only if universities play their part. Prospective graduate history teachers will want to teach material they are familiar with. If the universities they attended did not teach medieval history, or only provided options which few chose to take, they will not choose to teach it. If medieval history is to flourish again in schools, it needs teachers who have the knowledge to develop courses. We must start this at the latest in year 7. When we talk about the teaching of medieval history in schools, it cannot simply begin in 1066 as if England beforehand was in some dark age miasma.

Therefore, the study of medieval history must begin with Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Danish rule, include key figures and moments such as King Alfred’s salvation of Wessex, Aethelstan and the formation of the Kingdom of England, and Aethelred the Unready and the long build-up to 1066. We must teach about the roots of Parliament, first under Aethelstan’s Witan, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) said, but also under John, Henry III and the first three Edwards. We must teach the wars of the roses, the black death and the peasants’ revolt, and the important relationships between England and the Celtic nations. We must include the formation of Europe alongside key events such as the crusades, and even international figures such as Justinian, Genghis Khan and the history of the papacy.

Why is this so important? First, studying medieval history is fun. Vikings, the Norman conquest, and the crusades are obvious in this regard, but so is the religious dimension of King Alfred’s leadership, the battle of Brunanburh in 937, which confirmed the rule of England by the house of Wessex, Charlemagne’s coronation as Emperor in 800 AD, and the rout of the Byzantines when the fourth crusade turned on their allies.

Secondly, it is often claimed that modern history is more relevant to today’s pupils. Why? Why is the political rivalry between Gladstone and Disraeli any more relevant than the rivalry between Aethelred and Cnut for the control of England, or between Henry II and his rebellious sons? Politics 1,000 years ago encompasses the same ambitions and the same successes and failures as today. It could be said that the modern relations between the Christian and Muslim worlds are more moulded by the crusades than the present relations between France, Britain and Germany are by the second world war. Key moments such as the harrying of the north in 1069 began the pattern of inequality that exists between the north and the south to this day, and the red wall’s rejection of the European Union elites is strikingly similar to the north’s refusal to bow to the very same European elites who occupied this country 1,000 years ago.

Thirdly, the study of medieval history can be more testing and interesting than modern history because of the relative paucity of sources. Medieval historians and their students have to read between the lines, because there are far fewer lines. And medieval chroniclers were just as adept at spin doctoring or propaganda as Goebbels in the Nazi Reich.

Fourthly, everyone should know something about the roots of their civilisations. Modern political relationships and civic institutions can only be properly understood by reaching back to study their origins. People should not be allowed to wallow in ignorance about why pilgrimage is important to religion, why Magna Carta helped to frame modern day freedoms, why there are two Houses of Parliament and, most importantly, who the first king of England was—Aethelstan.

Fifthly, I believe that visiting medieval sites such as Hastings, the Bayeux tapestry, Kenilworth, Bodiam castle and the ruins of Glastonbury are often more interesting and bring history more to life than the battlefields of the world wars.

I have argued the merits of medieval history, but what can be done to ensure its future in our educational institutions? First, the curriculum must be changed to make history compulsory at GCSE. Secondly, medieval history must be a requirement throughout history education, from the beginning to the end.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am lucky enough to have a daughter who has just completed her history A-level. One observation might be that—

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Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Amanda Solloway.)

[Jerome Mayhew]

I was about to suggest that an argument may be made that there is insufficient time in the curriculum to accommodate medieval history. The experience of an A-level student in my family—I hope she passed last week—has been to have studied the origins of the first world war as well as the second world war to death. She has done more German history than history of the United Kingdom. Does my hon. Friend agree that there will be plenty of space for medieval history if we tweak the curriculum?

[Alexander Stafford]

I completely agree: there is plenty of space in the curriculum. Earlier, I mentioned that the “Hitler and Henry” version of history is often done to death. Children often study the Nazis and the Soviets at GCSE and then do the same course, just in more depth, at A-level. There is plenty of scope to make room for medieval courses; I have even suggested some papers that could be removed from the syllabus to make even more room for medieval history.

I turn back to the solutions. Thirdly, medieval history must be taught with sufficient depth and breadth, ensuring that an array of events and figures are covered, including pre-1066. Whistlestop drive-by tours of the battle of Hastings alone must be a thing of the past. Fourthly, we must prevent the teaching of medieval history from being stymied by being included as part of a broad, intangible theme such as “Sports from 1000 AD to 1950 AD”. Fifthly, universities must be told to include compulsory medieval history options on their courses, so that we have a strong and steady stream of teachers with specialisms in medieval history imparting their knowledge to the historians of the future.

The schools White Paper of March 2022 said that the Government would not make any changes to the school curriculum for the remainder of this Parliament. However, I urge the Minister to heed my policy asks in the next rewrite of the curriculum. I also call on teachers, schools, universities and exam boards to provide a more comprehensive medieval history offering right away. They do not need Government intervention to make that happen; teachers do not need the Government to tell them to take the courses already on offer.

Medieval history is in our blood; it is our past but also our future. It explains why we are the way we are and why we live the way we live, but it also gives us a guide for what lies ahead. It teaches respect for our heritage, values, and culture, and instils critical reasoning and academic rigour. By teaching medieval history, we are not only preserving the past for future generations, but ensuring that millions more Britons in coming centuries will experience the pleasures of studying such a fascinating and rewarding discipline.

Catch-up Premium

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con) [V]]

Over the past year I have been lucky enough to visit many of the schools here in Broadland, including, last Friday, Buxton Primary School, where year 4 students gave me a hard time about single-use plastics and the Government’s plan for the environment. The overwhelming impression given by all my visits has been one of determination and energy, with schools having risen to the challenges thrown up by covid-19.

Unlike Labour, the Government have been clear from the start that schools should be the last organisations to close under lockdown and the first to reopen. As we look at the past year, it is clear that that decision was right—and it was taken in the teeth of opposition from Labour. When school closures became unavoidable, teaching moved online and the Department for Education became the world’s largest purchaser of laptops, buying an astonishing 1.3 million devices to make sure that as many people as possible were able to take part in online learning, irrespective of their family circumstances.

Schools have adapted too. Any school visitor will recognise the huge difference in the quality and quantity of educational offering between the first lockdown and the second. Our teachers have learned a vast amount about how to teach well within the restrictions they have faced, but there have been enormous costs. A few weeks ago, I visited a secondary school where the atmosphere was positive and encouraging, and it was quite clear that the vast majority of students had bounced back. Yet that school now calls an ambulance to site several times a week to assist with pupils who have symptoms of extreme anxiety. The school has now recruited an additional two welfare staff to help smooth the path back to educational normality. I spoke to them, and they are extremely busy.

The point is that covid has not affected every student in the same way, so our response to recovery should recognise that and be targeted at the students who have really suffered the most. As we emerge from the pandemic, the Government are right to focus on areas where the evidence shows results, with support for great teaching and high-quality tutoring for those who need it. The national tutoring programme to provide 6 million 15-hour tutoring courses for struggling schoolchildren comes at enormous cost—£1 billion—but it is an intervention that can be focused by teachers where it can do most good. Those teachers’ own catch-up skills will be enhanced by a further £400 million of training support. That programme fits the real needs that I have seen in schools when I have visited them, and it is the right first step in the plan for educational recovery.

Child Food Poverty

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

There is no political divide in the desire to grapple with the perennial issues of childhood poverty and child hunger. We can describe child poverty as a perennial since the definition of it is a relative term—a child growing up in a household whose income is less than 60% of the national median. It is as much a commentary on the spread of household earnings as an indicator of want. But childhood hunger is an absolute—either a child is hungry or not. And no child in this country should be hungry.

The reasons for childhood hunger are complex and it will hamper our ability to address those causes properly if we choose, for political campaigning reasons, to over-simplify them. They include unemployment, a sudden change of family income, chaotic finances, drug dependency, poor access to good-quality food shops, poor food education, the breakdown of relationships and low pay in employment. I do not have time today to go into the raft of Government measures that have supported children and families through covid and beyond. I will focus on overall income, because if these things that I have mentioned are the causes of child hunger, then the solution to the majority of them is to focus on the overall income of low-income families.

I say that because providing for one’s children is at the heart of what it is to be a parent. If the state takes responsibility away, it also takes away dignity and self-reliance— it diminishes parenthood. As a parent myself, one of the key life lessons I try to give my own children is that of personal responsibility, so we should be wary of intervening in such a way as to undermine the ability of parents to do the same—storing up, as it will, trouble for the next generation of parents.

The Government must ensure that employment truly is the answer to food insecurity, and for that to be the case employment simply needs to pay enough. I am glad that it was a Conservative Government that introduced a national living wage and it is right that the Government should build on the early foundations to increase the national living wage over a timeframe that allows businesses to adapt their models to accommodate it. This year, the national living wage has increased above inflation yet again to £8.91 per hour and it will continue to grow until it reaches £10.50 by 2024—two thirds of median earnings, which is enough to lift families above child poverty, as it is defined.

I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) when he says that local authorities are best placed to help the most vulnerable families. However, universal credit, as a stepping-stone to readily available employment at a wage that is enough to get on with the basics of life, is the policy that will help to lift most families out of food insecurity.

I look forward to the publication of part 2 of the national food security paper and I welcome the Government’s undertaking to produce a White Paper within six weeks of its delivery. However, when seeking to provide long-term solutions to child hunger, I hope that the review will bear in mind the value and responsibility of parenthood, and make sure that its recommendations support parents in their role as the most important teachers of the next generation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to ensure the adequacy of remote education for children during the covid-19 lockdown.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to ensure the adequacy of remote education for children during the covid-19 lockdown.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to ensure the adequacy of remote education for children during the covid-19 lockdown.

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[Gavin Williamson]

Absolutely. We have always been clear—and I stated this to the House just a couple of weeks ago—that we encourage parents, in the first instance, to speak with a teacher or headteacher, and only as a last resort to go to Ofsted. We want to see and encourage as much live teaching as possible, which is shown to be the best way of delivering teaching, but a whole spectrum of resources can be offered. It is really important to work with schools, with parents supporting those schools, to ensure that we get the best solutions for all our children.

[Jerome Mayhew [V]]

I know from my experience with my own children that having live lessons taught online is much more effective than simply placing learning resources online. With more than 750,000 laptops already delivered and 2.9 million laptops already available in schools for the use of children, the digital divide has been substantially overcome. With that in mind, can my right hon. Friend give an indication of the percentage of schools providing live teaching online? Does he have plans to increase that further?

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the great strides that have been made in supporting schools, and in schools supporting parents, on the provision of remote education. We obviously encourage schools to put on as much live provision as possible, which is very beneficial, and we are working with the whole school and further education sector to support them with that request. We are seeing substantial gains, and we are monitoring the situation closely, as is Ofsted.

Covid-19: Educational Settings

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

We of course always work closely with the devolved Governments. The benefits of the Union are demonstrated in the fact that we are able to work together and at considerable scale to deliver benefits to all parents and children. Any additional spend on anything has Barnett consequentials, which means that, again, Scotland benefits from being in the United Kingdom and the financial support that the whole UK gains from being together.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con) [V]]

I know from my own children that a live lesson taught online is much more effective than learning resources being placed online. While teachers always need to be able to use their discretion to take account of specific circumstances, can my right hon. Friend assure me that the default expectation during this lockdown is for live online teaching?

[Gavin Williamson]

We have already set out really detailed guidance for all schools, setting the expectation levels for all schools and what they provide to pupils. We recognise that there will be a blend in the range of different teaching, but we have set clear expectations and if schools fall below them, parents can take recourse either with the school directly or ultimately through Ofsted.