Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme

Debate between Jim Shannon and Charles Walker

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for that wise and truthful contribution. We met soldiers on many occasions, and I thanked every one I met for what they have done, because soldiers make a tremendous contribution to the whole nation and to MPs. My desire is that the scheme continues through the armed forces parliamentary trust, and the arguments for that have been well made. It is a wonderful chance to meet and greet, but more importantly to understand our troops and their struggles and to reflect on them, as we fight for them at parliamentary level.

The soldiers I met were always appreciative of us as MPs. It is not that we are better than anyone else, but we are Members of Parliament and they want to tell us what they are thinking and they want us to reflect it. They need someone to represent their views, which cannot always be understood merely by reading a report, and that is why, with the transformation of the armed forces parliamentary scheme to the armed forces parliamentary trust, I encourage others to support the scheme and see for themselves what happens outside the doors of this place.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

There are four colleagues standing and 28 minutes to go.

Cannabis and Psychosis (Young People)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Charles Walker

Thursday 9th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for raising a matter that could well justify a full debate here or in Westminster Hall. In Northern Ireland, we have seen a rash of suicides as a result of this very drug. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the laws on drugs should be tightened? I ask because what is happening in his constituency is happening in mine, and throughout the United Kingdom.

[Mr Walker]

I am very interested by what the hon. Gentleman says, but this evening’s debate is not about classification. A Health Minister will respond to it. However, classification might be a subject for another debate here, and if the hon. Gentleman tables a motion for such a debate I shall certainly support him.

For many young people, smoking skunk cannabis is like holding a loaded gun to their heads. It might not kill them—they may continue to have a life—but if they suffer from severe psychosis or schizophrenia, it will not be much of a life. It might be just an existence.

The Government need to get to grips with this, but the problem is that law makers and the clinicians who advise them view cannabis through the prism of their own experiences in the 1970s and 1980s, and, as I said earlier, things have moved on since then. The drug with which we are dealing now is highly toxic and highly dangerous. We must talk not about harm reduction, but about harm prevention.

We are responsible adults. I have had enough of the current trend of everyone trying to make adults children’s best friends. I am not my children’s best friend; I am their parent—I am their father and I must guide them and have their interests at heart. That is the duty of adults. We must not abrogate responsibility. We have to make young people aware of the risks they run if they smoke skunk cannabis.

I have an admission to make here tonight. I was the beneficiary of very good drugs education at the age of 14 and 15. I was educated in the mid-’80s. I have not lived a blameless life. There are things I have done in my past that I am ashamed of and I wish I had not done, but, as the Prime Minister said, everyone is entitled to a past. There were many drugs, but the one drug I really did not touch was LSD, because I was told that if we take LSD just once, we can have a bad trip and that can be the end; we may never return from that experience—the gate in our brain that opens up may never close. If we are lucky enough in our youth to survive using it intact as a whole person, we might in our mid-40s—as I am now—be driving our children back from football practice and suddenly start hallucinating again. That terrified me. The idea that I could lose my brain and my future terrified me, and ensured that at a time when LSD was rife in London I never—ever—touched it.

Drug education works, but we need to educate the educators. They need to be aware of the research that shows a strong causal link between skunk cannabis, psychosis and schizophrenia. As I have said, our health trusts are full of young people suffering the consequences. Families are being destroyed.

I will conclude by saying just a few more words. In an ideal world—let us have lofty ambition and strive for an ideal world—I do not want any youngster to take drugs. It is not a good thing to do; it is not good for their health, their future or their prospects. I will just say this, however: it is a lot easier to repair a septum in one’s nose than to repair a brain. Once our brain is gone, often the best pharmaceutical drugs in the world will not bring it back again—that is it. I have talked to dozens of parents across the country who are facing up to the fact that their children—the children they love, and brought into the world and nurtured—now have no future but simply an existence to look forward to. I do not think that is good enough, and I do not want to settle for it.

So here is my call to action for the Government: please take this matter seriously. Skunk cannabis has changed over the past 30 years. It is a major public health risk. It is robbing thousands of people of an opportunity to live fulfilled lives. I have worked with the Minister, and she has been fabulous up to this point, and I am sure she will continue her efforts to get this topic higher up the Department’s agenda.

Finally, I want to pay tribute to my enormously good friend Mary Brett, a former teacher who has worked for decades in the interests of young people and their welfare.

Outdoor Learning

Debate between Jim Shannon and Charles Walker

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that today’s young people, whether in primary or secondary school, have great awareness of the environment, climate change, litter control, recycling and such things? Does he agree—I think from his remarks that he would—that more needs to be done, and what is already happening needs to be continued?

[Mr Walker]

Absolutely. I completely agree. Through outdoor learning we can give people more of an opportunity to understand those things even better. That is one reason why it is a positive benefit.

Through outdoor learning, the new and energetic leadership of Tudor Grange has found a way to engage some of the most difficult pupils and provide a pathway to work for some of those who were simply uninterested in an academic education. By taking pupils out of the classroom for part of their day and engaging them in work and learning outdoors, staff have found that behaviour is much improved on their return to the classroom. Pupils who would previously disrupt academic classes are prepared to get down to work in maths and English much better, having spent part of the day outside. A local employer, Cobb House fisheries, has given the academy access to its resources, and the environment is used for forestry, animal husbandry, angling and orienteering. It forms part of a year 12 access to work programme but it also provides an environment for engaging 30 at-risk students who have a bespoke curriculum utilising outdoor education as their key hook.

The academy also works closely with a local farm, and a group of very vulnerable students has achieved the BTEC certificate in agriculture there in one year. The students are now doing a BTEC countryside and environment course as part of their programme. Those students are making significant progress in their literacy and numeracy from a very low baseline. They were not engaging with a mainstream curriculum before, and two students on that route had not attended school for two years before the academy opened the courses. They are now in year 11 and on track to achieve the equivalent of a minimum of six GCSEs, with improved attendance and better results across the board.

Outdoor learning at Tudor Grange extends to a cadet force branch and a course in public services, which is proving particularly popular in the academy with students who presented with extreme behavioural difficulties. The course includes a lot of personal health and fitness units, and local residents are now familiar with the sight of groups from the academy running in units around Worcester as part of their training drills. The principal tells me: “This is developing tenacity and determination in students we would never have attached such attributes to before”.

Speaking of the benefits of outdoor learning in Worcestershire, it would be remiss of me not to mention some of the wonderful work that goes on beyond the boundaries of my constituency. My hon. Friends the Members for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff) and for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) would no doubt speak passionately about the excellent schools in their constituencies that provide fantastic opportunities for outdoor learning. However, they are kept away from this debate by ministerial and Select Committee responsibilities respectively. I would like to give a couple of examples of how the positive influence of schools in their patches has been felt as far afield as my own constituency.

Top Barn farm, just beyond my boundaries, is a hugely inspiring centre for outdoor learning and a test base for the care farming movement. Hon. Members will be aware of that movement, and some may feel that it is beyond the scope of the debate, but the work that is being done there, to bring, in particular, children with special needs on to a farming environment, and ensure that they can benefit from learning opportunities there, deserves a mention.

Another institution that I visited recently, which hugely impressed me, was the Madresfield early years centre in west Worcestershire. That wonderful school—my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire was there on Friday—is the product of a vision for outdoor learning and the boundless energy of its founder Alice Bennett, a farmer’s wife who has devoted her life to bringing outdoor learning into a farming environment. It brings children on to the farm as their learning environment and caters for a broad cross-section of society, from those receiving state support and living in social housing to the children of the grandest houses of the area. Each child has at least two half days a week out of doors and children are encouraged to engage with the environment, take constant exercise and relish the opportunities offered by the countryside.

Perhaps I should conclude with the words of the very inspiring head teacher, who recently returned from a visit to Denmark, where she was looking at how outdoor learning is integrated into the system there. She concluded that

“outdoor education should be a human right. Its benefits in motivation and engagement, teaching co-operation and leadership, fitness gain and better attitude are beyond question.”

She also spoke of the miracles that happen outside with special needs children. I hope that the Minister will carefully consider the miraculous benefits of outdoor learning for her forthcoming Green Paper on special needs education.