John Hayes
Main Page: John Hayes (Conservative - South Holland and The Deepings)Department Debates - View all John Hayes's debates with the Department for Education
(12 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
5. What steps schools are taking to raise awareness of the effect of human trafficking.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
Human trafficking is an outrage. William Wilberforce spoke of
“this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back…will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonour to this country.”
We must be in our age as determined as he was in his to end the pain of this wicked trade in human lives.
Mr Bone
The Minister and the Prime Minister have shown their commitment to fighting human trafficking, but the dreadful case that was recently reported of internal trafficking within the United Kingdom shows the necessity of our schools highlighting this evil crime. Will the Minister meet me, other members of the all-party group on human trafficking and Anthony Steen to discuss how we can take the matter forward?
Mr Hayes
Yes, of course I will. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that schools have a vital role to play, which was why we issued new guidelines to that end. He will also know that since he last asked me about this matter—he is a doughty champion of the victims of this dreadful trade—I have, as he asked, written to charities to engage them in the process.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
In line with the recommendations in today’s report on children who go missing from care, will the Minister please discuss with his colleagues in the Home Office the importance of keeping on the police national database the details of all trafficked children who go missing, so that they are not forgotten and so that if, for example, they turn up in a cannabis factory, they can be treated immediately as victims rather than criminals?
Mr Hayes
The right hon. Gentleman is quite right to draw attention to that excellent report, which I was able to read this morning. He is right that co-ordinated action by local authorities, the Home Office and the Department for Education is vital, and we will indeed go about that business in the fashion and spirit that he describes.
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)
On the subject of raising awareness of crime in schools, some primary-age girls are at particular risk of being taken abroad in the long summer holidays to suffer female genital mutilation. Will the Minister take this opportunity to emphasise the safeguarding responsibilities of schools in that regard?
Mr Hayes
Yes, indeed. I had a meeting with my officials and discussed just that matter. It is, as my hon. Friend will know—because she has also been a champion of these matters—something that happens across the year in different volumes. There are peak periods for this, and we need to take action to take account of that and to use all agencies to offer the right kind of advice in those areas that are most vulnerable and to those young people who are most vulnerable.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
In the response to today’s report on children in care, Ministers made no mention of the 60% of trafficked children who routinely go missing. Will he respond to widespread concerns surrounding the move of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre into the National Crime Agency, described by CEOP’s former head as about saving face, not saving children, and ensure that child safeguarding is made an explicit strategic priority for the NCA so that the focus on these children is not lost?
Mr Hayes
The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who has responsibility for children, are having a meeting this afternoon on just those matters, to ensure that our response is co-ordinated in the way the hon. Lady describes. It is fair to say that there is an issue about the different claims about the number of children who go missing and the need for a more consistent approach to how those records are maintained. I hear what she says and it will no doubt help to inform the discussions that will take place this afternoon—because we do not hesitate on these matters—between the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
6. What steps he is taking to improve the status and quality of the teaching profession.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
17. What steps he is taking to improve the quality of careers advice provided by those working in the education sector.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
The Government have established a national careers service, placed a new duty on schools to secure independent advice, established a new National Council for Careers, created a new destination measure to hold schools to account and we have asked Ofsted to conduct a thematic review of careers guidance next year. In short, we have done more in two years than the last Government did in 13 years.
Jonathan Reynolds
Quality face-to-face careers advice is essential not just to ensure that young people have access to opportunities and services, but to inspire them so that social mobility actually happens. Is it not therefore a mistake for the Government to be moving away from face-to-face advice? Surely, no one has ever been inspired by a telephone hotline.
Mr Hayes
We have invested in the biggest and best website we have ever had for careers guidance. We will have more than 3,000 places available across the country where people can access the national careers service. Yes, face-to-face guidance matters, but each school will make its own judgment in line with its own needs to do the best by its own pupils. We trust schools; the last Government simply did not.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
Good quality careers advice is affected by the image that different career choices have among young people. Will my hon. Friend give his backing to campaigns such as See Inside Manufacturing, which was designed to inspire young people to think about career choices in manufacturing?
Mr Hayes
Indeed. When visiting Jaguar Land Rover in Liverpool, I was fortunate enough to see that working in practice. St Margaret’s primary school was visiting that great British company as part of that programme, gaining the sort of insight into learning, manufacturing and employment that my hon. Friend rightly highlights. Of course we will continue to support that kind of initiative.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Last week’s CBI education survey found that 68% of employers were dissatisfied with the quality of careers guidance, but in just three months’ time the statutory duty for schools to provide a careers service will become effectively meaningless as the amount of money is reduced and schools have to define for themselves and pay for themselves from within their already squeezed resources. Given that the number of young people not in education or training and youth unemployment is at crisis levels, how will the Minister act from day one to ensure the consistency, accessibility and quality of careers advice?
Mr Hayes
The Connexions service was roundly criticised for doing none of that. Connexions, over which the last Government presided, failed according to Ofsted, the Skills Commission inquiry into information, the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, and the Edge survey. We will do better, because we understand that good-quality advice and guidance help people to change their lives by changing their life chances. Of course this is a challenge; it is a catharsis leading from failure to success.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
Given the number of young people who are still not in education, employment or training, does the Minister agree that it is vital for young people to be made aware, throughout the education process, of the apprenticeships and the vocational and other opportunities that are available to them?
Mr Hayes
As I have said in the House before, for too long we convinced ourselves that the only means of gaining prowess came through academic accomplishment. Like William Morris and John Ruskin, I believe that technical tastes and talents deserve their place in the sun, and the careers service will highlight that so that people with such aspirations can achieve their full potential.
Mr Speaker
We are grateful for the fact that the Minister of State’s literary allusions are as plentiful and apposite as ever.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
T2. If Britain is to be competitive, apprenticeships need to be a route to higher skills and to a much more highly skilled work force. How many young people are now taking advanced A-level equivalent apprenticeships?
Mr Hayes
We have increased dramatically the number of students doing such apprenticeships to 153,900 starts in 2010-11, which is an increase of nearly 90%. The really exciting thing is that, by the end of this Parliament, we will have more than 20,000 people beginning level 4 —degree-level—apprenticeships. When I became the Minister, there were just 200. From 200 to more than 20,000 is our record and I am proud of it.
Mrs Linda Riordan (Halifax) (Lab/Co-op)
T3. Why has Moorside school in Halifax not been included in the latest round of funding for new schools, despite the fact that it did everything it could to meet the criteria for that funding for its much-needed new build? Will the Secretary of State reconsider that decision?
Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
T4. What further steps will the Minister of State take to induce small and medium-sized businesses to create apprenticeships? In that context, I draw his attention to the excellent work of West Suffolk college, which is at the centre of my constituency and is now very much on board with his brilliant initiative for making vocational education “front of house” when it comes to improving the chances of our young people.
Mr Hayes
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for working with his local further education establishment and for highlighting the opportunities available to young people. He is right that we need more SMEs to be involved. That is why I commissioned Jason Holt to conduct a review of how we can be more helpful on bureaucracy and on allowing people to navigate the system more straightforwardly. It is also why we introduced cash incentives of £1,500 for every young apprentice that an SME takes on. My goodness, the previous Government could not have dreamed of that kind of record.
George Galloway (Bradford West) (Respect)
New Labour in Bradford has achieved the seemingly impossible by presiding over secondary schools in the city that are even worse than they were when the Conservatives ran them. In the youngest city in England, we are the eighth worst in the country—eighth out of 150. What special measures can the Government take these schools into to save the youngest city in England from the perdition of ignorance?
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
T5. What action are the Government taking to ensure that our vigorous vocational education at our university technical colleges leads to apprenticeships?
Mr Hayes
I share the view of my noble friend Lord Baker, who has been such an inspiration in respect of university technical colleges, that a key part of the offer should be apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds. Aston UTC, which opens this September, will offer those kinds of products for its students, and I expect many other UTCs to follow suit. We are doing what Rab Butler in 1944 asked us to do—delivering a vocational route as rigorous, as navigable and as seductive as the academic route.
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
On behalf of my parliamentary colleagues and the very brave young people who came to our inquiry and talked about their personal experience in care, I thank the Minister with responsibility for children for his positive response to our report on children missing from care. Does he agree that we need to take urgent action to improve a care system that is failing to protect and keep safe vulnerable children who run away and go missing?
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
T6. There have been recent complaints about the rigour and discipline of beauty therapy skills academies. Although the Minister may have had less time for a pedicure or manicure recently, will he confirm that he will bring rigour and discipline to beauty therapy skills academies, wherever possible?
Mr Hayes
Yes, the national skills academies were an invention of the previous Government, but none the less we believe they do an important job of focusing on those parts of the economy where investment in skills can facilitate growth. The academies are an important part of what we intend, but it is vital that they are led by employers, so that the system is responsive to need and sensitive to changing demand. I accept my hon. Gentleman’s support for them. He can be assured that that support is endorsed by the Government, who will continue to invest in them.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The Minister will be aware that in Amnesty International’s recent young human rights report 2012, young students had written pieces on child brides and on human trafficking. Does he agree that teachers have a key role in both challenging and inspiring pupils to take up such causes?
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
T7. The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning will recall visiting Warwickshire college’s Rugby site. This week, in support of vocational qualification day and together with Rugby borough council, the college has established the Rugby apprentice of the year award. I know how important he considers it to be to recognise the achievements of apprentices, so will he join me in congratulating the first recipient of the award—brickwork apprentice Lee Bradley?
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
I do not wish to distract the House in celebration of today’s birthday of one of our greatest living poets, Sir Paul McCartney. However, may I say that the Secretary of State is no stranger to the Twyford Church of England high school in Acton, which is well known for its inspirational head teacher? An insanitary cordon of fast food outlets rings that school, selling congealed, deep-fried lumps of mechanically extruded neo-chicken sludge, thus fatally undermining any attempt at a healthy eating regime. Will he speak to his colleague in the Department for Communities and Local Government to consider whether any linkage can be brought to prevent those foul premises from springing up around some of our better schools?
Mr Hayes
I have news for the whole House, Mr Speaker. I have asked the National Apprenticeship Service to organise a workshop for colleagues who want to find out more about how they can take on an apprentice. I have an apprentice in my office, my hon. Friend has one in hers and I would like every Member of Parliament to have an apprentice to show just how strongly we support opportunities for young people.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Joseph Leckie school in my constituency has now for the third time been refused funds for repairs under the priority school building programme. Will the Secretary of State meet me and the head, Keith Whittlestone, to see for himself and to say what can be done to access funds to repair that vital building?
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
T10. The number of apprenticeship places in Sherwood has risen from 640 to 990. That is excellent news, but what can the Minister do to ensure that the quality of those apprenticeships rises at the same time?
Mr Hayes
There are those, including many Opposition Members, who think that I have gone too far on quality. They want to return to the days when we did not have statutory standards, when we did not insist on a minimum length for apprenticeships and when we were not as demanding in terms of rigour. No, I say—we must focus on quality just as much as quantity, so I have done all those things. The previous Government could have done them and should have done them, but they did not.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
Month after month, I ask the Secretary of State for Education about the need for a new school at Tibshelf, and month after month, he gives the impression that “It is a good case, but…” Whatever has happened to the plans for Tibshelf school? He has not left them in a pub somewhere, has he?
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
May I ask the Minister whether it is the case that the further education sector is being asked to find a cut in funding of up to 5% in the next year, or to give an idea of its possible impact? If that is the case, what has been the response and will he resist any cuts to the further education sector, which will impact disproportionately on my constituency?
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
What advice would the Secretary of State give to parents of summer-born four-year-olds who, for very good reasons, wish to defer their child’s entry to school to next year, but feel coerced by the local authority to let them start this September?