Further Education Funding

Debate between John Howell and Richard Graham

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

The short answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) is yes.

Today, I want to set out briefly what the problem is—as you say, Sir Roger, many Members wish to speak—what the case for further education colleges is in more detail, what outcomes we would like to see from more funding going into the sector, what skills and productivity we should be looking for, and some of the key statistics, both locally and nationally, that are on our minds.

Let me start by outlining the problem. It is simply that education for 16 to 18-year-olds has, broadly speaking, not been funded as well as that for other age groups. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has done research that shows that. The chart we used in our letter shows clearly that, of the four main categories of education—primary, secondary, further and higher—further education is the only one on which spending has fallen in real terms recently. It is therefore the most deserving of the four categories, but let it also be said—

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham]

I will give way in a second; let me just finish the sentence. I suspect that all of us here share the view that education in general is a good cause for the spending review and the Budget, so this is not to decry the other three categories but to highlight the importance of more funding for further education. Three colleagues wished to intervene—I think they were, in order, an hon. Friend and then two Opposition colleagues.

[John Howell]

I will be as brief as I can. Does my hon. Friend not think that FE colleges have the ability to improve the situation themselves by attracting good companies in to help fund apprenticeships? That is precisely what I am doing with the FE college in my constituency.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is always a great champion of these things, and he is absolutely right. Colleges can certainly help themselves by attracting great employers to offer apprenticeships, and we can help them by introducing some of the employers if need be.

Online Gambling Protection

Debate between John Howell and Richard Graham

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered online gambling protection.

I am very conscious that today there are distractions elsewhere in the House. This debate on online gambling was never going to pull hundreds of Members away from the business of how, when and indeed if we are to leave the European Union. However, that was never the point of it. Today is a chance to update the record on where we are on online gambling, to recognise the damage being done in some very sad cases, where lives have been ruined, and to offer thoughts and float ideas on what is ahead, as well as behind us, and on the trends and direction of what is happening.

Given that the statistics show that 430,000 adults have a serious gambling issue, with 2 million more in danger of addiction and 55,000 children between the age of 11 and 14 already addicted, and with all those figures rising fast, it must be clear to us all that, yes, Houston, we absolutely have a problem. At a time when many in the country believe that Parliament and the Government are all-consumed by Brexit, it is even more important to show that that is not so. We can, and must, address an issue that will become one of the great challenges of our generation: how do we deal with online gambling?

There was a time when I thought that online gambling was a modest offshoot of the traditional bookies on the side of Cheltenham race course and Gloucestershire point-to-points. I thought they were flutters by computer for the technically savvy, but it is not so. In fact, online gambling has a higher percentage of problem and at-risk gamblers than any other type. When people log on to online gambling, they meet a plethora of sporting opportunities on which to gamble. How many throw-ins will there be in the first 15 minutes of an under-15 Azerbaijani football game? Nothing is too obscure to have odds attached to it. Not a single sport—I did not check Mongolian archery, but I am sure that someone, somewhere can offer odds—is without a gambling moment. With some 3,000 websites competing, there are plenty of options.

The size of the sector and its business is enormous, with annual industry gross profits of some £14 billion and tax receipts of £3 billion, 100,000 employees and some £200 million of advertising revenues. Is it, therefore, a huge UK success story? Yes, but even more no, because the dark side is horrific and growing. When some of those brave enough to talk about what has happened in their family do so, we really have to wonder whether we are doing enough to prevent addiction and disaster. I will give just one example: Martin Jones in Swindon, who talked to me this morning, explaining the story of his son, Josh, who eventually committed suicide in 2015 after years of fighting addiction. It is a truly tragic story, and there can be no doubt that the system is failing individuals and therefore us all.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. Is it not the case that online gambling has a predominant effect on the young, and it is the young that we need to protect in this situation?

GP Services

Debate between John Howell and Richard Graham

Thursday 5th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Howell]

I will talk a bit about funding later. I say to the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton that we are trying to put together a picture on the basis of individual constituencies. It is no use taking an overall, theoretical picture and then trying to work out what is happening in individual constituencies; it has to be done the other way around, by individual constituencies saying what is happening with them. I am setting out precisely the situation in my constituency.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

On that point, in Gloucester we had exactly the same problem that Members have referred to, so our clinical commissioning group managed to arrange funding for 300 additional hours in GP surgeries a week, which is proving very effective. That is the sort of thing that can be done locally by using the budget creatively. Does my hon. Friend agree that others might be able to explore that?

[John Howell]

I agree that that is a very good local initiative that could be spread across general practice.

Let me give the House an example. I happened to be visiting a surgery one afternoon, so I asked the staff what the problem with access was. I was told that a good example was a lady who had come in that morning to have her plaster changed. I imaged plaster being removed from a suppurating wound, but it was actually a small plaster on her hand. She was told to go away. I think that is an abuse of a GP practice by a patient.