Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill

Debate between Joy Morrissey and Shaun Bailey

Report stage
Friday 14th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

I wish to touch briefly on the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope).

I had not intended to speak in today’s debate because I am confident that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) will get his Bill through. My main comment is about ensuring that there are no unintended consequences. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch is right in seeking, through his amendments, to ensure consistency throughout the piece and the quality of the advice that young people get. I am slightly concerned, though, because we do not want to create arbitrary methods that do not take into account local social and economic needs. As I said on Second Reading in interventions on my hon. Friend the Member for Workington and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), sometimes the careers advice provided does not necessarily fall within a strict framework in respect of the needs of the individual.

The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch are intended to ensure clarity and consistency. He gave the moving example of his daughter and how careers advice can have an impact; it is important to make sure we do not allow ambition to be stifled in any way. It is also important that his amendments do not have any unintended consequences. My hon. Friend’s intention in respect of both amendments is clear, but the issue is what the operational delivery will look like.

I was reassured by the response of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington to the amendments: he explained what his Bill seeks to do and how he has worked to address the concerns expressed. That being said, as the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) said, it would not be a sitting Friday without the wise words of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. I very much endorse the intent behind his amendments, but they might be somewhat wanting in respect of delivery, so I am reluctant to support them.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) for long championing all things education and for standing up for children. I have seen him, not just in respect of this Bill but on many other occasions, be a lone voice for children and for opportunities in education.

I appreciate the issues raised by the amendments. I agree that we need further scrutiny in that respect and to look into how we can help to give tailored support to everyone in need. In particular, clause 1, which extends the careers duty to all pupils to secure education in all types of state-funded provision—particularly alternative provision—is excellent, but the amendment talks about giving advice to all from one set point and I have an issue with that. We could look at further ways to dig down into a bespoke way of targeting, perhaps through a funding settlement agreement that provides a funding incentive for those providers that are able to get students into an apprenticeship successfully. The school could get an economic settlement for that in the same way as applies when students are able to get into university at sixth-form level.

From my previous work, I have found that alternative provision is often overlooked—it is often the way in which schools shunt off students who are more challenging and they are not then given the support that they need. When I worked in disadvantaged areas and with schools with low skills, my concern was that children were being taken out of the main school, put into alternative provision and then left at 16 with no qualifications, no help, no skills and no guidance. I appreciate the fact that the Bill and the amendments are trying to target that inequality.

The nuanced issues raised by the amendments are great but I would go even further. Clause 1(3), which extends the duty to secure careers guidance to academies and alternative provision, is welcome, but I would like to see a way of incentivising schools to pursue apprenticeships and to stress that they should. Many schools do not pursue apprenticeships because it takes a lot of time to liaise with the businesses and with the educational provider. Schools need an extra financial settlement or incentive to do it correctly, so we should look at how to move that forward. I know we are not allowed to discuss that in a debate on a private Member’s Bill, but I wanted to put that out there as we are discussing the amendment.

This is a nuanced issue. If things are done correctly, the Bill could help the levelling-up agenda throughout the UK. This is where children are falling through the cracks. They are being put through their paces until they are 16 and then left. They are not being diagnosed with learning difficulties and they are not being given careers advice, which would help the most disadvantaged access the career choices that they need.

I love that the amendments and the Bill are looking at how we target young people—people younger than 16 to 18. Young people from a disadvantaged background who have no family member in a job or career need to be told which A-levels to study. They need to be told that they need a triple science if they want to do something science related. If a young person does not come from that background, they have no idea that that is something they should be doing. This is a way to give that information to every child from every background. The immigrant child might be the only member of the family who speaks English as their first language. They are trying to navigate the British system and this kind of careers advice can give them the levelling-up advantage that they need.

I welcome the Bill and think that we can look further at these amendments to find a way to make the Bill as sharp and crisp as we possibly can.

Public Sector Exit Payments (Limitation) Bill

Debate between Joy Morrissey and Shaun Bailey

Friday 13th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

The problem of high public sector exit payments is not only the amount—sometimes £100,000 or £200,000; truly shocking amounts—but the acceptance of such payments by public sector workers when they seamlessly take up employment with another public sector body. For example, a council officer I knew received a £200,000 exit payment from one council and started at a new local authority the following week. There is no statutory obligation to post a declaration of interest in the way we do as Members of Parliament. We would have to declare that payment and it would be on public record. We do not have any sort of mechanism for, say, the chief executive of a council who moves to another council to do that. There is no way to see how much money they have received from the public sector for—we are not sure what. I see this happen again and again in the public sector. I welcome the transparency that we now have for Members of Parliament. We are held to account.

[Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, while we agree on the sentiment of the Bill, we need a wider cultural change and to encourage more diversity in such roles? Organisations should look not at lateral hires but at hires from outside—perhaps more people from the private sector. A cultural change in addition to the initiative in the Bill is perhaps the way in which to bring about proper fundamental change.

[Joy Morrissey]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Mergers between the public and private sectors are something that I welcome. Bringing private sector efficiency to the public sector increases productivity and allows for a merger of ideas. I have seen a lot of success in the past, where local authorities and even the NHS have brought the two together. It is something we should look at.

In my constituency, we have many entrepreneurs and self-employed people who work very hard to be successful, and they are somewhat incredulous that a public sector employee who cannot be fired or let go can walk away to another job and take with them a £200,000 exit payment and not even have to declare that as an interest when starting at a new place of public employment. There is scope for looking at this and figuring out how we can hold public sector spending to account, making sure that we have value for money. In 2016-17, it was identified that 500,917 exit packages were paid that exceeded £50,000—almost double the average salary that year. Worse, 1,600 of those exit payments were for more than £100,000—that one-off payment was almost three times the average household income in 2016-17. The total cost of exit payments such as these was a staggering £1.2 billion.

In the running of any organisation, it is important to ensure that a payments system is constructed to incentivise the activities that are desired from employees. I have no problem with that, particularly in the private sector. However, when we are talking about public money that is being used for the public good, a different level of accountability is required. After all, it is all taxpayers’ money at the end of the day.

We need to look carefully at the diligent application of the Government’s balanced approach to economic management. The potentially unlimited sum being paid as exit payments is alarming. We really need to look at value for money and at ensuring that every penny that we give to a public body is used effectively and efficiently. As Members of Parliament, everything that we spend is on the public record—people can see it all. I welcome that level of transparency, but why has that level of transparency not been applied to other areas of the public sector, particularly to executives? We cannot easily access how much a chief executive of a council is being paid, and we certainly cannot access how much they were paid in an exit payment from another council. These are the things that we should be considering and I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) has mentioned these important topics.

I hope that we can improve transparency and accountability in all aspects of public finance, leading to better value for money for the taxpayer. There can be some disagreement about the best criteria and what those are for judging what constitutes value for money, but the core concept is that, when we spend taxpayers’ money, we make sure that we know exactly where it is going.

As my hon. Friend mentioned, the Government have undertaken a consultation on this issue. I believe the consultation creates draft regulations that would apply to the civil service, all civil service agencies, non-ministerial departments, public bodies, the NHS and local authorities. This seems to be adequate scope for the application of this cap.

The Government are due to respond to the consultation by the summer, with the regulations laid before Parliament before the end of 2020. I hope that the Government’s measures will strike the right and fair balance and make sure that the scope of regulatory compensation and the regulatory framework that we put in place are appropriate for the circumstances. That will go a long way in dealing with this issue. I look forward to the consultation’s findings being released in the summer. I hope that this will be something that the Government take forward to ensure that we hold public sector spending to account in a much better way.