Julie Cooper
Labour - Former Member for Burnley
First elected: 7th May 2015
Left House: 6th November 2019 (Defeated)
2 Former APPG memberships
Adverse Childhood Experiences, Young People's HealthDivision Voting information
Julie Cooper voted No - against a party majority and against the House
One of 94 Labour No votes vs 119 Labour Aye votes
Tally: Ayes - 415 Noes - 119
All Debates
Speeches made during Parliamentary debates are recorded in Hansard. For ease of browsing we have grouped debates into individual, departmental and legislative categories.
Sparring Partners
(14 debate interactions)
(14 debate interactions)
(13 debate interactions)
Department Debates
(137 debate contributions)
(23 debate contributions)
(13 debate contributions)
(11 debate contributions)
Legislation Debates
(7,460 words contributed)
(2,356 words contributed)
(690 words contributed)
(471 words contributed)
Latest EDMs signed by Julie Cooper
Intimidation in public life
Tabled by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)That this House recognises that intimidation experienced by those in public life poses a threat to the diversity, integrity, and vibrancy of representative democracy in the UK and that tackling intimidation is a cross-party issue; notes that abuse and intimidation know no political boundaries; welcomes the ongoing work on developing …
(Most recent: 29 Oct 2019)
Signatures by party:
Labour: 41
Conservative: 9
Liberal Democrat: 5
Independent: 5
Scottish National Party: 2
Green Party: 1
Non-affiliated: 1
Democratic Unionist Party: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1
Crossbench: 1
Voter ID requirements at polling stations
Tabled by: Faisal Rashid (Labour - Warrington South)That this House expresses deep concern at the Government’s announced plans to prevent people from voting unless they can provide photographic identification at the next election; notes that of the 44.6 million votes cast in 2017, there were just 28 allegations of in-person voter fraud and one conviction; recognises that …
(Most recent: 4 Nov 2019)
Signatures by party:
Labour: 51
Scottish National Party: 10
Liberal Democrat: 4
Independent: 3
Plaid Cymru: 2
Green Party: 1
Commons initiatives
These initiatives were driven by Julie Cooper, and are more likely to reflect personal policy preferences.
MPs who are act as Ministers or Shadow Ministers are generally restricted from performing Commons initiatives other than Urgent Questions.
Julie Cooper has not been granted any Urgent Questions
Julie Cooper has not been granted any Adjournment Debates
1 Bill introduced by Julie Cooper
A Bill to make provision for exempting carers from hospital car parking charges; and for connected purposes.
Friday 30th October 2015
1 Bill co-sponsored by Julie Cooper
Hospital Car Parking Charges (Abolition) Bill 2017-19
Sponsor - Robert Halfon (Con)
Latest 50 Written Questions
(View all written questions)7 Other Department Questions
The Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities has attended two public meetings of the Women and Equalities Select Committee since its establishment in June 2015, giving evidence to the Committee’s enquiries on Transgender Equality and the Gender Pay Gap. In my role as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Women, Equalities and Family Justice, I also attended and gave evidence at the first of these sessions. I remain informed of other public meetings via Parliament TV and meeting transcripts.
Attendance at Committee meetings is a matter of public record. Transcripts and videos of these appearances can be found on the Committee’s web pages, via the links below. There is also a transcript in Hansard.
DECC does not hold information on the number of solar power companies. However, data on the number of solar photovoltaic installations (including households) by UK region, are available for 2010 to 2014. This is given in the table below. DECC does not hold information by UK county. Data for 2015 for the UK as a whole will be available on 28 January 2016, and by region in September 2016.
End-2010 | End-2011 | End-2012 | End-2013 | End-2014 | |
North-West England | 1,404 | 17,723 | 33,208 | 41,960 | 54,583 |
Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) | 25,684 | 221,000 | 374,778 | 465,678 | 574,582 |
Source: Regional Renewables Statistics, 2003-2014, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/regional-renewable-statistics
Data by Local Authority (for 2014 only) are available on the same link. Monthly solar installations data for the UK as a whole are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/solar-photovoltaics-deployment
This is a measure led by HMRC and currently only a proposal being consulted on. If following consultation this change is introduced, we will carefully consider its impact.
The Government is committed to enhancing its support for postgraduate study and wants more people to have the opportunity to build on their academic success through access to a higher level qualification.
The new Postgraduate Loans for Master’s study are intended to be available for eligible students studying in academic year 2016/17.
The Government announced on 25 November that the new Postgraduate Loan for Master’s study will be available to individuals up to age 60. Further information is available via the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/postgraduate-study-student-loans-and-other-support
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, Ministers and officials in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and HM Treasury meet regularly to discuss policy.
The Government announced its proposals for a Master’s Loan at Autumn Statement and Spending Review 2015. Further information is available via the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/postgraduate-study-student-loans-and-other-support
The current Feed-in Tariff Review consultation and accompanying Impact Assessment set out DECC’s assessment of the effect of scheme changes on solar PV deployment and expectations of future changes in technology costs.
The impact assessment does not quantify the impact of changes on employment levels either in the sector or in the wider economy. This is due to the lack of robust evidence on the number of jobs that FITs as a specific scheme has directly supported so far. We have asked a question in the consultation about the wider impact of changes.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West on 3 February 2016 to UIN: 24662.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.
13 Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Questions
(View all Julie Cooper's BEIS questions)In 2015, it is estimated that 32,900 people aged 16-64 living in Burnley held qualifications at level 2 or above.
In 2015, it is estimated that 523,300 people aged 16-64 living in Lancashire held qualifications at level 2 or above.
These estimates use the Annual Population Survey (APS) which could potentially underestimate overall levels of attainment at level 2 or above. The Department produces national estimates of attainment (link below) using a methodology that enhances the use of the Labour Force Survey data, which forms part of the APS estimates provided, as well as matching to administrative data. This methodology was introduced because research demonstrated some people do not report some of their smaller qualifications.
More detailed information on the level of qualification held by residents of individual Local Authorities is available from the Annual Population Survey at the link below.
Since my appointment as Secretary of State, I have attended public meetings of the Energy and Climate Change Committee on three occasions.
Attendance at Committee meetings is a matter of public record, and transcripts of such appearances can be found in Hansard and on Committee web pages.
Attendance at Committee meetings is a matter of public record. Transcripts of such appearances can be found in Hansard and on the Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee web page here: www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/business-innovation-and-skills/inquiries/.
The Department monitors research into geoengineering and is familiar with the outputs of various programmes including IAGP (Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals; www.iagp.ac.uk) (conducted by several Universities including Leeds, Bristol and Oxford) and the GGR (Geoengineering Governance Research, conducted by several universities including University of Oxford): http://geoengineering-governance-research.org.
Based on these studies and other research we conclude that whilst geoengineering could cool the climate, it may also have unintended effects which could be detrimental to some regions eg in terms of rainfall.
For this reason and other identified risks associated with proposed geoengineering, it is premature to consider geo-engineering as a viable option for addressing climate change. For most geoengineering techniques, current understanding of the costs, feasibility, environmental and societal impacts is limited. The government’s position on geoengineering research is given here:
The Sale of Student Loans Act 2008 prevents Government from treating less favourably borrowers whose loans are sold, compared to the treatment of borrowers whose loans remain on the Government’s books.
After a sale, the Government continues to finance student loans and collect repayments through HM Revenue and Customs and the Student Loans Company. Purchasers will have no direct relationship with borrowers, and no power to amend the terms of repayment.
Information on the number of government funded further education learners at each further education provider is published online at the FE Data Library.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fe-data-library-local-authority-tables
The table provides a list of all further education providers, the local authority and local education authority of the provider head office, and information about the number of learners that attended in the 2014/15 academic year.
Funding allocated to training providers and colleges from both the Skills Funding Agency and the Education Funding Agency is also published online for academic years 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16. Links to the funding numbers are provided below.
Skills Funding Agency:
Education Funding Agency:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/16-to-19-allocation-data-2013-to-2014-academic-year
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/16-to-19-allocation-data-2014-to-2015-academic-year
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/16-to-19-allocation-data-2015-to-2016-academic-year
Some further education colleges also receive government funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) for their higher education provision. Information on HEFCE’s recurrent grant allocations in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years are published on their website:
2014-15 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/funding/annallocns/1415/institutions/
2015-16 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/funding/annallocns/1516/institutions/
Income Contingent Repayment (ICR) Student Loans are available to assist higher education students with the payment of their tuition fees. Information on tuition fee loans paid to individual higher education providers is published by the Student Loans Company at the following link for the Academic Years 2011/12 to 2014/15.
http://www.slc.co.uk/official-statistics/financial-support-awarded/england-higher-education.aspx
Information on the number of government funded further education learners at each further education provider is published online at the FE Data Library.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fe-data-library-local-authority-tables
The table provides a list of all further education providers, the local authority and local education authority of the provider head office, and information about the number of learners that attended in the 2014/15 academic year.
Funding allocated to training providers and colleges from both the Skills Funding Agency and the Education Funding Agency is also published online for academic years 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16. Links to the funding numbers are provided below.
Skills Funding Agency:
Education Funding Agency:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/16-to-19-allocation-data-2013-to-2014-academic-year
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/16-to-19-allocation-data-2014-to-2015-academic-year
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/16-to-19-allocation-data-2015-to-2016-academic-year
Some further education colleges also receive government funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) for their higher education provision. Information on HEFCE’s recurrent grant allocations in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 academic years are published on their website:
2014-15 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/funding/annallocns/1415/institutions/
2015-16 http://www.hefce.ac.uk/funding/annallocns/1516/institutions/
Income Contingent Repayment (ICR) Student Loans are available to assist higher education students with the payment of their tuition fees. Information on tuition fee loans paid to individual higher education providers is published by the Student Loans Company at the following link for the Academic Years 2011/12 to 2014/15.
http://www.slc.co.uk/official-statistics/financial-support-awarded/england-higher-education.aspx
I have made it clear to local councils and Local Enterprise Partnerships who are administering the Business Recovery Grant that they should look to provide funding to un-insured businesses so long as it is clear that this is not rewarding deliberate bad business practice. So where a flooded business has made a reasonable effort to secure insurance and not been successful they can be funded. We have provided £11m in total to provide support to businesses, allocated to local areas based on the number of flooded businesses.
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects and publishes data on the destination of graduates from UK universities 6 months after graduation in the annual Statistical First Release ‘Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education’ (DLHE).
As part of DLHE, HESA records the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) category of those respondents in employment. The latest data refers to students who graduated in the 2013/14 academic year. Among those UK-domiciled first degree leavers who responded to the survey and were in employment, 2.3% were working in the ‘employment activities’ sector.
The Government published an impact assessment for the feed-in tariff review on 17 December 2015, alongside the Government response to the consultation on this review.
The impact assessment is available at:
Numbers of applicants awarded Maintenance Grants by Parliamentary Constituency in the academic year 2013/14 were provided in my reply to the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde, to question UIN 7227.
As primary healthcare providers and independent community pharmacies may be handling sensitive data about people's health, it is right that they should be subject to the same requirements as other public authorities. This includes appointing a data protection officer to inform and advise the organisation on compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation, such as the need to ensure that personal data is processed fairly and lawfully and held securely. A group of public authorities may appoint a single data protection officer, if that would be more appropriate to their size and organisational structure, as long as that person were easily accessible from each organisation.
Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service that takes account of local needs within available resources. Government has the power to ensure public libraries comply with the law, and where individual authorities have failed to meet this duty we will - and have - intervened. While the Department for Culture, Media and Sport does not commission specific information relating to the closure of public libraries, the Department monitors closely proposed changes to library service provision throughout England. Desk research undertaken by the Department indicates that no local static libraries closed in the Lancashire Library Authority in 2012 - 2015.
This Government is helping libraries innovate, to ensure they serve the needs of local communities - particularly through the expansion of their digital offer. In the latest spending round we secured extra funding for our Libraries Task Force, set up in 2015, to promote the role of digital and share best practice between councils, and we have funded the rollout of free Wi-Fi so that it will be available in 99% of public libraries in England. E-book loans have rocketed more than four-fold from nearly 445,000 in 2011/12 to over 2.3 million in 2014/15.
The Department is taking forward an ambitious programme of reform which will respect head teachers’ powers to use exclusion, while equipping schools to support children at risk of exclusion and ensuring excluded children continue to receive a good education.
As part of this, the Department will re-write guidance on exclusions and behaviour to offer clearer, more consistent guidance to schools on managing behaviour, the use of in-school units, managed moves and the circumstances where it may be appropriate to use exclusion.
The Department is engaging with stakeholders including schools and local authorities on this ambitious programme of action, and it will publish guidance by summer 2020.
The information requested has been provided in the attached table.
The analysis includes all children aged 5 years old and under in state-funded primary and special schools. The information requested is not available for children with Education, Health and Care Plans who are not in school.
Further information can be found in the annual 'Special educational needs in England' statistical releases published at the following link, including national figures by all primary SEN types and age (Table B): https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-special-educational-needs-sen.
The Department has a joint programme of work with the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and Health Education England to deliver the proposals set out in the green paper ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’.
New Mental Health Support Teams are being introduced jointly by the Department and NHS England and will be available to 20-25% of England by 2023. These teams will work with schools and colleges and other professionals such as educational psychologists, school nurses, counsellors and social workers to supplement existing support.
The Department is also incentivising schools and colleges to identify and train a senior mental health lead, who will be responsible for overseeing the delivery of a whole school or college approach to promoting better mental health and wellbeing.
In addition, the Department is providing training through the Link programme to schools and colleges in England over four years from autumn 2019. The Link programme is designed to develop effective partnership working between schools and colleges and NHS specialist mental health services for children and young people.
The government supports the right of parents to educate their children at home, and many families do this well, taking on a very significant responsibility in doing so. Local authorities are responsible for identifying any children who are not receiving a suitable education and taking steps to remedy that situation, if necessary, by enforcing school attendance.
We want to make sure that every child receives a good education. In some cases, the government is concerned about the quality of education which some children are receiving at home, especially in the context of the increasing numbers of children who are being removed from school to be educated at home.
As a result, the government consulted in 2018 on revised guidance for local authorities and parents on home education. The finalised versions of this guidance will be published shortly. At the same time, a call for evidence on the issues of registration and monitoring of children educated at home, and support for home educating families, was held, and a government response document setting out proposed next steps will also be published soon.
This is a matter for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to the hon. Member. A copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The first accompanying table provides the numbers of pupils with autism as their primary need who received fixed period and permanent exclusions in the North West region and in each local authority of the region in the last five years.
The second accompanying table shows the number of pupils with an education, health and care plan or a statement of special educational needs who received a permanent or fixed-period exclusion the North West region and in each local authority of the region in each of the last five years. There has been no increase in permanent or fixed-period exclusions for this cohort over the past five years.
The first accompanying table provides the numbers of pupils with autism as their primary need who received fixed period and permanent exclusions in the North West region and in each local authority of the region in the last five years.
The second accompanying table shows the number of pupils with an education, health and care plan or a statement of special educational needs who received a permanent or fixed-period exclusion the North West region and in each local authority of the region in each of the last five years. There has been no increase in permanent or fixed-period exclusions for this cohort over the past five years.
We are determined to support as many families as possible with access to high-quality, affordable childcare. As of March 2017, the proportion of childcare providers judged good or outstanding is at its highest ever at 93%. In the twelve Early Delivery areas, over 15,000 30 hours places were successfully delivered to eligible parents.
To help ensure quality, all providers offering government funded entitlements, including the 15 hours of funded early education of disadvantaged 2 year-olds, have to be registered with Ofsted and follow the EYFS Framework.
In March 2017, we published an early years workforce strategy which aims to support employers in attracting, retaining and developing their staff.
We are, for example, working with the sector to develop more robust criteria for the content of level 2 childcare qualifications, which will help level 2 workers to gain the knowledge and skills they need to deliver effective early education and childcare and to progress.
A well-qualified workforce in the early years is absolutely crucial and that is why the Government has committed to developing a workforce strategy which will help employers attract, retain and develop staff to deliver high quality provision.
This will include a response to a recent consultation the Department published on the literacy & numeracy qualification requirements for level 3 Early Years Educator staff. This consultation closed on 28 November 2016 and received over 4,000 responses.
The Department is currently analysing the responses and a government response will be published in the new year.
The 2013 Childcare and Early Years Provider Survey showed that 87% of staff in full day care settings are now qualified to at least level 3. This is an increase from 75% in 2008.
The Department does not hold this data for the years since 2013, the data for 2016 will be available by early 2017.
The Department has committed to revisiting the GCSE requirement for level 3 Early Years Educator staff and we will be announcing the next steps on this in due course.
The Department has also committed to developing a workforce strategy to help early years settings attract, retain and develop staff to deliver high quality provision. We have already spoken to large parts of the sector to seek their views on the challenges they face and we will be considering Government’s role in helping to remove barriers as part of the strategy.
The number of children with either Special Education Needs (SEN) support, a statement of SEN or an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan attending mainstream schools in (a) Lancashire and (b) Burnley are shown in the table below. These figures are from the January 2015 school census data. The figures for Lancashire can be found in tables 12 and 13 of the local authority tables which accompany the Special educational needs in England: 2015 publication, available on GOV.UK at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2015.
The figures for Burnley can be found in the accompanying underlying data file.
Number of children with either SEN support, a statement of SEN or EHC plan by establishment type
| Lancashire Local Authority | Burnley Parliamentary Constituency |
State funded primary schools | 12,223 | 1,118 |
State funded secondary schools | 7,145 | 763 |
Total | 19,368 | 1,881 |
Source: schools census 2015. Rounding and suppression are used in the published underlying data file.
The most recent results of the Childcare and Early Years Providers Survey suggest that in England in 2013, there were 12,800 before school settings. Of these 1,900 were in the North West. However, it is not possible to identify within this total the number of settings in Burnley and Lancashire.
The findings of the Survey can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-providers-survey-2013
Later this year we will update the school performance tables and plan to publish alongside them information about all schools’ childcare provision including breakfast clubs.
The percentage of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs at A* -C, including English and mathematics by local authority and disadvantaged backgrounds in 2014 and 2015 is published in the GCSE and equivalent statistical first release.[1],[2].
Burnley district level information is not available.
2015:
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/revised-gcse-and-equivalent-results-in-england-2014-to-2015 (table LA9)
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/gcse-and-equivalent-attainment-by-pupil-characteristics-2014 (table 6)
The percentage of pupils who are eligible for free school meals and attain level 4 or above in key stage 2 reading, mathematics and writing, is published in the “National curriculum assessments at key stage 2: 2015,” statistical first release[1].
Burnley district level information is not available.
[1] KS2 for 2014/15:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/483612/SFR47_2015_KS2_LA_Tables.xlsx (Table 25 by local authorities)
The following link provides the pupil to teacher ratio (PTR) in (a) state funded secondary and (b) state funded primary schools in Lancashire local authority and in England for November 2014, the latest information available: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/school-workforce-in-england-november-2014
The information requested is not collected by the Department.
Whilst we know from the annual School Workforce Census how many teachers are teaching Other Modern Foreign Languages in secondary schools, we cannot identify how many are teaching Mandarin.
Following the Chancellor’s announcement last September of a £10 million fund for Mandarin teaching in English schools, the Department is starting a Mandarin Excellence Programme in September 2016 with the aim of teaching Mandarin Chinese to a high level to at least 5,000 pupils by 2020. This programme will ensure that there is a sufficient number of teachers for these pupils.