Deaf Children and Young People

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)]

I have quite a lot to say, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will try to bear in mind the time constraints.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) on bringing this debate to the Chamber. I declare a personal interest, because my three siblings—my younger brother, Brian, and my two younger sisters, Clare and Delia—are profoundly deaf. Equality is a word that we often bandy about in this House, but deaf people in the United Kingdom have never had equality in education. Progress has been made thanks to deafness campaigners such as my parents, Bridget and Charles McCann—the self-same parents the right hon. Gentleman mentioned who suddenly had a deaf child and did not get any access to services to support them. However, the fight goes on. The motion highlights the fact that we still have much work to do, with the fear and danger that local authorities might cut back on services for deaf children and young people. The National Deaf Children’s Society has evidence to suggest that education services for deaf people might be cut. We should not be talking about cuts; if we genuinely seek to bring about equality for deaf people, services must be increased.

Colleagues will have noticed my Scottish accent and the fact that I represent a seat in Scotland that some people have difficulty in pronouncing, particularly the last part. I entered this debate also to flag up the fact that Scotland is a year behind the cuts and austerity measures that have been brought in for local government, although I do not mention that in a party political sense. The Prime Minister agreed with the First Minister, Alex Salmond, that Scotland would retain its budget in 2010, so we are a year behind the curve. There is already speculation in Scotland about local government services being cut, and I suspect that services to deaf children and young people are in danger. That is the relevance of my participation in this debate.

I will not be ungenerous in suggesting that we have not made some progress in the past 40 years. Let me tell the House about my experience with my brothers and sisters. I remember the grey bus arriving in front of our house in East Kilbride. On the bus were children with every disability one could think of—physical disabilities, physical and mental disabilities, or deaf-blindness. The amalgamation of challenges presented by those children with disabilities led to two things. First, it dumbed down education. At the school my brother and sisters went to, the education was carried out at the lowest common denominator instead of challenging the kids to do the best they could.

Secondly, there was the stigma. As you can imagine, children can be cruel. As the elder brother, I ended up with a few second prizes in the pugilism stakes. If your brother’s and sisters’ honour is criticised in some way, or they are taunted by other children, then you step in and defend them. Yes, children can be cruel, but we should remember that adults—the educationists of the time—created the system that enabled them to be so.

The inequality of 40 years ago was palpable. Profoundly deaf children were not allowed to sign. The right hon. Member for Gordon talked about British sign language. We made up our own sign language in the house, because there was no formal language to communicate in. Believe it or not, my brother was forced to sit with his hands behind his back in the classroom, unable to communicate, despite the fact that he was profoundly deaf. Forty years ago, deaf children had no access to the curriculum that I had as a hearing child. That meant that their ability to learn was stifled. Bright young deaf children were consigned to the dustbin on the day and hour they first entered their primary school.

I am glad that my brother and sisters have done very well in their adult lives, mainly because of my parents’ refusal to take no for an answer. They refused to take on board what the educationists of the time said was good for such children. The perceived wisdom of the day was that people listened to the educationists. Hearing parents who did not know about deafness would take the word of the people who were professional and allegedly knew more than they did. The less vigorous parents, who were not prepared to campaign like my parents, took the educationalists’ word and ultimately their children suffered and did not get anywhere near the aspirations achieved by my brother and sisters. However, they have fallen foul of many of the problems mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, including mental health issues and the inability to get employment. I often wonder what my brother and sisters could have achieved—even though they have achieved a lot—had they had access to the same education opportunities as me.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Thomasson Memorial school, an excellent primary school for deaf children and children with hearing difficulties, is located in my constituency. Does my hon. Friend agree that parents and children should be able to choose whether to attend a specialist school for children with disabilities or a mainstream school? The needs of the child should be paramount in any educationalist’s decision about the best education for them.

[Mr McCann]

I agree. Choice is important and I will discuss it later. If parents want their child to attend a hearing school, they must be supported in that choice. Moreover, if parents want their child to attend a specialist school, they should not just be lumped in a classroom with a bunch of other children, because that will drag them down.

Time is of the essence. I will cut a couple of pages of what I was going to say; the right hon. Member for Gordon has already mentioned the statistics on deaf people, so I need not rehearse them again. We should recognise that there are many shades between hearing and deafness: some have lost a little hearing while others lose it a little later in life, and on the other side of the spectrum are those who are profoundly death. With the greatest respect to the tribute paid to Jack Ashley earlier, we should remember that he became deaf and was not born deaf, and that there is a world of difference for people who have never heard the spoken word.

The key issue is British sign language, the officially recognised language for the deaf. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, it is diverse and colourful and as finessed as any other language in the world. In fact, Members may be interested to know that every person’s sign name is unique. I could not possibly show the House some of the signs that have been made for my relatives over the years, because they cannot be recorded in Hansard, but they would make Members chuckle.

In the world of education, the gatekeepers—the educationalists—know better, or so they think. Members may be surprised or even shocked to learn that teachers of the deaf are expected to have only BSL level 3 as a qualification. However, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, the fact that there is such a dearth of talent in this field means that some get jobs as teachers of the deaf and are labelled as such even though they have skills only at BSL level 2. It should be an aspiration, and I hope the Minister will address that issue in his response. We should raise the standards for teachers of the deaf and ensure that the right quality of individual is teaching our deaf children. I have thought about the best way to describe the situation. It is like asking someone who has just failed their driving test to become a driving instructor: they know a little, but they are not competent and should not be allowed to drive on their own.

That is a practical example by way of analogy, but I have another one. My brother Brian has five deaf children who all go to school. His eldest daughter, Monika, is 12 years old and has more advanced communication skills than her teachers. They have BSL level 2 and she is way above that at level 7 or 8, perhaps even higher. As she progresses through high school she will meet challenges and become a frustrated child unable to fulfil her potential, because her teachers are not able to communicate with her properly.

In primary education and at high school, the quality of the teacher must rise with the child. The teacher must always be ahead of the child and have far advanced communication skills so that the child does not feel frustrated. When they sign something to the teacher in British sign language, the teacher must understand what the problem is and how to communicate with them. Sadly, the children in my family have become frustrated on many occasions because they are bright, sparky kids who have not always had the opportunity to be educated properly.

The NDCS has uncovered some circumstantial evidence, but local authorities are reluctant to disclose information about deaf education. A hypothesis for that might be that they do not want the figures to be revealed. Outrageously, Ofsted does not inspect services for the deaf routinely, as the right hon. Member for Gordon said. Local authorities are damaging the life chances of young deaf people across the United Kingdom. This debate has provided the opportunity to expose that argument to a wider audience, not only in this House, but across the country.

If there are to be further cuts to local government services, there is a danger that deafness will once again take a back seat and that those who are already vulnerable will be affected. My father once described deafness as a Cinderella disability because nobody can see it. When a child is physically disabled, we do not shirk the responsibility of meeting the costs of the support that they need to participate in the education system. Why is there such a dearth of ambition and support for deaf children? Local government cannot be allowed to attack this Cinderella disability because it thinks that it can get away with it. We must stop paying lip service to equality of opportunity for every child and start providing it.

Al-Madinah Free School

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

What I can compare favourably is the swift action that this Government take when we find a school that is failing. That contrasts with the previous Labour Government, who had more than 1,500 schools categorised as inadequate. I do not remember any occasion where the same scrutiny was given to those schools.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Surely this situation demonstrates the need for those working with children to be properly trained and qualified. Will the Minister change course, follow our lead and require all teachers to be qualified?

[Mr Laws]

We want to ensure that teachers in schools have good qualifications and the capacity to teach. The hon. Lady will know, however, that there are plenty of teachers who may not have formal qualifications but who still do a superb job. We are ensuring, through the Ofsted inspection process, that every single teacher has the capability to teach. All classes are assessed for quality, and that is the right way to ensure a backstop of high standards.

Secondary Schools (Accountability)

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The new system will reduce the amount of gaming behaviour across the C/D borderline and the amount of teaching for the test, which often distorts our appreciation of educational standards, and all of the changes go hand in glove with the further changes to GCSEs that were announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State earlier this year, which will try to ensure that GSCEs in English, maths and other subjects are fit for purpose and will ensure that young people in this country are as well prepared as those in other top education countries.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The Minister’s announcement on early entry—made to the media, it has to be said, not to the House—has created huge anger and great disruption to pupils and schools in my constituency. Did he talk to head teachers about why they do early entry, and will he commit to giving longer notice periods and to stop announcing changes that have immediate detrimental effects on pupils in the middle of their courses and exam preparation?

[Mr Laws]

I do not think we can be accused of leaping too rapidly to conclusions when we have just completed an eight-month consultation process on the changes that we are discussing today. It would be negligent of us to stand back and ignore the recommendations being made by Ofsted and others, and the dramatic figures that we have seen in the past year or so, which suggest that a vast amount of money is being sunk into exam fees rather than into teaching—behaviour that is not potentially in the best interests of some of the most disadvantaged youngsters. We have spoken to many head teachers and head teachers’ bodies about this. The timing has been controversial, but many head teachers have told us that there were problems and abuses in this area and that these changes are sensible,

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Next week, I am looking forward to going to see BAE for myself, because it has one of the best apprenticeship systems in the country. A higher quality of apprenticeships is undoubtedly just as important as the number of people going through them, and that is what we will continue to focus on.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The youth service has always been the fourth arm of education. Now that responsibility is transferred to the Cabinet Office, how will the Secretary of State ensure a robust educational curriculum in the youth service and youth work?

[Michael Gove]

I am absolutely delighted that my gifted colleagues, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), are now leading on youth policy. The huge success of the National Citizen Service, which has seen more and more young people from every community working together in the spirit outlined by the Prime Minister, shows that the right men are leading the right policy for our country. What a pity that Labour will not back it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

I commend my hon. Friend on her work championing small business in her constituency and beyond. She is absolutely right that we need to drive through the implementation of the reforms we have already outlined. She will be pleased to note that the CBI-Harvey Nash employment trends survey shows a significant improvement in employer perceptions of the burden of employment law. That is good for British business and good for job creation, too.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

According to the OECD, the UK already has one of the most lightly regulated labour markets among developed countries; only the USA and Canada have lighter regulation. Why on earth are we trying to water down employment rights even further?

[Jo Swinson]

The first thing I would say to the hon. Lady is that our lightly regulated employment market is an asset to the British economy. It helps the economy to grow and it is one of the reasons why, despite the very challenging economic circumstances we have seen and despite the fact that unemployment is still too high, we have seen employment rates bear up rather better than in some other countries. It is important that we simplify employment law—I would have hoped that there would be cross-party agreement on that—but of course it is also important for a functioning economy that we ensure that basic protections remain in place for workers.

GCSEs

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are some subject areas—art and design, design and technology—where it is important to show practical skills through coursework, but there are other areas, particularly English and mathematics—particularly English—where, unfortunately, coursework and controlled assessment have not reinforced the rigour that we all want.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Following on from that last comment, why does the Secretary of State not believe that properly assessed and moderated coursework demonstrates a depth of understanding of a subject that simply learning facts to be churned out at an exam does not?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady misunderstands the fact that at the moment, as the Select Committee report points out today, coursework and controlled assessment can lead to over-marking and inconsistency. It is also the case that the modularisation of GCSEs, which occurred under a Labour Government, led to precisely the sort of cram-and-forget style of learning that I think neither of us approves of.

Young People (Barnsley Central)

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The figures for students in England show a drop of 6.5% from 2012. The coalition’s decision to raise tuition fees has made it even harder for young people, particularly those from less well-off backgrounds, to gain access to higher education.

The focus of this debate is on young people, but it is important to reflect for a moment on the huge contribution that teachers make to supporting them. It is a truism to say that we never forget a good teacher. I know that leadership in schools is hugely important, and in my constituency, we have some great head teachers, including Simon Barber at Holy Trinity, Neil Hutchinson at Carlton community college, Dave Whittaker at Springwell, Sue Hayter at Greenacre, Sharon Rossedes at Darton college, Nick Bowen at Horizon—just over the boundary in the neighbouring constituency—and Colin Booth, the principal of Barnsley college. I have also been inspired by many other teachers I have met, including Mat Wright, Phil Evans, Kathryn Smith, Leanne Crowther, Sharon Stacey, Steve Iredale, Kate Davies, Vicki Bruff, Eleanor Wright and many, many more.

However, the truth of the matter is that many, if not most, teachers feel undervalued. Many have told me how low morale is, and many have shared with me the fact that they struggle to sleep at night because of the pressure of the job. I recently received a letter from a maths teacher. He told me that over half his colleagues had considered leaving the profession last year. He said:

“The attacks on pay, pensions and conditions of service are without precedent...I feel angry. I feel undervalued, and as though I am a scape goat for the ills of society”.

What can the Minister say to him and the countless thousands of others in the teaching profession who feel like that? Will he come to Barnsley to meet teachers to discuss these matters and education more generally?

I want briefly to say something about apprenticeships and other vocational routes.

For too long, people have focused on the 50% who go to university; now it is time to focus on the other 50%—the forgotten 50%. For too long, politicians have viewed vocational and academic education in silos, leading to a focus on the latter at the expense of the quality and status of the former. Approaching further education as a whole will allow the benefits of both forms of learning to be experienced by a greater number of young people, offering a broader and richer education, better suited to the needs and the challenges of a modern economy because today’s apprentices face very different challenges.

Many young people can expect to go through several career changes in their lifetimes, requiring them to possess a more flexible and adaptable skill set. These new challenges demand a co-ordinated and hands-on approach from Government, as well as from figures in the business and education sectors.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the downgrading of careers advice given to young people has contributed to some of the difficulties faced by young people not always knowing which is the best route for them, when they are not encouraged either to stay in education or to take up apprenticeships. That lack of good career guidance is detrimental to their future prosperity and health.

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful and completely agree with my hon. Friend. The decision young people make about their future career destinations is an incredibly important one. It can make such a difference if they are able to receive helpful and useful careers advice in tandem with other advice that they receive from schools.

The vast bulk of additional apprenticeship places created by the Government have come in the post-25 age range, with an increase of some 367%, but the latest figures show that 69,600 16 to 18-year-olds started an apprenticeship in 2012-13 compared to 79,100 in the previous year—a drop of over 12%. Those in the 16-to-25 category risk being left behind. Our country and the town I am proud to represent are clearly in need of fresh initiatives aimed at addressing youth unemployment, and it is my constituency that is helping to lead the way in the fight against youth unemployment.

Girls and ICT Careers

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

I agree that we need to be very active in encouraging girls into the industry. I am pleased to hear about the job opportunities in Northern Ireland. There are other job opportunities throughout the country, and we need to ensure that girls are in a position to take advantage of them.

Gender segregation is at its most extreme in skilled trades such as that of electricians. Women constitute only 1% of the work force in such occupations, which is barely significant in statistical terms. I commissioned House of Commons Library research which has armed me with a large—depressingly large—number of similar statistics. It is clear that we are doing much worse in this regard than many of our European and OECD counterparts. I want to focus on what we can do about it, “we” being the ICT sector, civil society and, as I hope the Minister will acknowledge, the Government.

I worked in ICT as an engineer for 23 years. I must emphasise that I was often fortunate enough to have great male bosses who were determined that working in an all-male, or almost all-male, environment should not be a barrier to a successful career for a woman. However, I have known other managers who were not so supportive, and company cultures that worked against attracting girls and women into ICT and did absolutely nothing to help them to stay there.

Last year, when I was a shadow business, innovation and skills Minister, I wrote to 10 of the leading companies in the engineering and technology sector to ask what they were doing to improve the situation. I wrote to BAE Systems, Google, Microsoft, IBM, ARM, Rolls-Royce, BP, Shell, Ford and Jaguar Land Rover. Their responses are summarised on my website. What was quite amusing was that two of the companies addressed their letters of response to “Mr Onwurah”. I shall not name them, but it did make me wonder how accustomed they were to engaging with women.

Not surprisingly, nearly every company claimed that it was hiring women in proportions above the national average. The exception was ARM, which candidly said that the proportion of women was higher in its divisions outside the UK, especially in India. Female literacy in India is just 65%, while male literacy is 82%. The fact that India is doing so much better than we are in regard to ICT gender balance is particularly striking for that reason.

It is also striking that IBM did not respond to my inquiry despite repeated entreaties, while Google and Microsoft responded but refused to release any figures. As relatively young companies, at least in comparison with, for instance, Shell and Rolls-Royce, they might be expected to be at the forefront of gender equality. Both Google and Microsoft cited confidentiality as their reason for not revealing the proportion of women whom they employed in ICT. That is rather strange, because it suggests either that Google and Microsoft do not know how to aggregate and anonymise such information—which, given that they are leaders in big data management, is worrying—or that they have so few women employees that giving the figure would necessarily identify individuals. That is also very worrying.

The more traditional companies were more open about releasing figures, with Ford giving the most detailed breakdown across different job types. Most firms said that the main problem was a lack of qualified female candidates in ICT, engineering and science, and all the firms said that getting more women into those fields was a corporate priority. Most outlined steps that they were taking, from overhauling corporate procedures, for example, making sure that women were on interview panels, to intervening early in schools to steer girls towards STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—subjects and careers.

Companies emphasised the importance of female role models in encouraging female graduates or apprentices to join them, and detailed the steps they were taking to develop networking forums or to push high-potential females up the employee hierarchy. ARM was the most forthright when asked what private or public sector initiatives firms found useful. It said

“most initiatives that directly address the issue are clearly failing at a national level and make little difference.”

According to the ARM representative, the most effective means would be role models and TV commentators or presenters who make the subjects sexy and exciting. I agree in part. A high profile ICT series on TV would probably change perceptions overnight. We saw what the success of “Silent Witness” did for the proportion of women in forensics.

The responses I received showed that there is such a wide range of challenges to address that we need a wide-ranging response, as was mentioned earlier.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that employers could do much more by offering work placements, early apprenticeships and visits to factories, and that the Department for Education needs to do more to encourage interaction? Young people could then make decisions much earlier about whether ICT was a career they would be interested in. Often, it is too late when they are 18.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend. She raises an extremely important point and I shall dwell on it in more detail later. She is right. One of the key messages that I hope the Minister will take from the debate is the importance of ensuring engagement with employers. Often employers are willing to make arrangements to go into schools, but do not feel that they can identify schools or know how to set about it.

We should encourage employers to engage with schools. One of my first parliamentary questions was to ask who was responsible for ensuring engagement between industry and primary schools. The response was that no one in the Government was responsible, in either the Business or Education teams. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that in her response.

As well as improving the image of ICT, we need to look at the working environment of women in ICT, and at higher, secondary and, very importantly, primary education, which my hon. Friend mentioned, and careers advice. We also need to look at our culture, which socialises girls to think that ICT is not for them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

Because we are making the subject universal, girls will be doing programming as well as boys. That is important. As the hon. Lady said, it is important not to gender divide this technology, which underlies the whole of our society and politics. We have programmes for getting girls to study physics, such as the Stimulating Physics Network. However, our view is that so few students are learning programming skills at an early age that the best thing to do is to have a universal programme that reaches everybody.

A lot of organisations work in this area—the hon. Lady mentioned some of them—such as the Computer Club for Girls, the Code Club, the Computing at School network and Apps for Good, the chief operating officer of which in the UK, Debbie Forster, is an excellent role model for girls in the industry.

There is a particular issue with girls that we need to address. However, I believe that our focus on ensuring that teachers are trained up so that they understand the career opportunities in IT and know what programming is and how to teach it to young children will be critical in shaping the future and in shaping young girls’ expectations of their potential.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising these issues.

[Julie Hilling]

Before the Minister moves on, will she say more about careers? There is now a deficit in the careers advice for all young people, but particularly for girls. Such advice often rests with teachers, who might not have any experience of industry, having gone from school to university and back to school. How will she bridge that gap and provide more careers education that allows young people to understand the vast range of jobs in engineering, and in ICT specifically?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. Our approach is to engage with industry through the British Computer Society to ensure that there are more direct links with schools. It is helpful for students to see a local business person in the classroom and to understand what they do and what opportunities are out there. It is therefore helpful for businesses to engage directly with teachers. We have made the new national curriculum much more flexible so that teachers can design their own curriculum that is based on the national curriculum, but that reflects the resources available locally and engages with the master computer science teachers that we are creating.

Apprenticeships

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Today I had the honour and privilege of spending a couple of hours with an amazing group of young people—some of the apprentices from MBDA, an advanced manufacturing company in my constituency. They are sitting in the Public Gallery listening to our debate.

Anyone visiting the apprentices at Lostock is blown away by their quality and competence, as well as by MBDA’s commitment to them, led by Bernie Waldron, the managing director of manufacturing, and Gareth Humphreys, the human resources adviser on education, both of whom started as apprentices at the company. MBDA does not just teach apprentices skills for the workplace, but concentrates on growing the whole person. Personal development is just as important as formal qualifications.

The young people are entered into competitions such as World Skills. The view that young people are diamonds in the rough that just need polishing shines through everything they do. They are currently taking part in the second year of the Brathay challenge; the aim of the regional stage is to raise the profile of apprenticeships and complete a community project. I wish all the competitors well, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that the apprentices from Lostock will be victorious, although I should like to persuade the organisers to change the final event to one of skill, not just strength, which militates against companies that ensure they have mixed-gender teams.

MBDA has 62 apprentices: 35 young women and 28 young men. It is a great achievement for an engineering company. MBDA runs a four-year programme, and the apprentices complete ONC, HNC, HND and NVQ level 4. Business apprentices complete a business management degree, NVQ 4 and the City and Guilds senior award. It is a fantastic programme, growing the next generation of employees.

MBDA apprentices go into schools to promote apprenticeships in engineering. It is a bit of a shock to pupils when beautifully turned-out young women tell them that they are engineers, but sadly, many schools still see apprenticeships as a choice for their less able students, not for their high flyers.

Jade told me about her experience. Following a visit to her college from MBDA apprentices, she decided to apply for an apprenticeship. Her electronics tutor supported her, but he was the only one. Other tutors said: “What are you doing an apprenticeship for when you could be going to university?”, “You’re too clever to do an apprenticeship”, and “You show too much potential. You need to go to university if you want to progress in a career.”

Some of those people changed their minds, but recently a teacher told a family friend of Jade’s:

“I always thought Jade would do better, would have gone to university and achieved good grades.”

Hurtfully, the teacher went on to say that they always knew that Jade would just float along in something easy and stick to what she knew, although she had the potential to do so much more.

As Jade says, her apprenticeship is far from easy:

“I am currently studying for my HNC, working three and a half days a week, training two nights for my rugby team.”

I forgot to say that she is in the England student team and plays at the weekend. She says that she is

“finding time for my friends and boyfriend. It takes a lot of hard work and I have to make sacrifices but the rewards all come at the end.”

Jade’s view is shared by Beth Sherbourne who recently won the higher apprentice of the year award. Beth said:

“Instead of a £40,000 debt I’ve got a first class honours degree, four years work experience, a well paid job and a Mini Cooper.”

The apprentices at MBDA show what can be achieved by young people. We need to do far more to encourage young people to undertake apprenticeships. Today I asked them if they had any regrets about going for an apprenticeship. Unanimously they said that they had no regrets at all.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Hancock]

I absolutely recognise that there have been increases in the number of apprenticeships over the past two and half years in level 2 and level 3, and we are going to introduce levels 4, 5 and 6. In every age group there have been increases in the number of apprenticeships, and we should celebrate that.

[Julie Hilling]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Hancock]

I cannot, I am afraid; I have virtually no time left.

The hon. Members for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), for Bradford East (Mr Ward), for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) and for Copeland (Mr Reed) talked about the value of apprenticeships. In particular, the hon. Member for Copeland spoke powerfully about how apprenticeships now reflect the modern economy and are spreading into relatively new areas of the economy. All this fits the argument made by the Prime Minister yesterday that there should be a new norm in our country whereby school leavers go to university or into an apprenticeship so that we have a high-skilled economy and a high-skilled work force, not only so that every individual can reach their potential—their personal best—but so that our economy can compete in the global race. I am glad to see cross-party consensus on the importance of the global race.

The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) mentioned many things; I was intrigued by her speech. I want to pick out her mention of the world skills competition, which is a brilliant, fascinating and exciting competition that everybody should watch; certainly, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.

Members have mentioned the need to increase the number of apprenticeships and I can announce that, in addition to the three apprentices in my private offices, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will advertise tomorrow for three further apprentices in our communications department. The numbers are going up and up.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) and the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), have said, while we and many local authorities are broadly supportive of and, indeed, leading on procurement apprenticeships, such as those with Crossrail, I am concerned that the motion is defective, because it appears to call on the Government to exceed their legal powers. Given my assurances, I hope that the Opposition will not push for a vote.

Child Care

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on raising this important topic and I congratulate her, too, on being a working parent in the House of Commons. It is important to have wide representation, so it is great to see more working mothers and more working fathers in the House. I am delighted to reflect on the fact that the hon. Lady’s future children might benefit from our developing policies on this issue.

My aim as Minister with responsibility for child care is to try to make life easier and better for working parents and their children. Every parent who goes out to work wants to have confidence that their child is receiving the best possible early education and child care. I think we can achieve that—and achieve it by using the existing system and resources as well as, hopefully, future resources in due course.

Sadly, that is not the case for parents at the moment, as there are issues about availability, cost and quality, which is variable. There was a recent worrying report from Policy Exchange, which suggested that quality is lower in deprived areas, where we need it to be of the highest quality. One thing we have done in the new two-year-old programme we are launching, which will benefit 260,000 two-year-olds by 2014, is to state that those two-year-olds should go to good and outstanding providers. I think that is an important measure.

The hon. Lady mentioned the cost to parents, and she is absolutely right that our parents face some of the highest costs in Europe—on average, 27% of income is being spent on child care. I have met many parents who are struggling with the financial burdens they face.

As for Government spending, there is a debate about the OECD figures, and it is often difficult to get to the bottom of these international comparisons. The evidence suggests, however, that although we do not spend as much as the Nordic countries, we do spend as much as countries such as France and Germany. Yet, despite the high parental input and the high Government input, we have people on the front line in child care who are earning an average of £6.60 an hour. That is simply not good enough for the important job being done by those charged with bringing up and educating the next generation.

All the evidence about brain development now suggests that the quality of staff is of paramount importance. Qualifications are also important, as is demonstrated by the study carried out by the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education team, and also by the OECD’s recent “Starting Strong” report. The Department’s first report, “More great childcare”, focuses on the need to improve quality and qualifications. We are working on the cost issue, and will have something to say about it in due course, but unfortunately I cannot say anything at present.

There are currently more than 400 child care qualifications, and parents and people in the child care industry do not know what they mean. We are creating a single qualification at level 3, called the early years educator. People entering that course will need to have C grades in GCSE English and maths, which I consider very important. We are also creating the early years teacher programme, which will confer teacher status. Recruits to that programme will pass the same tests as teachers have to pass on entry.

As the hon. Lady said, we are giving high-quality providers more flexibility, but only when they invest in high-quality staff, and only if they want to use that flexibility. There is nothing compulsory involved; we are merely giving additional flexibility to providers who meet high-quality requirements. That is, I think, an incentive for providers to upskill their work forces, and it gives them headroom in which to do so.

As we have established, many staff are paid barely more than the minimum wage. We want to emulate high-quality countries where pay is much higher. The Nordic countries tend to pay their staff more than £20,000 a year, while France and Germany pay between £16,000 and £18,000. Here in England, we pay £13,000. All those other countries pay considerably more to their early education staff, and all of them have larger allowances in terms of ratios than we do. Indeed, Scotland and Ireland have higher ratios than we do. At present we have the lowest ratios in Europe, and I do not think that that gives providers enough headroom to hire high-quality staff. As I have said, however, it is for providers to make the decision, and we will only allow them to do so if they invest in high-quality staff.

The hon. Lady asked me who supported these changes. One supporter, I believe, is the shadow Education Secretary, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg). He has suggested that we should adopt the Danish or the Swedish model. Neither Denmark nor Sweden sets mandatory ratios at national level. They believe in paying people well, and in employing high-quality professionals who make judgments at local level. That is the kind of system that I want to see. I want to see a more diverse system, in which we trust professionals to make those local judgments. Two-year-olds or three-year-olds may be at different stages of development, and may have different needs. I think that we should allow nursery staff who are properly qualified and trained to make the judgments about the best support that is available to those children.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am sorry, but I have a limited amount of time, and I want to press on.

The hon. Lady asked me who else supported the changes. They are supported by Sir Michael Wilshaw of Ofsted, and by Andreas Schleicher of the OECD, who produced an important report called “Starting Strong” about the impact of improved qualifications on the attainment of children. Providing a teacher in an early years setting and providing high-quality staff can have a massive effect. A number of leading providers in the child care industry also support our proposals. I admit that not everyone is supportive. I can only say that we are giving people the opportunity to offer more places, it is not compulsory, and it is certainly not something that we will allow providers who do not invest in high quality to do.

We are also simplifying the system to make much more funding reach the front line. That is another important part of the proposals. Under the present system, local authorities and Ofsted are both responsible for quality, and quality assurance in different areas is at different levels. We are investing in Ofted and in more front-line inspectors from Her Majesty’s inspectorate to ensure that inspections are of genuinely high quality and focus on what is important. We have just changed the Ofsted framework so that it is much more focused on outcomes and the quality of engagement with children. There will be more emphasis on qualifications and the outcomes for the children.

All parties agree that the current system is not working. There are issues with the availability of child care. We want there to be more childminder agencies to help us provide more child care. Over the last 20 years the number of childminders has halved. They are a vital source of flexible child care for parents who do not work normal hours—MPs are one such group. We want childminders to be more widely accessible. Childminder agencies will be required to provide training, and they will be regulated and inspected by Ofsted. They can be set up in schools or nurseries. There will be great opportunities to expand the number of childminders and the amount of care available.

We will also allow good nurseries who hire high-quality staff to have more flexibility and to expand, again helping parents with availability. If a provider—a childminder or a nursery—shows that they are good quality according to Ofsted, they will be able to offer Government-funded places. There will no longer be a separate gatekeeper role for local authorities, which will also help us to expand the amount of child care available.

We need to go through a culture change in this country. Child care has been a low-wage, low-status profession. That is wrong, as it is an important profession in which lots of dedicated people work. Unfortunately, they are not rewarded sufficiently. We must look at what other countries do well in terms of remuneration and training. We are currently devising our early years educator qualification, and we are looking at the best practice in other countries and how we might adopt it.

The hon. Lady asked about funding proposals. I will consider the points she made about how we might improve the funding system. We must make sure we get the best value for money from the £5 billion we currently spend. The hon. Lady asked about the various different figures. They vary because the child care element of the working tax credit is a proportion of the spend that parents have. That must be tracked and estimated and it is not always the same from year to year because the budget is not fixed; it is a reimbursement of what parents pay. Therefore, there are various difficulties in calculating the total amount we spend and there are variable estimates. We do know, however, that we spend a lot through the system.

Interestingly, former children Minister Baroness Hughes of Stretford admitted that the funding had not been set up in an ideal way, as there are three separate funding streams that all feed into nurseries in different ways. She said that not enough of it goes through to the front line. We are looking at ways of fixing that. It is a complicated system, so it takes a while to do that, but I am working on it now. I would be very happy to continue this discussion with the hon. Lady after this debate.

Question put and agreed to.