Youth Service

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Weir. It is with great pride, but also with sadness, that I open my first debate in Westminster Hall. I have a vested interest in this debate, in that I have spent almost all my working life as a youth and community worker, and Unite supported me in my election campaign. I am passionate about the sector. I have many important questions for the Minister, who I hope will address them all in his response.

I am proud to have been a full-time youth worker for many years in Nottingham, St Helens and Wigan. I loved my work, and I believe that my colleagues and I, who worked in a local authority-based youth service in partnership with voluntary organisations, made a difference to young people’s lives. Like all youth workers, we had a purely voluntary relationship with young people. They were not forced to come to our projects. The fact that they chose to relate to us without compulsion laid the basis for trusting relationships that enabled us to assist their informal learning and personal and social development. That is what youth work is. Youth workers are young people’s freely chosen and trusted adult supporters. They educate young people informally, support them, help amplify their voices and, critically, take their side when no one else does. It is part of society’s commitment to lifelong learning.

As official Government statements, academic reports and professional bodies recognise, youth workers enable young people to develop holistically, working with them to help them develop their voice, influence and place in society and reach their full potential. Youth workers recognise, respect and actively respond to the wider network of peers, communities, families and cultures that are important to young people, and seek through those networks to help young people achieve stronger relationships and collective identity by promoting inclusivity and equality.

Youth workers have long been experts in creating what is now called the big society. According to the Audit Commission, every £1 invested in youth work generates £8 worth of voluntary activity. Youth workers are trained to recruit and involve volunteers and to sustain their involvement. Some 500,000 volunteers work with established youth services, but volunteers do not come from thin air. They need to be encouraged and supported by professionally trained staff and, to be effective and happy, they need to volunteer in an organised environment. Youth and community work training equips practitioners to empower adults and young people in their communities.

In addition, youth workers are trained to raise funds to support their work. The state has never been the main provider in the sector. The last National Youth Agency audit of services showed that youth workers generated more than one third of the amount spent by local authorities on their youth services. I hope that the Minister will take careful note of the fact that cuts to local authority youth services also mean severe cuts to the voluntary sector and to the social enterprise and mutual organisations that provide youth services. For example, the current proposals to cut £2.6 million from Birmingham city council’s youth service mean about a £600,000 cut to the voluntary sector. He will no doubt be aware that the £2 million in cuts to the youth service in his county will practically wipe out voluntary sector funding as well. It is a fallacy to suggest that the voluntary sector can pick up the pieces left by a shattered local authority service.

On funding, incidentally, Lord Northbourne obtained an undertaking during the passage of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 that the Government would continue to collect youth service funding figures from local authorities. Will the Minister publish the figures for last year and tell me how they will be collected in future? The National Youth Agency used to do an annual audit of youth work, but I have been informed that now that its funding has been slashed, it will no longer be able to do so. I am also informed that Ofsted will no longer inspect youth work. Who will inspect it to ensure that standards are upheld?

I am proud to be introducing this debate almost exactly 50 years after Lady Albemarle produced her great report for the Conservative Government of the time. Her report introduced the modern youth service. In the 1950s, the early youth service had nearly disappeared as a result of cuts and general neglect. The voluntary sector and the early trade unionists who built the Community and Youth Workers’ Union, of which I am proud to have been president for nine years, campaigned hard for the Government to provide public resources and promote respect for youth work.

Lady Albemarle was asked to establish a committee in 1958 to consider those concerns. After two years of intense scrutiny, the committee recommended that specialist training for youth workers be developed, as it was a distinct educational profession. She and her committee recommended that youth centres be built throughout the country to provide places of warmth, free association, safety and fun, that national terms and conditions for youth workers and qualifications linked to those terms and conditions be introduced and that each local authority be funded to work in partnership with the voluntary sector to manage a youth service. The Conservative Government agreed with the recommendations of Lady Albemarle’s committee and laid a substantial foundation for the building of the modern youth service. A new public service depending largely on public investment was born.

Since that time, great progress has been achieved. In fact, Britain’s youth service—with its public funding and partnership with voluntary organisations, national professional standards and joint negotiating committee terms and conditions—has been admired throughout the world. It has pioneered many important developments in working with young people, including international exchanges between young people to help heal a war-torn Europe.

My sadness in presenting this debate comes from the recognition that those 50 years of progress could now come to an end. The youth service is likely to disappear shortly unless the Minister acts. Is he aware that the situation of the youth service is now so grave that the main professional journal in the field, Children & Young People Now, has organised a national campaign called “For Youth’s Sake”, and the main professional bodies and stakeholders have formed a campaign to save the service? The British Youth Council and the UK Youth Parliament, the recognised national bodies for young people, have formed similar campaigns and expressed concerns about rapidly deteriorating provision for the youth service. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) has also introduced early-day motion 1013 on the threat to youth services.

We need action now. Is the Minister aware that local councils value highly their ability to provide youth work directly, and are so concerned about the cuts, at least in England, that the Local Government Association recently published an excellent document, “Valuing Youth Work”? I am pleased to read in the foreword his quote that work with young people is not a “luxury add-on”. Has he read the powerful analysis of the cost-effectiveness of youth work by Unite and Lifelong Learning UK called “The Benefits of Youth Work”? If he has not considered those documents, I urge him to do so as a matter of urgency.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that cutting the youth service is incredibly short-sighted? Not only does the service give young people the opportunity to enrich their lives by taking part in interesting activities but it often prevents them from being drawn into antisocial behaviour or drug and alcohol use.

[Julie Hilling]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Yes, absolutely. I will talk more later about some of the studies that have shown that. If we destroy the infrastructure, it will take a long time and a lot of money to rebuild, as happened in Wigan in the 1990s when all the youth centres were closed. Wigan has not been able to regain the ground lost during that time.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate, but I remind her that the Labour Government planned to make 20% cuts. Does she feel that no cuts should have taken place in the youth service? Can she inform all those present where she would make the cuts?

[Julie Hilling]

I am not in the Government or even in the shadow Government, so I am not in a position to say where cuts should be made. However, making substantial cuts to a small pot of money—some £300 million is spent on the whole youth service throughout England and Wales, which is a very small pot of money nationally—does huge damage to the services provided.

It is with sadness that I report that Warwickshire county council is proposing to abandon its youth service all together, and it appears that Norfolk, Suffolk and Southampton city councils are planning to do the same. According to a recent survey of proposed cuts that was conducted prior to the comprehensive spending review by the National Youth Agency and the Confederation of Heads of Young People’s Services, 95% of services were predicting cuts during the current year, the majority of which would be in the region of more than 30%.

Bolton council has already had to cut £200,000 this year and is predicting a cut of £415,000 next year. Am I right to assume that the Minister is concerned about a cut of £2 million to West Sussex county council youth service, which covers his constituency? Does he support the thousands of young people across West Sussex who have been petitioning and campaigning against the cuts? The portfolio holder for the area, Councillor Peter Bradbury, admitted that young people had not been properly consulted. Again, is the Minister aware that consultation with young people on service provision is fundamental to the Education and Inspections Act 2006?

There is an illusion that mutuals, social enterprises or even the private sector will take up youth work provision. Although there are some excellent voluntary sector projects, there is little evidence that many providers are ready to take on the role of providing youth services. In any case, they are dependent on adequate public funding for the work. The staffing and resources of some services are already so depleted that even a small cut of 10% will effectively end their ability to function meaningfully.

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. In my constituency, Bramley and Rodley Community Action Trust provides a youth bank in the area. The trust also runs a youth inclusion programme, which helps people who are at risk of becoming involved in the criminal justice system. Does she agree that cuts to Leeds city council of 27% will mean that those services are at risk and that, as a result, we risk building up future problems of antisocial behaviour and criminal activity? With just a bit of funding, we could ensure that such organisations were able to continue providing those excellent services.

[Julie Hilling]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I absolutely agree that it is a false economy to make such cuts to youth services. Historical evidence shows that youth services will be harder hit than other services. Local authorities will have to protect some of the services relating to safeguarding issues and the care provision for older people. However, youth services always get squeezed. They have always been Cinderella services and will have greater cuts imposed on them unless action is taken—in particular action to enforce the legislation that is in place, which I shall come on to.

Such cuts will mean the end of universal out-of-school services for young people. Since January 2007, through working in partnership with the voluntary and private sectors, local authorities have had a statutory duty to promote the well-being of young people aged 13 to 19 years—in fact, it is up to 25 years for those with learning difficulties—and to promote access to educational and recreational leisure time activities, which are referred to as positive activities. The legislation that supports youth work is described in detail in statutory guidance published in March 2008 under section 507B of the Education Act 1996. That statutory guidance sets out the requirement for local authorities to provide youth work in three areas: positive activities, decision making by young people and 14-to-19 learning. The guidance refers to the fact that educational leisure-time activities are explicitly linked to youth work methods and approaches. The purpose of both forms of positive activities—educational and recreational—is the improvement of well-being. The definition of well-being in the legislation reflects the five Every Child Matters outcomes: be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, and achieve economic well-being.

The statutory guidance also refers to “Aiming High for Young People: A Ten Year Strategy for Positive Activities.” That strategy concludes with a very strong statement that recognises high-quality youth work. The Government’s view is that high-quality youth work delivered by third and statutory sectors is central to delivering our ambition of increasing the number of young people on the path to success. Is the Minister concerned about the ability of local authorities to fulfil their statutory responsibilities? If they do not fulfil their statutory responsibilities, will he intervene under sections 496, 497 or 497A of the Education Act 1996?

Would it not be helpful to revisit the recommendations of the “Resourcing Excellent Youth Services” document? Instead of aiming low for young people, as the Government appear to be doing, would it not be better to return to the recommendations of the “Aiming High for Young People” document? Does the Minister recognise that 70% of funding for the voluntary sector, particularly for youth services, comes from local authorities, and that decreasing that funding reduces the potential of what he might term big society organisations?

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the big problem with the big society is that it is predicated on the belief that volunteers will do for free what paid youth workers do for a wage? Does she agree that the big society is something of a political convenience, given the huge cuts that will be made to local authorities during the next three years? The situation will be incredibly difficult for those voluntary and community groups that are providing excellent activities and outreach work—street-based youth work—for young people. It will be very hard for them—

[Heidi Alexander]

I apologise.

[Julie Hilling]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Yes, I absolutely agree. It is a bit of a fallacy to think that volunteering is not already taking place, as 500,000 people already volunteer to work with young people. They are effective in volunteering activities only if they are supported in their work financially and by professionally qualified and trained staff. Those staff can assist them in developing their work and can ensure that their work is of good educational value to young people.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I want to be clear about this. All of us accept that the debt situation is difficult at the moment. The hon. Lady referred to some 70% coming from local authorities to pay for such services. Is she saying that she would maintain the grants for this type of work on an ongoing basis?

[Julie Hilling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. Yes, absolutely. I am not simply saying that we should maintain the funding; I am saying that we should increase it. I will give some statistics at the end of my speech that will show how positive intervention and positive activities with young people saves the state a great deal of money. Such funding is an investment and, as I said, if the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I will provide some statistics later to show how when a small amount of money—it is a small amount—is put into services for young people, it saves the state thousands of pounds on much deeper interventional work.

[Mr Rob Wilson]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady says, much of which seems to focus on the negative side of what is going on. Has she paid any attention to, for example, the plans for the national citizen service and the positive things that that can do for society cohesion?

[Julie Hilling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. If he will bear with me, I will talk about the national citizen service in just a few moments.

In reply to a parliamentary question that I asked the Minister on 15 November, he did not respond to me about the rapidly declining fabric of the maintained youth service, but instead seemed to state that the national citizen service would compensate for the decline in other provision. I hope that I misunderstood him. However, if I did not, perhaps he can explain how allocating £370 million to the national citizen service for, in effect, short-term summer scheme opportunities for 16-year-olds will possibly compensate for the loss of the current youth service budget of less than £300 million per annum that runs for 365 days a year?

Does the Minister share my concern that many child protection and health and safety issues are raised by the fact that inspecting organisations with no track record in residential work and professional youth work delivery will be running the short-term national citizen service? I am deeply concerned that they do not have the capacity or the experience to operate outdoor activities and residential work according to the Department’s health and safety guidelines. Can he give me any assurances in that regard? Also, who will inspect the quality of the service? The youth service was previously inspected by Ofsted, which has commented on its rising standards over the past four years, when other services were often declining.

I welcome the fact that the Select Committee on Education is conducting an inquiry into youth services and that it will be examining the introduction of the national citizen service. Youth service professionals and many of us in this place are beginning to wonder whether the Minister actually understands what the youth service is. The youth service has been recognised in the different jurisdictions of the United Kingdom as an integral part of the education system. Does he agree with the Welsh Assembly Government, the Department of Education in Northern Ireland, the Education and Inspections Act 2006 and the Scottish Government that the youth service is an integral part of the education system?

Youth work is based on a voluntary professional relationship between skilled youth workers and young people, so it has a broad spectrum of influence and success. The various youth councils across the country and the UK Youth Parliament, which so successfully engages people in political education and civic involvement, simply would not exist without the support of local authority professional youth workers. At the other end of the spectrum, as the work of Professor John Pitts has clearly shown, the youth work method is the most effective means of reducing young people’s involvement in gang crime.

[Mr Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the youth service provides an important element in improving the employability of young people because one of the things it does is improve the soft skills that employers are crying out for?

--- Later in debate ---

[Julie Hilling]

Absolutely. I could not have put it better. The youth service is important in encouraging social and political education, social interaction and decision making. There are far too many distinguished reports to mention that demonstrate conclusively that youth workers play a vital role for young people in re-engaging them in education; making their lives healthier; improving their access to learning; strengthening information, advice and guidance; supporting partnership working; participating in structured leisure-time activities; helping them to stay out of the youth justice system; and encouraging them to play an active and voluntary part in their local communities.

Such successful work is achieved by a relatively small cohort of 7,000 professionally qualified staff, working with 30,000 trained youth support workers and, as I have mentioned, an army of half a million volunteers. Those staff work for local authorities and voluntary organisations, but local authority funding is the key. The values, occupational standards and skilled training are the glue that holds the service together. It is therefore with great sadness that I report that youth and community work training courses may now face wholesale closure.

The sector is really proud of its training courses, which are offered by about 30 universities and other providers. The courses are themselves a product of a “big society” kind of effort. The standards of the courses are validated by the voluntary efforts of professional education and training standards committees, which rely on volunteers to create and monitor standards. Those committees have decided to apply an important set of criteria on training courses, one of which is the requirement that students are recruited after proven and committed experience as volunteers or part-time youth workers. As a result, youth work students are deeply committed to their profession and have all volunteered in it. That is a model of the big society ethos.

Most mature students enjoy a second chance to learn and do not come into higher education through the traditional academic routes. They are community activists and organisers who are concerned to become skilled in what they do. The qualification for youth workers relies on the successful completion of 50% of field work practice. Around 60% of the students are women, and more than 30% are from black and minority ethnic communities. The high demands of placement learning mean that they cannot easily supplement their student time with paid work.

Despite their strong virtues, youth and community training courses, which became degree-level courses in September, have never received funding equivalent to that for teachers or social workers. The students, who are by and large older and less well off than others, have had less resourcing in higher education, but now the situation is even worse. Is the Minister aware that the proposal to remove funding for bands B and C will hit youth and community work courses, and can he give me an assurance that he will look into that with a view to reversing the decision for those courses? I can assure him that failure to do so would be the final nail in the coffin of a valuable service that, ironically, his predecessors created at a time of much higher national debt.

Reducing the deficit and cutting public sector spending is the order of the Government’s day. Whatever we might think about the cuts, we all have an interest in cost-effective public services, so I will finish by highlighting the exceptional cost-effectiveness of the youth service and youth work. It is estimated that for just £350 a year for each young person, all young people could access a good youth work offer. Current spending is £100 a head per annum for 13 to 19-year-olds. More specifically, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation commissioned an exercise on the cost of detached youth work, which found that a project that provided a full range of services and was in contact with 125 young people a week would cost £75,000 a year, or £16 for each contact. It concluded that for disadvantaged neighbourhoods, a systematic street-based youth service would cost a fraction of the amount spent on other services targeting that group. It cited, in particular, the £450 million budget for the Connexions service.

Other research has highlighted the relative costs of the criminal justice system and other forms of intervention, including youth work. The Green Paper, “Every Child Matters” stated:

“Society as a whole benefits through reduced spending on problems that can be avoided and through maximising the contribution to society of all citizens. For instance, a child with a conduct disorder at age 10 will cost the public purse around £70,000 by age 28”.

The Audit Commission’s report on the benefits of sport and leisure activities in preventing anti-social behaviour among young people estimates that a young person in the criminal justice system will cost the taxpayer more than £200,000 by the age of 16. The young person who is given support to stay out of the system, however, costs less than £50,000. Other comparative costings include: £1,300 a year per person for an electronically-monitored curfew order; around £35,000 a year to keep one young person in a young offenders institution; an annual average of £3,800 a year for secondary education; and around £9,000 per person for the average resettlement package after custody. Against those, £350 a year for each young person would be a small price to pay to unlock the rich benefits of community-based provision for all and to provide extra opportunities for personal and social development for those young people who, by virtue of life experience and circumstance, are so disadvantaged that they cannot successfully make use of mainstream services.

I could speak about the young people I have worked with over the years and the difference that youth work and youth workers have made to their lives, but I have spoken for long enough. I will end with a plea. We are entering a period that will be even harder for young people. They will have to deal not only with the normal trials and tribulations of entering adulthood but with unemployment, cuts to local services and higher costs for everything. I plead with the Minister to take action now to protect and invest in a highly cost-effective service. I ask him to please take action to defend youth work and youth services before it is too late. Youth work has always been known as a Cinderella service, but please let Cinders go to the ball.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stella Creasy]

rose—

[Julie Hilling]

rose—

[Anne Marie Morris]

I will allow interventions in a moment. Let me just clarify my point on funding. What we will see in local government is a review of what quality and value for money should look like. In speaking to my county council, I have found no evidence that youth services per se will be any harder hit than any other part of the budget. On community engagement, we are looking for more, not less, but before I move on, I am more than happy to give way.

[Anne Marie Morris]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am sure that in due course the Minister will clarify exactly how that will work, but my understanding is that it is not about reducing money but about taking away artificial barriers between individual pots of money.

[Julie Hilling]

To add to what my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) said, the cuts to the youth opportunity fund and youth capital fund were cuts in central Government funding, so this is not just about local authority cuts. In addition, money that was coming from the Department for Education specifically for youth work has been cut. That is a double whammy for local authority and area-based youth services.

[Anne Marie Morris]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Again, she is talking about structure rather than amount. As the Minister will explain, we absolutely will support youth services because they are important. The hon. Lady mentioned several new initiatives, including the national citizen service. Actually, there is a new group in the constituency adjoining her own. It is called the Bolton Lads and Girls Club, and I hope that she will welcome it. I am lucky, because the national citizen service, which provides an outward-bound social action experience for young people, will see 900 places created across the south-west by Young Devon and the South West Consortium. That must be a good thing for the future.

[Julie Hilling]

rose—

[Anne Marie Morris]

If I may, let me get back to the principle. We have been asked to keep contributions short, so I will not take any further interventions.

Quality is key. In conversations that I have had with my county council, I have found that people like Mike Stevens and what he contributes are highly valued. That kind of provision is not at risk. What any responsible council must do is look across their patch for the best way to provide best-quality services. Our young people deserve no less.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Our White Paper will reveal several steps that we will be taking to improve the learning of mathematics, and one of the key questions we will be asking at GCSE level is how a Government who left a £155 billion deficit can have the temerity to ask for more public spending.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

As youth services nationally have already been cut by 30 to 40%, the cuts to the National Youth Agency are so severe that it will no longer be able to carry out the annual audit of youth work, and Ofsted is no longer to inspect youth work, how will the Secretary of State ensure the quality of youth service provision in future?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady underlines the great importance of engaging the young people of this country as proper citizens, which is why we are carrying forward the national citizen service programme, which will give an offer to every 16-year-old in this country to come forward so it can help their transition to adulthood by enabling them to do worthwhile things in the community, and it will therefore offer a positive message about the good things—the great things—young people in this country do. In the past, we have been too much down on young people. I want to see a Government who are committed to being positive for youth, and this Government are.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[John Robertson]

If the hon. Gentleman was here, how sad.

As we can see, the scheme is widely recognised by independent authorities as a success, and the arguments by those opposed to the scheme are easily silenced.

The Minister will be aware that the EMA scheme is devolved and each Administration have their own policy responsibility for EMA. The Scottish National party Administration in Scotland have been as inconsiderate as this one when it comes to protecting students from low-income families during the recession. They cut the £10 and £20 payment scheme and lowered the threshold for the top rate of £30 to below £19,000, despite warnings from NUS Scotland that that could lead to about 8,000 students dropping out this year alone. This year, EMA for my constituency of Glasgow North West has been cut by 20%.

However, figures released by the Scottish Government last year show that the old system, developed under Labour, was successful. The figures showed an increase in uptake on previous years and that the allowance helped school pupils from low-income families to stay on in education, just as it was planned to do.

I know that the Minister has no responsibility for the administration of EMA in Scotland, but I use that as an example of what will happen if support is removed from students on EMA. That view is supported by the National Union of Students for Scotland, as well as by many education experts and independent think-tanks.

The Minister should also take into consideration those living independently at an early age, who may need particular support. Lack of access to financial support may be one of the main barriers to participation in education. There are some key barriers: course fees; travel expenses; the cost of food and other essential items; costs associated with the course or placement, such as equipment; and a lack of comprehensive advice and guidance for young people on their entitlement to benefits.

For example, a young person aged from 16 to 18 is far more likely to be independent of their family than younger students, and as such to require more support to enable them to participate in learning. For those living with families on a low income, the overall impact on the family finances should be considered. In some instances, young people have been discouraged from taking part in education. Economic barriers should not be part of someone’s choice about whether to stay on in education.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, particularly in communities where education is not highly valued, the EMA has played a fantastic role in allowing young people to make for themselves the decision to stay on in education? That is particularly the case for girls and young women, whose families often see no purpose in their girls continuing in education. The EMA has played a very valuable role in ensuring that those young people can stay on in education.

[John Robertson]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is absolutely right. That is why I have tried on several occasions to secure a Westminster Hall debate on this subject. We must raise the issue of the plight of people who need extra help in education. At the end of the day, education is the doorway to their future. If we take EMA away from them and do not give them that opportunity, we are destined to repeat the class system of history, and I do not want that.

I shall put to the Minister one of the comments on the Save EMA website. Cassie Campbell says:

“I need EMA. My mum is on benefits and I am a full-time student at college. Without EMA I can’t go to college. I will have to drop out and I don’t want to do that.”

In conclusion, I have to ask the following questions. Does the Minister agree with me that because of the importance of EMA to students from low-income families, it should be supported beyond 2011? What will replace EMA and how can we ensure that it reaches the young people who need it, no matter where they live? What assessment have the Government made of the cumulative impact of cuts on young people aged 16 to 25? How many students have the Government estimated will no longer be able to afford to continue studying under their plans to administer student support with 90% less funding? How does the Minister believe that young people should fund their transport to and from college once EMA has been abolished and local authorities have withdrawn subsidised travel passes? Considering the number of students, particularly those from a wider range of backgrounds, who have EMA to thank for their being at university today, have the Government given up on widening participation in higher education altogether?

People put honesty, loyalty and trust at the top of their agenda. The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have failed those tests. I look forward to hearing from the Minister and seeing whether he, too, fails those tests.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct; I am afraid that the legacy of the previous Labour Government is that social mobility did stall. This Government believe that one’s birth should not equal one’s fate. That is why we want Sure Start to focus better on targeting the most disadvantaged families, why we are reviewing the early-years foundation stage to ensure that all children are ready for school, and why we are implementing a pupil premium targeting extra resources on the most disadvantaged children.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

After 18 months of very hard slog, the 50 children and the staff and parents of Lever Park special school in my constituency raised the £20,000 funding needed to become a specialist school. In July, the Government promised them £100,000 to transform their facilities; in September, the Government cut it to £20,000. Will they please review their decision?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady. I will be speaking to people from the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust later this afternoon, when I will explain to them exactly the difficult circumstances that we inherited, which mean that unfortunately some tough decisions have to be made, but also point out that the fantastic achievements that have been secured so far by specialist schools and academies will be rewarded appropriately after the comprehensive spending review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question, which points to one of the many weaknesses in the Building Schools for the Future programme. Because its operation was area-based, some schools which were not dilapidated and which occupied serviceable buildings—not ideal, but serviceable—received large sums of money, while in many other parts of the country children suffered poor education in dilapidated buildings that were not prioritised for investment. That has to change.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State or a member of his team undertake to meet the pupils of Westhoughton high school, who will be making an educational visit to Parliament this Thursday, to explain to them why they have wasted the last two years designing and developing their programme for their new school and why they will now have to spend the rest of their school career in a crumbling school?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady is an impassioned advocate for Bolton West, but I have to tell her—and she can tell this to the children and parents concerned—that the reason why this process took so long is because of the bureaucracy her Government put in place. The reason why those children are losing out is because of the decisions made by the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood, and if she is angry, as I am, that children’s destinies have been compromised, that anger—that righteous anger—should be directed at the right hon. Gentleman, the person who presided over this debacle in the first place.

Industry (Government Support)

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I cannot begin to explain what an honour and privilege it is to be making my maiden speech as the new MP for Bolton West. Of course, I follow in some august footsteps. William Tyson Wilson was elected as the Member of Parliament for Westhoughton in 1906, as one of the first 29 Labour MPs. Do not worry, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am not going to talk about every one of my predecessors, although it would be good just to mention Baroness Ann Taylor, who came from Johnson Fold, one of the big estates in my constituency and was the Member of Parliament for Bolton West for nine years from 1974.

Anyway, back to William, who, like me, came from the trade union movement and was particularly passionate about education. One of his greatest achievements was the introduction of school meals, because he recognised that children could not learn and flourish if they were hungry or undernourished. My immediate predecessor, Ruth Kelly, also made a real difference to education. She was involved in schools throughout the constituency, but it was as Secretary of State for Education that she made real changes. She oversaw the healthy eating agenda and introduced the extended schools programme, now often known as “Kelly hours”.

Ruth represented Bolton West at the highest level of Government for much of her career, including a long stint in the Treasury, and as Communities Secretary and, latterly, Transport Secretary. She was the youngest woman ever to sit in Cabinet and somehow found time to become mother to four children. Ruth championed the cause of hard-working families and I wish her well in her new career.

The constituency of Bolton West has had many boundary changes over the years, but I am delighted with the last one, which has brought the town of Atherton, which has been my home for the past 24 years, into Bolton West. The constituency also has the town of Westhoughton, where the residents are called “keawyeds”—I had better translate that; it means “cow heads”. Legend has it that a cow got its head stuck in a five-bar gate and because the farmer could not get the cow out, he sawed its head off. People thought that that was just because he was stupid, but it was not at all—it was because the gate was worth more than the cow. The cow now has pride of place on the badge of Westhoughton high school. The town has also just been named as one of the best shopping centres in the county.

Atherton and Westhoughton share a piece of tragic history. In December 1910, 343 men and boys perished in the Pretoria pit, which was situated between the two towns. The centenary of this disaster will be commemorated this year with the installation of a monument.

We also have the village of Blackrod in Bolton West. I hoped to find out that that was the ancestral home of Parliament’s Black Rod, but no such luck. Wikipedia does not have too much to say about the village of Blackrod, except that it has a dialect

“very far removed from Standard English.”

We have the town of Horwich, which was once a major centre of train building at the loco works—sadly gone—but is now the home of the Reebok stadium and Bolton Wanderers. We also have several parts of Bolton itself: Smithills, the home of the haunted coaching house; and Heaton and Lostock, probably the most affluent part of the borough and home to many footballers.

The whole of Bolton West has a proud industrial heritage, particularly in coal mining and textiles: the pits and the mills, which were largely destroyed during the last Tory regime. However, we have companies that have managed to change and develop and to be part of a diverse local economy, including companies such as the Richard Threlfall Group, a family firm which has been trading for 175 years. The firm started making machinery for the textile industry and continues to supply valves—although now to the oil industry—and manufactures silicon products. Companies such as Web Dynamics, which manufactures technical textiles, are able to succeed and thrive due to the support from the regional development agency and Government grants. It has become a world leader in the development of insulation.

We have Watson Steel Structures, which is providing the steelwork for the Olympic stadium and has also given birth to Wenlock and Mandeville, the two mascots for the Olympic games. Two of our local companies recently won regional apprenticeship awards—the Green Team and MBDA. MBDA is a shining example of a company dedicated to work force development. All employees are encouraged to undertake training to fulfil their potential and it has the most amazing apprenticeship programme. The company really concentrates on the personal development of its apprentices as well as their industrial skills. This means that it has young people who are a real credit not only to themselves but to MBDA—they are confident and capable. Half the apprentices are female and as part of their programme they go into schools to encourage other girls to make a career in engineering. MBDA has received widespread recognition, not least from the previous Labour Government, for its outstanding record and I only wish that every company could follow its example.

Companies like those and others in my constituency have developed and thrived because of the support they have received from the Labour Government, the Labour council and the regional development agency. Work-based learning through apprenticeships, the union learning fund and graduate training programmes have made a real difference to their ability to compete in these challenging economic times. I am disappointed that the Government are cutting the future jobs fund but I hope that they will continue to support the union learning fund, a fund that enables trade unions and employers to work in partnership to increase the skills of the work force and that is particularly effective at getting to hard-to-reach groups. Cuts to the future jobs fund, cuts to the regional development agency and cuts to Government support for industries in Bolton West will not help the budget deficit. They will simply mean that there are more people out of work and more businesses closing.

I was a youth worker during the last Tory Government. I worked with unemployed young people in the ’80s and ’90s when we had generations of them with no jobs, no hope and no future—young people whose lives were so damaged that some of them never recovered. I hope that the Government have learned from the past and that they do not let this situation happen again.

I am ambitious for my constituency. I believe it is a tragedy that young people who live on my estate of Hag Fold do not believe they can become brain surgeons, solicitors or teachers. If only we could overcome the poverty of aspiration, it would make a huge difference to the lives of many people in Bolton West.

I have spent the majority of my working life as a youth and community worker and as a trade union activist. Six years ago I went to work for the trade union movement. My last job was for TSSA—the Transport Salaried Staffs Association—the union for people in travel and transport. So hon. Members can see that I have spent all of my adult life fighting for people with disadvantage or in difficulty. I shall continue that fight and hope I can be a real champion for the people of Bolton West. I hope that I can do justice to the faith placed in me by them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on her election, and she is fortunate to have many excellent schools in her constituency, including Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham, which I have had the great pleasure of visiting. Lewisham was one of the first local authorities to enter Building Schools for the Future. A number of schools have been built already under BSF, and because Lewisham is so far advanced, I cannot conceive of any changes to the BSF programme that would be likely to impact on the many projects that she will have shepherded towards a close.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

16. Which grants to local authorities for children’s services and youth services will continue to be ring-fenced.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

The Department for Communities and Local Government will be writing to local authorities with their revised grant allocations and details of the removal of ring-fences very shortly, including those affecting grants from the Department for Education.

The removal of those ring-fences will give local authorities greater flexibility to reshape their budgets and find the necessary savings that we expect them to make, while maintaining the quality of services to children and young people, which remain a priority of this Department.

[Julie Hilling]

Does the Minister agree that involving young people in determining youth service projects and the detail of spending on those projects is a good thing? Will he confirm that local authorities are to receive their full funding for this year’s youth opportunity fund and youth capital fund?

[Tim Loughton]

On the first point, I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady that young people’s involvement in, engagement with and ownership of youth services is vital, which is why, whenever I visit youth projects, I make a point of speaking to young people and asking them how they are involved in the project, and of promoting such things as youth mayors. In a neighbouring constituency to hers, the Bolton lads and girls club—a most fantastic facility that I have visited twice, and which the Prime Minister has visited as well—serves her constituents and does a fantastic job of engaging young people. I fully support that. It is just the sort of youth facility that we want to see more of.