Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for that, and for bringing a delegation from the British Heart Foundation to meet me. It made a good case for the introduction of live-saving skills. I also know that 86% of teachers support training in those skills. However, we have to strike a balance in the national curriculum between the flexibility that we give to teachers and what we prescribe centrally. Those factors will go into our final decision making.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

On Friday, I visited Burnbush primary school in my constituency to meet a really lively group of year 6 pupils. They showed me the skills that they had learnt as a result of the Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust and British Heart Foundation programme that has been going round schools and teaching children about resuscitation and how to stop people choking. Does the Minister agree that we should be considering such training for the curriculum not only in secondary schools but in primary schools, as their pupils could also benefit from learning those skills?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I think it is a fantastic programme that the British Heart Foundation runs. One thing we have done is to provide finance to the Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education Association to work with partners such as the British Heart Foundation on providing programmes that really bring the subject to life in schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. A large body of research evidence shows that phonics is the most effective way of teaching literacy to all children. Last year’s phonics check identified 235,000 children who will now receive extra help, which is very important because PIRLS—the progress in international reading literacy study—showed that this country has one of the largest gaps between the strongest and weakest performers in reading. It is really important that we identify children who are struggling with reading early, so that they can receive help as soon as possible.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to ensure that no children with disabilities or additional needs are illegally excluded from school.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)]

We have issued new statutory guidance setting out schools’ responsibilities on exclusion, making it clear that discrimination against disabled pupils is unlawful and emphasising the importance of stepping in early to address the underlying causes of disruptive behaviour. Early identification and intervention also underpin the Government’s planned reforms to the special educational needs system and a new approach to exclusion that the Government are trialling in a number of local authority areas.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the Minister for that response, and he will be aware of Contact a Family’s survey of more than 400 families of children with disabilities and additional needs. It found that 22% of these children are illegally excluded at least once a week and 15% are illegally excluded every day for part of the day, with the most common reasons given being that there were not enough support staff to help or that the child had what the teacher described as “a bad day”. There are no sanctions against schools that carry out these exclusions and Ofsted does not take them into account in its reports, so what can be done to ensure that schools abide by the guidelines?

[Mr Timpson]

I am aware of the Contact a Family report, which was completely right to emphasise that schools should act lawfully and follow the correct procedures. Ofsted has an important role to play in this regard and, with the new criteria on behaviour and leadership, it will look carefully at where illegal exclusions are taking place, will take them seriously and will take them into account when making its overall judgment on a school’s performance. Our trials in 11 local authorities will give a greater incentive for schools to think carefully about what happens after they exclude a pupil and they will have to take greater responsibility.

Children and Families Bill

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Timpson]

If the hon. Gentleman bears with me, I will come to that point in a moment, and I will address it head-on. I am not trying to avert his gaze from that issue.

The fostering for adoption clause will require local authorities to consider a fostering for adoption placement as soon as they are considering adoption for a child, but local authorities must make the most appropriate placement available, which may well be a kinship care placement.

The Government recognise the importance of family members in taking care of children who cannot live with their parents, and we are aware that a child brought up by a family member benefits from living with someone they already know and trust, rather than a stranger. We stand by the measures in the existing legislation: the Children Act 1989 requires local authorities to seek first to place children with their wider family, and the Children and Young Persons Act 2008 strengthened that requirement. That is why section 17 was amended in April 2011 to make it easier for local authorities to provide regular and long-term financial payments to families caring for children, where they assess that to be appropriate. That is also why the Department has funded the Family Rights Group by £93,000 a year since 2011 and why it will award it two further years of funding in our voluntary and community sector grants in April to help further the role of family group conferences.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I know that the Minister is very much aware of the issues facing kinship carers—in fact, I think that he was one of the sponsors of the Kinship Carers (Parental Responsibility Agreements) Bill, which I introduced a couple of years ago—but does he acknowledge that the Family Rights Group says that clauses 1 and 6 need to be removed or amended because they place real obstacles in the way of kinship carers? Are the Government looking at that?

[Mr Timpson]

I am aware of the issue the hon. Lady raises. I have just set out the principles that remain in place, and it is worth noting that the concept of fostering for adoption is not new. A number of local authorities already use fostering for adoption very successfully, for example East Sussex county council. That is in no way trying to undermine the principles in law that already exist whereby local authorities must look at potential future placements within the family before considering a placement outside the family, and that will pertain as a consequence.

We also know that black children take, on average, one year longer to be adopted than white children or children of other ethnicity. Again, that is totally unacceptable. As Birmingham city council’s recent report illustrated, potential adoptions are still being blocked by misplaced and misguided efforts to find the perfect ethnic match over and above all other considerations. I want to make it absolutely clear, for the avoidance of any doubt, that we do not intend that ethnicity will never be a consideration. However, ethnicity should not block a placement that is in the best interests of the child and that can provide them with the loving and stable family home they so badly need. The Bill will remove the explicit requirement to have regard to a child’s religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background when matching them with prospective adopters. In doing so, it will ensure quicker and more balanced decision making when matching them for adoption.

As of 31 March 2012, 4,650 children were waiting for an adoptive family. We need more than 600 additional adopters a year just to keep up with the growing number of children waiting. To address the point made by the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), unfortunately we have a situation in which many small local problems are adding up to one big national crisis. There are currently around 180 adoption agencies, including 152 local authorities, each recruiting and assessing an average of 17 adopters a year. Many operate on too small a scale to be efficient and have no incentive to recruit adopters to meet the needs of children outside their area. That system is simply not fit for purpose.

We need to ensure that the national crisis of children waiting for adopters ends, and that it ends as soon as possible. Therefore, we are continuing to work with local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies and have recently provided them with over £150 million to scale up adoption recruitment services and bolster capacity to meet the growing demand for placements. However, if local authorities are unable to develop a sustainable approach, we will be prepared to use the provisions in the Bill that enable the Secretary of State to require some or all local authorities to outsource their adopter recruitment and assessment function to one or more other adoption agencies.

As we discussed a few moments ago, sadly some adoptions break down, with inadequate therapeutic and other forms of support often being a contributory factor, yet we know that properly assessed and well-planned support can help prevent problems that can lead to a placement breaking down. People adopting children need to be confident in the support available, but that has been sadly lacking, with many adopters not even being made aware of their right to request an assessment. So we are placing a duty on local authorities to provide information about the support that is available. We are also introducing personal budgets to give adopters more control over who provides the support and how it is delivered. With appropriate safeguards, the Bill will also widen access to the adoption register so that adopters can take a more active role in identifying children for whom they may be appropriate adoptive parents.

Taken together, the Bill’s measures on adoption will mean more children being adopted more quickly where that is the right thing for them. It will mean adopters having a greater degree of control and support so that they can give those children the best start in life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As I indicated in an earlier intervention, I wish to focus on the serious impact that the Bill could have on kinship care arrangements. I hope that the Government will seriously engage with and address concerns raised by groups such as the Family Rights Group, and take the opportunity to amend the Bill in Committee.

Recent research by Bristol university estimates that around 173,200 children are being raised by family members or friends of their parents because their parents cannot look after them. That equates to one in every 77 children in the UK, and in Bristol rises to one in every 59 children. These children have often experienced tragedy or trauma in their life due to the death or imprisonment of a parent, or to a parent’s alcohol or drug misuse or mental health problems. Sometimes, the parent has simply walked out on them and disappeared. Most of those children are being raised by grandparents, but sometimes siblings, aunts and uncles, and even friends and neighbours or a parent’s ex- partner, step in to help. Many of these placements occur when a crisis arises. Children benefit hugely from remaining within their wider family units and with people they know and who love them. That helps them to maintain contact with family members and sometimes, where appropriate, with their parents. Often, it also means they can stay at the same school and keep in touch with their friends.

Roughly half the children who enter kinship care have behavioural and emotional difficulties, but around 80% improve after placement—the same figure as for foster care. Despite the fact that support for family and friends carers is inadequate or non-existent, children in kinship care are as safe as and do as well if not better than children in unconnected foster care in terms of health, school performance and attendance, self-esteem, and social and personal relationships. There is also a marked improvement in emotional and behavioural problems. Family and friends carers are more likely to be highly committed to the children in their care than unrelated foster carers, as well as more likely to match their ethnicity, leading to more stable placements.

Only an estimated 6% of children raised in the care of family and friends are looked-after children. The huge majority live with relatives and friends outside the care system, either with their parents’ agreement or under a residence or special guardianship order granted by the courts. Such arrangements save the state approximately £12 billion, which is what it would cost for the children to go into independent foster care.

I first became interested in this issue when I heard the story of Paul on “Woman’s Hour” a couple of years ago. Paul is now 26 and from the age of 22 has raised his six younger siblings. He had to battle the system for more than a year and see his brothers and sisters taken into care and put into foster homes before the courts accepted that he was the best person to look after them. I was fortunate to meet him in June 2011 when I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill to assist kinship carers, and I was struck by the extraordinary love and determination he has shown towards his younger siblings, and by the sacrifices he had made in his own career and personal freedom to look after them. He was adamant that he had to step up to the plate and that he was the best person to look after his siblings, and so far that has proved to be the case.

Clause 1 states that when a local authority is considering adoption for a child in the care system but is not yet authorised to place them for adoption, it must consider placing that child with a local authority foster carer who is also approved as a prospective adopter. The local authority will no longer be required to give preference to placing the child with their parents or a wider family network. The Family Rights Group has undertaken detailed research into the impact of the proposals on family and friends care, and set out some careful and reasoned amendments that I hope the Government will consider. Clause 1 could apply to any looked-after child, even those in care by agreement with the parents, despite there having been no due legal process by which the threshold for the state to remove a child from their parents and/or place the child for adoption is fully established. In voluntary accommodation and pre-birth cases there will have been no legal proceedings at all, and kinship carers in such circumstances are unlikely to have had legal advice.

The court’s final decision on whether a child should be removed from their family will be pre-empted by the child forming attachments to the prospective adopters. Any court that later considers the case would not be able to resist the status quo argument—that it would be better for the child to stay with the adopters than return to their parents. That problem is further compounded by the lack of any legal duty to work with parents to help them resolve their problems before or after the child is looked after. It has been suggested that the measure might squeeze out potentially suitable family and friends carers because again the status quo argument would militate against moving a child from prospective adopters to a relative’s home.

It is vital that court decisions on whether to remove children permanently are not pre-empted. In addition, the Government’s proposal to limit the time frame for care proceedings to 26 weeks as set out in clause 14 might be imposed at the expense of getting it right for children. I am aware that that aspect of the Government’s changes to adoption has not received a proper airing because so far the debate in the media has been on efforts to reduce the emphasis given to ethnicity, culture and so on when matching a child to an adopter parent. However, given that this Bill makes provision for children to be removed from their families without due legal process being observed, I am slightly surprised that it has not caused more alarm among Government colleagues, who are normally quite exercised by the concept of an overbearing state interfering with people’s lives. I hope that the Government will reconsider clauses 1 and 6, and that they will take the opportunity to introduce amendments set out by the Family Rights Group that could support kinship care arrangements. I hope that such matters are considered in Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It is always a pleasure to visit the county of Norfolk, particularly in my hon. Friend’s company, and I would be delighted to do so. In the past, educational standards in Norfolk simply were not good enough, but as a result of the transformational leadership of academy principals, things are at last improving. I commend, for example, the work undertaken by Rachel de Souza at the Ormiston Victory academy and the work that she is extending across the whole county, particularly targeting children in the most disadvantaged parts who need our reforms most.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

By April this year, 40% of Bristol pupils will be taught in academies. One of the consequences of that has been the creation of rather fragmented services in school improvement, educational welfare and so on; 75%, I think, of the academies are buying those services in from the local authority, but not all of them are. What assessment has been made of the quality of both statutory and non-statutory safeguarding provisions in academies as a result of the change?

[Michael Gove]

There was fragmentation in education in Bristol, with far too many children being educated outside the city and far too many of their parents feeling that they had to be educated privately. At last, educational standards in Bristol are being turned around, not least thanks to the inspirational leadership of academy sponsors and academy leaders such as David Carter of the Cabot Learning Federation. There is no evidence that child safeguarding is taken any less seriously in academies. All the evidence is that academies, in pastoral and in educational terms, outperform other schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have already heard from the hon. Gentleman in substantive questions and it is not long before we will have the delight—I hope—of hearing from him again in topical questions. Members cannot, I am afraid, have two goes at substantives. One can almost have too much of a good thing.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

16. What recent assessment he has made of his changes to higher education and to the level of student tuition fees; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

The proportion of English school leavers accepted by universities for 2012-13 was the second highest on record. Final data show that acceptance rates from disadvantaged areas increased. More students are getting into their first choice universities.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

But UCAS data show that there was an overall 11% fall in applications for higher education in 2012-13, and early indications are that the number of applicants for 2013-14 will fall further. Is the Minister worried by that emerging trend, and if so, what will he do about it?

[Mr Willetts]

Of course, entry to British universities is competitive, and we have many more applicants than places, but we will continue to get across the message that no student has to pay up front to go to university, and that students start paying for university only if they are earning more than £21,000. That is a very fair way of financing our universities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Ensuring parental involvement in children’s education is critical, and one way that that can be improved is through regular reporting of pupils’ progress. That is why I deprecate the action that has been taken by the National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, which works against parental involvement by inflicting a work to rule on members.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T3. This summer, 97% of students at Bristol Metropolitan academy achieved five good GCSEs, which is a phenomenal improvement over the past few years. Sadly, only 37% achieved five good GCSEs in English and maths, but 46% would have done so if they had sat the exams in January. That means that the school is now below the floor standard, whereas it would have been above it. Is that not grossly unfair, particularly for those pupils who worked so hard to try to get that grade C?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question and delighted that pupils in that academy are improving their education. As I have said before, the structure of the GCSE examination that those students sat, which was designed before this Government came to power, was unfair.

School Places (Bristol)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Scott. I am grateful for the opportunity to debate a matter of great concern to many of my constituents and to parents across Bristol. I thank the Minister for having a meeting earlier today with all four Bristol MPs, the council cabinet’s lead member on schools, children and young people and the council officer who deals with those issues. It was a useful meeting, although, unfortunately, the Minister did not produce a large cheque at the end of it.

As I explained to the Minister this morning, Bristol faces a crisis in primary school provision: there simply are not enough primary school places. The number of four-year-olds—that is the age at which children start reception class—has increased by 20% in Bristol over the past four years. This year alone, we needed an additional 14 reception classes. Demand is projected to rise steeply over the next couple of years, tailing off a little, but then taking off again. It is estimated that Bristol will need a minimum of an additional 3,000 places by 2015.

Bristol has seen the fastest growth in pupil numbers in the country. The council estimates that the percentage change in primary school numbers is three times the rate across England. According to Office for National Statistics projections for population growth between 2008 and 2015, the increase on 2010 levels will be 11 times higher in Bristol than the national average. Judged against its own historical standards and national comparisons, therefore, there has been unprecedented growth in Bristol, and I ask the Minister to consider the city’s special case for urgent funding.

There are a number of reasons for the rapid increase in the primary school-age population. Bristol is a popular place to live for many reasons, including economic and cultural reasons. Immigration is also a factor, although it is not the only cause. This is a city-wide problem, as the Minister will have seen from the map we showed him this morning; it is not a problem just in the inner-city areas, where black and minority ethnic populations are traditionally concentrated.

In areas such as St George, which is in my constituency, the pressure on school places has come about as a result of gradual demographic change, as older people who have lived in these areas all their lives have died or moved to sheltered accommodation, and younger people have moved in because these are cheap places to live. Obviously, those younger people go on to have families.

The recession has meant that parents who might previously have opted for private education can no longer afford it. Equally, improving education standards in Bristol mean that parents might be less likely to opt for private provision or to take their children out of the Bristol local authority area and to schools in north Somerset or south Gloucestershire, which has been a major factor over the years. There have also been major housing developments, and there is an urgent need to build more housing in Bristol, so this problem will not go away.

This year, Bristol city council had to find an additional 250 places to ensure that all reception-age children could start school in September. It has had to resort to adding modular classrooms to already stretched schools. Although those classrooms are an improvement on the Portakabins and huts we might remember from school, they are still not an ideal, permanent solution. One school has had to convert its information and communications technology suite to classroom use, which, again, is not ideal.

The council has had to spend £5.3 million on such temporary solutions. There is no guidance from central Government and no clear view on the way forward to enable the long-term planning we need. Spending money on temporary classrooms, rather than permanent school buildings, is a quick-fix solution, and it might prove to be an inefficient use of scarce resources in the long term.

Some schools, such as May Park in my constituency, have increased from two to four-form entry. Obviously, that does not solve the problem in itself, because the new pupils will move up next year, and so on through the school, creating an additional need for classrooms if each year is to have four forms. Schools such as May Park are doubling in size, which creates additional pressures, because the dining halls and other facilities—particularly the play facilities—are not designed to cope with the numbers. When I visited Air Balloon Hill primary in my constituency last week, I was told that it had to spend £90,000 on a new electricity generator because the addition of a few extra modular classrooms meant that the existing generator was unable to cope with the demand.

The local authority has been quite imaginative, and it has done all it can to put in place temporary quick fixes, but we need more radical and lasting remedies. The task is becoming greater with year-on-year growth in the four-year-old population. By 2015, it is estimated that Bristol will need a minimum of 100 additional classes, which is equivalent to 14 one-form entry schools. Depending on housing development and migration patterns, the 3,000-place shortfall could be quite a significant underestimate, and it is suggested that the figure could be as high as 5,300.

The pressing priority is September 2012. The council has 11 months to find 15 additional reception classes. Legally, it must provide those places, but that is not the only reason why failure is not an option. As all the other MPs in Bristol will confirm, parents are coming to us because they simply cannot get their children into a school that they could physically deliver them to in time each morning. I have met parents who have a child in a school at one end of the city and who are being told that their next child, who is starting reception class, has to go to a school several miles away. However, public transport in Bristol is pretty abysmal; we have the worst traffic congestion of any city in the country. Parents tell me that they will have to give up work, particularly if they work shifts and can no longer use breakfast clubs and after-school clubs because there are fewer of them. Parents are also having their child care credits cut, so it is more difficult to fund child care. Physically, parents are not able to be in three places at once; they cannot get to work on time, get one child to school and get another child to a child minder. Parents cannot manage the logistics of getting their children to their schools. Even though the new term has started, some children still do not have a school place to go to.

On a more positive front, the local authority has a strategy to resolve the crisis, as the Minister heard this morning. Its children and young people’s services have been working with the local education partnership and developers. They have detailed plans for rebuilds and have identified potential sites for new schools. The standardised designs can be constructed quickly and efficiently. Importantly, estimates suggest that they offer a 20% reduction in building bulletin guidance. Unfortunately, the stumbling block is a £110 million funding gap.

To give an example that I mentioned to the Minister this morning, Air Balloon Hill primary school has spent £500,000 on working up detailed plans for the major building works it desperately needs if it is to continue as a four-form entry school. The work must start by February next year if the school is to be ready for a four-form entry 2012 reception class, but it needs £4.5 million if that is to happen. As I am sure the Minister will tell us, the figures will be looked at in November, so it could be into the new year before the school has any idea whether it will get the additional funding it needs. Obviously, other schools across Bristol will be in the same position and will be seeking similar sums.

Capital funding for 2011-12 has been reduced by 20%, and the budget was necessarily strained by September’s pupil increase, leaving the council in a position where it cannot begin to address next year’s shortage. The Secretary of State announced an extra £500 million in July to fund basic need nationally, but the council needs a degree of certainty about what its share of the money will be and when it will receive it.

The methodology for allocating basic need funding also means that Bristol is unlikely to receive its fair share. The Department judges basic need according to the surplus of all primary school places across the local authority. That will change in the next few years as the increased population moves up through the school, but there is technically a surplus in primary school places in Bristol at the moment because there are spare places—classes of 25 or 26 pupils—in years five and six. However, that does not really help someone with a four-year-old who needs to start school immediately. I urge the Minister not to do this netting off of surplus places against shortfall, but to look at how many pupils we need year on year, because children will otherwise be sitting at home unable to go to school.

Bristol has recently—this September—received funding for a new school, but it is not the school that the city desperately needs. Following concerted campaigning from some parents in one part of the city and the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie), Bristol can now claim to have the largest free school in the country. However, it is a secondary school and it does nothing to address need in the city.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, given there is a need for primary school places in the area, obviously there will be a need for more secondary school places in the future and that we have learned the lesson that forward planning goes a long way? Does she also agree that it was most unfortunate that discussions were not progressed more by the city council when it considered having an all-through free school on the St Ursula’s site? That would have been able to attract capital funding from the Department for the primary school places that she is making a good point in saying we need.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The point I am making is that there is a surplus in secondary school provision that is predicted to be in place until 2017. I suggest that the entire movement towards getting a secondary school in Bristol was misguided. The priority should have been solely to focus on the primary school need. I understand that the new free school has a capacity of 150 places and that only 82 children started there this September. The three closest secondary schools—Henbury, Oasis Brightstowe and Orchard—all have a significant surplus of provision. Indeed, the head teacher of Henbury, which already has about 145 spare places, has warned about the impact that the free school will have upon her school.

As I was saying, I do not believe that there was a need for a Bristol free school, particularly a secondary school. We should have focused on primary schools instead. The bizarre thing about what has happened with the Bristol free school is that the preferred site was the former St Ursula site bought by Bristol city council because it represented good value for money for a new primary school. However, it was confirmed last week that Bristol free school will remain on its temporary site on Burghill road, Southmead. It is worth noting that half the parents who supported the Bristol free school during the consultation stated that they would not send their children there if it were located on Burghill road, so not only is there no need for the school, but it may not even have the community support on which free schools are supposed to be based.

The strange thing is that the catchment area of the new free school is based on the St Ursula site that was the preferred location. Some 80% of the school’s places will be unashamedly given to the affluent BS9 community, which is in the top 5% of the most affluent areas in the country. At the same time, access will be restricted for families living directly around the school in the less prosperous area of Southmead. The school is actually outside its own catchment area. There seems to be a strange sense of what the priorities should be. We should be focusing on the need for a primary school instead.

There is now an E-ACT primary academy on the St Ursula site, but it has had to restrict its intake to two forms rather than the preferred three or four-form entry in case the Bristol free school also moved to the site. Bristol free school has diverted much needed resources from Bristol’s existing secondary schools and has enabled the Government to concentrate on the wealthier areas while completely ignoring Bristol’s actual needs.

[Charlotte Leslie]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, given the passionate case she is making for primary school places today, it is a great shame that the Labour Administration and the Building Schools for the Future programme concentrated on secondary schools and completely neglected primary school need? In 2008, it was a Labour council that oversaw a primary review that cut all surplus places in the primary schools. Although I very much welcome her concern for primary school places and for the really upsetting plight of parents in Bristol, does she not agree that it is a great shame that the matter was not sorted out when her party was in council power and in government?

[Kerry McCarthy]

Our party was leading on the council for a very short time, as I am sure the hon. Lady knows. I will not in any way apologise for the Building Schools for the Future programme and the academies programme in Bristol, as they made a phenomenal difference to standards in our secondary schools. She will know that there was a real problem with people taking their children out of schools in Bristol, particularly in years 5 or 6 of primary school, because they did not want them to go to Bristol state schools. We have seen a huge increase in standards in those schools built under Building Schools for the Future. That programme was not about addressing the places issue and the shortage of places; it was about addressing school standards. It is really important that we did that.

The case for investment in Bristol’s primary schools is not only pressing, but urgent. Building works must start within the next few months if we are to have enough classrooms in September. Some schools have been hesitant to commit to additional classes in case that pushes them into debt. We therefore need decisions to be made as soon as possible.

Bristol city council has made several representations to the Department for Education and, as I mentioned, local MPs met with the Minister responsible for schools earlier today. That meeting was originally set up just to discuss the case for extra funding for schools in Bristol West. That is the wrong way to approach the matter. This is a city-wide problem and all four Bristol MPs should be working together to help to resolve it.

It is also unfortunate that the letter from the Liberal Democrat council leader to the Secretary of State making the case for additional funding gives the erroneous impression that the problem is specific to the north of Bristol. As the Minister will have seen from the map that he was shown, the problem is not restricted to any particular area of the city. The issue occurs in pockets across the city and, although it is particularly a problem in the inner city, it affects all four Bristol constituencies.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Dawn Primarolo) is sitting here watching the debate because her post as Deputy Speaker means that she is not allowed to take part. However, she has told me that she has about 30 constituents who were not offered a school place in the local area and that the problem is particularly acute in the Southville and Bedminster wards. As in Bristol East, there are very limited opportunities to expand schools in Bristol South on their current sites, and my right hon. Friend rightly joined us this morning to make the case to the Minister.

There are major shortfalls in the number of primary school places across the city. It is a city-wide problem that needs to be resolved at a city-wide level in the best interests of all families in Bristol, not just a select few. I urge the Minister to work with the local authority to secure immediate and lasting solutions. I look forward to hearing what he has to say today.

Careers Service (Young People)

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

The hon. Gentleman makes another good point. I agree with him, but urge him, perhaps when the Minister is speaking, to stand up and ask his Front-Bench team what discussions they had with the CBI before they introduced the English baccalaureate. What is the CBI’s view of it? Does it respond sufficiently to the needs of employers. I see the hon. Gentleman nodding and I hope he will direct those questions to his Front-Bench team. Quite frankly, we risk preparing young people for a world that no longer exists and we need to ensure that young people have the crucial skills—good communication skills, critical thinking and good presentational skills—that they will need if they are to survive in a workplace where much more is demanded of them.

The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning is not in his place this evening, but when we last debated these issues he said:

“Let us once and for all kill off the bourgeois, left assumption that working-class people do not aspire to the same things as their middle-class contemporaries. Their ambitions are the same; what they lack is the wherewithal.”—[Official Report, 11 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 1257.]

I agree with that statement. Let me share a shocking statistic with the House; I genuinely find it appalling. It is that 39% of 16 to 19-year-olds who went to a state school say that they do not know anyone in a career in which they would like to work. This rises to 45% among the poorest young people who receive free school meals. What Ministers fail to recognise is that if someone does not know a single person in a career in which they would like to work, they might not be able to fulfil their aspirations in the same way as others.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What my right hon. Friend has just said ties in entirely with what I am about to say. Three of my nephews came to do their work experience here; they are mixed-race lads from council estates in Luton. One of their friends—they did not have an aunt who was an MP—spent the night as a security guard in a factory where his dad sat watching telly all night, walking around the building once an hour to check that no one else was in the building. Another friend did his work experience at Costa Coffee. That was because they did not know anyone who worked in professions to which they could aspire. It is important for career advisers not just to try to get people into internships, but to encourage young people through early work experience placements to stretch their horizons and make connections with people in the professions.

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent contribution; she puts her finger on the problem. I hear anecdotally that, increasingly, schools are saying to young people, “Can you sort out your own work experience? Is someone in the family able to give you an opportunity?” I understand why they might say that because there are lots of pressures on schools, but that highlights the dangers of what is being created. If we live in a world where people say, “The schools do it; we’ll leave it up to them”, that can reinforce low expectations. It is basically telling kids that they cannot break out from their family circumstances because they will dictate what they have experience of and where they will set their expectations. That is what is so wrong about that approach—this random laissez-faire approach to this crucial issue.

My hon. Friend and other Opposition Members will remember a report by Alan Milburn on fair access to the professions during the last Parliament. He made the point that we need to do the reverse—take those young people who have no connection with the powerful worlds of the professions and transplant them into those worlds. We need the highest quality careers advice and work experience for those young people. As the Opposition develop our policy, that is exactly what we should aspire to deliver—alongside excellent careers advice, of course, which has to be impartial, independent and personalised.

Public Disorder

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Thankfully, the trouble in Bristol this week was not on the scale of that in London, Manchester and the midlands, and was not a repeat of the disturbances in Stokes Croft in Bristol, the so-called Tesco riot of a few months ago. It was for the most part an aimless copycat effort, although still very frightening for communities, who saw gangs marauding through the streets and setting fire to cars and bins. Having seen the television footage of what was happening elsewhere, the local community feared the worst, of course.

I congratulate the local police on how they kept the situation under control. That has to be the priority, to ensure that the public are kept safe and can get on with their lives. I am, however, concerned about some of the measures being proposed as ways of supposedly keeping them safe. We have heard that water cannon would be difficult to deploy, and completely ineffective where there is a swiftly moving crowd, and Sir Hugh Orde has warned against the use of plastic bullets. I am concerned that calls for such measures are distracting from what we really need: a visible, reassuring, on-street police presence, and people in charge of local policing who know what they are doing—not the shallow populism of an elected police commissioner, and not cuts to front-line police services.

The actions of the mob in London, Manchester, Bristol and elsewhere were mindless, criminal and inexcusable. Every time I see the YouTube clip of the injured Malaysian student being mugged by those purporting to help him, it seems more brutal, more depressing and more soul-destroying to think that people could act in such an inhumane way. However, the role of we politicians is not just to condemn. We will, of course, be pilloried by some if we try to understand, and if we dare to move beyond simple condemnations of thuggery and criminality, which are so easy to utter. However, it is our responsibility to try to prevent this from happening again, and not just in the short-term sense of policing our streets and keeping our communities safe. If we take that responsibility seriously, we need to have the political will and courage to persevere with policies that only reap rewards in the long term and perhaps sometimes do not reap rewards at all—policies that are resource-intensive and sometimes unpopular with voters who cannot understand why we are spending money on the “undeserving.”

I am talking about investing in people’s lives and futures. I am talking about intervention—about what some would decry as the nanny state. I am talking about schemes such as Sure Start, trying to give kids a better start in life and help their parents be better parents, and the family intervention projects, working with the most problematic “problem” families, addressing issues including alcoholism, drug addiction, mental health problems, domestic violence and criminality, and trying to break the cycle of deprivation and despair. They are about as far from a political quick win as we could get, but it is very important that we continue to take such steps. I am also thinking about schemes such as the education maintenance allowance, encouraging kids from poorer backgrounds to share the same aspirations as those with an easier start in life, and funding the work in local communities by groups such as Kids Company.

I am old enough to recall the way the inner-city riots in 1981 lit a spark in other towns, including my then home town of Luton. Indeed, I lived in Toxteth for a time as a student in the aftermath of the riots there. I saw a generation written off by a Government who did not believe in intervention and thought people should be left to fend for themselves. I urge this Government not to repeat the mistakes of the past Conservative Government, and instead to devote resources to trying to ensure that people’s lives now do not turn out the way their parents’ lives, and those of the generations before them, did.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Local authorities have a crucial role to play in education in ensuring fairness of admissions, making sure that the needs of children who have, for example, high-level special educational needs are respected, and making sure that when it comes to behaviour and attendance, there is appropriate collaboration. They also have a critical role to play as champions of excellence. The best local authorities pursue this role with vigour. Not all do, however.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

17. Whether young people being raised by kinship carers will be eligible for the bursary scheme which will replace education maintenance allowance.

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

The short answer is probably. The long answer is that under the arrangements for the 16 to 19 bursary fund, the most vulnerable young people—young people in care, care leavers, those on income support, and disabled young people in receipt of both employment support allowance and disability living allowance—will receive bursaries of £1,200 a year. Young people being raised by kinship carers may fall into this category, depending on the nature of the placement, and may also receive support from the discretionary funding.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am disappointed that the Minister cannot give a more specific response. These carers have stepped up to the plate, often when children have been abandoned or orphaned, and often at great financial and personal cost to themselves. I urge him to listen to organisations such as Kinship Care Alliance and, if the Government are as family-friendly as he will no doubt tell us they are in answering the question, look at families that do not fit the nuclear model and perhaps live in chaotic circumstances, but who still need help?

[Tim Loughton]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady that kinship carers do a fantastic job, and we want more of them to step up to do it and be supported in that, but it depends on the nature of the placement and whether it is formal or informal. If it is informal, those children and young people will be able to apply for discretionary funding and could end up getting more than they would have done under the old EMA arrangements. We have taken those considerations into account.