Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians, Etc.) Bill

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Toby Perkins

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his Bill. Many people watching the debate may think it is purely about the household stars and that we are arguing over people who are already wealthy. Yesterday, however, I met a viola player who has played on 20,000 different records that are online but does not receive a single penny for those contributions. Is not my hon. Friend’s Bill not just for the household stars but for every single musician out there?

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct, and I will go on to explain why. It is interesting that orchestra players often receive nothing when their music is streamed. In fact, sometimes the only person who receives money is the only person who does not make any noise—namely the conductor of the orchestra. That is yet another irony of the system that we are discussing.

Let us be clear: streaming is an incredible technology. It enables us to have almost the entire catalogue of the world’s music in our pockets. To those of us who grew up in an analogue world, carrying around 12-inch vinyl copies of the latest David Bowie album under our arms, it is nothing short of miraculous that we can play music in this way. But artists and songwriters have not had the same boon from this new windfall as the major record companies.

Infant Class Sizes

Debate between Kevin Brennan and Toby Perkins

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan]

I am sure he is working hard—in his other job, in the Cabinet Office, dreaming up more fantasy Lib Dem manifesto pledges at the taxpayer’s expense. Indeed, it appears—just to be topical for a moment—that the coalition Government have now introduced compulsory setting, in that the two Schools Ministers are not allowed to be in the same room at the same time. That perhaps explains why the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) is not here with us this afternoon.

However, it would be useful if the Minister in this debate would clarify in his winding-up speech—[Interruption] —after he has finished reading the Parliamentary Private Secretary’s telephone—the whole shambolic issue around setting, which we have heard about today. We have not really had clarity today; we have just had chaos, in what is, after all, the first major policy announcement by the Secretary of State. It would be good if this House were told exactly what is going on, rather than our having to try to find out from Twitter. Despite the Secretary of State’s earlier remarks about not relying on Twitter for such information, we have to, unless we get it in the Chamber, which is where we should first hear of such things.

The first duty of any Education Minister is to ensure a sufficiency of good school places where they are needed. The figures that have been unearthed in recent weeks and which have been highlighted in today’s debate show that the Government have failed in that basic duty. We all remember the pledge, which has been mentioned in the debate, in the 2010 Conservative manifesto, when the Prime Minister promised

“small schools with smaller class sizes”

and said,

“the more we can get class sizes down, the better”.

That pledge has turned out to be as worthless as a Lib Dem pledge on tuition fees, because we have seen a 200% increase in the number of infants in larger class sizes over 30 since 2010, and the pressure on places is growing.

[Toby Perkins]

I am prompted to rise to my feet by my hon. Friend’s mention of the Liberal Democrats. I wonder whether he would like to reflect on the fact that we have had a debate on schools with not a single contribution from a Liberal Democrat Member. Is it not remarkable, when we think of what the Liberal Democrats once were, that we can get through an entire debate on education without a single Liberal Democrat thinking it worth actually turning up and speaking?

[Kevin Brennan]

I apologise for provoking my hon. Friend, but as I think I explained earlier, this is all part of the Secretary of State’s new policy on setting, in that the Lib Dems are set in a different group for this subject and are not allowed to participate in our discussions.

That pledge by the Prime Minister turned out to be worthless, so one would think, under the circumstances, that every sinew of ministerial effort at the Department for Education would be straining at the task of tackling this issue—that no distraction from the cause of meeting the challenge would be allowed and that scarce resources would be prioritised for the issue, with money spent on creating school places where there is a real need. But no, because according to the National Audit Office, two thirds of the places created in the Government’s pet free schools project have been created outside areas classed as having high or severe primary school need. The Government try to claim that the programme is tackling the shortage of places, but the very essence of the programme—a built-in design feature of the policy—is that the distribution of free schools is essentially random. The Department has received no applications to open primary free schools in half of all districts with high or severe forecast need for school places—not one. In fact, overall, only 38% of approved free schools are primary schools, while over 40% of them are secondary. Given that secondary schools are typically double the size of primary schools, despite the growth of “titan” ones under this Government, far more secondary school places are being created than primary school ones, which is where the greater need exists. As we have seen from the debate, there is an acute need. In other words, this Government’s insistence on ideology over pragmatism in opening new schools is producing the wrong kind of schools—secondary—in the wrong places. That is the very definition of policy failure.

Indeed, the National Audit Office found that 42 schools had opened in districts with no forecast need, with estimated capital costs of at least £241 million out of a projected total of £951 million for mainstream schools. That is not an accident. The Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton used to care passionately about class sizes. He told “Daily Politics” back in 2009 that it was important to get class sizes down,

“particularly at primary school level. This is really dramatic, how big our class sizes are compared with other countries.”

That is what he said in 2009, when there were 31,000 infant children in class sizes over 30; by January this year, that had risen to 93,000, which really is dramatic. Before the general election, the Minister told BBC London:

“A child can wander around corridors of a school anonymously because the teacher will not know the name and face of every child in the school. Smaller schools are much more intimate and it’s difficult for a child to be anonymous.”

Those are fine words, but the number of titan primary schools is soaring, with nearly five times the number of primary schools with over 800 pupils than in 2010. So much for intimate smaller schools as promised by the Minister.

What about this Minister’s views on trying to alleviate growing numbers by targeting the resources to areas where there is a shortage rather than a surplus of places? Here is what he said to “Attain Magazine” in spring 2010 about areas with surplus places:

“If it has surplus places beyond a certain figure, 10%, they will at the moment resist any new school coming in because they’ve got to fill these places first. But we’re saying that’s irrelevant”.

That was his attitude. “Irrelevant”—there we have it; it is not an accident. Instead of directing resources to where there is a shortage of places, more places are created where there is surplus of more than 10%. Why? Because right-wing ideology demands a market solution—creating an over-supply to drive out existing schools, rather than operate supportive and collaborative systems such as the highly successful London Challenge approach under Labour, which raised standards for all, and allow investment in new places to happen where those places are needed.

That is the ideology that lies at the root of the places crisis that we are seeing today, and the attempts to blame the last Labour Government are a smokescreen. The number of pupils in primary schools was falling between 2005 and 2010—it fell by 107,000—and the projections of increased numbers from the Office for National Statistics did not come until 2008-10. The last Government recognised that while overall numbers were falling at the time, in some areas, particularly in larger local authorities, more places would be needed. They provided core capital funding of £400 million a year from 2007-08 to 2010-11 to cover local growth in demand for places. Of course, the current Government never acknowledge that in their attempt to create a smokescreen about their role in the places crisis.

In addition, there was an annual “safety-valve” whereby local authorities, if they felt they needed it, could apply for additional funding to address exceptional growth. Until 2009, very few did, but in 2010-11, an extra £266 million was allocated to 36 authorities to provide primary places for September 2010 and 2011.