Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

We deal with the historical underfunding through a fairer national funding formula. On capital funding, we are spending £10 billion between 2016 and 2021 on school replacements, maintenance and improvement. That must be determined according to the condition of the school, and we have conducted a national survey of all schools in the country so that the system is fair.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Through the Minister, may I thank the Secretary of State and her Parliamentary Private Secretary for their superb response to the question I asked at the last Education questions session? On Friday, I was at Shiphay Learning Academy meeting its headteacher Elaine Gill, to discuss the condition of its building, and particularly the roof. Will the Minister reassure me that there will be an adequacy of funding to seriously consider the bid it is about to put forward to the condition improvement fund?

[Nick Gibb]

Obviously I cannot comment on a particular bid, but we are spending £10 billion on ensuring that we have sufficient capital to replace schools and improve the maintenance of schools. I hope that that answer was as superb as the previous answers that my hon. Friend has had.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We have put in place clear rules regarding the extent to which councils are able to switch money between the key funds. There is potential for them to go beyond that, but they would need to make an exceptional case.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that Paignton Community and Sports Academy does great work for my constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). However, it is hampered by the fact that some of its buildings are from the 1940s. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can deal with those old buildings?

[Justine Greening]

Either the Schools Minister or I will be very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that.

Schools: National Funding Formula

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s welcome for the introduction of the funding formula. He is right to say that identifying deprivation is more complex than just looking at free school meals. That is why this formula includes the additional element of an index that looks at child deprivation in particular: the IDACI—income deprivation affecting children index. That index is already used by many local authorities, and it is an aspect of how we are assessing the deprivation factors that are built into this formula. I hope he will welcome that.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Let me congratulate the Secretary of State on her statement and say how much it will be welcomed in Torbay, where schools have been underfunded for some years. When the last set of figures was published, I found that a number of people felt that the formula would not be of benefit because of some things that they had been told by unofficial groups. What efforts will be made to ensure that schools, particularly in places such as Torbay, hear about the real impact of this new formula?

[Justine Greening]

We will be writing to every MP in this House with details about their local schools. I hope that they will be able to share those with local headteachers, and of course the local authority will consult on how then to spread that funding. It is vital that schools, and indeed parents, have the facts and are not given misleading information. It is important that we recognise that more funding—record funding—is now going into our schools system and that we focus equally on the standards we are getting in relation to that investment.

Free Childcare Entitlement

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Goodwill]

I agree with the hon. Lady that it is vital to close the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and other children in our schooling system. Indeed, we have 12 opportunity areas across the country where we are looking at ways of specifically addressing that. One way is better provision for early years, but another is working with parents to improve the home learning environment, which is often so lacking in some families, particularly when they have housing problems to address.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Many parents in Torbay will welcome the availability of up to 30 hours of free childcare to support them going into employment, but, as with all policies, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Regarding the early delivery areas, what evaluation has been done of the number of parents who have taken on extra hours at work thanks to the availability of increased childcare?

[Mr Goodwill]

The raw stats indicate that about a quarter of women and 10% of men took additional hours, but I have also heard from people who could not get into employment at all because of the cost of childcare. A lady I spoke to in York said that the fact that she could now work and take up the 30 hours of childcare greatly transformed her family’s finances and life. The system is very flexible. Families can spread the childcare over more weeks or use different providers, including those in the voluntary sector, maintained nurseries or childminders.

Schools Update

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I will set out our response to the consultation more fully in the autumn. As the hon. Lady says, we will need to come forward with more details. Today I am being clear about the overall level of funding going into schools while also, I hope, giving colleagues reassurance on specific elements before we set out our full plans in September.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. One headteacher has already emailed me to indicate that it will be worth about £300 per pupil. As the Secretary of State will know, Torbay schools have been underfunded for many years due to the inequities in the current funding formula. Can she confirm that the per-school funding amounts will quickly be available so that those schools will not have to rely on a dodgy website?

[Justine Greening]

Once we have done our analysis over the summer, we will make the per-school spreadsheets available. I hope that people will look at them, because they will contain the actual reality of school funding, rather than some of the falsehoods that are being peddled.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I pay tribute to Dame Vera Lynn, who has been an iconic and amazing figure. She is a fantastic female role model for many young girls and women growing up in our country.

We need to make sure that, for the first time, our country sees consistent funding for all children, wherever they are growing up. We have seen significant rises in the overall schools budget over the years. Indeed, this Government have not only protected the overall schools budget in line with inflation but have made sure that the cash amount per pupil is protected, too. That is important, but we now have to make sure that we fund children in our schools fairly, wherever they are.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Torbay’s schools have done a great job in teaching pupils despite being among some of the most historically underfunded. Although the figure for Torbay goes up by 2.3% overall, the proposed formula hits the grammar schools quite badly, so will the Secretary of State assure me that we are still seeking a solution for those schools?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. As I have said, it is important that we reflect the fact that our funding needs to follow children who have additional needs. In particular, we know there is an attainment gap for children from lower-income and more disadvantaged areas and families. We also know that many children will start both primary and secondary school already behind, so we need to give an uplift for those pupils to enable their teachers to help them to catch up. These are important parts of the formula but, as he set out, we need to look carefully at other aspects of it, and we will do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Lady should know how negotiations with the Treasury work. We negotiated a good agreement with the Treasury and have protected core school funding in real terms. We are spending £40 billion a year on school funding—a record high figure—and that is set to rise, as pupil numbers rise over the next two years, to £42 billion by 2019-20. The figure that she refers to is about the cost of academisation. That proposal continues, but we are not targeting the same timetable that was agreed in the previous White Paper.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

The Minister will be aware that Torbay’s schools benefit overall from the proposals, yet the grammar schools that serve a large swathe of south Devon do not. I thank him for his courtesy in recently meeting the heads of those schools. Will he update me on when we are likely to receive a detailed response to the points we raised?

[Mr Gibb]

As I said at the meeting, which I enjoyed very much, schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency will gain £1.2 million of extra funding under the new national funding formula, which amounts to an increase of 2.4%. The funding of 78% of schools in his constituency will increase as a result of the formula. I listened carefully to the representations that he and headteachers in his constituency made, and I will respond to him shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend gives a really good example of where local work is delivering really good local results in a way that others can look at. We have to get better, throughout this country, at sharing best practice, and that is a really good example that others can look at.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

6. What progress the Government is making on reviewing the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the process relating to gender recognition certificates.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)]

The Government are continuing our work on our commitment to review the Gender Recognition Act 2004. We have begun stakeholder engagement programmes to look at how the gender recognition process can be improved, as well as looking carefully at international comparisons. We will provide an update later this year.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the Minister for her answer. My constituent Rebecca Cook applied for a gender recognition certificate, but her application was rejected on the basis that the statutory declaration was more than six months old and she

“may have changed her mind.”

Given that the statutory declaration is a lifetime declaration, will the Minister confirm that the six-month time limit will be reviewed as part of the overall legislative review?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I am really sorry to hear that my hon. Friend’s constituent has encountered those difficulties, and he is absolutely right to bring that kind of case to the House today. We have committed to review, streamline and demedicalise the gender recognition process, and we will certainly consider evidence of any administrative barriers to people gaining the legal gender recognition that they want.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

There are pressures on parliamentary time—I think the hon. Gentleman is responsible for some of those pressures—but the reality is that the matter is of significant importance, and we will proceed as soon as possible.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that the Government are taking their time to consider the best option for dealing with this historic Palace. Given the amount of taxpayers’ money involved, will the Deputy Leader of the House reassure me that such a cost will deliver an effective Parliament and a solution that taxpayers believe is genuine value for money.

[Michael Ellis]

It is crucial that value for money is safeguarded. Advice is being taken on a range of the technical and governance recommendations made by the Joint Committee report—we have studied it very carefully—and the independent Major Projects Authority is also being consulted.

Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill

Kevin Foster Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 13th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I am conscious of the time, so I shall keep my remarks fairly brief. I am planning to get married in June, and I am interested to see this Bill. Hazel and I feel that marriage in a church is the right choice for us, but I know that there are others who feel it is not for them and who wish to go down the path of entering into a civil partnership.

It is good to see the newest member of the Women and Equalities Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), here on a Friday and taking his duty to be a champion for equality seriously. He makes his points strongly. I note that some other Members who might have liked to speak on this subject have not found the time to join us today.

For me, this is about giving people a choice. The Minister might like to reflect on the fact that this links into a wider debate. There is a debate to be had about civil partnerships and civil marriage—obviously, the situation is different for those who want a religious marriage—in relation to if and how we continue the system. If it does continue, it would be strange for civil partnerships to be retained purely as an arrangement for same-sex couples. I think we probably all take the view that that situation should not be maintained in the long term. Perhaps the Minister could also tell us what impact the extension of marriage to same-sex couples has had on the numbers of civil partnerships taking place.

Civil partnerships originated as a bit of a compromise, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) rightly said. At the time, it was felt that legislation on same-sex marriage would not get through, but this arrangement at least gave legal protection to long-standing same-sex couples. There had been numerous notorious examples of families suddenly developing rather Victorian attitudes towards a loved one or relative who had been in a same-sex relationship when they realised that certain legal precedents might help them to get hold of assets and property. Civil partnerships were originally brought in to stop such behaviour and to give people the certainty of legal protection. Then, some years later, the momentous step was taken to equalise marriage in a civil sense, and same-sex couples are now able to be married under the law just as opposite-sex couples can be.

I welcome the Bill. It is right that we should have a debate about what types of relationships we recognise in law. The only thing on which I slightly disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is that those who seek religious relationships may be disappointed in that civil partnerships will probably be viewed in many parts of the Church as almost equivalent to being married if such a commitment is made. However, whatever my personal religious beliefs may be, they should not affect the legal definition of the type of relationship that someone has. That was certainly something that Hazel and I reflected on in our discussions given what we were looking to do, but we found that the views on marriage of the Catholic Church or the Church of England do not necessarily reflect the position of the law of land, which has been the case since 1836 when the concept of civil marriage was created.

Finally, it is a sadness that it is currently unlikely that I will be able to have my mother’s name on the marriage certificate, but I will sit down now not only because I want to let the Minister speak, but because I will be hanging around until 2.30 pm in the hope that some legislation on that front may be able to make progress as well.

A-level Archaeology

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Archaeology teaches us the disciplines of forensic analysis; how to peel back the layers of evidence, literally; how to contextualise and study the data in physical form—or often, as importantly, its absence in physical form—and to make assumptions based on scientific analysis. In a contemporary context, those same disciplines were brought to bear in the Shoreham air show tragedy in my constituency last year, when expert archaeologists were brought in to help in the grim but necessary job of identifying remains. There are many everyday applications for archaeologists in police, crime and detective work.

From archaeology, we learn a lot about our environment and the relationship between man and our landscape. We learn about why a bronze-age settlement was built on the side of the downs, for example, and about the relationship with sources of water and the preservation of scarce resources. How were the Romans able to keep food fresh and preserved without electricity and refrigeration? How did the Mayans build pyramids that mirrored the cosmos with the most accurate charts and calendars until the invention of the modern computer? How did the Greeks build such magnificent temples without JCBs and machines? They can all teach us a lot about recycling, respecting and conserving resources, and working in partnership with nature when food miles were scarce and expensive.

There are numerous examples of how archaeology has helped modern civilisation, such as the rediscovering of the Roman irrigation system in Libya to provide water for sustainable agriculture today. From archaeology we can learn about our society at a national and local level; what binds us together across generations; and where archaeological and heritage projects can be a major tool for regeneration and education, especially in deprived communities. Archaeology is a major driver of the economy, not only as a source of visitor attractions and because of its contribution to tourism, but as a serious employer in many sectors, too.

Heritage tourism in this country generated some £20.2 billion gross value added last year and is responsible for 386,000 jobs. The British Museum is the No. 1 visited attraction in the United Kingdom, with more than 7 million visitors. It is the world’s greatest museum—a museum of and for the world and the culture of mankind on this planet. There is a contribution, too, from marine archaeology, through famous wrecks such as the Mary Rose, which attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors to Portsmouth.

In the creative arts, the stories, films and programmes about the treasures of Tutankhamun and Howard Carter, the documentaries on Egypt and the more fanciful adventures of Indiana Jones, for example, are all linked to archaeology. In Syria, there are horrific scenes of man’s inhumanity to man, but more attention was given to the tragedy because of the destruction of archaeological treasures and UNESCO world heritage sites, such as the magnificent Palmyra, which I was privileged to visit when it was safe to do so.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

My hon. Friend refers to the jobs created in the heritage sector. I am grateful to Dr John Davey, the lab manager for archaeology at the University of Exeter. He told me that 55.3% of those employed in this area are aged 45-55 years. Does my hon. Friend agree that that shows the importance of continuing A-level archaeology to recruit the people we will need in future to replace those retiring?

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend is right. I am very grateful for the work that many academics in archaeology departments have done to communicate important facts to Members of Parliament about how archaeology applies across the generations and across social backgrounds.

Going back to Syria, a nation’s soul is its culture and heritage. That is why it is so important to preserve and protect important sites and the products of their civilisations. If war-torn countries such as Syria are to pull themselves up and recover, retrieving a sense of cultural identity will be a major part of that, but when misused, archaeology can be distorted by nation states to create slanted, propaganda-driven visions of the past.

There is also the practical application of archaeology and archaeologists in a developed industrial country such as the United Kingdom. If we are to build houses, develop communities and construct major infrastructure projects, we need archaeologists to recce and clear the ground first. If the northern powerhouse, High Speed 2, garden cities and the like are to happen, we need trained archaeologists in at the beginning. They are in short supply, as confirmed by the Chartered Institute of Archaeologists and the study carried out by the all-party parliamentary group on archaeology.

Historic England has said that it is

“concerned to hear that archaeology will no longer be an option at A-level. We anticipate growing demand for archaeologists trained to handle the large number of excavations likely to be needed in advance of housing development and major infrastructure projects. So we need to be encouraging the development of archaeological skills, and broadening the appeal of archaeology as a discipline. This move will close off a small but significant route into the profession. To address the situation we are working with universities and other organisations to promote archaeology apprenticeships and vocational training to offer potential new routes into the profession.”

Professor Carenza Lewis of the University of Lincoln and of “Time Team” fame notes that archaeology develops a range of transferable knowledge and skills, such as credible thinking, structured working, reflective learning, report writing, team working, verbal communication and citizenship, and that a lack of those skills often disadvantages students, particularly those from less affluent backgrounds, when they attempt to continue their education or enter the workplace. I say “hear, hear” to that. I could add a whole list of disciplines involving the environment, sustainability, culture, regeneration and heritage.

Archaeology is also a major source of volunteering. In 1985, the Council for British Archaeology calculated that there were something like 100,000 archaeological volunteers across the country, spread between about 450 societies. By 2010, that had grown to 215,000, across 2,030 organised archaeological groups and societies. Dr Daniel Boatright, who teaches archaeology A-level at Worcester Sixth Form College and started a petition that has so far attracted 13,261 signatures, says:

“Specialist A-levels like archaeology are vital tools in sparking students’ interest in learning and in preparing vital skills for use when they go onto university courses. AQA is extremely naïve if it believes UK students will benefit from a curriculum of only the major subjects. What we will be most sorry to lose is a subject capable of bringing out talent and potential in students that might have been left undiscovered.”

He is absolutely right.

Why is archaeology A-level so integrally important? Nearly three quarters of students who study A-level archaeology go on to study it at university, from where many of our archaeology professionals come. That route to jobs will now be cut off.

It is clear that this decision by AQA is hasty and ill-thought-through. It was announced without any discussion with anyone in archaeology or anyone associated with the delivery of the A-level or its redevelopment. It came out of the blue, apparently flying in the face of the archaeological community, which is and has been ready to offer additional support and publicity for the new qualification and has already undertaken research on what is needed. A lot of hard work has already taken place in expectation that the archaeology A-level would be revamped, reinvigorated, grown and promoted. As the Council for British Archaeology said, the archaeology profession has been developing Government-approved apprenticeships, which are due to be launched in 2017. Together with A-level archaeology, they would have offered an important alternative pathway into the profession at a time when there is a growth in demand for archaeologists linked with large infrastructure projects. I want to pay tribute to the good work done by the Department for Education in promoting the Heritage Schools project to bring archaeologists and other experts into schools.

AQA has given three main reasons for its decision to discontinue the qualification: the complexity of the syllabus means that there is a lack of specialists to act as markers; there are declining numbers coming forward to study the subject, although they have been fairly constant over five years; and there are difficulties in maintaining a comparative marking system with the degree of optionality available in the specification.

The archaeological community has queried all three points. Feedback from Ofqual had been very positive about the development of the new specification and the progression of the drafts. There is general consensus among examiners and teachers that the new syllabus would reduce complexity; there is a wealth of qualified examiners and teachers; and there are offers of increased support from higher education archaeology academics. People who have applied to become markers of the archaeology A-level are on a waiting list. The necessary specialisms are available in the existing examining group; there has been no attempt by AQA to discuss this with the group, which I think is a great shame. It makes no sense that AQA has dropped the subject at this time.