Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Vince Cable
My hon. Friend is right to stress the importance of inward investment to job growth in the UK. Indeed, many manufacturers and banks in the City of London have made it clear that the expectation of being able to export to the European single market is fundamental to their decision to locate here.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State welcome the contribution that will be made to trade by the Ladder for the Black Country, a brilliant apprenticeship scheme established by the Vine Trust and the Express and Star, which is working with hundreds of businesses to provide thousands of apprenticeships and give young people the jobs and skills they need to develop careers? Is this not exactly the sort of scheme that should be copied nation-wide?
Vince Cable
On the basis of that quick précis, it sounds as if it is. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have seen a rapid expansion of apprenticeships, which we are very proud of, as they are fundamental to meeting the demand for skills, particularly higher skills. I would be interested to hear more about his local programme and to see what we can do to help.
Technical and Vocational Education
Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
I am very pleased that the shadow Secretary of State called for this debate, because we have to make education and skills this country’s No. 1 priority. The biggest question that we face, as a country, is how we can bring new, better-paid and more secure jobs to places such as Dudley, which have lost their traditional industries. The only way our country will pay its way in this century, let alone prosper, is by equipping the British people with the skills that they need to compete. There is no more urgent priority or task.
Children who are at school today will spend their adult lives working with technologies that have not yet been invented, and that we cannot even imagine. On average, those who leave school today will have more than a dozen jobs over their lifetime. The key thing that they have to learn is how to adapt and acquire new skills. However, the CBI’s education and skills survey in 2013 found that nearly a third of employers were dissatisfied with school leavers’ basic literacy and numeracy. Too few students have good English and maths GCSEs by the time they reach 18.
Germany has three times as many apprentices as the UK. The number of young apprentices—those who are under the age of 19—is falling, as is the number of apprentices in information technology and construction. It is good that the Minister has introduced degree-level apprenticeships, but they account for less than 2% of apprenticeships.
Britain is also falling behind our competitors in basic numeracy and literacy. In basic skills, we now lag behind not only countries such as Finland, South Korea and Germany but even Estonia, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. England is the only country in the developed world where the generation approaching retirement is more literate and numerate than the one entering the work force.
Ian Austin
If I may say so, that is a narrow party political point. I believe that the last Government took many great steps in education and skills, and if the hon. Gentleman bothers to listen, he might discover that I am saying some things that he and his party’s Front Benchers actually agree with. He ought to sit down, listen carefully and then perhaps contribute later to a serious debate about what I am saying should be the No. 1 priority for every political party.
We should agree as a country—all parties, Government, schools, universities, the teaching profession and businesses—clear long-term targets to transform education and ensure that we have the skills that we need to compete. We should set an ambition for Britain to produce the best-educated and most highly skilled young people in the world. Someone is going to do that, so why can it not be us? We have to drive up standards in our schools and get behind head teachers and teachers who are working to improve standards. If we recruit good teachers, motivate them, set high aspirations and tough targets, focus on standards and discipline and make the kids believe in themselves, the sky is the limit.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that companies such as Jaguar Land Rover need highly skilled and highly qualified technicians? Fairly recently, they were having difficulty recruiting them. If we cannot get people with high skills and technological qualifications, how will we expand our manufacturing base in the west midlands, for example? Does he agree that that is critical to the area?
Ian Austin
I completely agree. That is a critical issue, particularly in the black country, where we are getting the new engine plant. It is fantastic that Jaguar Land Rover is sponsoring a university technical college, and skills are crucial not just for JLR but for all the people in its supply chain.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman and I both represent parts of Dudley. Does he agree that we need better matching of skills and employers? The black country local growth deal, signed this week, will bring significant investment to both Halesowen college and Dudley college in his constituency; it will go a long way towards addressing the issue that the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) mentioned.
Ian Austin
I welcome every penny that will be spent on improving the facilities at Dudley college. It is fantastic that we will get a new construction centre to go alongside the new manufacturing centre that is being built, the new sixth-form college, and the new college buildings that the shadow Secretary of State visited a couple of weeks ago, which were funded entirely locally, rather than by central Government.
Research by the Sutton Trust shows that bringing the lowest-performing 10% of teachers in the UK up to the average would make our country the third best-performing country in reading, and the fifth best in maths—subjects in which we currently fail to make the top 20.
We need to recruit and train a new generation of head teachers. Ellowes Hall, a comprehensive school in my constituency, has gone from fewer than four in 10 students getting five good GCSEs a few years ago, to more than eight in 10 doing so today. They are kids from the same families, and largely with the same teachers, but what has changed is that there is a brilliant new head teacher, Andy Griffiths. We need to find new ways of identifying, recruiting and training head teachers and improving the quality of teaching. We should expand Teach First massively, and I commend the shadow Secretary of State’s proposal to introduce a new master teacher status, inspired by education reforms in Singapore. We should find new ways of enabling popular, well run and financially sound schools that are consistently over-subscribed to access the funding they need to expand, so that parents can send their children to the schools they want to, not ones that they would prefer them not to have to go to.
We should expand Lord Baker’s brilliant work on university technical colleges. Unfortunately, our bid for a UTC in Dudley was not successful, but undeterred, Lowell Williams, the brilliant principal of Dudley college, is working with local employers and Aston university to open Dudley Advance, a new technology and manufacturing centre that will soon be open to help students of all ages get new skills and jobs. We should aim for all apprenticeships to provide level 3 qualifications and to last for two years, and insist that every firm that wants major Government contracts provides apprenticeships. We need higher education, and a university campus in every town. It is a scandal that Dudley is England’s biggest town with no university campus.
People say to me, “Look Ian, what’s the point of going to university when there aren’t the jobs afterwards?”, but they are completely wrong. More than 94% of students who graduated from the university of Wolverhampton in 2013 are in work or undertaking further study. Three out of four were working in graduate-level professional and managerial jobs earning graduate-level salaries, with 60% earning between £15,000 and £30,000, and more than a fifth earning between £30,000 and £60,000. Scores of its students have gone on to set up their own business. Under Vice-Chancellor Geoff Layer’s leadership, Wolverhampton is achieving its ambition to be the university of opportunity, contributing to the local economy and economic regeneration, providing the skills and knowledge our economy needs, helping local businesses grow and succeed, setting up new businesses, and creating jobs and wealth in the black country.
Despite accounting for just 7% of school pupils, those from independent schools represent seven out of 10 High Court judges, more than half our leading journalists and doctors, and more than a third of MPs. Just five public schools send more pupils to Oxford and Cambridge than 2,000 state schools. I therefore reiterate my call for Ministers and those on our Front Bench to take up the Sutton Trust’s open access proposals.
In conclusion, let us agree as a country to make education the No. 1 priority, and to have the best-educated young people in the world. Let us support teachers and heads in improving schools. We need more technical colleges, more apprentices, and more people studying for technical qualifications. Let us open up the best schools in the country to the brightest students, whatever their background. Better schools, better skills, better jobs—that should be our rallying cry for the 21st century.
Free Schools (Funding)
Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
Parents in Dudley are spending this week in appeals once again because their children have been allocated places in schools they do not want to send them to. Why should pupils be denied places in popular and successful schools because those schools just do not have the space needed to accommodate them? Why will the Secretary of State not promote competition and expand the market by enabling well-run, oversubscribed, financially sound schools to borrow the resources needed to provide those extra facilities and be able to pay them back with the revenue the extra pupils would bring?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I read with interest and appreciation the article he wrote in The Independent on Sunday outlining a similar case, and I have asked officials in the Department to see what we can do to give effect to his suggestion. If he would like to come to the Department and share his thinking with officials, I shall be delighted to see what we can do to take this forward.
PISA Results
Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
These figures are actually further evidence of the lamentable failure of successive Governments and our country in general to take education seriously enough, so will the Secretary of State set aside his partisan point scoring and agree that what this country needs is a royal commission in order to get cross-party agreement and the support of the teaching profession, business and parents to make education our No.1 priority and to back policies and long-term funding to transform the quality of education our children receive?
Michael Gove
I have a lot of time and admiration for the hon. Gentleman. I am not in favour of a royal commission. As someone once said, royal commissions take minutes and last years. I agree that we need a sense of national urgency and a unified commitment to raising standards. I know that the hon. Gentleman agrees in almost every respect with the details of our educational reform, and I look forward to working with him further in the future.
Qualified Teachers
Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Michael Gove
As is so often the case, my right hon. Friend strikes a balanced and sensible note. He has made the point that under the coalition Government education has improved, and that teachers once damned as “unqualified” by the trade unions and others are driving improvement in our schools. If only we could hear more of him on education and rather less from some in the Labour party.
It is not just the quality of teaching that has improved; attainment has improved for our very poorest. One of the starkest problems in the education system that we inherited was the gulf between the achievement of the wealthy and that of the poorest in our schools. That gap has narrowed thanks to the teachers in our schools, to whom I, once again, wish to pay tribute today. At key stage 4 we inherited a gap of 27.6 points in exam performance, but that has been reduced to 26.3. At primary we inherited a gap of 21.3 points between the poorest and the rest, and that has closed to 16.8. I hope that everyone in the House would applaud that movement towards helping the poorest children do better.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
To truly tackle the social mobility crisis that exists in our country we need much more radical action than the schemes, no doubt well intentioned, that the Secretary of State is talking about. Will he examine the open access scheme championed by Peter Lampl of the Sutton Trust and consider introducing it for the 100 leading independent schools in our country?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman—I hesitate to call him that because he is increasingly becoming my hon. Friend; he knows what he is talking about and is the son of a head teacher—is absolutely right to say that we need more help from independent schools in improving the state sector. I think that Peter Lampl is a hero, but one of the things that the hon. Gentleman and I both believe in—independent schools helping state schools—would be more difficult as a direct result of official Labour party policy, as it would ban teachers in independent schools who do not have qualified teacher status from helping out in the way we would both want. His aim is noble and his heart is in the right place but he is on the wrong side of the House. I hope he will come over to our side, where logic will inevitably lead him.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
The central point I want to make is that we as a country have to make education our No. 1 priority. We need to drive up results, enhance the status of the teaching profession, recruit the brightest graduates, train them better and insist on higher standards.
The fact is that not enough young people are succeeding in science, maths or technology, or going on to apprenticeships, particularly in high-tech industries. We are not sending enough young people to university and not enough young people from state schools are going to the best universities. We have to be honest with ourselves, however challenging it may be, that standards and results in too many state schools are just not good enough.
Britain is falling far behind other countries on basic numeracy and literacy. The OECD has just reported that, on basic skills, the UK is behind not just countries such as Finland, South Korea and Germany, but others such as Estonia, Poland and Slovakia.
Some areas in Britain are lagging even further behind. Just two schools out of seven in north Dudley reached last year’s national average with regard to five good GCSEs including English and maths. Six out of 10 across the borough as a whole failed to meet the national average. I do not think that any school in the country should be seeing fewer than 70% or 80% of its pupils achieving that level.
This year, I am pleased to say that results improved at four of those schools, but what shocks me is the extraordinarily wide variation in achievement between schools with similar intakes. Children starting at two schools in Dudley had achieved exactly the same key stage 2 results, yet five years later twice as many pupils in one school achieved better GCSE results than the other.
Just a few years ago, only a third of pupils at Ellowes Hall school managed to get successful grades; now, more than eight out of 10 do so. It is without doubt the best state school in the black country. If we take into account the value it offers its students, it probably has a good claim to be one of the very best schools in the country. It still has the same kids from the same families and largely the same teachers, but the thing that has changed is that it has a brilliant new head teacher, Andy Griffiths, and there is a relentless focus on standards and discipline. He has motivated the teachers and made the pupils believe in themselves.
Results are finally improving at Castle High, my old school in the middle of Dudley, under a new head teacher, Michelle King, and Dormston school, which suffered a catastrophic collapse in standards, now has a brilliant new head teacher, Ben Stitchman, who is turning things around.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that one of the best ways of driving up standards in our state schools is to get quality leadership in place. Is that not one of the key aims in driving forward the improvements he has mentioned?
Ian Austin
My hon. Friend is right. What unites all of those schools and others where results are improving is high-quality leadership. Being a great head teacher comes from being a great teacher. They know all about managing behaviour and discipline. They know how to get the best out of pupils, and they set high aspirations and demand high standards. I am concerned that, by not insisting on the very highest standards for teaching, the Government could be weakening the national stock of educational leaders for the future. That is so important, because the quality of teaching transforms opportunities for the rest of pupils’ lives. According to the Sutton Trust:
“Bringing the lowest-performing 10% of teachers in the UK up to the average would in five years bring the UK’s rank amongst OECD countries from 21st in Reading to as high as 7th, and from 22nd in Maths to as high as 12th. Over 10 years the UK would improve its position to as high as 3rd in Reading and 5th in Maths.”
My central point is that standards in too many schools are not high enough, and I do not think it is possible to tackle that by insisting that teachers in state schools should not have to have the very best qualifications.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but what is his evidence base for suggesting that QTS teacher outcomes are better than non-QTS teacher outcomes? I have not heard any evidence.
Ian Austin
My point is that standards are not high enough. We need to get the best graduates into teaching and insist that they are trained as effectively as possible. We must insist on the very highest standards in the classroom.
We should dramatically expand the work of Teach First. We should agree as a country—every party, the Government, schools, universities, teachers and business—to set an ambition for Britain to produce the best-educated young people in the world. We need a targeted approach based on the London challenge—which transformed education in the capital—with tough targets, the best heads and the brightest teachers for areas such as the black country that are lagging stubbornly behind.
We should be much less obsessed with a pupil’s age and focus more on their ability. We should ask whether pupils should be moving up each year, regardless of their attainment. We should massively expand Lord Baker’s brilliant work and have a university technical college in every town. We should specialise more at 14 years of age in relation not just to technical and engineering subjects such as those studied in UTCs, but to straightforward, academic subjects, too.
We have to be honest with ourselves and admit that the current system is not promoting social mobility. The vast majority of senior jobs in professions such as the law, the media, those in the City, the civil service and even politics go to a tiny minority of people from the best private schools and Oxbridge. Sutton Trust research shows that just five public schools send more pupils to Oxbridge than 2,000 state schools—two thirds of the entire state sector.
Ministers should look at the brilliant work on open access by Peter Lampl, who proposes opening up access to leading independent day schools so that kids from ordinary backgrounds can get into those brilliant schools. Sharing costs with parents would mean that the cost is less than the current cost of an average state school place. Those who say that we cannot afford to do such a thing should consider that failure to tackle this social mobility crisis will cost the UK economy up to £140 billion a year by 2050, or 4% of GDP.
We need an education revolution in our country. We need tough targets to drive up standards in our schools and we need to transform the status of teaching. We need to promote a new generation of brilliant head teachers and we need more UTCs and greater specialisation. We need radical new measures to open up to many more youngsters opportunities that are currently only available to a few, not just because we should open up access and opportunity as a matter of fairness or because that is the only way to create the new industries and new jobs on which our future prosperity will depend, but because people in places such as the black country are as good as anyone and we should open up for them the opportunities that people elsewhere have taken for granted for decades.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Mr Timpson
The right hon. Gentleman raises a very important and serious point, which is all the more echoed around this Chamber today, as we will hear later during the Home Secretary’s statement. This is a priority for this Government and this Department. We have already submitted some evidence to the taskforce, and we will play a full and active role to make sure it achieves its objectives.
David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
17. What his plans are for the future of GCSEs.
Michael Gove
I apologise, Mr Speaker, and thank you. We are reforming GCSEs to ensure that they stand comparison with exams in the highest-performing jurisdictions. We are consulting on changes to subject content for GCSEs. Ofqual is also consulting on changes to the structure, grading and standard of the new qualifications.
Ian Austin
I agree with the Secretary of State that many state schools do not stretch their brightest pupils enough to allow them to compete with pupils from private schools. In my constituency, only two out of seven schools reached the national average in GCSEs last year. I do not think there should be a school in the country in which fewer than 70% or 80% are getting five good GCSEs, including English and maths. Will he consider bringing back the black country challenge to boost standards in Dudley in the way the London challenge improved them in London?
Michael Gove
That is a very acute point from a Member of Parliament who, I know, is passionate about education. I will do everything I can to ensure that all the elements that made the London challenge and black country challenge a success apply to schools in his constituency through collaboration and a culture of excellence. I look forward to talking with him about how we can work together to ensure that his championing of high educational standards can be extended across the black country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
Nobody disputes that unnecessary regulation and red tape have to be dealt with, but Government Members are deluding themselves if they think that is the central issue, when unemployment is at record levels and the economy has ground to a halt. Every time I go to meet a successful manufacturing company that has orders waiting and wants to take on new staff, I am told that the central problem is the lack of finance. Instead of trying to pursue this issue, the Minister should be concentrating on getting money from the banks to manufacturers so we can get the economy moving and they can take on more staff.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hayes
I am aware of the specific issue my hon. Friend raises. I understand that the problems arose under the stewardship of a Minister in the previous Government, but none the less there are ongoing repercussions and I am happy to consider the specific matters raised by my hon. Friend. He will know that there are now national minimum standards as there is a national wage for apprentices and it is absolutely right that the deal an apprentice gets should be fair and proper.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
A university technical college for Dudley would not only transform the education available in the town but help address the skills shortage and rebalance the economy while encouraging young people to pursue careers in high-tech manufacturing. I am sure that the Secretary of State will be as pleased as I am that a bid has now been submitted for the Aston university technical college in Dudley. Will he take this bid from me today and ensure that it is approved as early as possible so that we can get the changes made that we need in Dudley?
Michael Gove
I shall take the bid and look on it sympathetically. I know that the Prime Minister, as a Villa fan, would want me to do everything possible to satisfy the hon. Gentleman.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her point. We need to ensure that all children who have special needs are better educated and we particularly need to ensure that the energy and enthusiasm of people in the third sector are galvanised. At this stage, I cannot give her a firm figure on how many students and schools are involved; all I know is that a small bridgehead will expand over the course of this Parliament.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will no doubt be delighted to hear that, on Friday, I visited the university technical college in Walsall and, credit where it is due, it was fantastic. He will also be pleased to hear that tomorrow I am meeting Lord Baker to discuss my campaign to bring a UTC to Dudley. Sadly, only one of the 70-odd UTCs that will open nationally is currently in the black country. Will the Secretary of State meet me too, so we can discuss how we can open a UTC in Dudley and deal with the urgent need to drive up vocational standards and bring new jobs and industries to the area?
St George’s Day and St David’s Day Bill
Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
I thank my hon. Friend. He is exactly right; that is why I believe that the Bill should have a Second Reading.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
I support the proposal and have supported such campaigns in the past. I am keen that we do everything we can to celebrate St George’s day and what it means to be English and British, as well as to celebrate the Union. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is nothing casual about how we celebrate St George’s day already, despite the fact that there is no bank holiday. Just a couple of weeks ago, I proudly took part in the celebrations of St George’s day in Dudley—we have them every year—and there is a nothing casual about them, but the point about the date is an interesting one. There is already a series of bank holidays— Whit and Easter, and so on—at this time of the year. Of course, the Welsh celebrate St David’s day with an Eisteddfod festival. I am not an expert on the Welsh, but I think that that takes place during the summer—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We must have shorter interventions.
Nadhim Zahawi
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. My Bill calls for an additional bank holiday, not the movement of an existing bank holiday. I hope those on the Treasury Bench are listening and taking note of such suggestions. I am pleased that my Bill is provoking debate and such good ideas.
To many, St George’s day is a celebration of all that is great about our nation. At the last election, every major party vowed to promote national integration and social cohesion. A national day celebrated by all, regardless of their background or heritage, would only help that process. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has said, we must all encourage our children to learn about our nation’s past, the bad and the good, and we must celebrate our shared history. What better way to do that than a national day, officially recognised by the Government?
There are those who say that St George’s day is a Christian holiday and not representative of our multicultural nation, and those who say it plays to the fringe right of this country. I disagree. St George, after all, is the only Christian saint to appear in the Koran and the only saint to have a mosque bearing his name. Even in the world of faith, he is not uniquely Christian. Yes, the fringe right may well have hijacked our symbol of patriotism, which should sadden all of us in the Chamber, but today in the House we can go a long way towards reclaiming it.
Let us remember what our Prime Minister said on St George’s day last year:
“Today we are celebrating St George’s Day, and we are reclaiming St George’s Day as an important day . . . for good reasons.
And one of the most important reasons is that we should be reclaiming the flag from the BNP and saying the flag belongs to the English people, all of them.”
He went on to say:
“People come to our country and want to feel part of our country.
They want to feel part of something and celebrating St George’s Day will help them feel that sense of belonging.”
As the son of immigrants to this country, a son of parents who fled persecution to find safe haven here, I could not have put it better myself.
It is important to lay another myth to rest—that an extra bank holiday would affect our productivity and be economically damaging. As a businessman and an entrepreneur, I have built up a strong and enduring business and I totally reject the idea that one extra bank holiday would have that effect. The working people of this country will get done the work that they need to get done, regardless of an extra day away from the office. The concept of work has changed. It is no longer about turning up at a particular time and leaving at another time. It is, instead, about outputs and what is done, not how long it is done for.
Ian Austin
On the point that the hon. Gentleman made about reclaiming the flag from the far right, this is a campaign that I have run ever since I became a Member of Parliament in 2005, calling on Dudley council and all other public bodies to fly the Union Jack, our national flag, which contains the flag of St George, on all public buildings all year round. Will he endorse that call? Does he agree that we should fly the Union Jack proudly, as a symbol of the values that make this the greatest country on earth, all year round and not just on the so-called special days of the year?
Nadhim Zahawi
I do agree with the hon. Gentleman. He may recall that during the World cup I urged the Prime Minister to fly the flag of St George over Downing street, although, sadly, it did not fly for very long, but his point is well made.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
I join other Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) on introducing the Bill. I also congratulate you, Mr Deputy Speaker, because before you became an occupant of the Chair you led the way in previous Parliaments in promoting a series of patriotic measures. I strongly support this proposal. I strongly believe that we should celebrate St George’s day and that we should, as the hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) said, reclaim these symbols from those on the far right, who have traduced them.
We heard several other proposals in the debate. For example, the hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) suggested a day of national celebration not on St George’s day but on Trafalgar day. I think we should look for a day that enables us to celebrate much more what we are as a people and a nation, and the unique contribution we have made to the rest of the world. People sometimes ask me what it means to be British. I believe that it is not about where you were born, what you look like, where your parents were from, the religion you practise or any other such factors, but the contribution you make, what you believe, and your adherence to the great British values of democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance, to which I believe our country has a particular and unique attachment.
People say that every other country can claim those values just as much as Britain can, but I do not believe that to be true. For example, when other European countries rounded up Jews in the second world war, put them on trains and sent them to concentration camps—we were reminded of that only yesterday with the trial of Demjanjuk—Britain, uniquely, provided a safe haven for Jewish children such as my father, who came here at the age of 10, unable even to speak English. I therefore think we can say that this country has a unique commitment to the values of democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance, and that we should stand up for that. We should pick a day to celebrate that reminds us, children in Britain and everyone who wants to live in this country that it is those values that make us British and that make our country so special.
When the Minister responds, I would like to hear what thought he and his colleagues have given to picking a date that can be set aside for an annual moment of reflection and celebration to remind the whole country of the unique contribution that British people have laid down their lives to give to the rest of the world.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
Would that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, had been in Long Sutton in my constituency when St George’s day was celebrated. You would have been able to enjoy, as I did, adorned by the rose of England, the people and personalities of that splendid town. Many people, like me, enjoyed vanilla ice cream made and served by Laddies of Holbeach at an event organised by Jack Tyrrell, whose triumphant election to Long Sutton parish council I know the whole House will wish to celebrate. I can think of no one better than you, Mr Deputy Speaker—I am not in the habit of flattering the Chair, as you know—to have added their celebrity to that occasion. Perhaps I can take this opportunity to invite you to join me in my constituency when the event is next held.
Last Sunday, I marched, as I do every year, at the head of scouts and guides, cubs and brownies, and beavers and rainbows from Spalding marketplace to the church of St Mary and St Nicholas to celebrate St George’s day —rather late, the House will note, because of the royal wedding and all the events we enjoyed as a nation that obliged those organisations to delay their usual celebrations. It is an annual joy to be part of that and to see young people experiencing the benefits described by so many Members today of national identity, including the purposeful pride instilled in our hearts by our understanding of what we are and where we have come from.
It has been the habit of those in the bourgeois liberal class—by that, of course, I do not mean the Liberal Democrats; I am using “liberal” with a small L—who are doubt-filled and guilt-ridden to understate the significance of that sense of identity. Let that passing phase in our history be now put to one side. Let us all, as a nation, understand that this sense of belonging feeds our sense of worth and value.
To that end, I warmly welcome my hon. Friend’s Bill and the chance it has given us to debate these matters. At its heart, it is a celebration not only of St George’s day and St David’s day, but of St George and St David themselves. In anticipation of this day, preparing with the diligence that I hope I usually display, I took the trouble to wander into Central Lobby and look at the fine mosaics of St George and St David—and also of St Andrew and St Patrick—that adorn that place. You will be familiar with them, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have purchased two small postcards for you, which I will give you at the end of today’s proceedings. The mosaics, which were added to Central Lobby a considerable time after the Houses’ rebuilding after 1834, are a wonderful display of the very symbols of identity to which the Bill draws the House’s attention.
St George, you will remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, stands between virtue and purity—other elements in the national identity, described by many Members, and exemplified in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), that make England what it is. Virtue is holding a lion’s skin, illustrating the triumph over brute force, whereas purity holds a bunch of white lilies. I do not want to disappoint my hon. Friend, but St George is clearly a rather pale-skinned youth in the illustration, by the way, but of course that might be poetic licence. The figure of St George says so much about what we are as Englishmen.
It is appropriate to take this opportunity to celebrate St George and St David. Lest I be accused of any prejudice, I will say a word about St David too, for there is a fine mosaic of him, too. He stands between two angels. I cannot help but notice my hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) at the end of the Treasury Bench, and I want to point out for his benefit alone that St David was originally the saint of Pembrokeshire, and only later became the saint of the whole of Wales. The two angelic figures standing either side of St David in that mosaic, which we pass every day, represent the harp of harmony and the lamp of light. May harmony and light be brought to all our proceedings today and every day.
I would like to put a couple of other things on the record before I move to the specifics of the Bill—mindful, of course, of your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker. No party in this House has a monopoly on patriotism. It would ill serve us to pretend so. Patriotism, the belief in something greater than that which divides us, is an essential component in building a society that works. The things that drive and unite us must be greater than the differences that we enjoy. Indeed, the fact that we can tolerantly enjoy differences is emblematic of what is best about being British.
In those terms, the Bill is topical. I am sure that everyone enjoyed the recent celebrations of national identity, best shown by the royal wedding, to which the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) referred. It was a truly happy day for those directly involved, and it is marvellous how that happiness reverberated across the whole nation. Indeed, my young son Edward played the part of the groom in a royal wedding celebration at John Harrox primary school in my village. He was proud to do so, borrowing my top hat for the occasion.
We would all love another holiday—I would love many more holidays—but there are costs to be paid. I hope that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon will not think I am a killjoy for pointing that out. I do so with some reluctance, because I think we are often excessively utilitarian in public policy. I do go with Wilde:
“A cynic is the man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
We weigh and measure public policy solely by utility at great cost. None the less, we must be mindful of cost, in particular because of the times in which we live. It would be less than responsible not to take into account the points made by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central about the possible cost of an additional public holiday, to which I will return in a few moments.
I will now read from the script that was prepared for me, although I will do so fleetingly and will not let that constrain my rhetoric unduly.
The Government regularly receive requests for additional bank holidays to celebrate a variety of occasions. The current pattern of permanent bank holidays is well established, and in recent years leave entitlements for many workers have increased. It might therefore seem, in the eyes of some, unnecessary to announce a further bank holiday, but there will be a holiday next year to celebrate the Queen’s diamond jubilee, as there was to celebrate her golden jubilee. We should celebrate that with exuberance: no understatement and lots of celebration in Westminster and across the country, for my disdain of the bourgeois liberal class extends to its claim that to be exuberant is to be vulgar.
Ian Austin
No one has ever suggested that I am a member of any sort of bourgeois liberal group. Thirty years ago next year, British forces liberated the Falkland Islands. They did not just free the Falklands, but fought for democracy and freedom more broadly. Would it not be right for the nation to celebrate that anniversary next year, and every year, on 14 June, as an example of Britain’s commitment to democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance?
Mr Hayes
In response to that, I should say that a nation that forgets its past is likely to neglect its future. As a conservative—with every kind of “C”—I fully understand that we are part of a continuum, and unless we learn from what we have done, we are unlikely to do well now or as we move forward, so it is right that we mark the occasion that the hon. Gentleman describes. It is important that we celebrate that victory and also pay proper respect to those who were part of it. I do not know what the official plans are, but given the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, the least I can do is ask the Ministers responsible to drop him a line. I think it would be wrong if that passed without any comment or note. Such occasions are worth marking in an appropriate and measured way.