Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

Let us be clear, we inherited from the previous Government a complete rubber-stamping exercise under which there was no control whatsoever over alternative providers. We introduced controls. For example, in the last year, out of 87 applications from alternative providers, 18 were approved and 69 were rejected. That was effective quality control and we have taken further steps to ensure that the Department can remain within its budget.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Our plans predate small business Saturday, but this weekend in Rochester we have a Christmas fair and also a Dickens weekend. They attract many thousands of people to Rochester, which has, almost entirely, independent small businesses. Will the Minister join me in welcoming that?

Pupil Premium

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Lady makes a crucial point. I think schools should encourage pupils to access libraries. In my experience, many schools are already doing very good work these days in school to make sure that young people are encouraged to read and enjoy books, but the hon. Lady is quite right to point out that we have a very effective public library service, which should also be used by schools.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Will the Minister clarify whether the pupil premium is an addition to the general budget of the school or should it be spent only on those pupils who attract the premium?

[Mr Laws]

The money is there to be spent on those disadvantaged youngsters who would otherwise be highly likely to have poor performance. Schools must understand that that is the purpose of the money and why they are getting it. They are free to decide how to spend it, but they must spend it to narrow these gaps and focus on pupils who are the priority for the premium.

Munitions Workers

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I am particularly interested to hear of your constituency interest, Mr Hollobone, through Kettering munitions manufacture.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello). With the work he has already done through the all-party group and in securing this debate, he can take pride in putting the subject on the agenda, at least in this Parliament, and in so doing giving recognition to the munitions workers. I am pleased to bring a cross-party element to the debate by adding my voice in support of his request. As he states, any financial sum involved is de minimis compared with the scale of the contribution that the workers made to our country.

It was of course David Lloyd George who, as Minister of Munitions, so strongly put this issue on the agenda in the years around 1915. The workers had an important profile at that time, and it would be a great shame were that not to be recognised. Given what they did to win the first world war and then, in different conditions, their contribution to the winning of the second world war, it would clearly be a good thing, if it were possible, for them to get the recognition that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South seeks. Although the Minister here is not the Minister we would expect to respond to such a debate, I welcome him in terms of his ability to push discussions within Government, and to put the issue on the agenda and have it looked at with a fresh pair of eyes.

Regarding medals for groups that perhaps have not received rightful recognition, two things in particular have struck me. The response a few weeks back to the announcement of a medal for those involved in the Arctic convoys was important, and I have just had a constituency case involving a gentleman in Cliffe Woods village who served at Suez but did not get the medal of recognition he should have received. When my office pressed the issue, it appeared that there had been some confusion and his service had fallen through the cracks, so to speak, within the Ministry of Defence. We were able to provide the firm evidence that he had served in Suez, and the medal was then awarded. To the gentleman, the recognition was a source of great pride. That was one of the most rewarding pieces of constituency casework with which I have been involved.

I represent Rochester and Strood, and the Medway towns more broadly, and I am not sure whether constituents of mine would fall under the definition put forward by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South. He mentioned Faversham, however, and of course at Woolwich there was the large Royal Ordnance munitions manufacturing base, and from Rochester or Strood—Chatham station is also in my constituency—Faversham and Woolwich are both within half an hour’s travel. I have no doubt that significant numbers of constituents in my area served in munitions manufacture, and a number of them are perhaps still alive and resident there. The hon. Gentleman kindly said that there were problems with the definition. Understandably, he and his group have settled on a clear definition and I wish them well in seeking recognition for the people who fall within it, but I hope he does not mind my saying that there are other groups of people—he himself drew attention to the people who worked on airframes.

My constituency had Short Brothers, based on the Esplanade in Rochester. That is now all modern housing, with great river views, but there is great pride in the area’s industrial heritage of Short Brothers and the flying boats developed and manufactured at that site. The hon. Gentleman drew attention to the movement of factories during the war, and the vulnerability of Rochester to German bombing may have led to Short Brothers’ greater focus on its manufacturing in Northern Ireland. However, I believe that the skills base developed by those who worked on airframes in Rochester deserves recognition. Similarly, the royal dockyard in Chatham had many thousands of military workers, to whom we owe a great deal for both the first and second world wars, and indeed for many other wars going back several centuries.

To conclude, I associate myself and my constituents with the hon. Gentleman’s call that, just as those who worked and particularly served in military campaigns have been recognised with different medals and clasps, people who worked and contributed in such roles are also deserving of recognition. If, even at this late stage, the Government gave them the measure of recognition sought by the hon. Gentleman, I would very much welcome it.

University Technical Colleges

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I am incredibly grateful for this debate. I spoke about apprenticeships and vocational training in my maiden speech, and have campaigned regularly since joining the House last year for apprenticeships and apprenticeship rights. I have now worked for many months behind the scenes with Harlow college, Anglia Ruskin university and employers in my constituency to apply for a university technical school in Harlow, which I will talk more about later.

Although universal technology colleges have not yet received the same media attention as free schools and the huge expansion of the academy programme, they are an equally profound reform of our school system. They are hugely popular, and something that we should think about in their own right.

I want to make three points. First, for decades we allowed vocational education to decline. Secondly, for growth, skills and jobs, UTCs represent the reform that we need. Thirdly, the results are positive, and we should support a massive roll-out of UTCs around the United Kingdom. When the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) called the general election in 2010, there were nearly 1 million young people unemployed. The same is broadly true today. However, youth unemployment is not a recent crisis. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that it has grown steadily worse and worse over the past 10 years. In Essex, in particular, nearly 4,000 young people are not in employment, education or training. My constituency is one of the worst affected towns. We have allowed our skills base and vocational education to decline.

In the past 10 years in Austria and Germany, one in four businesses offered apprenticeships to young people, but in England that figure was just one in 10.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

I am listening with great sympathy to what my hon. Friend says about his constituency, because in my area of Medway we have had a similar problem with the closure of the dockyard 25 years ago. We lost an enormous employer that had trained hundreds and thousands of apprentices, so for us, UTCs would provide a new opportunity to develop in that area. With the Royal School of Military Engineering and MidKent college, there is a real partnership approach. I look forward to learning—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is developing a most interesting argument, but I want to hear Mr Halfon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Secretary of State will resume his seat. This is not a debate—it is topical questions. I want brief questions and brief answers.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

T5. On Thursday, I saw the beginning of construction for Strood academy in my constituency. Does the Secretary of State appreciate the extent to which confirmation of that investment is appreciated in the local community, and would he visit my constituency to open the academy when construction is completed next year?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I should be delighted to accept his generous invitation.

Further and Higher Education (Access) Bill

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Friday 4th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As it happens, I voted against the Government on tuition fees for the simple reason that I did not want people from poorer backgrounds to be denied the opportunity to go to the best possible universities. Tuition fees are being increased to pay for more and more people to go to university, and the argument is that if we want more people to go to university, students are going to have to pay a higher price. That is a perfectly logical argument, but I do not want more people going to university. Too many go to university; I want fewer to go. I want universities to be the bastion of high standards again.

In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) inadvertently touched on that point when he asked, “Shouldn’t people who want to go to university have the opportunity to do so?” My answer to that is no. It should be a question not of whether someone wants to go to university, but whether they have the aptitude and have reached a high enough mark to do so on merit. That should be what determines whether they go.

Otherwise, it is like asking athletes whether they would like to compete in the Olympics—I am sure they all would, but surely nobody is advocating that any athlete who happens to fancy a crack at the 100-metre sprint should be allowed to compete at the Olympics. Most people accept that athletes have to reach a certain level before they are even considered for the Olympics, and the same should apply in education: people should not go just because they want to; they should go because they have reached the level in their education that allows them to go. That is the whole point of merit and, as I see it, of this Bill.

All the other factors that people are trying to introduce into the system can only devalue our education system—dumb down the standards. Then the Government will say, “Isn’t it marvellous? Haven’t we been good for education, because now X% of people have a degree?” Well, no it would not be marvellous—not if the result had been achieved only by dumbing down standards.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

My hon. Friend notes that fees have gone up to £9,000, and I, like he, opposed that measure. He says that they are going up to allow more people to go to university, but are they not going up, at least in part, to pay for students from the European Union to go to university? EU students go to university for free in Scotland, while students from England have to pay. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) supports loans, but 46% of EU students who take out such loans are not paying them back when they should be. What does my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) have to say about that?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As he knows, I share his robust opinion on the merits of being in the European Union—that is, that there are no merits of being in the European Union. One problem with allowing more and more people to go to university and increasing tuition fees is that the people who go there on merit end up paying over the odds to subsidise those who do not go there on merit and who will not end up paying back their loan. That is, in effect, the system that the Government have introduced. I think that that puts a penalty on merit. I do not see why people who go to university on merit should subsidise those who are not going on merit.