Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Review

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Emma Hardy

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I know that my right hon. and learned Friend is passionate about this issue. It is important to remind ourselves that the co-signatories on today’s Green Paper are myself and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and his ministerial team is here on the Front Bench with us. His pledge is that health will look at the local provision and local resources, and of course, we will publish the dashboard. I spoke about data and transparency, and the best way to reform complex systems is through data and transparency. However, we are going further by simplifying the EHCP process, because there is no consistency in that. That also needs to be identified and dealt with, and we will do that. My right hon. and learned Friend is also right to point out that we need to ensure that every school—this is what my schools White Paper dealt with yesterday—is a great SEND school, because we have an equal ambition for children with special educational needs and disabilities as for all the children in our school system.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I wonder whether the Secretary of State is slightly divorced from reality and is seeing the school system for what he wishes it was, rather than what it is. In many schools, SENCOs are also full-time teachers, deputy heads, subject leads and, often, the safeguarding leads in their schools. Although the additional training and qualification is welcome, if the SENCOs do not have the time, they are not able to do justice to the role in the way it deserves. Where is the additional funding, resourcing and support to give SENCOs the time to focus as much as they need to on that crucial role?

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Emma Hardy

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Respectfully, it is quite the opposite. I will get to that point later. Schools will be £1,500 better off per pupil than in 2019-20—not even 2010— but we will return to that subject in a moment or two.

I was getting to the point about those who are more vulnerable. For those who are most vulnerable, levelling up means that extra support will always be there for them. The covid virus has put enormous pressure on all our public services, and I know the whole House will want to join me in again thanking our magnificent public heroes—our nurses and doctors, our teachers and nursery workers, our care home staff and our delivery workers—for how they have helped us all to weather the pandemic storm.

The national health service has been the frontline of this pandemic and we must build up its resources after an unprecedented 18 months. We are committing £5.9 billion to tackle the NHS backlog of non-emergency tests and procedures, which will include £2.3 billion for ensuring that there are at least 100 community diagnostic centres where people can get health checks, scans and tests closer to their homes.

Digital technology is transforming every aspect of our lives, so the package includes £2.1 billion over the next three years to support its use in hospitals and other care organisations to improve efficiency, freeing up valuable NHS staff time and ensuring the best care for patients, wherever they are. There will also be £1.5 billion from that package over the next three years for new surgical hubs, increased bed capacity and equipment to help elective services to recover, including surgeries and other medical procedures.

We have promised an overhaul of our adult social care system, improving social care outcomes through an affordable, high-quality and sustainable system. We are therefore allocating £3.6 billion for local government to reform adult social care provision, including capping personal care costs at £86,000.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way; he is always very generous. I draw his attention to the letter from the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, a Conservative-led authority, to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, stating that,

“the council has 302 assessed individuals requiring 4,114 hours of home care per week that we are currently unable to provide.”

The letter was dated in October. It identifies extra money that the Government have given, but says the council still does not have the funding needed to care for the people who need help in the East Riding.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I am sure the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will take a careful look at her letter and respond in good time.

Nevertheless, it is this Government who have grasped the nettle of adult social care and will deliver on capping personal care costs, which can be so debilitating, at £86,000. While £1.7 billion will improve the wider social care system, including the East Riding of Yorkshire, as announced in September, at least £500 million of that will go towards improving qualifications, skills and wellbeing across the social care workforce.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

There is no greater champion of this agenda than my right hon. Friend, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education. “Skills, skills, skills” runs through his veins, and I thank him for that point. I absolutely agree with him on the uplift in the investment that we are making.

I would like to take a moment to tell the House all about the visit I made to Barnsley College just a week or so ago. The college was the first in South Yorkshire to roll out T-levels. While I was there, I met several of its students, including one whose name is Greg. Honestly, I have rarely met a more inspiring individual. He told me that with his T-level—I will quote him word for word:

“I’m looking at unis now and thinking, ‘Which one am I picking?’ not ‘Which one of them is picking me?’”

Greg is living proof of the transformative effect our skills programme is having.

The same is true for apprentices. Apprenticeships funding will increase by £170 million to £2.7 billion, alongside other improvements to support more small businesses to hire new apprentices.

[Emma Hardy]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I want to make sure that others get a chance to participate in the debate, so I will make some headway. I hope that the hon. Lady will forgive me; I beg her indulgence.

These investments are putting employers at the heart of our skills economy so that education and training respond to local business needs. In this way, we will not only build one of the best technical education systems in the world, but drive local prosperity and levelling up.

Of course, we know that skills training is not just for the young. As technologies change and develop and businesses adapt, so people will find that they will need to reskill or retrain throughout their lives. Globalisation and automation are changing the modern workplace. Jobs and industries that are flourishing now might not be in five or 10 years. Our skills economy must be sufficiently agile to flex not just for today but for tomorrow and long into the future.

With our “Skills for Jobs” White Paper, we are committed to boosting the job prospects of adults across the country by making sure that they can get the training they need to adapt to a changing workforce. A total investment of over £550 million will make sure that adults at any age can retrain or upskill, and that is part of our national skills fund commitment. We will be investing more in boot camps, which offer free flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, giving people the opportunity to build up specific skills with a clear route to a job at the end. We are also investing more to help adults in England take advantage of our free courses for jobs offer. There are now more than 400 courses to help more adults gain the skills they need to boost their career prospects. There will be opportunities for adults across the whole of the UK to develop their numeracy skills through the multiply programme the Chancellor announced, funded by another £560 million through the UK shared prosperity fund. That means that wherever people live and whatever stage they are at in life, they will be able to access training and education that gives them the skills employers want and which can lead to good jobs and career progression.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Emma Hardy

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

Given that so many of the current labour shortages are in so-called unskilled jobs such as HGV driving, in which the Road Haulage Association tells me that there are more than 100,000 vacancies, why is so much funding for career retraining focused on levels 3 and above? For example, the advanced learner loan is available only for levels 3 and above, which means that a HGV driver who wants to retrain has to self-fund.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

As always, the hon. Lady makes an important contribution to the debate. It is important to remember that we are focusing on tactical interventions such as bootcamps and our current work on kickstart, which has £2 billion, and restart, which has £2.9 billion. The strategic aim is that by the end of this Parliament we ensure not only that T-levels are embedded and at scale, but that apprenticeships continue the journey of quality that we began when we introduced the new standards.

Covid Vaccine Passports

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Emma Hardy

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

The Minister cannot underestimate how much freedom has been limited for those with medical exemptions. I have heard from some of my constituents that they feared even leaving the house. The idea that they will see those freedoms limited again is abhorrent, so how can the Minister ensure that the medically exempt will not have further restrictions on their freedoms because of his vaccine passport plan?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

We have spent a lot of time, energy and resource on ensuring that those with medical exemptions, who have underlying medical conditions, were prioritised in both category 4 and 6 of phase 1 of the vaccination programme, as the hon. Member will recall. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has gone further for the immunosuppressed. As I said earlier, there will be exemptions from this particular set of rules for people who, for whatever reason, cannot be vaccinated or cannot have a test for medical conditions.

Caravan Industry: Hull and East Riding

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Emma Hardy

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Nadhim Zahawi)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) on securing this evening’s debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) on his passionate speech. A number of colleagues were ingenious in their interventions, certainly my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), because of Elddis in his constituency, but also the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friends the Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for North Cornwall (Scott Mann). There is also, however, one Member present who cannot speak as he is the Whip in charge, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), who has Regal in his constituency. As we can imagine, my constituency of Stratford-on-Avon has some wonderful caravan parks and caravan holidays, and I urge anyone looking for a staycation, which the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East rightly reminded us about, to visit Stratford, or at least have it on their schedule.



I would like to take the opportunity to thank the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle for her work, but also those in the public, private, community and voluntary sectors, and partners across Hull and East Yorkshire for all their outstanding work and support during this difficult time. Hull and East Yorkshire, along with north Lincolnshire on the Humber south bank, is one of the UK’s most significant industrial and manufacturing clusters.

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East rightly reminded us of the capabilities of Siemens Gamesa. Of course, there is Ørsted in the offshore wind sector, RB in health and Wren Kitchens in manufacturing, together with a strong small and medium-sized business base in the region. That has enabled the area to make real strides in improving economic performance.

Since 2010, the employment rate in the Humber has increased by 4.7%. There is undoubtedly a bright and optimistic future for Hull and East Yorkshire and the wider Humber economy. The caravan manufacturing industry, with its long and proud history in Hull and east Yorkshire, can be an important part of that future. That is certainly how the Department sees it.

Thousands of people are employed directly in the caravan manufacturing industry and its associated supply chain, as we heard from the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle. Theirs are important, skilled jobs, which make a significant contribution to the local and national economy. There is no doubt in my mind that the medium to long-term prospects for the industry are strong. The British public have a long-standing love affair with their caravans, which transformed the holiday habits of generations of families following the post-war boom in the 1950s and up to the present day.

I believe that there are exciting new opportunities for the industry, with the prospect of more families holidaying in the UK. The industry has shown that it can diversify its products to meet the changing demands of a new generation that wants to have that wonderful caravan holiday. There are new, modern luxury caravans and mobile homes that can provide higher-quality, safe-distancing accommodation as we transition out of the current crisis. They can also provide flexible and environmentally friendly leisure experiences, tailored to different tastes and pockets for decades ahead.

The industry is also a major exporter, as we heard from the hon. Lady, and it is well placed to exploit new potential overseas markets. However, I recognise that it faces challenges in the immediate future. I am well aware that large parts of the caravan sector have been furloughed and, regrettably, some people have been forced into redundancies. For caravan workers and their families, along with many others throughout the country who may have been furloughed or made redundant, I recognise that that must be deeply unsettling and worrying. The hon. Lady made a powerful point about the interventions that we are making in the economy.

However, in 2008, the caravan industry in Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire was severely impacted by the financial crisis, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East said. It bounced back. Backed by the Government’s determination to do all we can to support the industry and its workers, it can bounce back again. There are early positive signs. Coachman Caravans in Hull recently reopened its factory following a temporary closure due to covid-19. It has followed the Government’s guidelines to restart production while keeping its staff safe. It is not alone. East Yorkshire-based Victory Leisure Homes is investing in immersive visitor experiences as it looks to capitalise on the future staycation.

We are listening to the industry, too. The Chancellor’s decision to take action on the rise in vehicle excise duty on new motor homes in the Budget demonstrated that the Government are determined to maintain a vibrant caravan and motor home industry in the UK. Members of Parliament, including the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, should be congratulated on highlighting the impact the proposed increase would have had on the industry.

I would like briefly to set out the Government’s business support package, which already supports the caravan industry and its workers. The Government are committed to doing all we can to support UK business through the current crisis. The Chancellor has announced an unprecedented package of support. To help firms continue to keep people on the payroll, the Government introduced the job retention scheme, more commonly referred to as the furlough scheme. Since it opened on 20 April, it has protected touching on 9 million workers and 1.1 million businesses, including in the caravan industry, through the crisis. On 12 May, the Chancellor announced that the scheme will continue until the end of October. It will continue in its current form until the end of July, and then changes to allow more flexibility, which many colleagues appreciate, will come in from the start of August. That flexibility will help to support furloughed workers as they return to work.

[Emma Hardy]

As I said in my speech, I am aware of and grateful for the furlough scheme that the Government introduced, but I would really like to know from the Minister whether he will go to the Treasury and ask for the flexible furlough scheme that I mentioned in my speech, with the ability to continue to furlough workers right through until spring 2021 so that the industry can be ready to take off again with the new summer orders.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The Chancellor has already announced the plans for the furlough scheme to come to an end in October, but we have designed all our interventions to wrap our arms around the economy and jobs. As we come out of this crisis, the interventions have to be reviewed, which is why the Chancellor reviewed the furlough scheme and why we review the other schemes—whether it is the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme, the coronavirus large business interruption loan scheme or the bounce-back loans scheme—to make sure that the recovery is as robust and dynamic as we can make it.

The Government have also provided extensive financial support to small and medium-sized enterprises through the bounce-back loans scheme that I just mentioned. More than 830,000 loans worth £35 billion have gone out of the door and into the bank accounts of the smallest businesses in our country. We have provided significant grant support to small businesses through the small business grant fund and the retail, hospitality and leisure grant fund. Since the launch of those grant schemes, more than £10 billion has been paid out to businesses throughout the country, and there is more to come. Small businesses across Hull and East Riding have to date benefited from nearly £180 million of grant investment.

On flexible furloughing, I am aware that the hon. Lady, together with her fellow Hull MPs, has written to the Chancellor, as she rightly highlighted in her speech. She is rightly pushing for a sector-focused approach to the job retention scheme; she will be aware that, as I have mentioned already, the Chancellor has extended the furlough scheme until the end of October and it is being made more flexible. From 1 July, employers will be able to bring back to work employees who have previously been furloughed for an amount of time, and on any shift pattern that they like, while still being able to claim the JRS grant for their normal hours not worked. After July, we will introduce more flexibility to the furlough scheme so that we move out of it in a measured and orderly way to protect people’s incomes.

[Emma Hardy]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous—as I remember he was on the Education Committee. I just want him to fully recognise the specifics of the caravan industry. The point at which the furlough scheme is going to end is the point when the caravan manufacturing industry normally goes into a slower period, because it is a seasonally based manufacturing industry. The industry has more orders and does more business through the summer months; the winter months have always been quieter and slower. The reason why we are asking for sector-specific support is that, as things currently stand, the furlough scheme will end just as the caravan manufacturing industry enters its usual period of low orders and less production. That is why it needs to be sector-specific and why the caravan industry needs to be looked at separately from other industries: because it is seasonally based.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

The hon. Lady repeats powerfully the point that she made in her excellent speech, but the furlough scheme is only one of the interventions that we are making across the economy. As I said, we review all our interventions because, as she will know, the profile of interventions is very different when we are asking people to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives, and therefore businesses are closing and furloughing people. The profile of interventions as we come out will be different, which is why we have reviewed them all and continue to do so, and why we continue to stay close to the industry as well. I reassure her of that.

On dealerships, which the hon. Lady mentioned in her speech, the House will know that we reopened them on 1 June to support them to get back on their feet. While residential caravan parks have remained open throughout the lockdown period, holiday parks have been closed in line with the wider restrictions on overnight stays for leisure purposes. Our ambition is to reopen caravan parks in step 3 of the Government’s recovery strategy. All decisions on reopening will, of course, be based on the latest scientific evidence and public health assessment. The Government have engaged very closely with the holiday and home parks sector to prepare guidance, as we have done with all other sectors. It was great to see non-essential retail open today, with so many wonderful stores in Stratford-on-Avon and around the country having such wonderful vibrant window displays and, of course, applying all the safe working practices. Hopefully, this will allow the sector to reopen safely and as quickly as possible.

On business rates relief, an important point, the Government have provided enhanced support to the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors through the rate relief system given that covid had such a direct and acute impact on them. It is worth reminding colleagues that it is up to the local authority to determine eligibility for relief, having regard to guidance issued by the Government. Local authorities have the power, therefore, to offer business rates discounts beyond the pre-defined reliefs at their discretion. I have spoken to, I think, 69 chief executives of local authorities. Many of my colleagues in the Department have been making phone calls to talk directly to them about the discretionary funds available to them. Other businesses affected by covid-19 that are not eligible for business rate relief, such as caravan and leisure vehicle manufacturers, will benefit from the wider business and employment support packages that I have set out.

Inequality and Social Mobility

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Emma Hardy

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

If I have time at the end, I will happily take an intervention.

We welcome the commission’s thorough analysis and its efforts to promote social mobility and social justice across the United Kingdom, and we have therefore awarded it £2 million to undertake further work on that agenda. Indeed, despite some claims to the contrary, social justice is already an intrinsic part of the commission’s role. It is already concerned to help the most disadvantaged in society and to ensure that someone’s background does not determine future chances in life.

This Government share the view that everyone should have the chance to fulfil their potential. That is why we are taking action across the whole Government in order to make real progress.

[Emma Hardy]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I will at the end if I have time. I have a lot to get through. I will try to respond to the hon. Lady and to other contributors to the debate, and I will happily take interventions at the end if possible.

Making progress means building a strong economy, achieving record levels of employment and reforming the welfare system so that it supports people into work. Now, 665,000 fewer children grow up in workless households, the support of an income making them less likely to grow up in poverty. The UK’s national living wage is growing faster than similar or higher minimum wages in other OECD countries, such as Belgium, France or Germany.[Official Report, 17 June 2019, Vol. 662, c. 2MC.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nadhim Zahawi and Emma Hardy

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I will happily look into that case and take it offline.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

When the Timpson review finally passes the editing process at the Department for Education, will it include an analysis of whether a lack of funding for pastoral and family-support staff is driving exclusions?