Humanitarian Situation in Gaza

Debate between Naz Shah and David Rutley

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

The Government’s position is that we need a pause—we need to get aid in and hostages out—and then work for the conditions for a lasting peace. We must also recognise Hamas’s role in getting to this point. In those conditions, we need to remove Hamas’s capacity to launch attacks against Israel and ensure that they are no longer in charge in Gaza.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

May I say a thank you to my constituents who last weekend organised an Eid gathering for Palestinians in the north? When I was there, I met Gaza health and aid workers and heard lots of stories. One of them was about Nuzha Awad, a lady who had given birth to triplets. Her babies should have weighed about 6 lb to 8 lb each, but they weighed just 2 lb each and have not even developed their thighs because of malnutrition. According to confirmed reports, we know that 27 children have died so far of malnutrition. We send in RAF jets to support Israel when it is attacked, yet Israel does not heed the British Government’s warnings to get humanitarian aid in. So people are rightly asking: why are our Government so weak on saving the lives of children?

[David Rutley]

Some of the points that the hon. Member made are tragic and heart-rending to hear. I reiterate that we want to see change and are pushing for change, and we are taking action to ensure that more aid is available. We just need to get the conditions to enable aid to come forward and through to the people who need it on the ground in Gaza.

Technical and Further Education Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Naz Shah and David Rutley

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

Q The Bill supports the occupational categories of quality apprenticeships set out in that excellent document, the “Post-16 Skills Plan”; they include construction, and engineering and manufacturing. That is fantastic and a real step forward. Do you both believe that the Bill provides an effective ability to redefine those categories as economic sectors evolve? Secondly, do you believe that the mechanisms are in place to enable businesses and employers to have a meaningful role in redefining those categories as things progress?

Lord Sainsbury: It comes back to the original question. You have to have a certain amount of flexibility. As far as I can make out, that flexibility is there, and it is important. Of course, it is also important that we do not let the system degenerate, whereby everyone goes back to saying, “I want something specifically for my business or a very small group of businesses.” It is very important that one keeps down the number of routes, but exactly what categories they include will have to be for the people running those routes to say. I think we have made quite a good stab at doing that, but there are one or two cases where you can certainly argue about whether we got the right job in the right route.

Peter Lauener: It is absolutely vital that the institute actively manages the system of apprenticeship standards. For the past couple of years, while new standards have been developed by trailblazer groups, we have not had that picture of what the overall system would look like. Lord Sainsbury’s report helps enormously with that. An early priority for the institute is to develop that map, communicate it, review it actively and spot areas that need updating. I imagine that one or two of the early standards will, with hindsight, look a little bit narrow, so they ought to be reviewed. Every standard has a review date anyway, but the institute, through its route committees, will need to actively manage that.

One of the great virtues of the German system is its absolute clarity about the number of apprenticeships, routes into apprenticeships and things like that. If you talk to people in Germany, they often say, “We’d like the system to be more flexible.” I think the institute has the opportunity from the start to build in that flexibility and responsiveness to the changing labour market.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

Q I have a quick question about the idea that this is going to turn into another 11-plus. What reassurance can you give us about what you have put in place to ensure that the technical route will be as prestigious as the academic route?

Lord Sainsbury: There has been a very long-running argument about this. It is useful to look at the experience of other countries. If you do that, you see that pretty well every developed country has a system of two routes: an academic route and a technical education route. There is quite a variation in the point at which people choose between the two routes, but most of them have it. In most of the successful countries you find the two routes are equally well valued, so there is not a problem of the technical education route being considered inferior. You can have these two routes and both of them be highly valued.

The question we have to ask ourselves is why in our system the technical route is undervalued. I think the answer is because it is a very bad system that does not deliver what people want on the system. What they want above all is to be able to take a qualification and for that qualification to work in the marketplace. What that means is that you can go along to an employer and say, “I have got this qualification,” and the employer will give priority to you over somebody who has not got the qualification. That is not true of our system. The first thing you have to do to make the technical education route valued is to make it deliver for young people something of value to them, which is the ability to get a better job with security. That is the issue. It is not about age of selection or the fact that you have two routes.

Peter Lauener: I agree 100%.