Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

It gives me great pleasure to be able to agree entirely with the hon. Lady. This is incredibly important. The current rate of participation in apprenticeships is not too bad—I think it is about 8.8%—but we can always do more. We need to ensure that the requirements for the qualifications, particularly in English and maths, that some people have to acquire as part of their apprenticeships do not discriminate against those who are disabled.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that, given that Conservatives In is keen to promote the economic case for our remaining in the European Union, it is excellent news that the CBI has said that 80% of its members support the EU?

[Anna Soubry]

Absolutely. It is incredibly important that an organisation of the CBI’s standing is backing the Stronger In campaign. Indeed, we hear an increasing number of voices from business standing up for British companies, and not just saying how bad it will look if we leave—pointing out that what Brexit offers is very little and very confusing—but making the positive case for our staying in a reformed European Union, which is in our better interests.

Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called to speak at this time, Mr Speaker. This is a good Bill, because any Bill dealing with enterprise should be removing shackles and this one does so, to a large extent. I therefore welcome it, but some aspects need to be discussed in more detail, one of which is the small business commissioner. I welcome that role, because some small businesses in my constituency complain frequently about payment problems and this allows me to reassure them and, in particular, the Federation of Small Businesses, that meaningful action has been taken. The Bill says that the commissioner will be giving out advice, and that is a good thing. I am not sure about the scope of this “advice”, but it has to include encouraging small businesses to grow and advice on how that growth might take place. This should be within the context of an interesting speech made by Andy Haldane, the chief economist at the Bank of England, who has noted that we need to ensure that firms think about long-term planning and strategic investment, rather than just exit routes, dividend payments and so forth. The Government should be thinking about how this commissioner might start moving firms in that direction.

Let me pick up a point made by my fellow Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), who compared this commissioner’s role with that of the Small Business Administration in America. That is a worthy comparison to make and we should be thinking about it. We need more long-term planning and more strategic investment, potentially encouraged by some form of advice through the small business commissioner, in line with the Bank of England’s thinking.

The second question we should be considering is that of apprenticeships. It is absolutely right that an apprenticeship should be saluted and should be a cast-iron position. We must ensure that all 3 million apprenticeships that we hope to have in the course of this Parliament have a quality hallmark beneath their name and are successful. That is imperative. As for the institute that will be created, which should be up and running in April 2017, we should ensure that it has the capacity to ensure that the apprenticeships are of cast-iron quality. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that that is the case. Although it will be an arm’s length institution, it should not lose sight of other organisations in the world of education. We must ensure that we think not simply about universities and apprenticeships but about everything else that forms part of the process. It is all interlinked. I must put in a shout for the further education colleges, because they have an important role and we must ensure that that continues.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

rose—

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

rose—

[Neil Carmichael]

No, I cannot give way, as I am already pressed for time. I apologise.

We need to emphasise the importance of technical and professional apprenticeships. That is what we should be calling them. Everyone has a vocation—I have a vocation, a shopkeeper has a vocation—but the question is what we are doing about technical and professional apprenticeships. Some reassurance on that front from the Government would be helpful and encouraging.

Let me make one last point about the UK Green Investment Bank. In the last Parliament, the Environmental Audit Committee did some work welcoming the GIB but said that it needed to be able to raise capital. If the Bill moves the bank in the direction in which the Government want it to go, that will happen. An added advantage is that it will not be hampered by EU state aid rules, and that will be a great benefit for the future. We must ensure that it sticks to being green, being investment-oriented and being a bank. I am making a serious point, as those three things could all be at risk. We do not want to end up with the GIB as some kind of fund or something else that is not in its original job description. In short, the bank should be a driver for more green investment. We need to see some coverage for the changes to energy, for example, that have led some firms to think that the subsidy has been reduced a bit too quickly. I do not agree, but we need to demonstrate some commitment to investment in technology in how the GIB will deliver.

On the subject of the small business commissioner, I absolutely welcome the focus on late payments, but we must think of a way of making our small businesses feel easy about wanting to grow and to feel successful in that growth process. Ultimately, that will deliver more exports, higher pay and more job opportunities. As for apprenticeships, it is important to ensure that they stand up to scrutiny and have value. The institute will have a role to play in that process. In short, this Bill is a further step in rebalancing the economy towards enterprise, technical development, production, output and exports.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

It is fairly amazing to hear an Opposition Member attack the apprenticeship levy, which is something that the Opposition thought was so extraordinarily left-wing that they were not willing to propose it in their manifesto. I should have thought that the modern Labour party would consider it a thoroughly mainstream suggestion. As for the hon. Gentleman’s other comments, he will have observed that his party organised an Opposition debate to attack the 25% to 40% slashing of further education budgets, which did not happen when the Chancellor stood at the Dispatch Box and confirmed that we were going to maintain adult skills funding and 16 to 19 funding.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Returning to the subject at hand, does the Minister agree that it is really important to focus on technical and professional training, and that the best way to do so is to provide apprenticeships that have quality as a hallmark, and attract people who know that that will lead to a job, and know the value of being an apprentice?

Children in Care

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to participate in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). This is a very important subject and they have done extraordinarily well to put it at the forefront of our proceedings in the Chamber.

I want to say how much I agree with the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle in his emphasis on the importance of kinship care. In my constituency, I have encountered situations where a kinship care solution would have been more appropriate than what actually happened. I fully concur with what he said and urge the Government to think very carefully about how they can encourage kinship care.

The chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, frequently mentions the importance of strong family life, and I am pleased to note that in the autumn statement the Government significantly extended the troubled families programme. That programme, which began in 2013, is an important step because it signals what everybody knows: that good families are better than bad families and that families going through appalling experiences and heading towards crisis must be given the appropriate help. The Government are also right to make it easier for separating parents to go through mediation rather than a full-scale battle. That is another step in the right direction.

It is important that we have high standards of social work in order to avoid some of the pitfalls encountered in recent years. One important element here cropped up when the Education Select Committee last visited the Department: the importance of leadership—not necessarily at director level, but at assistant director level—in ensuring high-quality and timely decisions in social work. The Government should think about the quality, nature and forward planning of social work in local authorities. Another big point is agency co-operation. I would like to hear from the Minister how the ministerial taskforce on child protection is getting on. One of its key priorities should be to encourage better agency co-operation and to make it easier for them to work together. That is an important direction of travel and one that I hope the Select Committee will be pushing.

The pupil premium and children’s centres, which are linked, are important aspects of this debate. The pupil premium is for children in poverty, but there are links between those children and children in troubled families, so we should be using the pupil premium to identify and help the children in jeopardy. The same logic applies to children’s centres, because they are really useful places. I have seen how important they are in my constituency: thousands of children in my constituency are going to well-run children’s centres and benefiting from some extraordinarily good services. We need to put a spotlight on the value of children’s centres, which, certainly in my constituency, are well run and well organised.

I want to make two final points. First, we need to think about having statutory personal, social, health and economic education. I have written to the Secretary of State several times, urging her to think carefully about that, and we continue to press on that front. Finally, I end on an observation made in my meeting recently with the Youth Justice Board. We heard earlier about children getting into difficulty—with prison, criminal activity and so on—so I want to repeat the key point about the need for strong, better and more transparent agency work and co-operation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 30th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I assume that the hon. Gentleman will be able to tell me, not least because a Labour Government put up with it for 13 years.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that a great advantage of this change will be that it will enable sixth form colleges to become academies and therefore part of multi-academy trusts, which will stimulate them to even greater things?

[Nick Boles]

I entirely agree with the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education. One of the great opportunities that this proposal offers is for sixth form colleges to become part of academy groups, to become the sixth form for those academy groups and to thrive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

I do not disagree with the hon. Lady that such education should be compulsory, but I think it should be age-appropriate. Just because something is in statute, which is what I think she is referring to, does not mean that it is always taught well. On these issues, I would rather see that there is a good curriculum, and that it is taught well by confident teachers or people coming in from outside who will inspire young people.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T9. Will the Secretary of State join me in saluting the work of STEM ambassadors and tell the House what further steps have been taken to ensure that more children do STEM subjects in schools?

[Mr Gibb]

I join my hon. Friend in saluting the work of STEM ambassadors. Since 2010, A-level entries into STEM subjects have increased significantly by 15% for chemistry, 15% for physics and 18% for maths. Maths is now the single most popular A-level choice, with 92,000 entries last year. We want to go further. The Your Life campaign, for example, is targeting year 11 pupils as they make their A-level choices, with the aim of increasing the uptake of the physics A-level by 50% in three years.

Further Education

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate because I have a long-standing interest in the FE sector. As Chair of the Education Committee, I am interested in ensuring that we drive through the apprenticeship programme, making sure that people have choices post-16 and tackling the productivity challenge in this country during this Parliament.

I am pleased to say that my Committee and the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee held a successful conference on productivity, which identified the need for an innovative FE sector. That is at the core of this discussion: we need to encourage innovation in the FE sector and to ensure that it is of a scale and scope that matches the demands of employers and professions. “Technical, professional and higher” is a good way of describing the FE sector that we need for tomorrow. I will make my contribution with that theme in mind.

We must ensure that apprenticeships have traction and that they have parity with academic learning. It seems to me that the gold standard award approach is absolutely right. The Government should extend that to make it a national apprenticeship award so that there is consistency across the field and a recognition that quality is the hallmark of a good apprenticeship scheme. We should encourage the FE sector to engage in that.

We need to think carefully about sixth-form colleges. The shadow Secretary of State suggested that UTCs and other things were excluded from the area reviews, but, actually, through the regional schools commissioner mechanism, they are not. There will be engagement. I think it would be extremely advantageous were we to allow sixth-form colleges to become academies and part of multi-academy trusts.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I am pleased the hon. Gentleman has mentioned sixth-form colleges. As chair of the all-party group on sixth-form colleges and governor of a sixth-form college, I consider them to be the most brilliant institutions in the country. Will he use his influence to get the Government to create more of them?

[Neil Carmichael]

I am keen to use my influence, as Chair of the Education Committee, for a lot of things, and that is certainly one direction of travel in which I am sure we will be going.

We must ensure greater employer engagement, which can and should come through governance, and we have already seen changes bringing that about, but something else needs to happen: the education sector needs to engage more effectively and readily with the world of work. I mean not just businesses, but the professional sectors, such as the care sector. It is critical that we know how many people there are with the types of skills that are needed. We need to know more about how the labour market works, and the education system needs to know more about how skills and the labour market are developing. That interface is crucial, and I see it coming through in various changes in the FE sector.

We have a good example of that in my constituency, where Stroud and Filton colleges merged to create an innovative college structure with characteristics that colleges need to think about when going through the area review. The first characteristic is precise, strong and courageous leadership. It is critical that we articulate a vision about where our colleges should go, and that is best done by a leadership with the capacity and willingness to do exactly that.

[Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

St Helens college has shown good, strong and innovative leadership, but it gets funding now only where there are job opportunities and training. Teachers from my college went to the Liverpool docks, to Dock Road, to provide education, at 7 o’clock in the morning, to some 200 Chinese speakers who did not speak English. It was a huge success. There are no bounds to what that college does. It has the inside of a plane to train people in flight hospitality—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. It might be a valid point, but it is not a speech.

[Neil Carmichael]

I nearly made an intervention myself. I listened to the thrust, however, and obviously I agree that strong leadership should be combined with the good management of resources.

The second characteristic is an ability to embrace other mechanisms and other types of FE colleges within the wider framework of an overarching body. It is important to note here the success of UTCs being run in conjunction with an FE college. This is going to happen in my own constituency. We have a UTC, with a training centre making use of a decommissioned nuclear power station, that is bringing together the kind of training we need, specifically for renewable and nuclear energy. So we have to be more innovative in how we structure these things.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I agree entirely that we need to plan education to meet the economy’s needs, yet sixth-form colleges have been under such financial pressure that one quarter have had to cut STEM courses. Is that not a tragic mistake?

[Neil Carmichael]

It is absolutely right that we need to increase the number of STEM courses, as is happening in mainstream education. We need more young people taking STEM subjects, as it is central to our long-term goal of increasing productivity.

Is it wise to allow students and pupils to stop taking maths post-16? We must put that critical question on the table. There is an argument to be made about a post-16 national baccalaureate that contains maths, English, and either technical or further academic study, and it would help the FE sector generally if that option were brought to the table. As a country we have a big problem with maths, because we do not have enough people who are capable in that subject.

[Marion Fellows]

On comparators and looking abroad and at other places, does the hon. Gentleman agree that as a member of the Education Committee I can help by providing information and background on further education and other education sectors?

[Neil Carmichael]

I am often acquainted with the Scottish view. It has its merits, but I will not address that issue further because I have only 58 seconds left. The National Numeracy charity is rightly concerned that we have a problem with numeracy in the adult population, 78% of whom scarcely reach level 2. That is not a good commentary on our situation, and we must improve it. It is right that the FE sector tackles maths, but it is worth asking whether that should be done through repeated attempts at GCSE retakes or through some other form of numeracy measurement. In short, we need an innovative FE sector that is clearly and properly led, that engages with the world of work, and that considers new ways of delivering the courses, assessments and awards that are so necessary for our young people today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

As I keep saying, it is a consultation so we will listen to everybody. It is important that we strike the balance fairly between both sides of the argument, and that we understand and accept that there has been a great deal of movement to the betterment of tenants over the past few years. We must recognise that. I know from my own constituency work that pub companies such as Punch and Greene King have hugely changed their views to the benefit of tenants, and that must be welcomed.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

6. What his priorities are for business in the Government’s negotiations for reform of the EU.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)]

We must empower businesses to compete more effectively by accelerating the integration of the single market, especially in the services, digital and energy sectors. We will do this by cutting red tape for business and pushing for more ambitious free trade agreements between the EU and the rest of the world.

[Neil Carmichael]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the best interests of business will be served by our being a member of a reformed and reforming European Union? That extends to our remaining in the single market. From my right hon. Friend’s vantage point as President of the Board of Trade, it is extraordinarily useful that the European Union can negotiate such good strong deals for us globally.

School Funding

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) for securing the debate. As my predecessor as Chair of the Select Committee on Education, he is extremely familiar with the subject, which he demonstrated powerfully today. He made the point that there is a potential difference of £2,000 between the best and the worst-funded schools. That is obviously unacceptable, and he made the case clearly.

One thing we have to focus on is what education is for. Surely it is to give every child a fair chance, and we are not doing that, as we can see if we acknowledge reports such as the one by Sir Michael Wilshaw, to whom my hon. Friend referred, which spoke of a long tail of underachievement, because of course it described the situation in the very places where funding is not adequate. We have a mission to ensure that all children succeed, or are at least given a chance to succeed. We effectively kick ourselves in the teeth by not providing the right kind of resources where they are most needed. That point is made even more sharp when we note that the pupil premium still cannot allow a child to receive more than a child at a neighbouring school without the pupil premium. That is an indication of just how unfair the system is.

As Chair of the Education Committee, I have been at pains to emphasise the importance of fairer funding. When the Secretary of State for Education came to our Committee, we asked her what she was going to do, and she committed to write to us with a timetable. That timetable suggests we will be hearing in the new year a set of proposals to improve the situation. That is a really important commitment, because we need a fundamental system that works not only in the immediate future but for a long period. It will not do simply to rely on a little bit of extra money here and there. I note the Minister’s pledge to give a second tranche of £390 million, but that is just a band-aid solution; it is not a structural solution, and a structural solution is what we must have.

There are some issues we need to cover. One of them is multi-academy trusts. These are big and they stray into several areas—the biggest MAT actually has a school in every region of the country—and the real problem they face is the funding imbalance between the schools within them. If we are really interested in creating a new system of structures such as MATs, we have to deal with fairer funding, because we cannot have a MAT with one school funded at a low level and another funded at a much higher level. That is unacceptable for the model the Government appear to have. When the Government think about this reform, they must think of that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) referred to the need for planning in schools, which is absolutely right. Schools have to be able to plan on the basis of knowing what their budget is not only over a year, but over a long period. That is in the interests of good teaching, good learning and good chances for our children.

Another important idea is that of teachers going to other parts of the country, as the Secretary of State mentioned yesterday in a Policy Exchange lecture. If teachers are going to go from one place to another, there is an issue of funding. The process will be made much easier if the system of funding is fairer. It is a good idea, but in practice, it raises a few questions if fairer funding is not dealt with the way that we are all suggesting.

When the Select Committee receives the proposals from the Government, we will test them based on whether they are a big improvement, a sustainable improvement, a structural improvement, and, funnily enough, an improvement that respects the key policy drivers that the Government are pursuing, because these are two issues and if they are treated separately, they will remain separate and become significant problems themselves and between each other. We must have a funding system that paves the way for the kind of education system that we are all driving for. Those are the points I wanted to make to the Minister today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

I will not comment any further on timing. It is important to focus on schools’ financial management, because good management and good attainment can go hand in hand, as demonstrated by the York example. While we will push schools to be more efficient, we will also help them to spend their funds in the way that has the biggest impact on pupil attainment. We will continue to give schools greater freedoms to make the right decisions, for themselves and their pupils, on how their budgets should be spent. We will free up schools to adopt the right structures and practices to meet their specific needs, and help them to identify the areas where they can make savings. We will help schools improve their financial expertise, share best practice and work together more efficiently.

[Neil Carmichael]

This question is not about timing; it is about consulting widely, including with multi-academy trusts and academies, because they are in this together. The Minister has mostly referred to local authorities, but we have to consider all schools.

[Mr Gyimah]

The Chairman of the Education Committee is absolutely right. When looking at the funding system, we must consider all schools, be they free schools, academies or local authority maintained schools. While on this point, I noted the tests that he outlined, and how his Select Committee will review any proposals that come forward. We will bear those tests in mind as we consider what to do over the coming weeks and months. I thank him for making them and the criteria very clear.

Let me bring my remarks to a close. Fairer funding underpins our vision for a world-class education system. To really support schools, we need to make the funding system fairer for every school and every child. Our vision is of a future in which every school in the country, whatever their characteristics and wherever they are, provides excellent education, allowing every child to succeed. I am enormously grateful to colleagues who have been campaigning hard for this over several years, and thank them for their contributions to the debate. To move forward, we want a real consensus, so I would like to see the Labour party, which did not mention fair funding in its manifesto at the last election—

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I think that we can all agree that pupil premium funding has been hugely successful. It is absolutely right that over £2.5 billion is given to schools for additional funding to help those who are most disadvantaged, and schools, by and large, are spending it extremely effectively. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that obviously the school funding formula reflects both deprivation funding and pupil premium funding, which has since been introduced, but we absolutely want to ensure that the same pupils with the same needs attract the same funding. I reiterate that pupil premium funding has been very successful.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Given the scale and complexity of the issue, does the Secretary of State agree that we need some proposals relatively soon so that the Education Committee, for one, can examine them and be satisfied that they offer a long-term solution to a very significant problem?

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend, who chairs the Committee, is absolutely right that any solution must be for the long term. I can assure him that, were there to be any changes, there would be an extensive consultation, in which I hope members of the Committee as well as members of the public, including schools, teachers and parents across the country, would be involved.

Term-time Leave

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Steve Double]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The vast majority of parents—if not all of them—want a good education for their children. The issue is not about a competition between education and family; it is that many parents, including me, consider that family holidays and the experiences they bring are part of a child’s education. One of the sadnesses of the policy is that it has pitted school and education against family, when we want them to work together for the benefit of the child and to do what is right and best for that child.

If we view education as just what takes place in the classroom, we rather miss the point; education needs to be about much more than that in a child’s life. The point that my hon. Friend made about flexibility is absolutely right—we need some common-sense flexibility brought into this issue. Parents want their children to be in school regularly, and that is what the Education Act 1996 asks for. Let us not forget that the 1996 Act gives parents the option to home educate, which seems to be a bit of a contradiction given the application of the strict rules that I am discussing.

Many parents have contacted me on this matter. It is a widely held view that a child’s upbringing and education are about more than what happens in the classroom. Clearly, formal schooling is a central and critical part of any child’s education, but it is not the only important element. The breadth and variety of experiences that children can gain from travel can enrich and deepen their view and appreciation of the world. I know that from my own upbringing. The times when I travelled with my parents shaped and developed my understanding of the world in a way that the classroom teacher would never be able to provide.

There is a deeper, more concerning aspect of the policy’s impact on families. The policy sends out the message that being in the classroom is somehow more important than being with their family, which is something I fundamentally cannot support. No matter how good a school or individual teacher is, being in school can never be more important, more valuable or more beneficial in a child’s life than a positive and healthy family situation.

We all know that we are living busier and busier lives these days; the pressure and stresses of daily life put more demands on family life than ever before, so the time that parents have with their children is more precious than ever before. The benefit of that week or two away—away from the pressures of life and the domestic and mundane responsibilities of home—can be an oasis for any family, offering the opportunity to regroup, to refresh their relationships and to strengthen the family bond. I know the cliché is often used, but the quality time parents can spend with their children on a holiday can be one of the most positive things a child can experience in the madness of today’s world.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I just wonder whether the weekend is not an option for families to spend some quality time together. The real danger of allowing parents to take their children out at any point during term is that it interrupts their time at school, in the classroom.

[Steve Double]

Of course, weekends can play a part, but I again make the point that for many parents, the weekends these days are full of a great deal of activity. That week away, where a family can get away from the pressures of life and concentrate on their time together, is valuable.