Water Safety

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the Chair of the Petitions Committee, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for presenting the petition, and all those who signed it. We live in a country that is not only surrounded by sea but has many rivers, from the west coast up to the north coast and all down the east coast, many of which are extremely tidal. I swim in a nearby river, the Parrett, when it is going out to sea. When the tide turns, it is impossible to swim against it. The tide will take a swimmer away faster than they can swim. As long as they know what they are doing and can handle it, they can cope with that, and with the cold water, but what has been raised by so many today is the fact that it is the cold water, its strength and its direction of travel, that shock many people.

We have a very experienced Education Minister here this evening, who I am sure can find solutions, because it is about teaching our children to swim, and teaching them about the dangers of cold water. Lakes and other things have undercurrents. At the moment, the weather is not too brilliant, but when we have great weather lots of youngsters often jump in the water because it is something that they really enjoy. They might be egged on by others to do so, and many tragedies have happened.

I wanted to raise a case involving a constituent of mine, Andrea Corrie, who sadly lost her 19-year-old son James in 2005. James was a strong swimmer, who tragically lost his life in a drowning accident in the River Thames at Kingston after a night out with his friends. His family was told that cold water shock was most likely the reason he could not get out of the water. I highlight James’s story to emphasise how serious the issue is. On average, 400 people drown accidentally each year in the UK. That is one every 20 hours on average, and 44% of those who drown did not intend to enter the water. Drowning in the UK accounts for more accidental fatalities each year than fire deaths at home or cycling deaths on the road. I think many members of the public would not think that that statistic was right.

We need to do more to prevent drowning incidents around our shores and in inland waterways. Mrs Corrie has been a tireless campaigner on this issue, working alongside the RNLI on its Respect the Water campaign. Her determination to bring positive change out of her family’s tragedy is inspiring. We must raise awareness of the dangers of our waters, so that more families like Mrs Corrie’s do not suffer the same heartache.

This year, during what is likely to be a very busy post-lockdown summer around our coasts and inland waters, water-safety measures are more important than ever. We will be seeing a lot of people coming to the west country in particular this summer, and we welcome them, but it is safety that really matters. However, the issue does not stop with simply raising awareness of the dangers of cold water; education has a key part to play. The earlier children become aware of the dangers that lurk in inviting-looking pools of water, the better they will be equipped to help themselves if they get into trouble.

I think that there are three key things we can do, moving forward. First, we must raise awareness of the dangers of British waters through advertising campaigns such as the RNLI’s highly effective Respect the Water campaign. The adverts highlight the dangers and unpredictable risks of British coastal waters and the way in which waves, tides and hidden currents can drag people out to sea in seconds. We have only to remember the tragedy of the cockle pickers in order to understand the dangers in some waters. Where there is a very flat beach, the tide comes in incredibly quickly. Again, I do not think that people, unless they have actually experienced really strong tides, realise the speed at which that happens. These campaigns have already saved lives, and I think we need to look at other campaigns that can warn of the dangers of inland waterways.

Secondly, we must ensure that all schoolchildren are taught how to swim, and make sure that they catch up on lessons missed after the disruption of covid. The point was made by other speakers that in some deprived areas it is much more difficult to get access to swimming pools and access for those schools to take children to swim. Schoolchildren are required to learn to swim under the national curriculum, but only 77% of year 7 pupils could swim 25 metres unaided in 2020. A recent report by Swim England and the APPG on swimming forecast that that would drop to 43% by 2025 as a result of lessons being missed during the pandemic. It is vital that lessons are caught up on and that those rates are increased and not decreased. I am sure that we will hear from the Minister about how that can be done.

Learning to swim in a pool is the first important step, but we could also do more to ensure that schoolchildren know how to stay safe in open water. There is so much difference between swimming in a swimming pool and being in a fast-flowing river. The Swim Safe initiative is very good for teaching children about water safety in lakes and in the sea. This provides more practical and realistic training on staying safe in and around our waters.

Thirdly, we could look at how we reduce the risks posed by canals and rivers in towns. We need communities to carry out risk assessments and take steps to mitigate those risks. Local safety plans could save lives by preventing people from suffering slips, trips or falls near water. Let us be blunt: when pubs and other hospitality establishments are close to water, it would be quite nice for them to have—without putting everybody off coming to their establishment—something there to tell people just to be a little bit aware when they leave the establishment in order that they do not fall in the water. If it is very cold water and the person has been drinking, it will have an even greater effect on them. Without being a complete nanny state, we just have to point out to people that there are real risks, and I think it is up to some of these establishments—dare I say it?—to have some messaging there that can make people aware. We need to install more public rescue equipment along the waterways, too. We could also ensure that these communities raise awareness of the dangers of such things as drinking alcohol near these spots, which can be dangerous.

In summary, we have a very able Minister who has great experience,, and if he can combine a strong public awareness campaign and thorough practical education for schoolchildren with a more local approach to water risk, we can prevent many families from suffering in the way my constituent Mrs Corrie has suffered.

A Brighter Future for the Next Generation

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to speak in the Queen’s Speech debate, and I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to protect the environment and invest in our new green industries to help us to reach net zero by 2050. I am very fortunate to represent a very green constituency. My constituency starts in Exmoor, goes down through the Blackdown hills, and down at Seaton we reach the sea on the south coast of Devon. It is a very beautiful constituency, which relies on a lot of farming, a lot of growing and a lot of tourism, so a green recovery is so important, and as we come out of covid, I look forward to the Government pursuing that.

In particular, I look forward to the return of the Environment Bill to Parliament. It will set a range of binding targets to be enforced by a new world-class Office for Environmental Protection. An interim OEP is expected to be operational by July. It is essential that we get that up and running as soon as possible so that it can lay the groundwork for the full body to be established.

The Bill also sets out ambitious targets for tree planting, which I welcome. I am keen to see what I describe as smart tree planting, which means planting the trees in the right places to maximise the benefits. For example, trees can not only capture and store carbon, but they also keep soil from eroding, and in the right places can form natural flood defences. We can achieve this by making sure we properly reward farmers for tree planting. It has to be financially attractive to them to ensure that take-up is strong and that we can deliver the trees we want to plant in this country. If we can properly join up agriculture and environmental protection, we will be able to protect and enhance biodiversity while maintaining a good level of food production.

It is not just action here in the UK that we need to take; we must look at our global footprint. It is right that the Environment Bill includes measures to protect the world’s forests and to hold companies accountable for illegal deforestation they cause. The measure can be even stronger in two key ways. First, it must ensure that financial companies are also held to account and are not excluded from carrying out due diligence. The UK global deforestation footprint is coming not only from the products we buy as consumers, but from UK banks providing money to companies driving illegal deforestation in places such as Brazil and Malaysia. Secondly, indigenous peoples are often being exploited by corporations and in many cases are seeing their lands and livelihoods destroyed. I want us to protect these people by ensuring that their consent is obtained before any development takes place. Taken together, these measures will ensure that the UK has robust deforestation laws that we can be proud of and that set a high bar for the rest of the world to follow.

The final point I want to make is on air quality. Tackling climate change and cutting our carbon emissions is rightly a Government priority, but poor air quality is affecting people’s day-to-day lives and has serious impacts on their health. Poorer air quality is linked to an estimated 64,000 premature deaths a year. It was earlier this year named in a coroner’s report as directly contributing to the loss of life for the first time. We need to improve air quality across the country, but it is a particular issue in our cities and big towns. I know that the Government have laid out targets for air quality in the Environment Bill, but I would like to see that go further. I would set more stringent targets, including, for example, bringing limits to the pollutant PM_2.5 into line with World Health Organisation standards.

Overall, the Government are taking great steps to protect the environment and ensure a greener recovery from the pandemic. In hosting COP26, we have a prime opportunity to show global leadership on these issues. We can also move forward with ensuring that we have a good agriculture sector and a good horticulture sector and that we are producing high-quality, environmentally sound and animal welfare-friendly food. We can balance that with producing a very clean and green environment. I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to make our environmental laws as robust as possible.

Free School Meals

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is a man who has great passion and belief on the subject of education and how we support the most vulnerable people in society, and he raises an important point about how we can support those people. Our view is, clearly, that the best way of doing that is through the universal credit system and ensuring that we have a welfare system that works for everyone in this country.

As I touched on, we have raised the personal tax allowance to £12,500 to ensure that those on the lowest incomes benefit, and at the same time we have raised the adult national living wage to £8.72, up from the adult national minimum wage of £5.80 at the start of 2010.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I very much welcome the support being given to poorer families, but the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs looked at covid and the food supply, and there is no doubt that it is hugely challenging for the poorest in society to get food at the moment. Does the Secretary of State accept that some of these families are very challenged, and that if we give them money, it does not necessarily get to food for children—[Interruption.] No, it does not. Therefore, I think school meal vouchers are a good way of getting food out to those families that really need it, so will he re-look at meal vouchers for Christmas?

[Gavin Williamson]

That is what is so incredibly important about our free school meals programme, which originally came into existence in 1906 and has evolved considerably since. The programme has the raised the standards of what children receive and has expanded to support so many others. It is an important part of what we deliver. I will touch on that later in my speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Throughout the pandemic, the Secretary of State has acted significantly to support families in financial distress, and I thank both the Children’s Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), and the Minister with responsibility for universal credit, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), for the many discussions that I have had with them on these subjects.

The £20 a week uplift to universal credit and the £63 million for local authorities to provide families with emergency food and essential supplies has been a lifeline, but all the while that support has been in place, food insecurity has continued to rise. Between January and September 2020, the Harlow food bank gave out 118 tonnes of food—nearly double the tonnage of last year—and nationally, 32% of households have experienced a drop in income since late March. An estimated 1.9 million children have been affected by food insecurity in the same period, according to the Food Foundation, and 2% of adults said they had skipped meals entirely. That is only set to continue.

[Neil Parish]

My right hon. Friend is quite right about food insecurity, because that is exactly what the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report found. Does he agree that, if a sugar tax were implemented, raising £300 million, it would cost about £20 million per week to support free school meals? Surely it would be money well spent. I believe that the sugar tax was meant for helping poor people to get food.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; I will come to that later. I am asking not for huge amounts of new money from the Treasury, but for the redistribution of the proceeds of the existing sugar tax, which disproportionately hits those on low incomes, back to those on lower incomes through free school meals and food programmes.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast a 13.2% rise in unemployment, meaning that 336,500 more working adults could face food insecurity. Now is the time for a long-term plan on combating food hunger from the Government, rather than a series of patchwork solutions.

First, I urge the Government to collect and publish proper data on child food insecurity. The most recent DFE estimate of the number of children eligible for free school meals, provided to me in a recent letter from the Children’s Minister, is 1.4 million. The figures are from January 2020, and we know that since then the world has been turned on its head. The Food Foundation suggests that the figure is now more like 2.2 million children, with 900,000 newly registered.

To the Government’s credit, there are a number of schemes to relieve food hunger, but what is being done to ensure that they are working? In September, for example, just 47.3% of eligible mothers were receiving healthy start vouchers, and those uptake figures are in decline. Much more could be done to boost awareness of those schemes, digitise healthy start vouchers and ensure that all those eligible for free school meals are registered quickly.

Secondly, free school meals should be extended over the school holidays temporarily for as long as the big effects of the pandemic continue to be felt. I would only support that temporarily. If we acknowledge that children risk going hungry in term time by providing them with free school meals despite the provision of universal credit and the other things that have been mentioned by the Government, we know that they risk going hungry in the holidays too.

Thirdly, as the report by the House of Lords Select Committee on Food, Poverty, Health and the Environment, “Hungry for change: fixing the failures in food”, recommended, when calculating universal credit allowances, the Government must consider the cost of buying and preparing healthy, nutritious meals under its own Eatwell scheme. Fourthly, the Government should implement the private Member’s Bill introduced by the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) on school breakfasts and give all disadvantaged schools the funding to provide a free school breakfast to children at risk of hunger. We know that that increases educational progress by two months, and average GCSE achievement goes up for those children who have a regular breakfast.

Fifthly, we need a programme of holiday activities not just over the summer, but over every school holiday, to offer academic catch-up, as well as mental health and wellbeing support. I have seen that work in my constituency of Harlow, with children getting fed. Of course, I understand there are significant financial constraints on the Treasury right now, but these proposals do not need new money. It is also time for prominent retailers, suppliers and manufacturers to take on a much bigger role and match fund Government investment in tackling child food insecurity. It is no good just ticking a virtue-signalling box on a taskforce—they should actually act. We should ring-fence the £340 million a year in revenue from the tax on sugary drinks to cover the cost of these proposals.

The sugar tax, as I mentioned, hits families on lower incomes. Why should we not redistribute the revenue to fund these policy proposals, helping those same families facing food insecurity? Kellogg’s has found that hunger in the classroom costs the English economy at least £5.2 million a year. All the evidence shows that if we feed children properly, we increase educational attainment and boost life chances. It is a no-brainer. I urge the Government to set out a serious long-term plan to combat childhood hunger, and—at least until we are over the coronavirus—keep free school meals going through the winter and Easter holidays.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking to support and expand selective secondary education.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

15. What steps her Department is taking to support the expansion of grammar schools.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

Under our national funding proposals, more money will follow students, particularly to schools that are educating pupils who are disadvantaged and from lower-income families. On the roll of one of the schools my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) has highlighted, 25% of the young people are on free school meals, whereas the proportion in the other school is less than 1%. That accounts for the majority of the difference.

[Justine Greening]

As my hon. Friend points out, I do not get to write my own cheques and I have to live within my departmental budget. We are looking carefully at how to get the fair funding approach right. I agree that we have to make sure that similar children facing similar challenges and with similar needs are consistently funded, wherever in the UK they live, and of course we want to support successful schools.

[Neil Parish]

Colyton Grammar School in my constituency has a great headteacher, wonderful staff and pupils with huge levels of attainment. The school would very much like to expand. How can the Secretary of State help it to expand more than it can at the moment?

[Justine Greening]

To build on my previous point, the consultation, “Schools that work for everyone”, also covered our proposals to allow expanding existing selective schools to be able to offer more choice to parents and our proposals to increase the number of school places at good and outstanding schools. We will make available dedicated funding of up to £50 million a year to support those schools to expand.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Parish Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

No, I am afraid that the hon. Lady is wrong. We aggregated all the local funding formulae across the 150 local authorities and looked at the level of deprivation. We are allocating 9.5% of the national funding formula to deprivation, which is broadly in line with the existing position. We have also increased the amount in the funding formula that goes to children who start school behind. The scheme is deliberately designed to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds who are falling behind. I would have thought that the hon. Lady, representing the constituency that she does, would support a fairer funding system that helps those particular children.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

19. Further to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire), Devon’s small rural schools and the long distances that our pupils have to travel mean that we need more funding. While I welcome fairer funding, we are starting a long way behind.

[Mr Gibb]

I accept my hon. Friend’s comments. Schools in his constituency will gain about £300,000 of funding overall—a 0.6% increase. On the basis of illustrative figures for 2016-17, 70.6% of schools in his constituency will actually gain funding, compared with 29% that will lose a small amount.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Perhaps the most important thing about the Budget is also the most understated, which is that it is occurring against a veritable job creation miracle in this country. Since world war two, jobs have never been created at the rate that they are being created now, and that is the starkest difference between the economic management of this Government, and that of Labour when it was in power in recent years.

There is much in the Budget to boost that job creation further: the increase in tax thresholds, which is a further incentive to work; the doubling of small business rate relief, which will help to generate more wealth and jobs; the lifetime ISA, which is an encouragement to saving; and the cut in corporation tax, although that will not happen for a number of years.

There was a great welcome in the west country for the measures specifically outlined by the Chancellor. It is great to see the west country getting that long-overdue recognition from the Treasury.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend rightly emphasises that the Chancellor has provided funds for the west country. Rail, road, housing and broadband are all needed there.

[Dr Fox]

That advertisement for the west country’s economic potential was nicely put, and does not really require any response from me.

I share the disappointment that the Chancellor expressed about the fact that the growth figures were downgraded and that debt was rising as a proportion of GDP. The figures make it more difficult to see how we can achieve the substantial and sustainable surplus that is needed to make a meaningful reduction on the level of debt. However, I must say to some Conservative Members and many of the commentators who call for faster fiscal consolidation that they cannot get it by wishful thinking. Their objection to every tax rise and every spending cut proposed by the Chancellor makes it all the more difficult to achieve what we all want.

The Chancellor yesterday set out his view on the European Union element and the impact on our economy. It will not surprise anyone to learn that I do not take the same view as he does, but I want to tackle one or two of the myths and the claims that are made. The first claim, which comes from the Governor of the Bank of England onwards—I almost said “downwards”, but I am sure that is not correct—is that being in the European Union is key to our economic wellbeing. Of the OECD countries, 16 of the 20 with the highest unemployment are in the European Union. Of the 10 OECD countries with the highest unemployment, only one is not in in the European Union. Unemployment averages 6.5% in the OECD; 5.5% in the G7; 8.9% in the EU; and 10.3% in the eurozone—if we extract Germany, it is something like 14% or 15%. I should therefore like to know in the response to the debate the answer to this question: if the EU is so good and so key for economic wellbeing, why is it failing almost every other country in the EU?

The second claim is that inward investment in the United Kingdom comes because of our membership of the European Union. That does not strike me as being logical. If the UK gets the lion’s share of inward investment in Europe, it cannot by definition be simply because we are a member of the EU—we would otherwise get a proportionate share of inward investment. There must be other reasons that are nothing to do with our EU membership that enable that inward investment.

Onshore Oil and Gas

Neil Parish Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for securing the debate. He is quite a brave man—I can stand up and support fracking because it largely does not affect my constituency, but when fracking does affect a Member’s constituency, supporting it is a much braver thing to do. He made a measured speech, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans). We have to ensure that the public understand what we want to do, because they want to be reassured that it will be safe.

I have made the point before in this Chamber that we sometimes miss a trick in this country. I spent 10 years in the European Parliament—do not blame me for everything that happened in Europe over that period. In France, for example, when they build nuclear power stations they ensure there are houses, roads, infrastructure and leisure facilities. I am not saying we can do all of that with the fracking industry, but we can make the industry more beneficial for local residents. That is what we need to do, because at the moment we are not really selling fracking very well. That is the trouble; we need to sell it.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

Carbon emissions are obviously a big issue surrounding shale or any form of fossil fuel extraction. We have to treat CO₂ as not only a waste product but a potential by-product, because the chemical industry already uses it as feedstock for a lot of different things, including agriculture, the bottling industry, the canning industry and the food preparation industry in general. It is the purest form of CO₂ when it comes through those energy-intensives. We need to educate people about the benefits of fossil fuels, the CO₂ from which can be sequestered and used again, thereby reducing the emissions that they create.

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but we have to ensure that the people who will be living around the mouths of the wells, where the shale gas comes up to the surface, feel that there is a direct benefit to them. It is good to appeal to the greater good, but it is also good to appeal to those who will see the fracking most. That is the particular point I am making.

[Angela Smith]

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there are already plans on the table to return to local communities some of the investment and profit from the shale gas industry—something like 6% of the value of the gas extracted?

[Neil Parish]

I think there are such plans. There are various ideas, such as sovereign funds, but again, we need to explain to the local residents that they will get that money. One problem in the past with many such schemes has been that the money has not filtered down to the local people who have to live right next to the entrance to a shale gas resource. That is what I want to see.

We need to ensure that we explain the situation to local people and that they know there will be something in it for them—I know that may sound basic—and that they are doing something for the greater good. I will go on to talk about industry, but the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) made a really good point: fossil fuel extraction is necessary. We need only take the agricultural industry, in which natural gas creates ammonium nitrate, to see that it is hugely necessary.

My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton made a point about having a single regulator, which is a good idea. It is about reassuring the public. The fracking will take place far underground and there is little or no chance of any problems with groundwater supply, but people are talking about those things. Those who are against fracking make much of them, so they need to be reassured. We must ensure that someone goes to the areas in question and presents the case strongly, so that people feel reassured about the safety of fracking. People can always cite problems in certain parts of the world, which makes it doubly important that we reassure people.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time. I want to back up what he is saying. He is a fellow North York Moors MP, where we have the Boulby potash mine in the national park. The mine goes more than 1 mile underground and 2 miles out under the North sea. Although it does not use the same technology, it goes through the same strata that the shale and gas industry will go through and is completely controlled. When large developments such as that occur, there is initially big uproar and upheaval, but the mine now employs more than 1,000 people. Although it is sadly letting people go, without it, the community would not have benefited from the well-paid jobs and solid employment they have reaped over the past 30 or 40 years.

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. I became very much involved with potash, because it is important in growing crops. We have such a massive amount of potash that we can probably produce enough not only for this country but for virtually the whole world. As he says, everybody has to be reassured that the processes can work together.

I am really heartened by this morning’s debate, given what I was expecting—perhaps I am tempting fate, as Members may yet come in with the opposite view. I often think that when we are talking about shale gas, it is easier to support those who are protesting against it. They make an awful lot of noise and have a fair point to make, but they get almost undue attention, and I think we have to be realistic about the potential for shale gas and the resource that we have.

To pick up on a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale made, we are potentially very reliant on gas from Russia, given that it may well come through Europe to Britain. We also import an awful lot of frozen gas from the middle east by tanker through Milford Haven. All those routes are susceptible to problems, and we will need a lot of gas in future. As we reduce our carbon emissions, there will still be a great need for gas. I think about 40% of our heating in this country comes from gas, and when people have gas in their homes, they expect to be able to turn on the gas boiler or gas fire. It would be wrong of people on all sides of the political debate not to allow shale gas to be got out of the ground, although we have to make sure that the controls are there, that we can do it safely, and that local communities feel that they get huge benefits from it.

We will continue to need gas as we decarbonise, particularly for heating and manufacturing. If we are not able to extract shale gas, the UK will have to import. In 2014 the UK imported 48% of its gas needs, and in 2030, without shale gas, it will import three quarters. Shale gas is still in its exploration phase, and if production is successful, it could vastly reduce gas imports. National Grid projects that it could meet about 40% of UK gas demand by 2030, but we need to get the process up and running if we are ever to hit that figure. We have to make shale gas extraction much more acceptable to local people, and we need to have a single regulator.

Additionally, shale gas extraction has the potential to create more than 64,000 jobs, which would not only help our long-term economic plan but ensure energy stability, which, with our ever-growing population, is a matter of increasing concern. Furthermore, the shale gas industry could help to revitalise our struggling steel industry. If shale gas extraction were to take off in the UK, the industry could need more than 12,000 km of quality steel casing, which would cost in the region of £2.3 billion. I have looked into that, and it is interesting that the type of pipes that are needed are not manufactured in this country. If we were to go into shale gas in a big way, we could invest in the steel industry to get it back up and running.

[Tom Blenkinsop]

The two tube mills in Britain are in Corby and Hartlepool, and they could easily be adapted to produce non-welded tubing. Of course, there is also a very good site in Teesside that is no longer being used. Again, that site could be adapted to provide non-welded tubing if virgin steel were produced once again there.

[Neil Parish]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, because a way of supporting our steel industry would be to make sure that we produced British steel that went into the British shale gas industry. We would also be certain that the steel pipes that we produced were of great quality. We should be able to reassure the general public about the quality of that steel piping, so it could be a win-win situation.

In the US, having abundant cheap shale gas has helped to attract $138 billion of investment in the chemical industry, which is funding something like 225 new projects. The US has also brought a huge amount of its manufacturing back to that country because of its supply of shale gas. I do not believe the UK has quite the resource that the US has, but it will make a significant difference.

This has been a good debate, with many ideas being raised that I hope the Minister will take on board. My final point is to repeat what I said at the beginning: we have to make sure that the plans are acceptable to local people and benefit them. We have to bring out into public exactly what safety measures are being put in place, and we have to make that argument clearly in public meetings. We should ensure that we bring shale gas out of the ground in this country, to create better energy security in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mowat]

I think the steel industry unions are right, as are the chemicals and aluminium industry unions. The US, unlike the UK, still has an aluminium industry, principally because energy prices there allow it to happen.

[Neil Parish]

The US has reduced its gas price hugely to attract the industry. When we extract shale gas, will we reduce our gas price or will we keep it the same? That is an interesting point because, if we are to encourage the industry properly I suspect we will have to reduce our gas price.

[David Mowat]

Gas prices are set by the market. We have a spot price for gas which is set in the European gas market. People have made the point that the European price will not decline in the same way as in the US. That may be true, but I make the point again that they could have said that about oil and shale oil. We have seen what has happened there. Clearly, the more there is of something, all other things being equal, the more the price falls. Fuel poverty is not the subject of this debate, but many people are living in fuel poverty in our country and we should all be keen to have lower energy prices.

Before I close, I want to pick up on the pragmatic and responsible points made by the Scottish National party. All of us as Members of Parliament have a leadership role in our communities. We heard my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton exercising his leadership role. Of course he faces pressures in terms of the environment of the Yorkshire dales, but he also understands that we need jobs in our country and we need to create wealth. Importing gas at scale from Qatar, Russia and Norway takes jobs away from our country and has an impact on industries in Cleveland and so on. That is the exercise of leadership. “Leadership” is an important word, and all of us in this place need to exercise leadership. Saying that we are going to have a moratorium on this activity because that is responsible and pragmatic when the reality is that this industry has been going for 10 years and can go to Pennsylvania, like my hon. Friend did, and have a look—it can do all of that—is what I would describe as negative leadership, and it is populist politics because there is a body of people out there who are receptive to that; and that is not what any of us were elected to this place to do.

School Funding

Neil Parish Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) for his persistence. I also thank the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). Similarly, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who fought hard in the last Parliament for fairer education funding, and who continues to do so in this one.

All of us seem to have been fighting for a change for years. I have huge faith in the Minister—I really have. In “Yes Minister”, one of the characters says, “That will be a very brave decision, Minister,” and we want this Minister to make a very brave decision. The £390 million in funding that was introduced in the last Parliament, and which is going into the base budget, is very welcome. In the end, however, it will not cure the underlying problem. If we just put a bit of money in each time, we will not alter the league table at all. Devon went from fifth from the bottom to sixth from the bottom. While that is welcome, we want a huge amount more to be done.

My constituency, which is by far the most beautiful in the country—not that I am biased—contains a huge number of small schools, which have federated. The headteachers share many schools. There are great teachers and great classroom assistants. People are working really hard, and they deliver a very good education. However, if they can deliver a good education, why are some other areas getting so much more money? Why is it fair for things to be like that? Why can some of that money not be shared with other areas?

Local government funding seems to be one of those issues, like education, that is so complex that Governments over the years have decided—almost with fear and trepidation—not to alter it, because that would cause so many problems. However, we have to alter it; otherwise, we will not deliver on what we have promised.

[Graham Stuart]

I would like my hon. Friend to know that, when I started campaigning for fairer funding in local government and education, I had blond hair. I have been doing this not just for eight years—I first raised the F40 in 2005. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to be courageous when they come forward with proposals? They need to be ambitious and really lift authorities that have been disadvantaged for too long. At the end of this, we have to have the courage to do something significant and level the playing field, albeit that it will take time to bring these things in.

[Neil Parish]

I am glad to see that my hon. Friend still actually has his hair, albeit that it is white. Seriously, though, all of us here—there are 30 Members here, and there were more when we started the debate, on a one-line Whip on a Thursday—have been fighting hard on this issue. What I want to tell the Minister is that we need to be brave enough about funding. We need some sort of siphon to take money from the top and spread it gradually to the bottom, or the anomaly will never be put right. The current situation is wrong for those of us whose constituents have high aspirations but who need more funding to raise them even higher. We need that to be dealt with. All our constituents pay the same taxes, so why should their children not benefit? Other hon. Members have mentioned how schools have great parents, who raise money to help; and that is all very good, but, as I have said, it will not deal with the funding problem.

My constituency has further education colleges in Axminster and Honiton, and Petroc college in Tiverton, and all receive reduced funding. If we have aspirations for young people going from primary through secondary and on to FE or university, the education must be provided. What the Government are doing about apprenticeships is great, but good colleges are necessary if the apprenticeships are to be of real value. All those things fit together.

Tiverton high school is on a flood plain, and in 2012 it was nearly flooded. We need to find funding so that it can be rebuilt on higher land—land is available. All that takes time, I know, but we must ensure that we are treated equally. Our fear is that we are not being treated equally. Since the general election the west country is virtually all Conservative—apart from the little patch of red that is the constituency of the right hon. Member for Exeter, which we understand. My point is that the Government have a lot of responsibility. My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) mentioned, as other Members have, the Government’s commitment to put the situation right. I reiterate my huge confidence in the Minister and I will invite him to Devon to see what a great job our schools are doing, and what refurbishment and extra funding they need. The Government will settle the matter, and put it right. Again I ask the Minister: please, be brave.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I thank everyone who has spoken in this rather lengthy but none the less constructive debate, and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) and the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) on securing a debate on this important issue. I also thank the F40 for a long and vigorous campaign.

When I was given this job, I spoke to a senior civil servant in the Department for Education who said to me that someone was working on fair funding for schools when he joined the Department in 1991. The problem has been around for a very long time. It did not arise overnight and it bedevils many different types of authorities. This is not a partisan issue: Labour-held authorities have funding issues, as do Conservative-held ones. There are some underfunded inner-city authorities and there are underfunded authorities outside of cities. I thank all Members for the manner in which the debate has been conducted. It has not been party political; instead, we have focused on the issues in our constituencies.

[Neil Parish]

I understand the historical element, which my hon. Friend the Minister outlines well, but I have huge confidence that he will be the Minister who, after all these years, actually sorts this out.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend for his confidence in me. It feels rather strange to be urged to be “brave”, as Sir Humphrey would say.

To address the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), if one represents a local authority such as hers in Durham, which is the 57th best-funded local authority in the country, one has the luxury of saying, “It’s difficult, but we have to do all these things.” She does not have to take the difficult decisions. She has the luxury of having a local authority that is very adequately funded, but those Members representing local authorities that have been underfunded for more than a decade, where schools are doing quite well with limited resources, are saying that it is time to rectify the situation. It is right that we listen to them and act.

Before getting into the detail of that issue, I want to respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan). The Government recognise the importance of long-term investment in education to prepare children for success in adult life. In the previous Parliament, we invested more than £190 billion in our schools—a real-terms increase every year. In this Parliament, we will continue to protect the schools budget, as we promised in our manifesto. We will also ensure that the money reaches the places where it is needed, so all children in all age groups and all locations can access excellent education. We committed in our manifesto to making schools funding fairer, so that every school can support every child in achieving their potential.

The right hon. Member for Exeter made that point extremely well when he highlighted the fact that the root cause of this issue is historical funding. At some point in history—2005, I think—we froze schools funding in aspic, and whatever an authority spent the previous year became the baseline for its funding allocation. Demographics, local authorities and schools’ needs changed, but the funding formula was not updated to reflect current need.

School Funding Formula

Neil Parish Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have seen the gap between the best and worst-funded authorities continue to widen long after the flaws which caused it were acknowledged.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for leading this debate. In Devon, we have now seen £193 in extra funding per pupil. That is great news, but there is still a big gap to fill, especially with so many small rural schools and a sparse population. We do a very good job with very poor funding. I look to the next Parliament to do better.

Electoral Registration

Neil Parish Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I will come to the details of the electoral register—[Interruption.] May I answer the question? There is a clear process through which the decision will be made about whether to end the transition in 2015. That will be down to the independent advice of the Electoral Commission, whoever is Minister and whoever is in government.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

In a democracy everybody should have the right to register to vote, but we must also get the correct people to register so that there is no fraud. Surely the Government must ensure that the register is correct.

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on it: IER is about ensuring the completeness and accuracy of the register, and as we do that some people will drop off and others will have to get on it.