Oral Answers to Questions
Nicholas Brown Excerpts(10 years ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
We introduced the golden hello scheme to support the recruitment and retention of well-qualified maths teachers in the publicly funded further education sector who can teach at GCSE level and above. Sixth-form colleges are not included in the scheme, because, along with school sixth forms, they are eligible for the recruitment support and incentives offered by the National College for Teaching and Leadership, which are not available to FE colleges.
Mr Nicholas Brown Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
T4. Some 34% of the newly qualified teachers who entered the state-funded teaching profession in 2000 had left the profession 10 years later. What does the Minister think accounts for that poor retention rate?
Nicky Morgan
I am always very unhappy to hear about good, highly qualified teachers who decide that teaching is no longer the profession for them. There are, of course, myriad reasons why people decide to leave any particular profession, but over the last four months I have been going around the country meeting teachers, and it is clear to me that the issues of work load and inspections, and some of the expectations of the Ofsted regime, are affecting teachers. That is why, last week, the Government launched the work load challenge for teachers and published the “mythbuster” with Ofsted.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Nicholas Brown Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Matthew Hancock
Because we want to ensure, as and when technical amendments are considered, that we do not have to water down criminal penalties because of the way that the measures are introduced.
We are not in a position to announce a precise timetable for work on orphan works, but we expect it to be concluded during 2013 and certainly before any regulations are made. I commit the Government to discussing the details with Opposition Front-Bench Members, and others, during that process.
The Government amendments have been tabled with strong support for the IP regime on which much of our industry is based, and although the Government recognise the probing nature of the Opposition amendments, and commit to continued analysis of and engagement on those issues, we do not think that they should be included in the Bill.
Amendment 23 agreed to.
Clause 57
Power to change exceptions: copyright and rights in performances
Amendment made: 24, page 47, line 33, at end insert—
“( ) But regulations under this section may make only such provision as may be made under subsection (2) of section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972 or such provision as could be made under that subsection if paragraph 1(1)(d) of Schedule 2 to that Act did not apply.’.—(Matthew Hancock.)
Clause 68
Extent
Amendments made: 31, page 59, line 34, leave out ‘17(1)(c)’ and insert ‘17(2A)’.
Amendment 32, page 60, line 14, after ‘50,’ insert ‘[Osborne estate],’.
Amendment 33, page 60, line 14, after ‘54’ insert ‘and [Estate agency work]’.
Amendment 34, page 60, line 15, at end insert—
‘() section [Civil liability for breach of health and safety duties] extends only to England and Wales and Scotland except that it also extends to Northern Ireland so far as Parts 1 and 4 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 extend there,’.
Amendment 35, page 60, line 16, leave out ‘section’ and insert ‘sections’.
Amendment 36, page 60, line 16, after ‘52’ insert
‘, [Equality Act 2010: third party harassment of employees and applicants] and [Equality Act 2010: obtaining information for proceedings]’.
Amendment 37, page 60, line 16, leave out ‘extends’ and insert
‘and paragraphs 1, 52 to 54, 56 and 61 of Schedule [Adjudicators: minor and consequential amendments] extend’.
Amendment 38, page 60, line 17, leave out ‘section’ and insert ‘sections’.
Amendment 39, page 60, line 17, before ‘51’ insert
‘[Listed buildings in England: agreements and orders granting listed building consent],’.
Amendment 40, page 60, line 17, before ‘51’ insert
‘[Listed buildings in England: certificates of lawfulness],’.
Amendment 41, page 60, line 17, after ‘51’ insert ‘ and [Adjudicators]’.
Amendment 42, page 60, line 17, leave out first ‘Schedule’ and insert ‘Schedules’.
Amendment 43, page 60, line 17, before ‘16’ insert
‘and [Local listed building consent orders: procedure]’.
Amendment 44, page 60, line 17, after ‘17’ insert
‘, Schedule [Adjudicators: bankruptcy applications by debtors and bankruptcy orders] and paragraphs 2 to 51, 55, 57 to 60 and 62 of Schedule [Adjudicators: minor and consequential amendments]’.
Amendment 45, page 60, line 22, at end insert
‘except that section [Power to provide for equal pay audits] extends only to England and Wales and Scotland’.—(Matthew Hancock.)
Clause 69
Commencement
Amendments made: 46, page 60, line 26, at end insert—
‘() section [Osborne estate];’.
Amendment 47, page 60, line 26, at end insert—
‘() section [Power to provide for equal pay audits];’.—(Matthew Hancock.)
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 69, page 60, line 30, at end insert—
‘(d) Sections [Local authorities: powers relating to deemed consent] and [Restriction of advertisements relating to property letting].’.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 4—Town and country planning: Amendment of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007—
‘(1) Class 3 of Schedule 3 to the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, (Classes of advertisements for which deemed consent is granted) is amended as follows.
(2) In item 3A, after “sale”, leave out “or letting”.
(3) In item 3A(2), after both uses of “sold”, leave out “or let”.
(4) In item 3A(2), after “sale”, leave out “or letting”.
(5) In item 3A(8), after “sale”, leave out “or letting”.’.
New clause 5—Town and country planning: responsibilities of housing authorities—
‘(1) Local authorities in England which enjoy day-to-day responsibility for housing policy within their local authority area may make by-laws regulating for all or part of the authority the display of external advertisements concerning property lettings.
(2) If a housing authority has not specifically provided for the display of external notices advertising a property to let then such a notice is not permitted.’.
New clause 6—Town and country planning: offences—
‘(1) It shall be an offence to display an external notice prohibited by subsection (2) of section (Town and country planning: responsibilities of housing authorities).
(2) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
(3) A person guilty of a second or subsequent offence under subsection (1) is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard for each seperate such offence.’.
New clause 7—Town and country planning: commencement and extent—
‘(1) Sections (Town and country planning: Amendment of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, Town and country planning: responsibilities of housing authorities, and Town and country planning: offences) come into force two months after the day on which this Act is passed.
(2) Sections (Town and country planning: Amendment of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, Town and country planning: responsibilities of housing authorities, and Town and country planning: offences) extend to England only.’.
New clause 20—Local authorities: powers relating to deemed consent—
‘(1) Part 2 Regulation 7 of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007 is amended as follows.
(2) In item (1) delete “Secretary of State” and insert “local authority”.
(3) In item (1) delete “upon a proposal made to her by the local planning authority”.
(4) In item (1) delete “she” and insert “the local authority”.
(5) In item (2) delete “ Secretary of State” and insert “local authority”.
(6) In item (2b) delete “her” and insert “the local authority’s”.
(7) In item (3) delete “Secretary of State” and insert “local authority”.
(8) In item (4) delete “Secretary of State” and insert “local authority”.
(9) In item (5) delete “ Secretary of State” and insert “local authority”.
(10) In item (5b) delete “the local planning authority and to any other” and insert “any”.
(11) In item (5) delete part (c).
(12) In item (5b) delete “her” and insert “the local authority”.
(13) In item (5c(i)) delete “she” and insert “the local authority”.
(14) In item (5c(i)) delete “her” and insert “the local authority’s”.
(15) In item (6) delete from “Where” to end and insert “Where the local authority makes a direction it shall send a copy of its reasons to every person who has made a paragraph (3) representation.”.
(16) In item (7) delete “unless the Secretary of State otherwise directs”.
New clause 21—Restriction of advertisement relating to property lettings—
‘(1) Local authorities in England which enjoy day-to-day responsibility for housing policy within their local authority area may make by-laws restricting for all or part of the authority the display of external advertisements concerning property lettings.
(2) It shall be an offence to display an external advertisement concerning property letting in areas or cases where the Local Planning Authority has, under subsection (1), passed a by-law prohibiting external advertisements concerning property letting.
(3) A person found guilty of an offence under subsection (2) is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
(4) A person found guilty of a second or subsequent offence under subsection (2) is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale for each such offence.’.
Amendment 91, line 7 after ‘directors;’, insert
‘to make provision about advertisements concerning property lettings;’.
Mr Brown
New clause 21 is subsidiary to new clause 20, as are amendments 91 and 69. I will not speak to new clauses 4 to 7, which offer an alternative way of dealing with the same problem. I believe that new clause 20 offers the better of the two routes forward, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), the Front-Bench spokesman on these matters for the parliamentary Labour party, for suggesting it to me. New clause 21 sets out the offences; amendment 69 sets the date of enactment, which will be the same as for the rest of the Bill. I have been advised by the Public Bill Office that amendment 91 is a technical necessity for my principal proposal.
I wish to amend regulation 7 of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007, so that matters relating to the control of estate agents’ “To let” signs are under the control of the local authorities that make byelaws about such matters, rather than being governed by primary legislation and the central regulation that currently applies. The proposals do not abolish the central regulation of the original enactment; they merely give local government the right and ability to supplement it. That could mean extending the use of “To let” signs, but it is far more likely to mean restricting it.
This is a moderate proposition, and when I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on the subject it had all-party support and its First Reading was not opposed. The problem is that the “To let” sign regime is widely abused in urban areas, and properties with short-term leases find that the signs are left up all year round. Why would an estate agent or landlord want to do that? Because the sign serves as a form of advertisement for the lettings agent. In the modern era, the signs do not facilitate the search for flats; they just advertise the estate agent.
Matthew Hancock
I commend the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) for his assiduous and long-standing opposition to “To let” signs. I wonder what has driven him to this position, but I recognise and celebrate his tenacity in finding occasions on which to make such proposals in the House—[Interruption.] I might have a little bit of good news for him, if Opposition Members would care to listen.
I appreciate that the proliferation of “To let” signs can be a serious problem, but new clause 21 is slightly disproportionate. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out deficiencies in the current remedy for the local planning authority—seeking a direction under regulation 7 of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007—but his solution is to ban “To let” boards unless a local authority makes byelaws to allow them.
Matthew Hancock
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman on allowing local authorities to have the power to change the situation on the ground with regard to “To let” signs. The powers exist, but there are very few applications for them—there have been only 10 in the past six years—which indicates that the problem is not hugely widespread, although it is a serious issue in some areas.
The directions tend to fall into two groups. The first is where there are large houses in sensitive architectural areas, such as Kensington and Chelsea in London, or Brighton and Hove. The second group is where there is a large concentration of student houses, such as in Leeds, Loughborough, Nottingham or Newcastle. Authorities in such areas have already successfully obtained directions and are exercising the necessary control. Therefore, the ability to take control is in law.
The right hon. Gentleman’s solution is to ensure that, instead of being able to apply, more often the power would need to be put in place, but that would be an extra burden. I understand the concern, however, and agree that the Secretary of State has more important things to do. New clause 20 proposes to take the Secretary of State out of the decision-making process. I shall take that point away and discuss it with ministerial colleagues, including in the Department for Communities and Local Government, and with him. I hope that he can take that assurance and that we can take things forward from there.
Mr Nicholas Brown
I am grateful for the Minister’s assurance. I wrote to the Department at the time of my ten-minute rule Bill on this subject offering to co-operate with the Government by putting it into Committee and accepting their amendments and any tidying up they wanted, if they agreed to facilitate the Bill’s progress through the House, which, as he will know, is in their gift—without it, I would have had to overcome many more hurdles. I am grateful for his assurance, then, and I hope that he stays in office long enough to implement it, because the previous Ministers did not even have time to answer my letter before being dispatched elsewhere—or, in the case of one of them, just dispatched! I look forward to working with him, and, given his assurance, I will not press my amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 50
Sunset and review provisions
Matthew Hancock
I beg to move amendment 21, page 42, line 38, leave out ‘, other than the Scottish Ministers,’.
Higher and Further Education
Nicholas Brown Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the Minister. He entertained the House enormously as he distracted attention from the core point of the Government’s policy and did his best to misrepresent the Opposition’s policy, so much so that he chided my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) for trying to draw his attention back to the Government policy he is supposed to be defending. If that is the most terrible charge the Minister can make against my hon. Friend, surely his case is weak.
Before coming to my core concern—the level of student debt—I should congratulate my hon. Friend on how she opened the debate for the parliamentary Labour party. It is a pleasure to follow her, just as it is a pleasure to follow the Minister. He did his best to distract attention from his policy and to misrepresent the Opposition’s policy. At one stage I thought he was praising—almost sincerely—the Secretary of State; next he will be writing “Focus” leaflets to deliver around the House of Commons. I have too much respect for the Minister to encourage him to go down that sad and sordid road.
My key point is this: my objection to the student fee contribution arrangements being introduced in this academic year is that the required student contribution is too high. It is as straightforward as that. I am not quarrelling with the Minister over the repayment mechanism: he is right that there are common themes between the Labour party and Conservative party positions, but whatever the arguments about establishing competition and a marketplace through different student fee contributions might have been in theory, the fact of the matter is that the annual student fee contribution for most courses has remorselessly settled already at the ceiling of £9,000 a year.
To that we must add the cost of student maintenance, including rent, and the cost of necessary books, equipment and visits associated with the course. Annual living costs for students are expected to reach £11,000 this year, which is £910 a month—the cost was £561 a month in 2004. With fees, that amounts to around £20,000 per year. That is too much money for young people to carry as personal debt. Of itself, it is unjust.
Other things in life require debt in early adulthood: a starter home and the accompanying mortgage, or perhaps a loan to set up a small business as a new entrepreneur. Any lender will take the student debt into account when looking at the potential for repayment. The 30-year repayment period means that debt follows the young person well into middle age.
The Government’s new regime has brought about a rather obvious response. Before the introduction of the new regime there was a burst of applications, but this year university applications are down by 8.7%. The situation is particularly pronounced in the north-east, which I have the honour to represent—applications are down by 11.2%—and among the poor.
The Office for Fair Access tells us that despite substantially larger bursaries at Cambridge than at Northumbria university, Northumbria’s proportion of students from poor backgrounds is around four times higher than Cambridge’s proportion. That, too, is unjust. Young people are having the opportunity to be everything they could be priced away from them.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Alan Beith
The right hon. Gentleman and I share an interest in Northumbria university, where there are a large number of part-time students. Under the Government’s scheme, they will be given access to repayment facilities that they did not have before.
Mr Brown
I accept that. I am sympathetic to features of the Government’s scheme, and we would find agreement and consensus on other aspects, including those to which the Minister referred. My objection is to the total debt. My contention is that £20,000 a year is just too much money for a young person to take on. The right hon. Gentleman knows that there will be a similar feeling among his constituents, who are no more affluent than people in the community I represent.
For those trying to get into higher education, the situation is exacerbated by the loss of something like 15,000 student places—that is the only election pledge that the Liberal Democrats have actually kept. Young people from economically poorer backgrounds look instead at going directly into employment and making their way without a degree and the accompanying mandatory debt. Even if they do so, the cards are stacked against them, because graduate entry is now much more of a requirement for careers that used to be open to non-graduates.
The argument for the fee contribution is that graduates, over a lifetime, will earn more than non-graduates, and so should make a contribution to their education costs. I accept that, but the argument is about how much of a contribution they should make. Not all graduates will find well-paid jobs. Graduate recruitment is currently running at 6% below pre-recession levels, if we take the high point of 2007, and for every graduate job advertised there is an average of 52 applications. One in five graduates is unemployed.
The remedy seems clear enough: we should cap the fee contribution. The Labour party has pledged to set a cap at £6,000, and to go further in reducing the cap if the reduction is affordable. I say that we should go further and we should face up to the fact that it must be paid for.
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has very little room for manoeuvre in his departmental budget. To achieve his share of the cuts, he has shifted costs from the state to the students in higher education and abolished the regional development agencies, which were the principal regional economic development arm. His Department has cut university teaching budgets by 47% in real terms, from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion. Combined with the increased subsidy element of student loans, that results in a real-terms cut in higher education funding, excluding research, of 23%, from £8.8 billion to £7.5 billion by 2015.
Dr Wendy Piatt, the director general of the Russell group, warned today that the UK has fallen behind countries such as Mexico, Russia and India in investment in higher education as a proportion of gross domestic product.
We must look outside the Secretary of State’s Department to find the savings dramatically to reduce the cap on student fees. The renewal of Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent and a new generation of Trident submarines are unaffordable and unnecessary public expenditure, not the higher education of our nation’s young people—[Interruption.] To respond to the Minister, at least I can say how I would pay for it.
The coalition Government have made a different choice. They have diminished the importance of higher education, and in that, they are wrong.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nicholas Brown Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I offer my congratulations to the head teacher, Helena Mills, and all her staff on the tremendous achievement that that school has delivered over the past few years in raising the standard of GCSE achievement of its pupils. That shows that with good leadership and high expectations, all our children can achieve to the best of their ability.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for meeting me to discuss cadet forces in state schools. The problem remains: how does the BTEC in uniformed public services count towards the performance tables? If he can find a way to resolve that issue, he will have the gratitude of my constituents.
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He has raised the case of the academy in Wallsend in his constituency brilliantly. My officials are looking at what we can do to build on that school’s successes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nicholas Brown Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Norman Lamb)
I was delighted to hear about the event in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), who has made arrangements with 70 MPs to hold similar events around the country. We have to do a lot to encourage SMEs to export. The level of exports from our SMEs is below the European average, so we need to tackle that. Many UKTI services, including its initial consultations, are free. It has a particular focus on helping SMEs to increase their exports.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
T2. The Government have recently designated Tyneside a centre for offshore renewable energy. In welcoming that designation, I ask the Minister to set out the economic development advantages of such a designation. What assistance can the initiative expect from UKTI, which operates under BIS? Will Ministers urge senior officials to visit Tyneside, and to promote this Government initiative at home and abroad?
Oral Answers to Questions
Nicholas Brown Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Vince Cable
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is why we are stressing employee participation in remuneration discussions. There are powers under existing regulations and we want to encourage people to take more advantage of them. As she rightly says, there are enormous practical difficulties involved in choosing one employee who can properly represent the whole of an international labour force.
Mr Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman is being saved up for later. It would be a pity to waste him at such an early stage in our proceedings.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nicholas Brown Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. That was a nice try but the hon. Gentleman’s question must specifically relate to the north-east, about which I thought the hon. Gentleman probably had extensive knowledge.
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
Is not the danger of the Minister’s enterprise zone policy that it enriches landlords and developers by drawing economic activity from one area to another? When considering locations for the north-east, will he focus on the creation of jobs in industrial areas?
Academies Bill [Lords]
Nicholas Brown Excerpts(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Evans. Rather a lot of Members who voted in the Aye Lobby seem to have slipped away. Will you please check that the count has been reported accurately?
The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
Will the Tellers please come to the Table so that the numbers can be clarified? There now appears to have been a recount. The Ayes were 218, and the Noes were 321. The Noes still have it.