Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

We have been very clear all along that we want not only to stamp out hate crime, but to play an important part in this with our partners right across Europe. Indeed, in the autumn, I spoke at the EU Council on this very issue, and aside from the Commission, we were the only ones from any country to talk about it. We should be proud of the fact that this country has some of the toughest laws in the world on hate crime. Just a few weeks ago, on 19 January, we hosted some 19 countries’ embassies to talk to them about what we are doing and what can be done further to drive out hate crime.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

4. If the Government will support Girlguiding UK’s campaign to reduce violence against women and girls.

[The Minister for Women and Equalities (Justine Greening)]

Sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools is totally unacceptable and should not be tolerated, and I pay tribute to the fantastic work of Girlguiding UK, which is tackling this important issue. We are working with it as we take forward the commitment we made in response to the Women and Equalities Committee inquiry on sexual violence and sexual harassment in schools to review existing guidance and then to look at what further support we can put in place for schools.

[Oliver Colvile]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. How much training and emotional support is given to girl guides and other young girls who are bullied online?

[Justine Greening]

Tackling all forms of bullying, including cyber-bullying, is a priority for us. We are investing £1.6 million over two years directly in anti-bullying initiatives, including via the Diana award project, which has a focus on digital resilience for young people. The Government have also funded the UK Safer Internet Centre to develop new cyber-bullying guidance for schools and an associated online safety toolkit. My hon. Friend’s question highlights the fact that the world is a very different place for our young people these days, and our guidance, laws and teaching need to stay up to date.

School Funding

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I will be brief, pithy and to the point, if possible.

I am a school governor of St Andrew’s primary school, which is in a very deprived community. I have to tell the Secretary of State and the Minister that there is an 11 to 12-year difference in life expectancy between the north-east of my constituency and the south-west, around Devonport, so I understand some of the issues of deprivation. Moreover, in the 1980s, I was the agent to the Education Minister who introduced the local management of schools, the national curriculum and other such things.

I am grateful to the Government for taking a fresh look at the funding formula. My constituency has done quite well—we have an increase of about 4% for schools, which is incredibly good news. The one concern is what happens to the grammar schools. I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools Standards for agreeing to meet my grammar schools to talk about how they could improve their position.

My constituency has a very good education offer. We have not only three grammar schools, but a university technical college and a creative arts school. I am grateful to the coalition Government and this Government for delivering on that. Without further ado, I conclude by saying: carry on going, and please do not let anyone down.

Education Funding: Devon

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

It is a pleasure and a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) on securing this debate. I am delighted that he was my mentor when I got elected to this place, and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) was also brilliantly good at looking after me and keeping me on the right track.

I enter this debate with a certain amount of trepidation, because my constituency has done rather well out of this process, but there are some issues that I want to raise. Let me set out the context. I am one of the very few Members of Parliament on the Conservative Benches who represents a totally inner-city seat outside London. I have only one rather muddy field, called the Ponderosa pony sanctuary, in my constituency, and everything else is very much inner city.

I declare an interest: I am a governor of St Andrew’s Church of England Primary School, and in the 1980s and early 1990s I worked for a woman called Angela Rumbold, who was the Member of Parliament for Mitcham and Morden and a Minister at the Department for Education. She was very much responsible, with Kenneth Baker, for introducing the local curriculum, local management of schools and things like that. My constituency has high levels of deprivation. There is an 11 to 12-year life expectancy difference between the north-east of my constituency and the south-west. I am very concerned indeed about that. We must ensure that children who are at school in a low-wage and low-skills economy have a good education and can end up going on to university and other schools.

I am delighted that Government have provided greater education choice in my constituency. I have not only three grammar schools, which I will talk about in a second, but the creative arts school, which is doing incredibly well, and a university technical college. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his interest and for taking the time yesterday to have a conversation with me and some people from the UTC about some of the issues they face. Plymouth does not fall within Devon county’s remit. Therefore, I feel somewhat of a fraud. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon pointed out to me earlier that my constituency has done very well out of this. Therefore, I am very grateful.

We need to ensure that children are able to read, write and add up when they leave school. I do not think we talk enough about standards. I sit on school governing bodies, and I think we should spend more time talking about how we are going to help children to achieve, rather than reviewing policy. Indeed, I occasionally feel that, when I go to school governing meetings, we end up spending more time reviewing policy than people spend reviewing west end plays. I am always slightly concerned about that.

Schools in Plymouth are likely to receive a 3.9% increase, but there is an issue. I understand why the Government’s position has changed and why they are looking at deprivation, because it is an important issue. The majority of my schools have done quite well, although there are some up in Compton that have some concerns. The grammar schools have also written to me, because they do not fit into the deprivation issue, so they do not get as good a deal as possible. I am very grateful indeed to Dan Roberts, the headteacher of Devonport High School for Boys. He said that he recognises that public services need to shoulder their fair share of the burden of public debt, but he has real concerns that the latest proposals will cause serious damage to the one type of school that our current Prime Minister believes has the potential to transform education in our country. He said that this is not all children in Plymouth but

“If you happen to be an able child attending Devonport High School for Boys we are actually receiving a reduction of 2.9%.”

Other grammar schools have said that, too.

I would be grateful if the Minister were willing to meet me and some of the grammar schools to talk about how we could ensure that they can make savings and so that he can hear the case from the grammar schools, too. I think that the Government are on the right lines in talking about deprivation, but then I would because I represent a totally inner-city seat with high levels of deprivation. However, there are some issues that most certainly need to be looked at and tweaked. I very much look forward to meeting him with my school governors from the grammar schools in the near future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

I am seeking to explain the reasoning behind why we place such emphasis on deprivation and low prior attainment—that is something that will affect the grammar schools in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport—and why we place such emphasis on helping children with English as an additional language. This is a Government driven to improve social mobility.

This is a genuine consultation. I have set out the explanation as to why we produced the formula for consultation that we did. We are listening to the responses—we will be going through and reading the written responses and we will listen to debates such as this one in the consultation process—and where we can make changes that address unfairnesses revealed through that process of course we will make changes to the approach we are taking. The decisions we are taking are driven principally by social mobility and ensuring that children from the most deprived parts of our country are properly funded at their schools to ensure that they make progress and fulfil their potential.

I acknowledge the concerns about the schools block ring fence and the level of flexibility between schools and high needs raised in the debate, given that Devon has in the past moved funding from the schools block to the high-needs block to support its high-needs pressures. We recognise that some continuing flexibility between the schools and high-needs blocks will be important in ensuring that the funding system is responsive to changes in the balance of mainstream and specialist provision.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon for the important work he and the WESC Foundation do for children and young people with visual impairment. The reforms of high-needs funding and the additional funding we are providing this year and next year support the most vulnerable children in the country who are supported by high-needs funding.

In order to give my right hon. Friend time to respond, I will conclude. I am enormously grateful to him for raising this issue and to other hon. Friends and right hon. and hon. Members for airing their concerns and issues about funding of schools. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends are reassured that the Government are committed to reforming school funding and delivering a fair funding system for children in Devon and throughout the country.

[Oliver Colvile]

May I thank the Minister very much for his response? Will he be willing to meet the grammar schools in my constituency? Would he like to comment on why grammar schools did not feature in the speech made by the Opposition spokesman?

[Mr Gibb]

I will be delighted to meet the grammar school headteachers from his constituency either in the constituency or at the Department. To be fair to the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), this debate is about funding, but we as a Government want to create more good school places, whether those are more good grammar school places or more good school places in non-selective schools, helped by the independent sector and universities, and by having more faith schools. We want more good school places, and that is what drives our continuing education reforms.

I hope that hon. Members will be reassured about the Government’s commitment to reforming school funding. It is a system where funding reflects the real level of need and where every pupil has the same opportunities.

Civil Partnership Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 13th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

That is a very practical advantage of this Bill. There is a great deal of ignorance among constituents who think that they have these protections.

If a woman has a child with her partner and the relationship breaks down, she is not entitled to any automatic form of financial support if they are not married, and there is no automatic entitlement to property even if she had been paying into the mortgage. Surely couples should not be forced to choose between having no legal protection or entering into an institution that is not right for them.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

The other issue that is incredibly important is dependency, whereby, for example, a daughter who is looking after her elderly mother finds that when her mother dies her home is therefore in danger. Is that not something else that needs to be looked at?

[Tim Loughton]

This is about the future maintenance of children. It is about an inheritance tax bill that happens all of a sudden that could lead to the sale of a property so that someone finds themselves, in effect, homeless. These are all potential dangers currently faced by people who are not in a formal, legally recognised relationship.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

3. What steps the Government are taking to increase the number of women on boards and at senior executive levels of FTSE companies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Caroline Dinenage)]

When companies have a senior team that better reflects the customers they serve, it is simply better for business and makes good business sense. Since 2010, we have more than doubled the number of women on boards in the FTSE 350. We have now committed to 33% of the members of the boards and executive committees of those companies being women by 2020.

[Oliver Colvile]

I welcome the work that Plymouth University in my constituency has done to ensure that there are more women on its governing body. As well as the work the Government are doing with FTSE companies, what steps is the Department taking to ensure that more women are on the governing bodies of universities across the country?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Plymouth is always a trailblazer—as we know, one of my hon. Friend’s predecessors was Nancy Astor—and Plymouth University is clearly no exception. I commend the work that the university is doing. Female leaders in universities and colleges are very powerful role models who are inspiring the next generation. We welcome the last WomenCount report on higher education, which showed that a third of governing bodies are now gender-balanced, and we support the Higher Education Funding Council for England’s aspirational target of 40% of women on governing bodies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

4. What progress the Government have made on implementing provision of 30 hours of free childcare for working parents.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

16. What progress the Government have made on implementing provision of 30 hours of free childcare for working parents.

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

We are delivering on our commitment to provide working parents of three and four-year-olds with 30 hours of free childcare. To ensure providers can deliver high quality childcare, we will increase funding for childcare by more than £1 billion by 2019. The Childcare Bill has cleared its parliamentary stages. Twenty five local authorities will be piloting the programme in the summer, ahead of full delivery in the summer of 2017.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

I should like to reassure my hon. Friend that later this year we will be consulting on an early years national funding formula. As part of that, we will set a firm expectation on local authority top-slicing to ensure that the record investment being made in childcare is allocated fairly and reaches providers on the frontline. I am particularly impressed by the innovation in childcare brought about by the local authority in York, which is why we chose it as one of our early implementers. I would be delighted to visit again.

[Oliver Colvile]

Has my hon. Friend made an assessment of the number of nursery places in Plymouth, and of whether there is enough provision and capacity?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend asks a very important question. The key point is that doubling the entitlement of free childcare is not the same as doubling the demand for childcare. Many parents already buy more than 15 hours and there is spare capacity in the system. The £6 billion funding going into childcare each year should incentivise more providers to enter the market. Where there are specific local difficulties, £50 million has been made available through the spending review to tackle capacity constraints.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

Yes, I absolutely agree. These major sporting events are absolutely fabulous for the economy and for tourism, and of course they inspire people to participate in sport.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

13. May I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for recently meeting a delegation from Plymouth to discuss Mayflower 400, which of course is about commemorating the founding of the American colonies and will hopefully boost our tourist economy? What support might the Department be able to give this really historic event down in Devon in 2020?

[Mrs Grant]

It will be a marvellous event, and I know that my hon. Friend has been fully involved in the programme, which will be fabulous for tourism. I am pleased to announce today additional funding of £35,000 for the city’s Mayflower museum, which will help to ensure a strong legacy for the celebrations. [Interruption.] We hope to be able to offer further support for the programme in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Swinson]

I wholeheartedly endorse the speech by Patricia Arquette—I have already welcomed it on Twitter because I think it needed to be brought to a wider audience. In the UK arts industry, as in all industries, it is important that there be greater transparency and support for women in the workplace in terms of promotion and seniority. That is what we will continue to promote.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I am sure that like me my hon. Friend is pleased that the Work programme is helping the long-term unemployed, both men and women, back into work. Will she confirm that the number of long-term unemployed people has fallen to its lowest in five years and that the claimant count in my constituency has fallen by 42%?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has got mixed up: the previous question was about unemployment, but this one is about equal pay, so I shall take his question as rhetorical. We are grateful to him for getting his observations on the record.

Electoral Registration

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

Let me give the facts on the electoral register. The Electoral Commission’s research shows that, in 2000, 3 million people were missing from the register. In 2011, that figure had risen to an estimated 7.5 million. This is against a backdrop of an increasing population. Since 2011, the drop in registration figures has stabilised. For the 13 years Labour was in power, the state of the register deteriorated, and very little was done about it.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend explain why when in power Labour made sure the military had individual registration but now seems less keen on the idea for other people?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend rightly points to the principle I laid out at the beginning of my speech: we have to treat all voters equally when it comes to the electoral register.

We all know that under the old system the register was inflated. Tenants and students moved on, but the register did not. People were registered at multiple addresses without their knowledge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Streeter]

I do agree with that. We have not focused enough on the responsibility not only of individuals to register to vote but of electoral registration officers, whose job it is to encourage people to register. They are sending out letters, and they should be going door to door. They are being given extra resources to enable that to happen. I believe that a very substantial number of people will join the register between 1 December and 20 April. We would not be having this debate in three months’ time.

[Oliver Colvile]

rose—

[Mr Streeter]

I will not give way again if that is okay, as I have a lot to say in the next two minutes.

This week, on Monday 2 February, the commission’s new national advertising campaign launched a series of online display adverts to highlight the fact that anyone who is not registered will be unable to vote in the general election on 7 May. The adverts provide a direct click-through link to the gov.uk/registertovote page. On the same day, the commission also launched an online campaign across the 20 countries in which UK expatriates are most likely to live, to make expats aware that they might be able to vote and to encourage them to register to do so. The important point has been made several times by Government Members that everyone who is eligible to vote should be encouraged to register, and not simply those in certain groups.

The commission’s main national public awareness campaign for the UK parliamentary general election will begin on 16 March 2015 in Great Britain and will include television, catch-up TV and online advertising. The commission has set the ambitious target of 1 million additions to the register in Great Britain between 16 March and 20 April, with a further 10,000 in Northern Ireland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

I do not think that is correct. It seems that over the past 10 years 80% of lottery grants were for outside London.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

May I add my condolences to those already expressed on the death of Phil Hughes? I declare an interest, as my brother is Sky television’s cricket correspondent.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for meeting me and a delegation from Plymouth earlier this month to talk about Mayflower 2020, the anniversary of the founding of the American colonies. Does he agree that Mayflower 2020 could contribute similar levels of growth in Devon and Cornwall to those we have seen from the “Gathering” in Northern Ireland and Ireland?

[Sajid Javid]

I was pleased to meet my hon. Friend and representatives from his constituency to discuss that important point in history, which I think it is right to mark. Another good reason to look at it is that it could do a lot for the local economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

The cap is £2,500 for the business support scheme, although there are other schemes available and the hon. Lady will be aware that I wrote to her on 25 February pointing out that Hull has been allocated some £230,000, the fifth largest allocation anywhere in the country.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

20. Following the floods that took out Dawlish railway line, last week I visited a number of my businesses at my Plymouth railway station, including taxi drivers, Spar and some newsagents, who have noticed a 40% drop in their footfall. What might the Government be able to do to help those people?

[Michael Fallon]

We have announced a £2 million tourism support package, from which Plymouth will benefit. Local workshops and drop-in clinics will deliver practical help on the ground for tourism businesses, alongside a focused marketing campaign to boost trade for Easter and the early summer. VisitBritain is providing a promotional push abroad to encourage visitors from overseas, and I can tell my hon. Friend that it is working in partnership with Brittany Ferries on a £10 million campaign to promote the south-west more generally.