Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to encourage more people to become engineers.

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

14. What steps he is taking to encourage more people to become engineers.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The Government are working with employers, professional bodies and higher and further education institutions to implement the Perkins review of engineering skills and boost careers in engineering, particularly for women. In September we announced a £400 million boost for STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—teaching in universities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

I cannot give my hon. Friend a precise number, but I know that a depth of engineering talent is arising from the island’s successful companies, both in the maritime sector and in aerospace. We want to build on that, and I would be absolutely delighted to meet him and his engineers on the Isle of Wight—I always enjoy a walk on Tennyson down.

[Oliver Colvile]

As my right hon. Friend knows, Devonport dockyard is the only naval dockyard in the country that refits and refurbishes our nuclear submarines. How have the Government helped—and how can we help—to make sure that we protect Britain’s nuclear engineering skills base and ensure that the work force are not lured away to Hinkley C, just up the peninsula?

[Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend is right to say that in an environment where there is an acute shortage of professional engineers and craftsmen, there is a tendency to poach skills. We see that happening in other sectors, like the motor car industry, oil and gas and so on. The answer is to produce more engineers, and he will be aware that in his constituency, or certainly in the city of Plymouth, we have the 600-place university technology college, which is growing with support from the Government. That is a very positive step forward, and I am sure he will be pleased with it.

Autism

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Commons Chamber

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

May I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend—my very good friend—the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) on securing this debate? Indeed, this situation is pretty unique, because in 1995, when we were both doing our parliamentary selection board, we ended up doing a debate together. He opened for the then governing side and I closed the debate, but I never imagined that, somewhere in the region of 17 years later, I would find myself re-enacting the whole thing—albeit in much more august company than some of the people who were there on that occasion.

I initially became involved in the whole issue of autism in the 2010 general election, when I found myself receiving an enormous number of e-mails from people writing to me about it. I cannot say that I am particularly well informed about the subject, and I am sure that everybody else is much better informed—in fact I know so, because I have listened to a number of people in this debate—but I want to make one or two points. According to the National Autistic Society’s website, one in 100 people suffer from the condition. I am told that in Plymouth—which is obviously part of my constituency—there are an estimated 1,200 children who have some form of learning difficulty or are autistically challenged in one way or another. It is also interesting to note that the city council has absolutely no data whatever on those aged 18 to 25 who suffer from autism or Asperger’s.

I am afraid I have now to tell the House an incredibly sad story, which I was deeply shocked by. In early September, one of my constituents came to see me at one of my weekly surgeries to talk about her 19-year-old daughter, who suffers from pathological demand avoidance, which I understand is known as PDA. It appears that in May the police were called to Marlborough street, in a deprived part of Devonport, as her daughter was behaving in a very aggressive manner. She was arrested, heavily restrained, completely stripped and put into a body suit. I find this all quite depressing. When her mother went to Charles Cross police station, which is the busiest police station in the whole of England and second only to Glasgow in the United Kingdom, she found her daughter in quite a state. She was banging her head against the wall.

My constituent was very concerned at the treatment that her daughter had received, and she duly wrote to the authorities, including the police and Plymouth city council, to ask why her daughter had not been sectioned under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, as amended by the Mental Health Act 2007. The team manager of the city council’s children’s disability team replied, saying that

“the 2007 Mental Health Act makes provision in relation to mentally disordered persons found in a public place and that they may be removed to a place of safety and may be detained for up to 72 hours to be examined by a registered medical practitioner”.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) suggested that we should perhaps ensure that people with autism or Asperger’s, whether they are teenagers or older, carry some form of identity card so that the police know who they are dealing with, rather than behaving in what I have to say can be a slightly offhand manner. I am sure that the police were doing everything they could, and in the best possible way, but this is none the less a shocking story. We need to ensure that our police officers are better and more regularly trained. We also need to ensure that mental health nurses are on duty in police stations when these kinds of issues arise, so that they can carry out an appropriate assessment.

The House last debated mental health on the Floor of this Chamber in September, during the debate on the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell). In the debate, I talked about how I had learned, during a recent visit to Charles Cross police station, that people with mental health problems quite regularly had to be put into the cells, rather than being sent up to the Glenbourne unit at Derriford hospital in line with section 136 of the Mental Health Act. Of course I am not suggesting that everyone with mental health problems who ends up in that police station suffers from autism or Asperger’s; I am simply making this point.

It appears that the constituency case that I have described was not a unique incident. My local police feel that this is an inappropriate way to deal with these people, and that it can in some cases make matters worse. I also understand that the custody officers have not received the necessary training. They would welcome a qualified mental health nurse being attached to their unit.

The team manager of the council’s children’s disability team also said:

“Police Officers regularly deal with violent and aggressive people and it is common for some of these people to suffer from a variety of conditions including autism.”

He added that there was no standard practice for dealing with young adults who suffer with autism, and that each situation had to be handled by the police as they saw fit.

On 6 September, in the wake of my constituent coming to see me, I asked the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), what training police officers receive on dealing with people with mental health issues. He replied that, on joining the police, all officers undertook a two-year initial police learning and development programme. However, the training does not appear to continue on a regular basis thereafter. On that programme, police officers and police community support officers are provided with training in dealing with people who are vulnerable.

I understand that the authorities are now taking action to provide the facilities that are needed in Plymouth. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the city council, the local police and Plymouth’s health managers for listening to my pleas during the September debate and for taking action. In the run-up to today’s debate, I was contacted by the National Autistic Society’s public affairs people, who told me that they too were pressing for more training for our police officers. I hope that that request will be taken on board.

I congratulate the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb). He is not a member of my political party, but when he spoke on BBC Radio 4’s “The World this Weekend”, he said that he was on a learning curve on this issue, and any politician who can admit to that deserves to be listened to. There was an issue, as some may have heard, about an 11-year-old child who ended up being taken into a custody suite, and the Health Minister said that there has to be much more co-ordination of health services, police and local authorities so that they work much more closely together. I agree with him that there are some limited circumstances in which a youngster, perhaps for their own safety, has to be placed somewhere, but this has to be the absolute exception rather than the rule. We need to ensure that they are put into the right places for youngsters of that age—not necessarily into an adult custody suite. Although it may be the case that this practice has always happened—that it has always been this way—frankly, I do not think it should be allowed to carry on. Earlier this year, the Minister said that £34 million was being spent over the four years to 2014-15 on better mental health care for our children and young people. I think that is very important.

Finally, I am aware that many parents who have autistic children—they may be teenagers, but they may also be in their 20s and 30s—and who are now retired are very worried about the provision that is going to be made when they are no longer there to take care of their children. We must certainly try to ensure that we do not just ignore those autistic people and say, “I’m sorry, but you’re now an adult, so you should be able to cope for yourself.” I am afraid that that is not the case.

Those people who care for their children with Asperger’s or autism are, I think, fantastically good carers, and they need to be rewarded in a fundamentally important way, but we need to make sure that they also realise that there is help for them. Some large teenagers and those who are a bit older can, unfortunately, just sit on their parents, which I think can be quite intimidating.

I very much welcome the call for a more joined-up approach and greater co-ordination between the authorities, such as our health services and our police, but we also have to ensure that there is a system in place to look after these autistic adults for all their lives, not just for when they are teenagers and youngsters.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I mentioned in my first answer the commitment we have made to music. The important thing about that commitment is that we have been very clear over the long term about what schools can expect to receive, and that will help with financial planning. The new music education hubs will help to bring this together. That recommendation very much arose from the original investigation we did. Art is not the study of positive reality; in Ruskin’s words, it is “seeking for ideal truth”. It is that spirit that imbues all this Government do.

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

Plymouth’s excellent college of art is looking at trying to develop and create a free school aimed specifically at bolstering the arts economy and improving participation in the arts. Would my hon. Friend be willing to meet me and fellow representatives from the college of art to discuss how it can ensure that aspiration becomes reality?

[Mr Hayes]

Any meeting with my hon. Friend always adds to my grasp of these matters; of course I will happily meet him. It is clear from his question that he shares our view that having a richer mix of school types will allow the development of precisely the expertise he describes.

Apprenticeships

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you for inviting me to speak in this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I shall begin by setting out the context to my remarks. I, like many on this side of the fence, did not go to university, and I have always felt slightly ashamed that I did not have the academic qualifications to do that. When I left school, I undertook 18 months of training to become a Conservative party agent and it taught me a set of very good practical skills that enabled me to develop a business and got me involved in community consultation and giving advice.

The one thing I am very concerned about is “aspiration”, which nobody has mentioned in the debate. How do we get these kids to want to do a job when they come out of school? We need to do much more in that area. My constituency, and Plymouth’s economy as a whole, has a low-skills and low-wage base. It most certainly does not have that sense of aspiration and many children need to be encouraged to try to find it. As all hon. Members will know, Plymouth is one of the homes of the Royal Navy, although it is declining; we have fewer people with those kinds of skills. I have to blame the Navy slightly for that, because in the days when the dockyard was under public ownership a big skills base was not actually encouraged; the Navy wanted all the bright boys and girls to go to work in the dockyards. So anybody who went to any of the grammar schools was encouraged to go there, and an entire culture accompanies that. The one good thing that has emerged is that Plymouth university is now one of the centres for marine science engineering, which has most certainly made us a global leader in developing that area.

I spoke to a number of employers and individuals in Plymouth over the weekend, including some who were trying to get back into work service personnel who had left the forces. They found it very difficult to get those personnel to use their qualifications in other areas. When we debate apprenticeships we must think about how we transfer skills.

Another point that many people have made to me is that some people who want to become apprentices cannot read and write to a suitable level, which is an enormous indictment. I am delighted that Babcock, which tells me it has 20,000 training apprenticeships each year, has decided to support and sponsor the university technical college. That is exactly the route that we need to take; we need to take children from the age of 14 to 18 to make sure that they have basic skills, so that when they eventually go into the workplace they know what they are going to do.

In the final seconds available to me, I wish to quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt:

“We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”

That is the job that we should be about.

Building Schools for the Future

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I appreciate the passionate and effective way in which the right hon. Gentleman makes his case. I had the opportunity to talk to Sandwell’s council leader on 5 August, when he brought a delegation of teachers, parents and young people to the Department for Education, and I am very, very happy to ensure that, in the process that we now have, I listen fairly to all the representations made by Sandwell and its Members of Parliament.

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

The Building Schools for the Future programme was put together according to political criteria rather than being based on Schools’ state of dilapidation. Does my right hon. Friend feel that that was right?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very fair case. As I mentioned earlier, some local authorities and schools in the Building Schools for the Future scheme were badly in need of investment, and I, like all right hon. and hon. Members, am sorry that the money simply is not there to invest in every school that needs it. But, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) quite rightly makes clear, the school estates of many local authorities outside BSF were also in need of renovation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

In our approach, we want to look at all the issues in the round, so one of the key aims of the Green Paper on business finance is to ensure holistic measures of business support.

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

9. What plans his Department has to improve the employability of graduates.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

We are committed to increasing employment by cutting the burden of national insurance on new businesses employing new staff in areas such as Plymouth. We are cutting corporation tax over the next four years. We are easing the burden of regulation. In addition, I have asked universities to provide public statements on what they do to promote employability, to encourage them to improve the job-readiness of their students and to do better at getting their students into internships, work experience and work.

[Oliver Colvile]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Is he willing to meet me and the vice-chancellor of Plymouth university—the enterprise university—to discuss ways in which it might make greater commercial use of its excellent reputation in marine science research as well?

[Mr Willetts]

I have met the vice-chancellor of the university of Plymouth and corresponded with her when she praised the co-operation that she already had with my hon. Friend. Of course, I would be very happy to meet her. Those are exactly the kind of initiatives linking universities and business to promote economic growth that the Government are backing.