Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. We are aware that the Isle of Wight is experiencing a decline in the number of primary school children, which is creating surplus places. The Department is monitoring the situation closely, and the south east regional director will be meeting the local authority next month to discuss this and other concerns that we have about the Isle of Wight.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking to reduce the number of pupils persistently absent from schools.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

Improving attendance is one of my top priorities. Our attendance hub now supports 800 schools, benefiting more than 400,000 pupils; 86% of schools subscribe to our attendance data tool to spot at-risk pupils; and we have specialist programmes helping some of the most vulnerable, including children with social workers, children with special educational needs, and young people facing particular issues such as mental ill health. Our approach is starting to turn the tide—recent data show that 380,000 fewer children were persistently not at school last year—but absence levels are still too high, and that remains my No. 1 priority.

[Paul Maynard]

As the Secretary of State has said, progress in reducing persistent absence is not as fast as anyone would like, and in places such as Blackpool the attendance monitoring pilots will be crucial. However, according to the charity School-Home Support, which has been working in Blackpool for 18 months, there is a need to focus on more than just individual pupils, and the “whole family support” model is also crucial. Will the Secretary of State meet me, along with representatives of School-Home Support, to hear about the pertinent lessons that they have learnt in Blackpool, which contains the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country? If we cannot get it right in Blackpool, where else are we going to get it right?

[Gillian Keegan]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend: School-Home Support does incredible work in Blackpool. The Government’s supporting families programme, backed by £200 million, focuses on attendance by supporting the whole family. Blackpool is also one of our 24 priority education investment areas, with six family support workers helping 11 schools to improve attendance. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss these issues further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. Part of why I mentioned the Competition and Markets Authority review to make sure that the system is working properly is that it is something I am concerned about. I would focus on profiteering rather than profit, because I think people will want to go into this sector to help children, and I do not have a problem with their making a profit. It is excessive profiteering that I am certainly concerned about.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

Councils from across the country continue to send children and young people on out-of-area placements to Blackpool, often with good reason—to keep those children safe—but they do not notify Blackpool Council or Lancashire constabulary that these children are in the area. Often we find out when it is too late and something has gone wrong. What more can the Government do as part of their review of children’s social services to make sure that out-of-area placements made by councils are communicated to the host areas’ statutory agencies?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend asks an important question, and he will know that we are looking at how we help local authorities to commission and buy places much more efficiently with the regional care co-operatives. There is also the work of the MacAlister review, after which hopefully out-of-area placements will become a rarity, rather than where we are today.

Free School Meals

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I thank the hon. Lady for highlighting another Government initiative—FareShare receives considerable support from the Government, as do such schemes as Magic Breakfast, in recognition of the important role that the voluntary sector plays in provision and support for schools and children. Let me also take this opportunity to thank not just the teachers and support staff in her constituency, but those in all our constituencies, who have done an amazing job in ensuring, despite opposition from Labour on numerous occasions, that every school has the opportunity to open and that children can go back, as we have been able to do so.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

As my predecessor as candidate in Blackpool North and Fleetwood, my right hon. Friend will know that I have some 6,000 pupils reliant on free school meals in my constituency, and I am deeply disappointed by the decision that has been taken at the moment. Will he commit to pushing in the comprehensive spending review for a much more strategic approach that rolls out the school holiday activity fund nationwide—a universal approach to tackling child poverty that does not just stigmatise those on free school meals?

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend raises a really important point, which I was going to come to, about the important role that the holiday activities and food programme has played in making a real difference for children. This debate should not be just about food; we have to look at different ways that we can support children and families. Children, often from the most deprived backgrounds, are sometimes in a situation over the long summer period of not being able to have the level of support that we would like to see all children benefit from, and we should look at how we can roll out that programme more into the future. It has been very successful in the previous two years and we would like to see how we can do more in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

As I said earlier, with over 6,000 children eligible for free school meals in my constituency, tackling food poverty during the school holidays is more than important: it is the ultimate example in politics of where something must be done. That is very different from saying that anything should be done. We need to ensure that the right support reaches the right children and, most importantly, in the right manner to have the impact required.

I note the support that has already been provided, not least the £120 million extra spent over the critical summer holiday period. I note the £1,000 a year uplift in universal credit, as well as the £1 billion extra in local housing allowance. It is worth noting that eligibility for universal credit covers far more children than the much narrower eligibility for free school meals does, and that is supporting the financial resilience of many families in my constituency at a time of real and growing insecurity as tier 3 impacts my hospitality sector so devastatingly. It none the less remains a source of deep, deep personal regret that advantage has not been taken in the intervening period since we were here discussing this back before the summer for the Government to reach agreement across the whole of Government—not just within individual Departments—to take a decision that could have obviated the need for this debate. My view is that we need a national and universal summer holiday activity and food support stream to deal with the trials that have occurred. This would avoid any of the stigmatisation that I see in my constituency around eligibility for free school meals. It is essential that children retain a link with an outside body during the longer summer break when child neglect as well as food poverty increase. Such a scheme would also diminish the risk of them losing some of the learning that they have acquired during the academic year.

The policy chief of the Leader of the Opposition, Claire Ainsley, observed, in her previous role with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, that strong families able to withstand the shocks of personal change and external pressures such as job loss are vital. She was clear, as I am, that strong families matter. She also wants to see a return of a sense of agency and autonomy to the lives of some of the most disadvantaged in society—people who have had their ability to make choices about how their lives are structured taken away from them by systems that they have not designed. I am talking about choices that we here take for granted.

I am not convinced that the model on the Order Paper today is the right one. I am not sure that it returns that sense of agency and autonomy that I seek. Politics is not something that we do to people; it is something that we do with people. We need to make much more strategic use of Opposition day debates, rather than have the partisan squabbling that we tend to see. I have had 10 years here now. I have yet to see a single Opposition day debate illuminate an issue rather than obscure it further. I am not sure that it is the greatest use of the time that we have in this House—time that is very, very restricted these days.

For all that, the Government must move much more quickly to fill what has now become a policy vacuum and turn the thinking that I know is occurring within Departments into something much more concrete than they argue for—whether it be the spending review, the comprehensive spending review, the autumn fiscal event, or whatever season’s fiscal event it might be. The next time we have big announcements I have big hopes and expectations of what the Government will deliver.

Schools and Colleges: Qualification Results and Full Opening

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman because I do not quite recall the answer that I gave him in mid-April to his written question, but I will write to him with reference to that if he will be so gracious as to accept a letter. We saw the dispatch of more than 200,000 laptops, as well as additional devices for internet connectivity. We have ordered an additional 150,000 devices to support those communities that are most disadvantaged in terms of local lockdowns. This is one of the biggest purchases of computing equipment that the Government have undertaken, and I am sure he will understand that it is not feasible to procure that number of laptops and have them arrive within a week. They have to be procured and ordered and, as I am sure he will understand, there are some shipping delays. None the less, we have done it in good order and on time and when we said that we would do so.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

The Secretary of State rightly made mention of Ofqual’s consultation over next year’s exams that took place this summer. One idea that emerged was to increase optionality in written exams to help those students who would not have completed the full syllabus. Ofqual rejected that, arguing that students were “independent learners” and therefore did not need that assistance. Can he revisit that particular decision by Ofqual, because, in my view, it is far better to adjust the start of the exam process than the end of the exam process with the consequential impact on both college and university admissions?

[Gavin Williamson]

We have been looking at ways of reducing assessment burdens, but I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss in greater detail some of this thoughts and ideas.

Free School Meals: Summer Holidays

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be able to talk in this debate, which is on such a fundamentally important issue. I thank Ministers for what they have said today. It has helped me to avoid my worst nightmare of having to vote with the Labour party, which I spent the day fearing I might have to do. I am grateful for that, if nothing else. I also put on record my thanks to the hon. Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) for all she has done over the years on this issue. It has been largely unsung, and she deserves much more praise than she gets.

It is hard not take an interest in this issue when one represents a town such as Blackpool. We have eight of the 10 most deprived areas in the country. Two of them are in my constituency. No one will know my constituency better than the Secretary of State, given that he preceded me there as a candidate. He will know that we are probably not facing a V-shaped economic recovery in Blackpool, where we have a fragile visitor economy and where the impact of coronavirus will be felt not just this year but for many years to come.

Nor will we see a V-shaped recovery in educational attainment, I fear, having had too many of our pupils away from education for too long. Too many of my primary schools see 50% of their pupils in each class change every year, as families move around the town in insecure, short-term tenancies in poor quality housing where the possibility of proper home education simply does not occur. That is why we see the inevitable spikes in food bank demand every time the summer holiday comes around, despite the very best efforts of so many charitable organisations around the constituency. In this context, I want to name Hannah Boyd, the curate at St Mark’s, who has done so much in Grange Park.

This is why I really welcome what Ministers have said today. I think they are doing the right thing. Merely rolling over to yet another programme of free school meals over another school holiday does not tackle the fundamentals of this. We would simply be having this debate every time there was a school holiday, with people asking whether we were going to roll it out again and again. Now, we have a chance to try to tackle some of the more fundamental issues that we face, which I know the hon. Member for South Shields and many others have been focusing on. I want to see a much more decentralised approach to tackling holiday hunger. We do not need yet another overly bureaucratic national attempt that tries to fit our young people and communities into a one-size-fits-all solution. Blackpool’s needs are very different from the needs of Staffordshire, Bradford and many other communities.

This represents an opportunity to think a little more deeply about what we want to achieve in relation to holiday hunger, because it is really a symptom of many other issues, not least that of financial insecurity. We still have too many people in absolute poverty. That is when families have been below the poverty line for three years out of four. That is a real concern of mine in Blackpool, and there are so many ways in which it can be tackled that I could easily spend the next 20 minutes talking about them. Tackling financial insecurity is the first step towards tackling food insecurity. We need to address issues such as food deserts, which mean that some of my poorest families cannot access good-value food, and cheap fresh food in particular. We also need to promote ideas such as community shops, which were around a couple of years ago but have now disappeared into nothing again. There is so much that we can do.

It is true that the coronavirus lockdown has acted as an accelerant on the fire of so many of the burning injustices that the last Prime Minister spoke of on the steps of Downing Street. Whether we call it social justice, compassionate Conservatism or levelling up, I really do not care. I just think this happens to be the right thing to do. Many people across the country in some of the most deprived communities voted for us for the first time last December. That is why we got to hear the maiden speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) today. They did not vote for us for any particular reason. They voted for us because they wanted to see a bit of change, and because they wanted to feel that they were special. We should not see them as pawns to be exploited in pursuit of one particular political objective. We need to ensure that we represent them. They may have lent us their vote, but they deserve our full attention. William Hague said in The Daily Telegraph today that the lockdown would cause an era of “inequality” and “social tension”, and we now have an obligation to bring about not just the economic recovery from coronavirus but the social recovery too. What the Secretary of State has put forward today is the first step in that direction.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

4. What assessment she has made of the effect of child and adolescent mental health services on the health, wellbeing and performance of young people in schools and colleges.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

11. What plans the Government has to improve mental health in schools.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

13. What assessment she has made of the effect of child and adolescent mental health services on the health, wellbeing and performance of young people in schools and colleges.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree with the hon. Lady. We all, as constituency MPs, hear these heart-rending stories. I, too, have had parents in my constituency bring to my attention cases of eating disorders among young people. I mentioned the £1.4 billion that the Government have already introduced, a significant sum of which is being spent this year on supporting young people with eating disorders. We are also contributing £1.5 million to a pilot with NHS England to train single points of contact in schools and specialist mental health services so that those services work well together to ensure that schools, which do not necessarily have mental health experts trained in that area, know exactly who to go to and how to get help for their pupils.

[Paul Maynard]

The Secretary of State may be aware that Blackpool has the highest proportion in the country of pupils in pupil referral units. This stems partly from poor underlying mental health. What more can the Government do to ensure that each pupil has a single point of contact not just in one school but throughout their education, from age four to whenever they leave, so that we start to tackle this problem?

[Nicky Morgan]

I have just mentioned the £1.5 million we are contributing to a pilot for single points of contact between schools and specialist mental health services. That pilot will run in 250 schools, with training starting later this term. I should also like to mention that this year, for the first time, the Department for Education included just under £5 million in our voluntary and community sector grants for organisations such as Mind and Place2Be and for putting new resources for parents on the MindEd website.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

12. What progress she has made on the introduction of a national funding formula for schools.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

13. What progress her Department is making on providing fairer funding for schools.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

17. What progress her Department is making on providing fairer funding for schools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

I know the f40 group, of which my hon. Friend is a member, has been campaigning for 19 years for a fairer funding formula, so I can understand his impatience. He is right to highlight the financial pressures that schools are under, especially those in underfunded parts of the country; this is one of the reasons why we are committed to fairer funding. As I said, we have protected per pupil funding in each authority from 2015-16, meeting the commitment to protect the national schools budget.

[Paul Maynard]

The Minister will be aware that Blackpool has among the lowest educational attainment in the country. What more, besides the hugely valuable pupil premium and the extra funding for nursery schools, can the Government do to increase attainment among white working-class children in seaside resorts—currently the weakest demographic in the country?

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I know he has a record of successful campaigning for schools funding. He is right to mention the pupil premium, which is designed to remove the barriers to learning faced by children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The pupil premium will provide almost £5 million in additional funding for more than 4,000 disadvantaged pupils—that is all disadvantaged children, not just white children—in Blackpool North and Cleveleys, and will help them to fulfil their potential.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Not only do I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of business, but my father’s first business began in his constituency, so I understand the importance of this to people in Rochdale and elsewhere. It is important that the word “business” and the importance of business appear throughout Government policy, as they do in the Conservative manifesto and, as I am sure he will hear next week, in the Budget.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

T6. Low-paid workers in my constituency will have been pleased to see the first above-inflation rise in the minimum wage since the financial crash, but what more can the Government do to encourage employers to pay the living wage where affordable?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is tremendously welcome that, as a result of the recovery, it has been possible for the Government to implement this second increase in the minimum wage—and the first that is higher than the rate of increase in both inflation and average earnings—which takes the minimum wage to £6.70. We want any employer that can afford to pay the living wage, without losing jobs, to do so, and we encourage them all to think of doing so soon.

Children with Epilepsy (Children and Families Act 2014)

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be able to initiate a debate on this issue. It is not the first time that we have discussed epilepsy in the Chamber, and I certainly hope it will not be the last. We had a useful Westminster Hall debate back in February 2013, initiated, I believe, by the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), and I had a debate back in October 2010, which was my first on the topic.

Rather than look at the wide spectrum of epilepsy today, I want to focus—laser-like if I may—on the issue of epilepsy in education and the implications of the Children and Families Act 2014, which has just been introduced and which I think represents a fork in the road for how we deal with pupils who have serious medical conditions such as epilepsy.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty, it would be worth focusing once again on the numbers and the context. There are 122,000 children with epilepsy at any one time in our schools system—four times more than have diabetes. Diabetes has, quite rightly, had a lot of attention of late in this Chamber, so it is interesting to balance the two.

There are more than 40 types of epilepsy. It covers an amazingly massive spectrum, not just the classic “grand mal” fit with which many associate it. It can be as simple as the occasional “absence”, when people lose their attention for some reason. Epilepsy is often the least noticeable of a range of complex conditions that an individual has. More than 42% of pupils with epilepsy are on the learning disability spectrum. For some people with very severe forms of conditions such as cerebral palsy, epilepsy is almost the least of their concerns, but it is still an ever-present part of their daily lives.

A recent CHESS—Children with Epilepsy in Sussex Schools—study found that 42% of pupils with epilepsy were not fulfilling their potential in the school system, and I think that that important fact represents the crux of the debate. This is about not only the medical implications of epilepsy, but the societal context. So much is based on ignorance of the condition. That does not just mean not knowing what to do when someone is having a seizure; more important, it means ignorance of the causes, the background and the neurological underpinning of epilepsy, and, in an educational context, the implications for an individual’s learning capacity.

Lurking behind all that are the consequences of prejudice and the stigma that is attached to epilepsy. I often cite one example of that. When I was a Conservative candidate in Twickenham, I wrote to my local paper about national epilepsy day in an attempt to raise awareness of the condition. I was shocked when, the following week, a constituent wrote, “Mr Maynard should not have to worry; he has merely been possessed by evil spirits.” At the time I found it hard to believe that such a level of prejudice could exist, and I find it just as hard to believe now. However, it occurs not just in the playground, but in the classroom. Many pupils with epilepsy report a lack of understanding on the part of members of staff, which I think needs to be tackled.

The Children and Families Act represents a major opportunity in that regard. It has numerous good aspects, but I must ask the Minister a fundamental question: how can he ensure, as he implements the Act, that the needs of children with epilepsy are not left by the wayside just because they are among the more complex needs in terms of both health and education? I am sure the Minister agrees that the challenge posed by the Act will not simply disappear following Royal Assent. If anything, the challenge of implementation is that much greater. I ask him to bear it in mind that, as I said earlier, 42% of pupils fail to fulfil their educational potential. I should welcome his thoughts about how we can ensure that that percentage is reduced.

As I have said, I think that the Children and Families Act contains much that is good. I welcome the fact that school governors will have a duty to address the medical needs of pupils who are in their care. I welcome the fact that we are moving towards a more practical acceptance of epilepsy in the classroom. A couple of months ago, the Minister and I were lucky enough to launch the Council for Disabled Children’s “Dignity and Inclusion” documents, which provide teachers with a practical way in which to assess how to deal with children with epilepsy in their classrooms. However, there is still more to be done.

I myself have nocturnal epilepsy. I have night-time fits, which are triggered by alcohol. When I come to the next morning, my short-term memory is gone. I struggle to remember what I did the day before. I would probably even struggle, initially, to answer that classic question, “Can you name the Prime Minister?” I would have to think long and hard about it, and might actually fail to answer it, although I assure the House that I could answer it now.

It must be borne in mind that epileptic attacks, seizures and fits all have consequences for pupils’ learning. Young Epilepsy, the major charity that campaigns on behalf of people with epilepsy, which has been a great help in putting together the information for the debate, has produced what it calls “A Manifesto for Change”, which contains some useful guidance on matters on which I should like the Minister to focus. First and foremost, it wants to ensure that all pupils have access to a high-quality personalised assessment of their needs, rather than being subject to a standard tick-box approach. I know that Young Epilepsy has a graph assessment tool called ABLE, which may be helpful in that regard. It is all very well having an assessment and determining needs, but one must go to the next stage. All pupils, parents and teachers need to understand what the entitlements are as a consequence of the assessment. There is no point being assessed and then not knowing what one is entitled to and what the local offer consists of.

The third aspect that Young Epilepsy is campaigning on is perhaps the trickiest: teacher training. I realise that central Government have little control, if any, over the composition of teacher training syllabuses, but the key point is that it is not just about the first aid aspects of dealing with a pupil with epilepsy, important though that is—it often seems to get the main focus in political debate; it is also about understanding the consequences for an individual’s learning of those epilepsy seizures. More important again, it is about trying to understand that knowing how to spot the warning signs can incentivise earlier diagnosis and better care for the pupil.

I would welcome the Minister’s view on what he can do to encourage a greater role for epilepsy in initial teacher training. What can we do as part of continuous professional development to incentivise teachers who have already been trained and are in the classroom to look at epilepsy and understand not just the first aid consequences but the learning consequences? The two go hand in hand.

Another aspect that is worth bearing in mind and on which I would welcome the Minister’s view is the assessment that he has made of the pathfinders that have been reviewed recently. I understand that one of the initial conclusions is that within the existing resource allocation, it has been very hard to make a real difference to the lives of individual families. I know that that is an initial finding. Does he share that view? Does he have an alternative opinion?

I understand that £70 million has been allocated across the country to a range of local councils, which have all spent that money differently. Some have spent it on improving data systems, others on improving the local offer. Others have hired extra staff. How will the Minister assess all these different funding streams? What has had the most impact on families and the children? How will he measure the effectiveness of the £70 million? It is good to have £70 million, but we need to know how local authorities can best spend it.

Equally welcome is the £30 million that will go into what will be called independent supporters. That term seems a bit nebulous. I am not sure I can give a precise definition on the Floor of the House. I would welcome a bit more information from the Minister on what that might involve.

I would also like some reassurance. There is a slight concern in the epilepsy community that the £30 million may go to the larger charities, which can spend their money on branding, rather than investing in service delivery, expertise and competency down the years. It would be a great tragedy if the expertise were not utilised to ensure continuity of care for pupils between home, school and any other setting. That is why it is worth paying tribute once again to the Minister for his determination to ensure that we have education, health and care plans. I know that that was a running sore throughout the development and legislative process of the Act. We had to try to meld education and health, which did not always fit together neatly. It is vital that we have education, health and care plans, which will allow pupils to fit in between the two.

The other question I have for the Minister relates to the role of Ofsted. How will it assess the quality of the provision? At the moment I understand that we can rely on parent satisfaction surveys as a key indicator of whether services are working well. Although those are not to be dismissed, I am not sure that they constitute a proper statistical basis on which to make evidence-based policy decisions. I know that the Government are strong believers in an outcome-based system and in assessing the effectiveness of legislative intervention, but in this specific instance what outcomes will be used to make that assessment? Who will be doing the assessing—Ofsted or some other body? Will they have sufficient powers to assess the health component of what will occur in the educational setting as well as the educational activities?

My final question relates to what are called key workers, which is a relatively broad term and encompasses people who truly understand epilepsy and who can help families to navigate their way through what remains a complex minefield of different service providers. It is noted in the Children and Families Act that key workers are seen to be a good thing, but they are not mandatory: they are merely an advised addition that local authorities can consider. I would be interested to know how the Minister thinks we can strengthen the appeal of key workers, though not necessarily to make them mandatory, because I understand the importance of localism and ensuring that local authorities make up their own minds. There is a case, however, for ensuring that key workers do not become a luxury optional extra that gets tacked on at the end of a local offer if there is some money left over, but are the building blocks of the local offer provision for families with children with epilepsy.

I realise that, as is the nature of Adjournment debates, I have peppered the Minister with detailed questions, some of which I hope he can answer—civil servants in the Box are passing yet more answers to him as I speak. If he cannot answer all my questions, I hope he will be able to write to me at a later date. I thank him for agreeing to meet Young Epilepsy, which I am sure will be an interesting meeting in the light of this debate. I thank him and all hon. Members who have attended for their time, and I look forward to hearing his reply.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Absolutely not. The only concern from the industrial point of view is that energy-intensive industries should have those costs offset. Under the mechanism the Chancellor has proposed, which we are now pursuing through the European Commission, they will be offset.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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

My Department’s objectives are to pursue economic growth and recovery by investing in skills and innovation.

[Paul Maynard]

As we have just heard, the carbon floor price in the UK remains significantly higher in the EU, despite the welcome changes in the Budget. What specific assessment has the Secretary of State made of the investment decisions taken by international energy-intensive companies, such as those that operate in my constituency?

[Vince Cable]

I think I largely answered that question a few moments ago, but the point I would emphasise is that despite the disadvantage of costs, albeit with the compensation we are now proposing, we have had very substantial investment in our energy-intensive industries. The steel industry, in particular, has been an exemplary example of long-term investment by Tata.