Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. No child should ever be expected to pay for water, and no school should ever deny a child access to fresh water. It is a legal requirement for all schools to make water available. If she would be kind enough to forward details of where water is not available, we will be sure to follow it up.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

May I thank the Minister for listening to all our lobbying about the need for North Devon schools to have their funding equalised fairly? That investment will make a huge difference. Will he now come back to North Devon to see what a difference it will make, and to thank staff and students for all their hard work?

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend is always campaigning for his constituents, whether to save Royal Marine bases or to get more money for his schools. I would be delighted to join him in visiting the schools in his constituency that will receive the extra money that he has campaigned for and delivered.

Further Education Funding

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Giles Watling (Clacton) (Con)]

Thank you for putting me on the list, Sir Roger. It is lovely to be in a Chamber in which, for once, everybody is largely agreeing with each other. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on having introduced today’s debate, and the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on the cross-party campaign to get this issue on the agenda ahead of the spending review. Even in these uncertain times, we must continue to fight for causes that we believe in. This is one I believe in, because I had something to do with further education many years ago before I went off into the realms of drama—come to think of it, I am back there now.

I will focus on the much-welcomed introduction of T-levels, which provide a multi-faceted and practical approach to education and prepare students for the needs of industry. Successful delivery of T-levels requires teaching staff with specialist industry expertise, up-to-date equipment, and smaller class sizes, all of which require more funding. For T-levels to be viable, the Association of Colleges believes that we need to introduce a base rate of £1,000 per student as a minimum. We need to get those T-levels right, as they provide the knowledge and experience needed to open the door into skilled employment. Such a potentially transformative scheme cannot be delivered on the cheap: a higher level of investment must be maintained.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

Yesterday, a group of us met the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to urge that FE college funding be increased in the upcoming spending review. Petroc College in North Devon is eager to get on with delivering the T-levels, exactly as my hon. Friend has mentioned. Does he agree that that is a vital thing to do?

[Giles Watling]

I agree with my hon. Friend. That is exactly what we are here to do, and judging by the comments from around the Chamber, I think that everybody else agrees with him as well.

I want this scheme to be a success, because I am sure that it would be particularly popular in my Clacton constituency. My area of Clacton lags behind the average in Essex and the national average for the number of members of the workforce without any qualification at all, which is why I encourage the Government to invest more in adult education. In fact, the only area in which we in Clacton beat the national average is the number of people who are economically active but have no qualifications; they make up nearly 10% of our workforce. I know from my conversations on the doorstep that people in Clacton have a real appetite for further education, and we have a great facility in Adult Community Learning Essex. I encourage the Government to take investment in adult learning seriously. It will pay great dividends in many areas, especially those such as Clacton, where many small and medium-sized enterprises are crying out for a skilled workforce.

College Funding

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the remainder of this debate, Mr Bone. I have been lobbied strongly, repeatedly and effectively by the excellent further education college in my constituency, namely Petroc. The staff, pupils and management team have been assiduous in ensuring that they get their message across. It is an excellent further education college and has two campuses. I am proud to say that the main one is in Barnstaple in my North Devon constituency, and it has a second campus in the neighbouring constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish). Between them, they educate or train about 10,000 people across all age groups every year.

As part of the communication that I have had with the college, I received a letter only a few weeks ago. It is worth quoting the principal’s statement on the college and the work it does. Diane Diamond, the principal and chief executive officer of Petroc, says:

“As a leading further education college, you will know that we are an essential part of the region’s education system. Whether it’s through top-class technical education, apprenticeships, A-levels, basic skills or lifelong learning, we help people of all ages and backgrounds across Devon and beyond to make the most of their talents and ambitions. Rooted in the local community, I feel we are crucial in driving social mobility and providing the skills to boost local and regional economies.”

I agree with Diane; she is absolutely right. I would add one thing: further education colleges such as Petroc play a vital role in driving the Government’s industrial strategy, and they are really important. They have lobbied me on two main issues, which I want to represent to the Minister. First, the general sense is that funding for students in the 16 to 18 further education sector has not kept up; it has fallen in real terms since 2010, which compares unfavourably with both the 11 to 16 sector and the post-18 sector. That sense of an unlevel playing field has come through loud and clear in what Petroc has said to me. It suggests that further education is, I am afraid to say, the poor relation, especially when we look at the work that the Government are doing to improve funding of, for instance, the secondary schools sector. I have had many conversations about this with Ministers at the Department for Education. I feel that we are making progress there, but we are not making progress with the FE sector.

The second issue that Petroc raised with me is that the salary of lecturers and teachers in FE colleges has not kept pace with the pay of those who teach the same age groups—16 to 18-year-olds—in sixth-form colleges. This seems slightly perverse, because there are more 16 to 18-year-olds studying at further education colleges than at secondary schools that still retain a sixth form: roughly 600,000 versus 400,000. Once again, we do not have a level playing field.

Petroc has two asks, which I echo. The first is to look into increasing the funding of FE colleges at a sustainable level, as called for in the petition. The second is to consider providing some exceptional, ring-fenced funding to cover the costs of a fairer pay deal for the lecturers and teachers who work so hard in the 16 to 18 further education college sector. Petroc has had significant investment in recent years, and I want to stress that it has great new facilities. It has been my pleasure to visit the college many times and see the fantastic work it does. It has great results and is a fine, growing institution. I have been closely involved with many of Petroc’s initiatives; I have attended graduation ceremonies, and I sit on the board of the Health and Care Academy, which is a great initiative that Petroc runs in conjunction with the North Devon Healthcare NHS Trust.

We know there are many competing demands on the Government’s finances. I know the Minister cares deeply for the further education sector and fights very strongly for it, but I would not be doing my job if I did not reflect the very strong representations that I have received from Petroc College, which have been echoed by hon. and right hon. Members of different parties. The name of this campaign is “Love Our Colleges.” I know the Minister loves our colleges and I ask her to spread that love a little more effectively, particularly in the direction of North Devon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises an important point; we take air quality very seriously. It is a matter for West Sussex County Council to ensure that every school that is built in that county has high-quality air for the pupils in those schools.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

8. What recent comparative assessment he has made of the level of education funding in England and other countries.

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

OECD data shows that the UK spends as much per pupil on state school education as any major economy in the world, apart from the United States. However we cut the data, the UK is among the highest spenders, and that is also true when we look at expenditure as a share of GDP.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I thank the Minister for that answer, and I welcome the work that he is doing to ensure that we compare well internationally, but will he continue to work with me to ensure that that funding is equitably distributed within England? I am thinking particularly of a fairer share for places such as Devon.

[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend fights hard for the interests of the schools in his constituency, as I know at first hand from the schools that he has invited me to visit and the headteachers to whom he has introduced me at round-table discussions that he has organised on school funding. He will know, therefore, that under the fairer national funding formula, Devon will gain £13.6 million for its schools by 2019-20, rising from £382 million to £396 million in 2019.

Schools: National Funding Formula

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The Lib Dems have been caught red-handed and frankly it is a disgrace for them to put out such misleading “facts” to parents. Indeed, only one party of the two is against extra funding for schools, and that is the Lib Dems, because clearly they are against the national funding formula, which is directing additional funding to my hon. Friend’s community.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement and share her dismay and disappointment that Labour Members seem incapable of saying anything positive about it. Perhaps that is because they utterly failed to tackle this issue when they were in government. It is the Conservatives who have done this, and I want to thank her for listening to me and to other Devon MPs who have made representations. I also thank the hard-working teachers and staff of schools in my constituency. Will she confirm that the historical unfairness that has seen Devon schools underfunded will be tackled as a result of this announcement?

[Justine Greening]

This formula makes a big difference to schools in Devon. My hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner for his local community in setting out the views of teachers and parents in Devon. This formula will mean that Devon schools gain, and I am proud that we are finally rectifying the unfair funding that so many schools have had to put up with for so long.

Schools Update

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I would respond in a couple of ways. First, we all recognise that the most important thing for parents is that standards are going up, and indeed they are, as we saw in the most recent key stage 2 results that came out last week. Also, I hope the hon. Lady will recognise that if there have been concerns about funding, this statement is a step in the right direction, because we are saying that we are going to put more into frontline schools. Additionally, I am saying we are going to fund more fairly, something that is long overdue.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

May I mark my right hon. Friend’s homework today with a resounding tick and “VG”, and may we write in the margin a note to the effect that under her stewardship this Government are spending more on schools than the Labour party ever did? May I ask for her reassurance on a point that I have lobbied her and her Ministers on for some time? Devon has historically been underfunded, so can she assure me that today’s very welcome package means that that historical underfunding, which has existed under Governments of all colours, will be corrected? If she can do that today, I will upgrade her to a gold star.

[Justine Greening]

Well, I think I might be getting upgraded because I can tell my hon. Friend that this will mean additional funding for schools in Devon. I know the debate that has happened in that part of our country. If we are going to have a country that works for everyone, it is vital that regions like the south-west are able to develop their talent in the same way as any other part of our country, and Devon will indeed benefit from my announcement today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

Because the hon. Lady’s constituency will remain one of the highest-funded areas of the country. She is right that the per pupil funding rate in Lewisham, Deptford will fall from £5,708 to £5,550 as a result of the national funding formula, but that is still one of the highest in the country. The prosperity of London as a whole has increased over the past 10 years, with the proportion of children on free school meals falling from 27% to 18%, but it still has some of the highest levels of deprivation. That is why, under the new national funding formula, London’s funding remains 30% higher than the national average.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

I welcome the principle of the new national funding formula, but one third of schools in North Devon look set to lose funding under the indicative figures. Will the Minister continue to listen carefully to our representations? Will he also confirm whether the indicative figures are just that and that they could be subject to some revision?

[Mr Gibb]

Yes, of course. The consultation is genuine and has been extended for two weeks until 22 March so that we can hear representations from my hon. Friend, from other Members and from members of the public.

Education Funding: Devon

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) on securing this important debate. While I am doing thank yous, I want to say a personal thank you to the Minister, who just a few weeks ago accepted my invitation to come to North Devon to meet in a roundtable setting with a delegation of headteachers representing pretty much every education sector in Devon. The Minister came, I know that he listened and I am grateful that he did so.

Let us continue this positive start. I welcome the Government’s commitment to the new national funding formula and the principle that we must eradicate the unfairness of the current system. Good; that is a tick. The Government’s additional funding of £390 million to the least funded authorities in 2015-16 made a real difference, with an increase in funding per pupil in Devon of just over 4.5%. Good; that is another gold star for the Government. As I am sure the Minister will be pointing out, under the indicative figures for the new funding formula, more schools will gain funding than lose it in my constituency of North Devon—so it seems like we are getting gold marks all round for homework at the moment. However, I am afraid I have to move gently to a position where we are potentially putting the Minister in detention.

The Government are moving in the right direction—that is true—but under the indicative figures very little will be done to correct the fundamental, historical unfairness of funding in Devon, especially in my constituency of North Devon. That inherent and historical underfunding has existed for many decades, under Governments of all colours, and it needs to be put right. I thought that the national funding formula would put it right. From what I have seen of the indicative figures, I am disappointed.

As right hon. and hon. Members have said, Devon is a very poorly funded local education authority. Under the current system, funding is £290 less per pupil than the average across England, which means that North Devon schools receive just under £4 million less per year than the national average. If the proposed national funding formula changes were brought in, the cumulative change to North Devon schools funding—these figures are provided by the House of Commons Library, which is a neutral and always accepted source of facts, as everyone here knows but I note for those outside of this place—would be between 0%, no change at all, and a 1% increase across the board. Crunching the figures, that means that, at best, across all its schools, North Devon would receive an extra £40,000. Clearly, that does not rectify the imbalance and historical unfairness in the current system. North Devon would continue to receive an unfair level of funding. The principle of a national funding formula is sound only if it rectifies the imbalance that sees my constituents and those of other hon. Members here lose out. What is currently on the table does not do that for Devon, and certainly not for North Devon.

Not only does the proposed formula fail to correct the unfairness between Devon and the rest of the country, but it throws up some perverse variations between schools within North Devon. There are 52 schools across all sectors and all age ranges in my constituency. I have visited a great many of them in my 18 months as Member of Parliament for North Devon, and it is a pleasure to do so. They are fantastic schools doing tremendous work, with teaching staff and managers working really hard to get some excellent results. Six of those schools are secondary schools.

If we put those 52 schools in a league table ranked in order of the percentage change to their funding next year compared with this year, something rather worrying happens. The three schools at the bottom of that league table, which lose the most under the proposals, are the three secondary schools with the most rural catchment areas in my constituency: Chulmleigh, South Molton and Braunton. I feel sure that that was not the intention when the formula started to be cooked. It needs to be recooked, because that is the result under the indicative figures, and that cannot be right. These are schools where the teaching staff, managers, pupils and parents are already struggling because of the historical unfairness. I had hoped that the national funding formula would do something to correct that, but on the indicative figures at present, it does not.

I have been written to by the headteachers of many schools across Devon and they are all saying the same thing: “We don’t get it. We don’t understand why this historical unfairness is being allowed to continue.” Most make the extremely reasonable point that the national funding formula is a fine idea in principle and congratulate this Minister and this Government on the principle of wanting to correct the historical unfairness, but the devil is in the detail and I am afraid that the detail my headteachers see does nothing to address the historical problems.

I want to draw out two specific points that headteachers have raised with me. The first is high needs educational funding in Devon. High needs expenditure has grown rapidly, from £53 million in 2014 to an estimated £61 million in 2017-18. To meet the forecast overspend, Devon County Council has been forced to approve transferring more than £2 million from individual schools budgets to the high needs budget in 2017-18, just to bring the expected deficit down to zero. Someone else used the phrase, “We are robbing Peter to pay Paul.” That cannot be right.

The second issue, which has been raised by a number of my colleagues, is the personalised transport budget in Devon. In a largely rural, sparsely populated area such as the one I represent, that is a real challenge. The personalised transport budget for children with special needs accounts for 34%—more than a third—of the total schools transport budget in Devon. That is £21 million, and an overspend of more than £1.2 million on that budget is forecast for this year. The cost of transport cannot be taken from the high needs budget. It must be funded from county council budgets, and we all know that local authority budgets also face challenges. Those are two areas that I believe we need to look at.

Let us look again at the overall position. Devon is one of the lowest-funded local authority areas in England for education. In 2016-17, Department for Education funding per pupil in Devon is £4,346. That is £290 per pupil less than the English average, which means that DFE spending on education in Devon is more than £25 million a year less than the English average. I am afraid that the proposed indicative figures do nothing to correct that fundamental unfairness. As I am sure the Minister will tell us, this is a consultation and those are only indicative figures. I say, good, because we need to change what is being proposed. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon, I am sure that it is a real, genuine consultation and that the Minister and the Government are listening. It seems to me, to the people who run, teach in and manage the schools in my constituency, and to the parents whose children go to those schools that the current proposals are unfair.

I wish I could be more elegant in my language. I wish I had a more sophisticated argument and could indulge in some fine Churchillian parliamentary oratory, but I cannot. It comes down to three words: this is just not fair. Devon was hoping for a fairer slice of the funding cake. Instead, it seems to the schools community that we have received only a few crumbs. I say gently and helpfully to the Minister—-please get on the hotline to Mary Berry and rebake this cake.

School Penalty Fines and Authorised Absence

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on securing this important debate. We are both south-west MPs, and this issue has particular resonance and significance in a region where tourism is an incredibly important part of the economy. I thank the Minister for being here and for meeting me to discuss a particular case. The meeting was useful, and I will mention more details of the case in a moment. I know he is listening, and I know he is open to some of our suggestions.

I am sure I speak for my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay when I say that we seek to be helpful. We are not seeking to cause problems, to rebel for the sake of it or to make a nuisance. All south-west MPs and Members from all areas of the country are being contacted by many thousands of worried parents and headteachers about their real concerns with the current position, and it is incumbent on us to inform the Minister and the Government of those concerns. I do not seek to create difficulty; I merely seek to raise an issue that many of my constituents, and I am sure many constituents of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, have raised.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I have a great deal of sympathy with some of the hon. Gentleman’s points, but will he concede that headteachers are also expressing concern that the current uncertainty, as well as the change requested by the petition, could make it more difficult for them to encourage good attendance, which they believe is important for the good achievement and progress of their pupils?

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I will discuss the specifics of the petition in a moment, but as I said in my opening remarks, it is not just parents but headteachers who are contacting us to express concerns about the status quo.

It is important to point out that nobody here, including my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay, is arguing that education should not be compulsory. Of course it should. Nobody is arguing, either, that parents should have an automatic right to decide that they want to take their children out of school for a set number of days a year.

That goes exactly to the point made by the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood). Like my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay, I do not agree with the headline of the petition, which mentions bringing back the 10 days of authorised absence. We could argue for some time about whether it ever existed in the first place, but I do not support that idea. I do not believe that parents should expect an automatic right to a certain number of absence days a year, or that a headteacher should expect to approve them. I want common sense. I want the responsibility to go back to individual headteachers and individual parents, so that they decide what is right for individual children in individual cases. I keep using the word “individual” deliberately, because we cannot have a one-size-fits-all policy that seeks to impose a centrally decided rule on all children in all circumstances. We need the common sense of individual discretion back in the system.

[Michelle Donelan]

Does my hon. Friend accept that the policy must be applied on a case-by-case basis, and that more trust in and respect for our teachers and parents is necessary? If requests were considered case by case, headteachers could consider the age and stage of the child, their needs and their other absences throughout the year.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I do not know whether she saw my remarks in advance, but I was coming on to say that what I want is a world where we recognise that the best people to make decisions for children in individual cases are their parents and their headteacher. Those are the people who should be making such decisions, and they need the discretion to do so.

Now, however, everyone is confused by the vacuum created following the Isle of Wight court case. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay suggested, we need some certainty from the Minister—I am sure that he will be able to provide it—about the Government’s position on the court case, which has left people concerned. In particular, the fear among headteachers to whom I have spoken is that under the existing regulations, if they authorise absences from their school, they will be penalised when Ofsted comes and looks at their absence statistics. Headteachers are rightly worried about the implications of that for the rest of their school.

We need a clear indication from the Minister that when headteachers decide that they wish to authorise an absence in individual circumstances, Ofsted will not count it against the absence figures for their school as a whole. Headteachers need the certainty that if they feel it is right to make a particular decision in the case of a particular child, they can do so without being penalised from above.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay mentioned the situation in Devon. Due to the uncertainty brought on by the Isle of Wight case, Devon County Council has now suspended all actions against parents, some of whom have been summonsed to court or made a first appearance before magistrates. That is absolutely the right thing to do in the circumstances, but I am afraid it merely adds to the sense of confusion.

One case that hon. Members may have seen reported widely in the national media at about the same time as the Isle of Wight case was that of my constituents Edward and Hazel Short. Mr and Mrs Short have two daughters, Nicole and Lauren, aged 16 and 15 respectively. Nicole and Lauren have represented England at volleyball. They are budding national athletes. This piece of paper in front of me—which is from the Daily Mirror, just to prove that there is absolutely no political bias in my choice of media—describes Nicole and Lauren as

“being hailed as stars of the future.”

This is their story: Nicole and Lauren were invited on a three-week training session. Two of the weeks coincided with school term time, and six and a half days’ absence from school would have been required. Their headteacher decided that he was not in a position to authorise their absence, and a fixed penalty notice of £60 was issued. Mr and Mrs Short decided not to pay it, and the next thing they knew, Devon County Council summonsed them to appear in court. They appeared before north Devon magistrates. They still did not accept the fine, and said that they would fight their case all the way.

Devon County Council then summonsed Mr and Mrs Short further to appear in court this month. When the finding in the Isle of Wight case went against the Government, as my hon. Friend said, Devon County Council decided that Mr and Mrs Short’s case, and a number of others with which it was currently dealing in the same way, would be suspended and no further action would be taken.

[Lilian Greenwood]

My understanding is that headteachers have the authority to allow a request for leave during term time in exceptional circumstances. Is the hon. Gentleman aware of why the headteacher, knowing that those young people had the potential to represent their country, did not consider the circumstances exceptional?

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

It is a perfectly reasonable question. I tried to answer it in advance by saying that there is always a concern about what Ofsted’s view will be when it considers absences on the school roll across the board. All headteachers are extremely concerned that if they authorise such an absence, it will count against them when their overall absence statistics are considered.

Let me be clear: I have no criticism whatever of the school or the headteacher for the decision that they made. They felt that they had no choice but to do so; that is the point. The issue of choice is fundamental. Parents and headteachers should, in exceptional circumstances, have the freedom and choice to allow absence. That is what they are currently being denied, and in my view that cannot be right.

I raise that case in particular not only because it is in my constituency but because it specifically did not involve giving the children a holiday; that was not the purpose of the absence request. Yet it is absolutely the case that in Devon, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay and many other constituencies, the tourism sector plays a vital role in the local economy, and it is being badly affected by the current situation. By some measures, one in six jobs in my constituency depend either directly or indirectly on the tourism sector. It is a vital driver of the local economy, and many families in my constituency work in it.

Not only does the current situation create the problem that many families are unable to take advantage of cheaper holidays during term time, but for the many hundreds—indeed, probably thousands—of families who work in the tourism sector in my constituency, there is no way that they can go away during the school holidays. That is the time when they run their family businesses, so they are impeded in their ability to take their children away. I am afraid that by not helping them do so, we are not helping the holiday business.

I have read the transcript of a previous discussion in the main Chamber between my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay and the Minister. The point was made that we need the Government to think carefully about changing the regulations, due to their effect on the tourism industry. I hope the Minister will not mind my quoting him. He said:

“I do not believe that we should be returning to the Dickensian world where the needs of industry and commerce take precedence over the education of children.”

No one is suggesting that. No one is suggesting that children should be allowed to be taken away from school to satisfy the wishes of a few small businesses. This is a bigger issue than that. In the same discussion, he also said:

“I doubt that the Cornish tourism industry will be best pleased by his”—

my hon. Friend’s—

“assertion that tourism in Cornwall is dependent on truanting children for its survival.”—[Official Report, 19 May 2016; Vol. 611, c. 139-40.]

The Cornish tourism industry is not, and I am delighted to say that the Devon tourism industry is not. In particular, the north Devon tourism industry is not; that is the best place to spend a holiday.

The point is that we are talking not about truanting children but about the right of parents and teachers to agree, in a few cases, that it is appropriate in the circumstances for children to be taken out of school for a family holiday if they might otherwise miss out on one. That is the point. Families and children are missing out on a family holiday through no fault of their own and face the risk of being dragged before the courts or fined substantial amounts of money. Headteachers feel that they are having taken away from them the right to make individual decisions in individual circumstances.

Perhaps another result of this debate will be that holiday companies, airlines and those that offer package holidays take a long hard look at themselves. They should not be charging such vastly inflated prices during school holidays. I shall cite one example, which I raised the last time we debated this subject. I think you were in the Chair for at least some of that sitting, Mr Hanson; forgive me for outlining this particular circumstance again, but it tells the story rather well. A package holiday to Spain for a family of two adults and two children beginning on 14 July would have cost £1,300. The same holiday, with identical flights and accommodation, beginning just two weeks later when the school holidays had begun, would have cost £2,000. That is a 60% mark-up. It would not be allowed in any other retail business, and we should not put up with it. It is not just the Government who I ask, respectfully, to think again about where we are; the holiday industry needs to take a long, hard look at itself as well.

[Steve Double]

Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the problem with holiday prices is that many tourist resorts, especially in places such as Cornwall, are forced to try to make enough money during the six or seven weeks of the school summer holidays to cover their overheads for the whole year? They have to put up their prices because numbers have dropped so much that they can no longer recover the revenue they used to make during the shoulder months of June and September. All their revenue is focused on such a small time period that they inevitably have to put up prices.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

Absolutely. Many businesses in such resorts find themselves in that position. That feeds back into the point I made earlier: because the season is now so focused, families who run tourism businesses in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend have no choice. There is no way they can possibly go on holiday during the school holidays, so they have to request to take their children out of school, otherwise they will not be able to enjoy a holiday.

It is absolutely right that the Government have a duty to ensure that children have full academic attendance and a full school record. I am not arguing with that, but there must be some carrot and some stick. My fear is that, with the 2013 guidelines, the balance has shifted rather too much towards the stick approach, which I do not think is valuable or helpful.

Let me go off script for a moment. I am a bit of an old-fashioned Tory sort of boy, and I like less government. I like smaller government. I like government that does not just sit in Westminster bringing a clunking fist down rather hard on parents, families and working people who are just trying to do the right thing. I have an uneasy sense that the current regulation and policy are on the wrong side of that. I passionately believe that, as a Conservative Government, we should be helping hard-working people who occasionally have no choice but to take their children out of school. As in the case of my constituents, Mr and Mrs Short, they might do so not for a holiday but for a perfectly reasonable sporting endeavour. I am not sure how we have reached the point where, as a Government, we are saying, “We, centrally, know better than you.”

[Mr Gibb]

This debate boils down to two phrases: “in special circumstances” and “in exceptional circumstances”. It is about the difference between the words “special” and “exceptional”, so the way my hon. Friend is describing matters exaggerates the issue. Even he believes that headteachers should grant term-time holidays not in all circumstances but in special circumstances. The Government believe that they should be granted only in exceptional circumstances.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I thank the Minister for his views. I shall simply say this: at the moment, we are in a mess. Teachers, headteachers, schools and parents do not know where they stand. I take his point, which is perfectly reasonable. I do not agree that I am exaggerating the situation, though, because I have been on the receiving end—as I am sure other hon. Members have—of hundreds of emails, letters and phone calls from parents and headteachers who are deeply worried about the position in which they now find themselves. That is not an exaggeration.

[Imran Hussain]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when a family go to Pakistan to visit family members and there is an unexpected death in the family in Pakistan, that is an exceptional circumstance? That family were fined on their return. If that is not an exceptional circumstance, what is?

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The Minister said that this debate boils down to the definition of “exceptional circumstances”; under any definition, what the hon. Gentleman has just described would be exceptional.

It is absolutely right that the Government have a duty to ensure that parents send their children to school and that children have a full academic record, but my fear is that the 2013 guidelines put us in a field of unintended consequences. They are having a serious effect on many families in my constituency and further afield whose only crime is to want to take a holiday when they can, or to take their children away based on some other perfectly reasonable grounds or exceptional circumstances. The guidance is well intended, but I fear that, in the lack of flexibility that is being applied to its interpretation in some quarters, it is having unintended consequences. Otherwise innocent parents, who simply want the best for their children and are the right people to know what is best for them, are being criminalised. I hope I can work with the Minister, co-operatively, to put things right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

No, we will not be delaying, because for decades no Government adequately gripped the problem we have in this country, which is that businesses invest too little in skills development. That is what holds our productivity back. As it happens, since the CBI’s survey, and since other surveys of the same kind, we have published a detailed technical guide for employers on how the apprenticeship levy will work. I encourage the hon. Lady and her constituents to look at it. If they have any further questions I am happy to answer them, but the levy will be coming in in April 2017, and we will be fixing Britain’s skills problems.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

On Friday I attended an event to mark the first anniversary of the extremely successful Care Academy, which is a unique collaboration in my constituency between Petroc College and the Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust. In effect, it provides apprenticeships for young people wanting to get into the health profession. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the excellent students who have been through the Care Academy in the first year, and does he agree that it is an extremely worthwhile programme for the future?

[Nick Boles]

It is well known that we have huge skills needs in the care sector and the NHS, and that kind of academy is exactly what we need to see more of, so I am delighted that my hon. Friend’s constituency, Petroc College and others are setting an example.