Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill

Philip Davies Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Teresa Pearce]

“Formal lessons” means within a school setting. Informal lessons are when people are taught at home, for example. In this case there is no testing and none of the things that one would imagine would be part of formal lessons. However, if the hon. Gentleman is concerned about this issue, and if the Bill goes into Committee, I would be happy to suggest that he serves on it, and if he wished to table an amendment I would be more than happy to work with him on that.

Skills can be taught quickly and easily so as not to overburden schools. Importantly, no assessment or attainment targets will be set, and it will be up to headteachers and governors to determine how lessons will be delivered. I am happy that the Parent-Teacher Association is backing the Bill, as that indicates the range and depth of support for these proposals. It is also a measure of support from those who matter most, because 95% of parents and 84% of secondary school teachers agree that such skills should be taught as part of the school curriculum.

Beyond the process of learning these skills, the Bill could have other benefits. The International Red Cross believes that

“First aid is not just about techniques. It is an act of humanity”

and therefore a key responsibility of citizenship. Teaching these skills will also help to create the next generation of good, caring citizens—it will teach character. The Red Cross is surely right about that. Empowering young people with the ability to act and potentially save a life can transform how they feel about themselves and improve their self-esteem. It could also encourage more people to become paramedics and explore the possibility of careers that they would not have otherwise considered. I want the Bill to contribute to an increase in the uptake of such careers.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Given that in the hon. Lady’s view first aid education is such an obvious thing to do, and given that it will cause no disruption or hassle at all to school life, and that it will make such a big difference to so many people’s lives, why are schools in her constituency not already teaching first aid when they are perfectly free to do so?

[Teresa Pearce]

I am afraid I cannot answer for every school in my constituency any more than I can answer for every school in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I say only that teachers, parents and children want this Bill, so why should we as parliamentarians not provide it?

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Is the answer to the question from the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that MPs do not run schools or decide policy within them? For example, I suspect that not every school in his constituency is campaigning to come out of Europe. Does that mean that he is failing in some way as an MP?

[Philip Davies]

I would not be so sure!

[Teresa Pearce]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. The Bill is consistent with other ideas that the Government have been happy to support in the past. Earlier this year the coalition Government passed the Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Act 2015, which attempted to redraw the relationship between bystanders and people suffering from medical emergencies. Bystanders should not be intimidated by emergencies. They should not fear the consequences if they intervene sincerely, but do not manage to save a life. My Bill mutually supports that Act. It makes it more likely that bystanders will have the confidence to take action based on the teaching they will have received at school.

Stopping emergency situations from becoming worse could save the NHS money on later treatment. Providing emergency first aid skills might instil in the next generation a more responsible, confident approach to their own medical issues and perhaps reduce the current tendency to attend A & E for all sorts of minor problems that could be dealt with at home or by a GP. The Royal College of Nursing, with its membership of 430,000, is the voice of nursing across the UK. It supports the Bill, arguing that increasing first aid knowledge and skills in future generations will save lives and equip children with skills and confidence—skills they will carry through their lives.

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[Philip Davies]

I understand that the hon. Lady is a former teacher. Why therefore does she not trust teachers to make these decisions and provide the first aid training in schools themselves, without the need for the Government to force them into it? Why cannot teachers be trusted to make these decisions for themselves?

[Julie Cooper]

As has been mentioned, there is patchwork provision across schools. I, as a teacher, think this is a good thing, as do the majority of teachers, but it is too important to leave to chance. Being able to save a life is as important as making sure every child can swim.

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[Rachael Maskell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention —clearly we know what we are talking about, and I totally agree with what she has just highlighted.

The reality of that or any other situation is that if people have the skills, they can administer them. The Bill is not just about CPR; it is also about dealing with bleeding or choking, situations we may come across at any point. As one of those bystanders, you would feel totally helpless, knowing that you could have saved the neighbour, the friend or the relative—we might even be talking about someone saving you. That is why I urge hon. Members to allow this Bill to go forward.

[Philip Davies]

In a previous speech in Parliament, the hon. Lady talked about how teachers must also have more of a say. She said:

“They cannot be told how important their professionalism is in one breath and then not be trusted to make the best decisions for children in the next.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 678.]

How does her support for a compulsory measure, whether teachers like it or not, fit in with what she said previously about how we should trust them as professionals?

[Rachael Maskell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because I can tell him that 84% of secondary teachers support the Bill. Clearly, teachers want these provisions to be brought in, so this is in line with my previous statements in the House.

Whatever the medical condition, we know that it is only the start of a journey for a patient, who then will go on to use wider NHS services. Having worked in intensive care for 20 years, I know the cost of that time delay; individuals could have hypoxic brain injury or other such conditions as a result, which would place real strain on not only the services, but the family and the life of the individual. For that reason, it is vital to ensure that the Bill has a safe passage to its next stage.

As I have said, I will keep my comments brief. What we are seeing today is the start of a journey towards us being a nation of life savers, which is what I hope the Bill will achieve in time. I urge the Minister to allow this Bill to continue to the Committee stage.

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[Robert Jenrick]

Yes, two of them specifically raised the issue of tick-box exercises and asked how, if the requirement were in the national curriculum, it would be measured and whether Ofsted would become involved. If not, what would it mean? Some schools would be exemplars that provide superb quality training and work with great local groups such as Newark Community First Aid or St John Ambulance, and others would do much more modest training—an online exercise or whatever that is considered to be the bare minimum. That might be because they are not interested or, more likely, because they do not have the time or the resources. Others might feel that it is more appropriate to concentrate on academic outcomes because they are struggling to educate children with particular needs.

[Philip Davies]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in order for the training to be a meaningful compulsory part of the curriculum, it would need to be subject to an Ofsted inspection to make sure that it was being done properly, because otherwise there would be nothing to say whether schools were carrying it out, and that therefore it would be another part of a school inspection that I am sure schools could well do without?

[Robert Jenrick]

If we believe in the principle of training in first aid for young people, or indeed people of any age, we want to ensure quality, and quality is clearly very variable. If we provide maximum flexibility so that a school can take it very seriously or not seriously at all, then the whole scheme could be jeopardised.

I want to refer Members to my local group, Newark Community First Aid, and what it considers to be high quality. In its training it uses qualified doctors, nurses and extremely experienced first aiders. Its minimum course lasts two and half hours and has to be re-done regularly. Its preferred course lasts four hours. If we want good-quality training, some minimum standards are involved. I do not want thousands of young people to believe that they have had high-quality first aid or CPR training when they have had a half-hour video presentation—although I am sure that would be better than nothing—rather than having gone to one of these superb local community groups and spent a whole afternoon or day being trained.