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

Philip Davies Excerpts

Friday 20th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I am going to be fairly brief, because I agree very much with the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) on the importance of having the opportunity to vote on this Bill. This is a Second Reading debate, so we are talking about whether, in principle, the Bill should go into Committee, where we will be able to deal with some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker), for whom I have a lot of regard, having served with him on the Education Committee. Those sorts of issues can be addressed in more detail in Committee; it is what the Committee stage is there for. The concerns raised by the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) would also come into that category.

In starting my speech, I should praise my—

[Philip Davies]

rose—

[Nic Dakin]

I am not going to give way because, as I said, I am going to be brief. I am going to praise my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) for all the work she has done in bringing this Bill to us today and in getting the support she has. It is worth noting that Members from four different parties have signed up as sponsors of the Bill, which demonstrates the strong cross-party support it has, both within this House and outside it. We have heard 10 speeches today. In the two speeches to which I have referred, we heard valid concerns that could appropriately be dealt with in Committee. The hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) has also raised, in her interventions, the sort of concerns that should be followed through in Committee. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead said in response to an intervention from the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), people with those concerns will be welcome on the Committee, in order to make sure we get the Bill right, because that is the purpose of that stage. Without going through the detail of what the other eight Members said, it is worth saying that we heard eight very strong speeches from across the House, each of which was strongly in favour of the Bill. The speakers drew on their own personal and professional experience to give strong evidence as to why the Bill should go into Committee. They also brought information from outside this House in support.

I agree with the Bill in principle. I believe it is important to help people look after each other. Improving our health is the product of many activities, and this does not just come from government; these things are done in communities, schools, workplaces, businesses and homes across the country. I recognise the need to train as many people as we can, particularly young people. Many hon. Members have alluded to the fact that the things we learn when we are young, be it in the girl guides, through St John Ambulance or at school, often stay with us almost instinctively throughout life. The skills needed to step in and help in an emergency are exactly the sort of things that could assist in the circumstances that many Members have alluded to in the debate. That is why at the general election Labour called for young people to have had access to emergency first aid training, including CPR, by the time they leave school.

I will be supporting the Bill, but, as I have indicated, I will be seeking further improvements to the Bill in Committee to address some of the issues that have been raised in the debate, so that it can offer a more holistic approach to emergency first aid training and so that schools can work with the voluntary sector to deliver the Bill’s aims. As it stands, the Bill places a strong onus on schools to provide the training, and that could be seen as prescriptive. I do not think that is the intention, and the opening remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead clearly showed that. It will be important that those things are tackled as we go through the detail of the Bill in Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who knows I have a high regard for him, even though he did not give way to me during his speech. He said that the Bill has strong cross-party support and he talked about the will of the House, which presumably will mean that 100 MPs out of the 650 will be here—it is not a great total to reach—to vote for it today. I am sure that if those 100 MPs are here, it will go through. That is a matter of fact, so if 100 MPs troop through the Lobby, that will be the will of the House and that will be it. We will see just how much cross-party support the Bill actually has, rather than what he asserts.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

In looking for these 100 MPs, how many does my hon. Friend see on the Opposition Benches currently?

[Philip Davies]

I see four, but I am not going to get sidetracked on to the number of people on the Benches, as I am sure you want us to get into the meat of the debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. You know how anxious I always am to get cracking into the meat of the debate, and I am not going to disappoint you any longer.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on introducing this Bill. It may have strong cross-party support, but it certainly does not have mine.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is congratulating the hon. Lady, but he has not yet congratulated the Chairman of Ways and Means, who conducts the draw. It has become something of a tradition to congratulate him on the way in which he does the draw.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Rest assured, I do not need congratulating and we will certainly get into this debate—not in Latin, but in English.

[Philip Davies]

I am not capable of conducting this in Latin, Mr Deputy Speaker—some would say I am not able to conduct it in English. I am getting sidetracked again by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), and I hope you appreciate that it is certainly not of my doing.

The flavour of most private Members’ Bills that come before the House is that they are backed by a worthy sentiment, but are not really fit for purpose when given any great scrutiny. I fear that we are in that situation today. What we have been offered by a number of Members is what we normally get in this place on private Members’ Bills, which is a painless panacea. Politicians will always offer a painless panacea. With this Bill, I have heard that we can save lives, save money, save time and save absolutely anything. It has been said that there are no concerns and no downsides to this Bill, which will stipulate that it is compulsory for schools to provide first aid education. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), I have spoken to the schools in my constituency, and I wish to share some of the feedback that they have given to me.

If this Bill is so easy for schools to implement—it is said that it will save time, save money and save lives—then there is absolutely nothing to stop them introducing first aid courses now as part of the existing curriculum. We have heard that already today, and we have heard that many schools already do that. Why on earth would we need to make compulsory something that is so wonderful and that has no downsides? Surely we can just sit back and wait for every school to implement it themselves.

One thing I always say is that we should trust the people who are doing things every day. They tend to be the ones who know the best about what goes on and what works. When I worked for Asda, I found that it was the checkout operators who were the best people to ask about what was going wrong or right in the store, because they saw it every day with their own eyes. I certainly believe in trusting the professionals. My father was a teacher for that matter, so I am all for trusting teachers to get on and do their job. I do not really want the Government to be sticking their nose in at every single turn, trying to lecture them every five minutes about what they should be doing when they are perfectly capable of making those decisions for themselves.

If we think that we have recruited the right people to be teachers, then we have absolutely nothing to fear from leaving them to get on and do their job. If we feel that we have recruited the wrong teachers and that we need to lecture them every five minutes about what they should be doing, the problem is in the recruitment process. We should not need to look over their shoulder all the time, telling them what they should and should not be doing. I fear that we have made that particular mistake with this Bill.

I should make something very clear now, because, doubtless, Opposition Members will try to misconstrue my remarks. First aid, as everyone has acknowledged, is a very important life skill. I encourage as many people as possible to learn that skill. I am, and remain, a supporter of first aid, and certainly do not think that it is unimportant. I do not want to prevent anybody from learning first aid if they wish to learn it. I want people to have that opportunity.

Every year, there are 5.5 million attendees at A&E departments, 3 million of whom have the types of accident and injury that first aid treatment could have helped. For example, there are about 2,600 open wound injuries, 2,400 bone injuries, about 40 incidents of choking and more than 290 injuries from burns. Every year, about 66,000 die from heart attacks and seizures. They are all compelling statistics that endorse the increased use of first aid within society. Indeed, those statistics seem a valuable reason to encourage more members of society to learn first aid, but they do not in themselves justify the reason why first aid should become compulsory in the school curriculum, and that is what I wish to focus on today.

This Bill is not starting out from here. In the previous Parliament, Julie Hilling, the former Member for Bolton West, introduced a very similar Bill as a ten-minute rule Bill, which provided amendments to the Education Act 2002. She also brought in an amendment during the Committee stage of the Education Bill to make provision for teaching emergency life support skills in the national curriculum. The response of the then Minister for Schools, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), highlighted some of the same reservations that should be drawn to this debate today. He said:

“I agree that emergency life support skills can have an immensely positive impact on pupils’ families as well as schools and the wider community. It is encouraging to hear about the excellent work in schools…I am also aware of the invaluable support that organisations such as the British Heart Foundation and St John Ambulance offer individual schools or groups of schools to enrich curriculum work. I applaud them for their important work, but I do not agree that making emergency life support skills a statutory part of the curriculum is the right approach.”

I absolutely endorse what he said. He went on to say:

“We are clear that the national curriculum should set out the essential knowledge and understanding that all children should be expected to acquire in the course of their school lives. It is for teachers to design the wider curriculum in the way that meets the needs of their pupils, taking account of the views of parents, the wider community and local circumstances.”––[Official Report, Education Public Bill Committee, 5 April 2011; c. 990.]

That is the nub of my argument today. It should be a schools’ prerogative to incorporate extra-curricular activities, such as first aid education, into the school calendar, and they should not be forced to substitute other lessons to fit them in. That has been confirmed more recently—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is saying, and I agree with him, that it should be for schools to decide. Does he think that it should be a voluntary activity for the pupils, or is he suggesting that they should be compelled to participate?

[Philip Davies]

It absolutely should be a voluntary thing. I was struck by my hon. Friend’s earlier intervention when he said that people who volunteer for things tend to enter into them with much more gusto than if they are compelled to be there. That is self-evidently the case. I do not see why that should not be the case for the teaching of first aid as well.

I should say that when the Government were pressed on this matter by Bob Russell, the former Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, the Secretary of State made it clear that her Department was prepared to help schools teach life-saving skills more generally if that was what schools wanted—again, that is very laudable. She also made it clear that the Government had negotiated a contract so that schools could obtain defibrillators at reasonable rates and train their pupils in the use of them.

[Mr Nuttall]

Is my hon. Friend also aware that St John’s Ambulance makes resources available to teachers to enable them to deliver these lessons at a very low cost?

[Philip Davies]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I do not intend to focus on the work of St John’s Ambulance in my speech. Obviously, I cannot cover everything. Perhaps he might be able to do so, Mr Deputy Speaker, if he is lucky enough to catch your eye later on.

What is also important is the time factor. We have heard different times bandied about as to how much training would be needed to fulfil the obligations in the Bill. I am still not entirely sure about it. Half an hour was the minimum that I have heard. It is important to note that my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), who did an awful lot of work in this area before he was deservedly promoted to ministerial ranks, asked a question about the 30,000 cardiac arrests that occur outside hospitals where only one in 10 people survives. He wanted to meet the Minister to discuss the fact that when countries give two-hour sessions of emergency life-saving skills, survival rates often increase by up to 50%. That suggests to me that, for this to be worthwhile, 30 minutes will never be enough. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray), who has knowledge of the subject, made that point in an earlier intervention. It strikes me that, in order to get a Bill through Parliament, we will be told that a session needs to be only half an hour, but the moment the Bill becomes enacted, the schools will be told that half an hour is not good enough and that they will need to do an hour. When an hour is not good enough, they will be told to do two hours, and then four hours. Schools will never know where the time commitment will end.

Under the provisions of the Bill, as I understand it, the Secretary of State can make regulations in this area, so they will be free to say to schools, “Well, we have looked at this, and half an hour is not enough. You need to do more.” We are not giving schools a commitment to teach as they see fit, but potentially lining up for them much longer times they will have to spend teaching these skills if the half an hour that we have been told about proves to be as insufficient and inadequate as my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall has suggested.



As I said, teachers are best placed to decide on these matters. We should not force them to do anything that is not right for them or their school. We are constantly moving towards an overly prescribed curriculum. That is unhelpful to teachers, who must teach these lessons, and to students, who have to try to juggle more subjects in a limited time. This happens time and again in Parliament. When I was on the Opposition Benches— some might argue that I always sit on the opposition Benches, but when I was on the other side of the House —I remember the Labour Government’s proposal that all schools should be obliged to teach about healthy eating, among other things.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We do not want to go into what previous Governments may or may not have done. The debate is about the Bill. You would not want to sidetrack me, or your good self.

[Philip Davies]

No, absolutely not, and I assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I am not getting sidetracked. My point, which is very relevant to the Bill, is that all these things, very worthy in themselves, are like a salami slicer. We are talking about half an hour here for this, and half an hour there for that. Each half-hour may not in itself seem like a great deal of time out of the school curriculum, but when we put together all the things that a school is obliged to do, we are talking about a serious amount of time—perhaps a full day out of the weekly curriculum. That is what I fear will happen. We cannot take this provision in isolation; we have to look at all the other things piled on schools, and should ask them whether they really have enough time to have yet another thing imposed on them.

I should ask what I often ask on these occasions: if, as we keep being told, this is such a wonderful thing, and there are no downsides, why was the provision never introduced in the 13 years of the Labour Government? The shadow Minister did not explain this very well. I have to wonder whether Labour Members actually have the commitment to this that they would like us to believe. Not only did they not introduce the measure in their 13 years in government, although they had the perfect opportunity to do so, but they spent about an hour and 15 minutes today on two urgent questions and some pointless points of order to delay progress on this debate.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. We are definitely drifting off the Bill. We will not judge what has held us up. This is not about time, as you well know, Mr Davies; you are the Fridays expert. You do not want me to be misled, do you?

[Philip Davies]

You are absolutely right, Mr Deputy Speaker: it is not about the time. Time carries on, and we carry on with our speeches; time will sort itself out.

As for the flexibility and support that schools have regarding first aid, the Minister for Schools made it clear—we should put this on the record—that there is nothing to stop schools teaching first aid. He said in a parliamentary answer:

“Schools are free to teach emergency life-saving skills and may choose to do so as part of personal, social, health and economic education. The Department…is encouraging schools to purchase …defibrillators…We have also published a guide to defibrillators on school premises”.—[Official Report, 19 January 2015; Vol. 591, c. 17-18.]

The Department has made it clear that schools are already free to do this, and that it does not need to go any further. I also point out that as of 13 November this year, 787 defibrillators have been purchased under the Government’s scheme, so to say that the Government are doing nothing to assist in this area would be completely wrong and misleading. There is an awful lot being done. Much more can be achieved by continuing down a voluntary route than could be achieved by trying, in a ham-fisted way, to mandate things that never seem to work as envisaged.

It is worth pointing out that in May, the Department announced that St John Ambulance would receive more than £250,000

“to build a nation of young first aiders who are resilient, confident and motivated.”

That is part of the Government’s £3.5 million character grant scheme, through which St John Ambulance is training

“600 champions…and 31,500 pupils selected for first aid training, supporting 100,000 pupils… overall. 100 new cadet clubs will also be set up.”

That is a much more valuable way of going about this. An awful lot is being done to give children as much easy access to first aid resources as possible without interfering in the role of schools and teachers.

I acknowledge the fantastic work that school staff members throughout the country do to ensure the safety of children at school. Schools routinely include the needs of pupils when making their first aid needs assessment for staff, and when putting appropriate provision in place. The number of qualified first aiders required will be a part of the school’s first aid needs assessment, and will be based on local circumstances, so it is not as if the provision of first aid in schools is inadequate and we need the measures in the Bill; that is already catered for.

This issue touches on the question of what a school’s role is, and should be; the proposer of the Bill started to go down this route in her argument for the Bill. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester talked about schools’ roles, too.

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

It was my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan).

[Philip Davies]

I apologise, it was my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan); the Minister is absolutely right. Over the past few decades, there has been a huge change in the perceived role of schools, and parents and politicians have placed increased responsibility on schools. They are now expected to assume responsibility for ensuring that children leave with a rounded education. That includes teaching children about personal and sex education, bullying, mental wellbeing, and society as a whole, as well as teaching them traditional subjects such as maths and science—and Latin, for the benefit of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset.

Personal, social, health and economic education, although a non-statutory subject, is common in school timetables across the country. In primary and secondary schools, it takes an average lesson of 30 minutes or an hour in the weekly calendar, and is an established part of the school day. Despite the fact that the Government should be reducing the regulatory burden on schools, across the country, teachers are expected to assume a pseudo-parental role. We say to parents, “Don’t worry about how you bring up your children, what you enter them in for, or encouraging them to do things, because we’ll cover it all for you.” That is a bad way for the country to go. We should put more responsibility on parents to sort out extra-curricular activities for their children, and less on schools. We are encouraging parents to abdicate their responsibilities. It should be my role to encourage my children to do things out of school that may enable them to get first aid training; we should not always say that it is the school’s responsibility.

A serious effect of the Bill is that it will take up time in the curriculum. Across the UK, and specifically in the district where my constituency is, Bradford, there are too many failing schools. In those circumstances, it is not appropriate to expect either teachers or students to focus on a completely new subject area when, in too many instances, basic maths and English are not up to standard. Recent Ofsted reports highlighted some of these issues. Of one school that received an “inadequate” rating, Ofsted said:

“Students have weak literacy, communication and numeracy skills.”

Against that backdrop, if an extra half-hour, hour or two hours of study should be done during the school day, perhaps focusing on the weak literacy, communication and numeracy skills would be a far better use of students’ time. That may not be the case everywhere, but that is why we have to leave the decision to teachers. When there is extra time in a school, surely it is teachers who know what a pupil would do best to focus on for half an hour, an hour or two hours.

In many schools in Bradford, it is perfectly clear that spending extra time on English would be far more beneficial than a two-hour course in first aid, regardless of whether that is worth while. Some of Bradford’s examination results are extremely poor. In fact, Bradford is one of the most failing local education authorities in the country. Surely we have to get our priorities right for those schools. Many of the teachers in those schools are working incredibly hard to turn them around. They need the support and encouragement to enable their school to give extra tuition in English and maths—those are things that they are trying to do. The last thing they need is for this House and the Government to come in with a sledgehammer and say, “I know you’re really trying to turn around the maths and English qualifications of your pupils, but forget about spending half an hour, or a couple of hours, doing that; your pupils have to do first aid training.” That is why these decisions are best made locally.

[Mr Nuttall]

We have heard a number of speeches this morning, but it has never been made clear exactly when these first aid lessons are to be delivered. In which year of a child’s education does my hon. Friend think these lessons will be delivered?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I do not know. Schools would presumably have to muddle through as best they can to meet the requirements of the Bill. I am sure teachers are very good at chopping and changing and muddling through.

As I made clear at the start of my speech, I have contacted all the schools in my constituency and got feedback from some of them. One of them had a “requires improvement” judgment in February 2014, and one reason was that the students’ achievement in both maths and English has not been good enough since 2012. The priority for the school and its leadership team is not to expand the curriculum to make us all feel better about ourselves because we are fulfilling a worthy sentiment; the teachers are working incredibly hard to ensure that their pupils leave as young adults who are equipped with the right level of maths and English to set them up for the future. That is the first priority of our schooling system in this country. We should not sit here and think everything is hunky-dory in all our schools; it is not. Those teachers want help do that difficult job, dealing with some difficult pupils, but the Bill does not give them that support.

The National Literacy Trust states:

“Around 16 per cent, or 5.2 million adults in England, can be described as ‘functionally illiterate’. They would not pass an English GCSE and have literacy levels at or below those expected of an 11-year-old.”

That is a serious problem, which schools should be addressing. The importance of that form of education, which is what parents expect when they send their children to school, cannot be overestimated.

As we have heard from various Members, many people learn their first aid skills with the guides or the scouts. The nub of one of my arguments is that children do not need to learn first aid at school, as there are many organisations and clubs which teach it, including St John Ambulance and the Red Cross. The first aid badge is one of the most important badges that people can get in those organisations. Individuals must show a thorough range of first aid knowledge before they are entitled to the badge. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) referred to the pride that people take in displaying their badge on their uniform when they have earned it through those sessions. The guides first aid badge is valid for only two years, at which point they are required to take the test again in order to keep the badge up to date.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is making such an important point. When things are done well by the voluntary sector, is it always necessary for the state to come in in a heavy-handed way, get rid of all the good work that is being done by others, and impose its own solution? Is it not better to encourage voluntary activity to flourish?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right.

It is clear from what happens at the guides that first aid skills need to be updated My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall touched on this in an intervention. The guides do it every two years. For it to mean anything at all, schools will have to teach first aid every two or three years, which will mean even more time out of the curriculum. I remember doing a first aid course at school, but I have to admit that if I were faced with a medical emergency, I would struggle to remember all the training I received. In that sense it would be rendered completely useless. That would apply to many of those who would go through first aid training at school, particularly if they were not paying attention because they did not want to be there in the first place.

We in this place would be far better advised to encourage young people to go out and join the guides or the scouts, or to do the Duke of Edinburgh’s award—the bronze, the silver and the gold. That would be a very worthwhile thing for them to do, and as part of that they would get all the emergency first aid training they would ever need. That would be a much more worthwhile message for us to send out—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. We have had a lot of examples. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that previous speakers also mentioned good examples. Nobody is disagreeing that there are lots of good organisations, but the Bill is about schools and education. We are in danger of getting into an argument about those who provide training in the voluntary sector and whether they should do it. I know that the hon. Gentleman wants to stick purely to the Bill, which is about first aid provision in schools.

[Philip Davies]

rose—

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend allow me, while he has been interrupted?

[Philip Davies]

I will.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I understand what my hon. Friend is saying. I happen to be president of Herne Bay air cadets, I am heavily involved with the Sea Cadets, and I am involved in the scouts and the guides movements. I am a vice-president of St John Ambulance. I also participate in Duke of Edinburgh’s award schemes. They are all very worthy organisations, but the bottom line, as my hon. Friend knows and as I know, is that the overwhelming majority of children, for whatever reason, do not take advantage of any of those schemes. We are talking about life and death, and he ought to consider that very seriously indeed.

[Philip Davies]

I take my hon. Friend’s point, but I will explain why I do not think first aid is worth teaching in schools. My fear is if we start doing in school all the things that happen at the scouts, the guides and the Duke of Edinburgh’s award, there will be no point in people joining them, and these very worthy organisations—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. We are not debating what is provided by the scouts, the guides or anyone else. This is about the provision of first aid training. We do not want to get into all the activities those organisations do or try to compare the two. You understand that, Mr Davies. You are very good.

[Philip Davies]

The point I am trying to make, Mr Deputy Speaker—I apologise if I am making it in a ham-fisted way—is why the Bill is unnecessary. We are discussing whether the Bill should be enacted, and I am making the point—I apologise if I appear to be doing it in a deviant manner, but I assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am not doing so intentionally—that the Bill is unnecessary, for the reasons I am giving. I hope that is well within the scope of the debate.

[Teresa Pearce]

Surely the Bill would be unnecessary only if everybody was trained in first aid? We know clearly that only a very small proportion of people in this country are.

[Philip Davies]

It would be very worth while if everybody joined the scouts. It would be very worth while if everybody joined the guides. It would be very worth while if everybody did the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme. I am not entirely sure that we want to pass a piece of legislation to compel that to happen. Learning first aid is a very desirable thing that we would all want to see, but that does not mean that it follows that it should become mandatory and part of our legislative programme. That is the point that I am making. The issue is not whether it is worth while, but whether it should become compulsory, because, after all, the title of the Bill refers to compulsory first aid in state schools. It applies only to state schools, but we did not hear any reason why that was the case.

My other concern is about implementing the policy. We must always consider the practical implications of rolling out a national policy such as this. In the Bill there is very little detail about how it would be implemented, which comes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). Clause 3(1) states:

“The Secretary of State shall, before making regulations under section 85B(4) of EA 2002”—

the Education Act 2002—

“conduct a public consultation about the content and delivery”

of emergency first aid education.

In a 2012 briefing on the campaign for life-saving skills to be taught in schools, the British Heart Foundation and the Resuscitation Council—presumably, they would be key to its implementation—said this about the costs:

“The BHF’s own experience through the Heartstart programme provides one model that can be applied in England. Training supervisors with resuscitation and teaching experience to initially train teachers would provide their training. These teachers would then train replacement teachers in the event of staff changes in their school. Additional costs include venue hire for the training session, which can be reduced if schools are coordinated to have their teachers trained at combined sessions, and supply cover for the teachers to attend the day-long training.”

[Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)]

Unlike my hon. Friend, I support the Bill but I am sure that one thing that unites both of us is our desire for a vote on it. I want to vote firmly in favour of it and he surely wants the opportunity to register his very firm objection against it.

[Philip Davies]

It was not down to me that an hour and 15 minutes was taken up by urgent questions.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. We are not going to debate urgent questions. They are not debatable, and I do not want to hear them mentioned again.

[Philip Davies]

I will plough on with my remarks, Mr Deputy Speaker; such matters are outside my control. If 100 Members are here we will have a vote come what may, whatever I say or do.

There are the costs of the venue hire, training the teachers and training the replacement teachers—this is according to the British Heart Foundation, which goes on to say:

“The largest consumable cost is the initial supply of resuscitation manikins.”

We have not heard about this in the debate so far. The BHF goes on:

“Ideally, in a class of up to 32 there should be one manikin used between two people (16 in total). Schools should have both standard resuscitation manikins and baby manikins. These are one-off costs for the lifetime of the manikin, with annual costs to maintain the equipment. Per school, we estimate that this costs around £2,200 each year. This takes into account the appropriate learning materials required in a programme to aid teaching these life-saving skills to pupils, in addition to general administration and monitoring costs.”

That opens up a whole can of worms: schools will have to find supply teachers—an immense cost—so that teachers can go on a course for a day to learn the first aid information to teach. Even if the teachers do not go on the course themselves, they still need to find time to be taught the first aid information by other teachers. Furthermore, there is the cost of the manikins, mentioned by the British Heart Foundation, as well.

Earlier, I was discussing the problems that schools have. One problem cited by Ofsted is teacher turnover. Continually being required to send new teachers on to training courses is another burden that schools that are already struggling should not have to suffer. When I spoke to people at my local secondary schools about the Bill, that was one of their main areas of concern. Someone at one of the schools outlined their concerns as follows in an email:

“The Academy currently can probably meet this duty as we have a qualified first aid trainer on the associate staff body; however, this would pose difficulties as it would be a requirement to ensure that there is someone with the appropriate level of training on staff—or have to be a brought in provision, to ensure that all young people receive the correct advice”.

That concern was echoed by other schools in my constituency, which were concerned by not only the staffing implications but the time allocation demanded of the school timetable.

Furthermore, schools would have to be required to find room in their budgets to pay for the provisions. We have heard about the cost of the manikins; I also spoke to some prominent union officials who live in my constituency. One said that making first aid education compulsory might not be cost-effective because at the moment first-aiders get a small allowance and training all teachers would be a massive expense. They would probably have to be retrained every three or four years. Is that cost-effective? Probably not.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

Those of us who support the Bill see it as an opportunity to educate a whole generation about life-saving skills. My hon. Friend is talking interestingly about cost, and he raises an important point. Would he be more inclined to support the Bill’s direction of travel if there were a clear understanding of the savings to the national health service of having life-saving skills among our population that are not there at present?

[Philip Davies]

No, because as I was going on to say, I do not think we could get an accurate figure on the savings; it would be completely arbitrary. How could we measure the savings? I am concerned about the effect on our schools of the Bill—that is what is before us today and I want to focus on it.

How would first aid education be measured in schools? If we make something compulsory in schools, we have to have some way of measuring that the school is doing it, otherwise it becomes complete nonsense. When people do courses elsewhere, they get a certificate or a badge, which gives them recognition. Presumably, at the end of the session, to check that somebody has got through the training—I am sure the promoter of the Bill will correct me if I am wrong—somebody will have to assess that people have met the required standard. If there were a 30-minute lesson without anyone knowing whether anything had been learned, that would be completely pointless. There would have to be some kind of test to work out that what needed to be learned had been learned. That goes without saying.

Would schools be required to provide some form of examination at the end of the training as a formal recognition or qualification? How would that work? Will there be a national model test that everyone will have to pass at the end of their lessons or will schools have to produce their own test? [Interruption.] I detect from the sedentary chuntering around me that there would be no such test. What on earth is the point of a lesson in first aid without testing whether people have learned what they need to in order to save somebody’s life? Surely the whole point is that people should become capable of saving somebody’s life. What is the point if we do not even know that?

[Mr Nuttall]

Clause 1(5) states:

“The National Curriculum for England is not required to specify attainment targets or assessment arrangements for EFAE”.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In all honesty, that makes the whole Bill a farce. Even those in favour of compulsory first aid education would surely agree that if at the end of the training there was no way of measuring whether people had learned anything or got to the standard required to save somebody’s life, the Bill would become a complete and utter nonsense—gesture politics of the worst possible kind.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray]

Does my hon. Friend agree with the point I made earlier? If somebody uses their CPR training incorrectly, that can damage a person’s health.

[Philip Davies]

That is a very good point. When we make something mandatory, it is inevitable, as people are there not because they want to be or are keen to be but because they have to be, that they will not be paying full attention and may learn the wrong lessons on the subject. My hon. Friend has expertise in this area, and we would do well to listen to it. This could, in such cases, make a bad problem worse. We should not think that this is all one-way traffic.

[Teresa Pearce]

Is the hon. Gentleman seriously saying that once someone is dead, they could be more dead?

[Philip Davies]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady has made such a ridiculous intervention. What my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall was clearly saying—I think anybody bar the hon. Lady could have understood her point—is that if somebody is in a serious medical situation that may not be life-threatening, administering the wrong treatment could make that non-life-threatening situation into a life-threatening one. That was clearly her point, and I am sorry the hon. Lady is trying to trivialise the matter so much.

[Teresa Pearce]

rose—

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[Philip Davies]

However, I will give her another go.

[Teresa Pearce]

I am not trivialising this—it is a very serious matter, and that is why I kept my comments short at the beginning. The hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) referred to CPR, which is usually given when someone’s heart has stopped, and that is what I was talking about. This is not about bleeding, dizziness, or anything like that; it is about a heart condition and CPR. If someone’s heart has stopped, there is a better chance of starting it again with CPR, even if it is not brilliantly executed.

[Philip Davies]

But the hon. Lady’s Bill is not restricted to that—it will cover all sorts of other areas that may not be as she describes. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall made a serious point about a serious reservation.

I am very sorry that people seem to think they can come here with a worthy sentiment and expect it just to be nodded through because it is a worthy sentiment. That is not the purpose of this House; the purpose is to try to scrutinise legislation, and some of us take that seriously.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I have been in this House for 32 years, and I think I know my way around the Bill procedures. I think I am right in saying that if a Bill has a Second Reading, it usually then goes into Committee, where it can be studied line by line and, if necessary, amended line by line. I would like to think that given that this is a matter of life and death, my hon. Friend might allow this Bill to have a Second Reading and then allow it to be dissected, if necessary, in Committee.

[Philip Davies]

It is not often that my hon. Friend makes a ludicrous argument, but I am afraid he has just done so. That would be like saying that any Bill should automatically be nodded through on its Second Reading because then we can amend it to how we would like it in Committee. That is not how this place works, as he well knows with his 32 years of service; I hope there will be another 32 years. The point of the Second Reading debate, as he helpfully identified, is to decide whether we agree with the Bill in principle. The principle of this Bill is given away by its title—the Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-Funded Secondary Schools) Bill. I do not agree with the principle of compulsory emergency first aid education in schools, so why on earth would I want to allow such a Bill a Second Reading, any more than he would vote for the Second Reading of a Bill whose principle he disagrees with? That is how this place works.

If this subject is to be added to the national curriculum, as proposed in the Bill, will Ofsted be required to assess and monitor its teaching to see whether schools are fulfilling their obligations under a revised Education Act 2002? Surely it follows that Ofsted must check to ensure that students are being taught appropriately, taught to a high standard, and taught well. It will have to be trained to judge the teachers to assess the level and quality of the first aid lessons they are offering to students. That seems to be another bureaucratic nightmare that Ofsted, and the teachers in the schools it is inspecting, could well do without. Nor do we know how much support the Government are going to give to allow that to happen. That is why I believe that this is better done on a voluntary basis.

[Will Quince]

My hon. Friend seems to suggest that education is valid only if it is tested. Sexual education is compulsory, so how did he perform in his sexual education tests?

[Philip Davies]

I should point out to my hon. Friend that, as it happens, sex education is not compulsory in schools, and long may that be the case, but that is a debate for another day; I am not going to get side-tracked.

The final point I want to make in my brief remarks, during which I have been interrupted on a number of occasions, is about the Bill’s legal consequences for schools. That is one of the serious fears that my schools raised with me when I asked them to consider its implications. In its submission to the Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Public Bill Committee in September 2014, St John Ambulance mentioned that 34% of people said that the primary reason people are deterred from intervening in any situation requiring first aid was concern about the legal repercussions. I am glad to say that we have in the Chamber one of the finest legal brains in the country, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) —and, I might add in passing, the most expensive.

Such a concern was also raised during my consultation with local schools. One headteacher told me that they

“would have concerns that a school could be liable to be sued or held accountable if a student carried out first aid and ‘got it wrong’ and the school had delivered that training”.

That covers the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall, but it has not been touched on during this debate. We must consider such matters in a Bill before we press ahead with a worthy sentiment.

Clause 1(3) specifies that children will be taught which emergency first aid actions are

“appropriate in each such scenario, including the best management of circumstances where a person is or appears to be…unconscious and not breathing,…unconscious and breathing,…choking,…bleeding severely,…having a heart attack, or…having an episode arising from an underlying condition such as asthma or epilepsy”,

and also taught the appropriate deployment of emergency first aid education

“procedures and equipment including…cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and…defibrillators.”

Given that the text in the Bill explicitly sets out that schools will be responsible for teaching when first aid is appropriate as well as how to administer it, the concern raised by the headteacher of my local school is very real. What securities will be put in place to ensure that headteachers, staff and schools are protected from legal action should any first aid be incorrectly administered by a student, given that the Bill, by making it a compulsory element of education, directly creates a point of responsibility? I cannot find any such protections in the Bill.

[Mrs Trevelyan]

For clarification, is my hon. Friend suggesting that organisations such as St John Ambulance, which presently teaches first aid to large numbers of cadets, are at risk of legal action if one of their students fails to get their first aid right during an emergency?

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[Philip Davies]

I do not know. [Interruption.] I do not know whether such organisations take out any insurance policies along those lines. I genuinely do not know and, from the reaction around the House, it seems that nobody here knows either. One of the things that causes me problems when debating legislation is that we go headlong into such things without anyone knowing what the consequences will be. My points is that without such protections for schools, an unreasonable burden and pressure will be put on them, which is completely outside their remit as teachers and headteachers.

When we consider whether or not something should become law, we should consider the evidence to decide whether there is weight behind the arguments. I do not think we do enough of that. There are examples from Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. We have heard nothing about how they relate to the Bill, because it applies only to England. We have not had time to look into that issue either. I am aware that you seem keen to press on, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I will not test the patience of the House by talking about what happens in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, even though I think it is absolutely essential to understand such matters. Given that we are keen to press on with the debate, I will draw my remarks to a close.

I just want to make it clear that we have heard lots of reasons why it would be wonderful for more and more people to learn first aid. I do not think there is any disagreement about that whatsoever. However, we have also ascertained that there are plenty of places at which children can learn first aid if they really want to. I hope that one of the things the Minister will make clear is what the Government can do to encourage more young people to learn emergency first aid. The Government could usefully do that, perhaps by funding other organisations or by making it easier for schools to provide such education. Nobody would disagree with that.

What we disagree with is the compulsory element of the Bill, which would force schools to provide such education. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark said that he could not find a headteacher in his constituency who agreed with the compulsory nature of the Bill. The feedback from my constituency suggests the same. I think we should reflect on what the professionals at the coalface are saying about their concerns before we rush headlong into supporting a Bill. It undoubtedly has a worthy sentiment, but, as I hope I have gone some way to explain, this ill thought through Bill is an absolute dog’s dinner and a can of worms.

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[Mr Nuttall]

I am not sure whether there was a question in that intervention, but if I am in order, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall carry on. I shall try to ensure that there is time for us to hear from the Minister, but I have some concerns about the Bill, and I think it fair to point out that it would place an additional requirement on teachers. That, surely, must be a matter of fact.

[Philip Davies]

Does my hon. Friend not consider it striking that plenty of people who are in favour of the Bill have made the assertion that teachers are in favour of it, but he and I, and our hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick)—who have actually spent time speaking to teachers in our local schools—have found something different?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is right. That is what causes me to have some doubts about the opinion poll whose findings keep being quoted at us. When I have actually spoken to people about the issue, I have received a slightly different answer, which is why I think we need to look at the questions that were asked in the poll.

[Philip Davies]

Who commissioned it?

[Mr Nuttall]

Absolutely. We do not know who commissioned it, or whether those who did so were hoping to get the answers that are being reported—or, indeed, whether they commissioned some reports that have never seen the light of day.

The issue of the burden on teachers is raised with me by teachers themselves. If the Bill became law, it would undoubtedly result in their having to do extra work in schools where they do not already teach this subject.

Another element is the cost of the Bill. I will not repeat the points that were made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—

[Philip Davies]

Why not?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend made some very good points, but I now want to make the point that as no explanatory notes and no impact assessment accompanied the Bill, we are essentially being asked to sign a blank cheque.

[Philip Davies]

Does my hon. Friend believe that the Bill will require a money resolution?

[Mr Nuttall]

Ah. My hon. Friend has made a good point. We have been given no detailed explanation of exactly how this training is to be delivered in schools, but I believe that, however it is delivered, its delivery will result in some additional cost to the education system. I am sure that we shall hear more about this from the Minister when he gives us the Government’s view in a few minutes’ time, but I should have thought that the Bill would require a money resolution.

My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) said that there was a danger that if the training was not carried out to a given standard, and was not tested properly, some further injury could be inflicted on someone, albeit unwittingly and with the best of intentions. Sometimes, as the phrase goes, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. We keep hearing that money will be safe for the NHS, but there is a danger that the NHS could end up with larger bills because people who think they know what they are doing are actually making things worse. That may not happen, but there is a danger that it could.