Schools that work for Everyone

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I will say two things in response. First, we have seen significant improvements in children’s attainment in maths and English over recent years, and we are introducing a more stretching curriculum for GCSEs. Set against that, some of the schools that are delivering best for children in achieving attainment in STEM subjects are themselves grammars, so it makes sense to look at how we can give parents in other parts of the country more choice to send their child to a local grammar.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I welcome both the process and the breadth of the debate launched by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State. We have four historic grammar schools in Gloucester, and for some time I have very much wanted to increase significantly the numbers of free-school-meal pupils who attend them, as well as the numbers of pupils who live closest to them. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that those issues and, indeed, options for how best to achieve them will form part of her Department’s subsequent White Paper?

[Justine Greening]

I will be keen to see my hon. Friend’s response to the Green Paper and the consultation document. It very much sets out these issues, and we will take account of the responses that we get. As he knows, many of the children at his local grammars are from outside his local area. That suggests that there is broader demand from parents, and we should respond to that.

Schools White Paper

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

Opposition Members need to refresh their maths, because that calculation is completely wrong.

Our White Paper outlines exactly how we are going to ensure excellence everywhere. It makes it clear that while we have the most qualified teaching workforce in our country’s history, we can do more to ensure that every teacher has the support to do the job as well as they can.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend think it is extraordinary that, despite the volume of noise from the Opposition Benches, not one Labour Member has had the courage to stand up and say there is something fundamentally and totally inaccurate in the Opposition motion? It claims that the Secretary of State and our Government are trying to ban the role of parents on school governing bodies. Every single secondary school in my constituency is an academy and they all have parents on governing bodies.

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who I think must have been reading a different White Paper from the one that I have read.

I start by tackling a comment from the shadow Secretary of State. In moving the motion, she made some totally unexceptional remarks, many of which I agreed with, but said that the White Paper was not about school improvement or autonomy but about a forced ideology that was not necessary. Let me tell her and others about my ideology on this issue. She and other Opposition Front Benchers occasionally use the word “ideological” in a negative and derogatory way. I will quote from the Google result:

“An ideology is a body of ideas, and those who agree with the main idea of something take an ideological stand to support it.”

My ideology on education is very simple: everyone should have access to good education. One aspect of our job as MPs is to help to find ways that give the strongest likelihood of our schools’ providing that. I am happy to take a stand to support that. I suspect that the shadow Education Secretary is, and I hope that every Member across the House is. That is what the White Paper aims at.

My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary has spelled it out very clearly that, through the White Paper, she is trying to achieve a discussion on how to resolve the problem that, as she says, there are

“too many pockets of educational underperformance—areas where too many young people miss out on the chance to benefit from the best possible education. This is deeply unfair.”

That starting point should be shared by all of us. This is a White Paper, not legislation—a point that many of our constituents do not seem to have grasped in their emails about the issue. We should be looking at what ideas are proposed in the White Paper.

Several points of interest have not yet been mentioned, including an independent college of training, which must be a good idea. We would all like to know more details about changes to qualified teacher status, but it is an interesting idea. The White Paper mentions a fairer national funding formula—surely we are all in favour of that, although it has not yet been mentioned by any Opposition Member so far today.

The debate has focused on two aspects: changes to a skill-based requirement on the selection of governors; and the conversion of schools into academies. Let me discuss that briefly—I will have to be very brief because you reduced the time limit by two minutes, Mr Speaker, just before I got up to speak. I have time to say only that anyone who listens to this debate must understand that parents can, should and will have a key role on the governing boards of academies, and the business of whether all schools should be converted to academies can wait for a fuller debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

Failure—[Interruption.] As usual, my hon. Friends have anticipated my answer: there, on the Labour Benches, is the picture of failure. We have had to write off £50 million from the failed Labour scheme to deliver broadband in South Yorkshire. If a Labour Government had been elected, they would be two years behind us in the roll-out of superfast broadband; they had a target of 2017 to get to 90%—we have already reached it.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

5. What estimate he has made of the UK’s balance of trade in services.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)]

The balance of trade in services has increased from a surplus of £54.3 billion in 2010 to a surplus of £88.7 billion in 2015.

[Richard Graham]

The Secretary of State’s answer highlights the fact that, while exports in goods are vital, especially to manufacturing cities such as Gloucester, our surplus in services might be more vulnerable if we leave Europe. What assessment has he made of sectors such as insurance and investment managers, whose businesses are passported across Europe, and other service sectors, such as advertisers, accountants, animators, designers and film producers?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend speaks with experience: he is a distinguished former pension fund manager—a very important service that the UK industry provides. He is right that the EU’s financial services passport means that financial services firms authorised in the UK can provide their services across the EU, without the need for further authorisations. That is, of course, a significant benefit that they receive. Services represent almost 80% of our economy, and access to the world’s largest single market helps them to create thousands of British jobs.

Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I am saying what we will do. We support this part of the Bill, because it makes a minor extension that just restores the intention of the original Act.

There are many modest measures in the Bill with which we agree; indeed, the Government resisted many of them during the passage of the Deregulation Act 2015, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 in the previous Parliament, and we welcome the fact that the Government appear to have come round and accepted them now.

However, there are a number of measures in the Bill with which we are not in agreement.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

rose—

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Ms Eagle]

Let me just get on with this section, and then I will be happy to give way.

The Opposition will be working hard to secure assurances on amendments on some of the issues I have mentioned as the Bill goes through the Commons. I commend the hard work of Labour colleagues in the Lords, who successfully won some welcome concessions and clarifications as the Bill went through the other place.

[Richard Graham]

There are two ways of looking at the apprenticeship levy. One is that it is a threat to the public sector, but the other is that it is an opportunity for the public sector to hire more apprentices. Does the hon. Lady not see that as a real opportunity in the Bill?

[Ms Eagle]

The Opposition are in favour of the apprenticeship levy in principle, but we are taking a very close look at how it will be introduced in practice, and we have an idea that the devil will be in the detail. We will therefore be keeping a close eye on how the levy is introduced and particularly on how it impacts on companies that are charged far more in the apprenticeship levy on their payroll tax than they can actually have in terms of apprentices. What then happens to that money? Can it be driven into the sector’s supply chain, for example? There are issues about how this will impact on public sector spending, and we need to keep an eye on those. As the Opposition, even though we agree in principle with an apprenticeship levy, it is our role to hold this Government—the hon. Gentleman’s Government —to account on the detail as it becomes clear.

School Funding

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker, in a debate that is, at least on the Conservative side of the House, a complete sell-out. As has been noted, there have been several debates on this issue over the years. I have held one, but I do congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), not least because the timing of his debate today, in the run-up to the autumn statement, is particularly apposite. His hard work is much appreciated by us all.

It is also worth noting that there are no fewer than four Gloucestershire MPs here today. That shows both our keen interest in the issue and an interesting characteristic of the debate, which is the pride in being towards the bottom of the league table. That is the reverse of the normal situation when it comes to supporting a football or rugby club. Much has been said already, and I do not intend to try to compete with my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) on being at the bottom of the league, but I do want to highlight the challenges that my hon. Friend the Minister faces and to ask him about particular areas where he might be able to help us today.

The situation in Gloucestershire is not unlike that in other places. The average spend per pupil, at £4,365, is considerably less than the national average, but it is worth pointing out that that gap has narrowed as a result of the changes made this year. They narrow the gap in terms of underfunding against the national average from 7.7% to 5.5%. More telling is the difference between one school in my constituency, the newly formed Gloucester academy, and a school in Tower Hamlets. Both those schools have very similar, mixed, multicultural pupils. In the case of Gloucester academy, they speak as many as 25 different languages, but the Gloucester academy pupil, on average, receives £5,443, whereas a pupil in the school in Tower Hamlets receives £8,256. The difference amounts to £2.1 million a year, and given that 80% of schools’ costs are in teaching, teachers and people, that puts significant pressure on the most important element of any school’s success—the teaching staff.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that all children in this country, wherever they live, deserve the best education that we can give them? It is just not fair that children in Redditch, 5 miles away from Birmingham, receive £1,000 less each per year.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but there is another aspect to this, which we must be aware of. I understand that the new Bishop of Gloucester, Bishop Rachel Treweek, the first female diocesan bishop in the land, will intervene in the House of Lords to help the F40 campaign, but she will be aware that fair funding for children across her diocese in the county of Gloucestershire will mean redistribution, which will probably arouse claims of unfairness in her previous patch in Tower Hamlets. This is a balancing act in terms of what is fair for all of us, and the Minister will have to juggle with that.

In the statement on 16 July, the Minister committed himself to making schools and early education fairer and said that he would put forward proposals in due course. I know that he will do so and that he will see the manifesto commitment simply to “make schools funding fairer” come true, but today I should like him to focus on the when, the what and the how. The when, in a sense, is the easiest bit, because the autumn statement is coming and we also have the commitment from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in her letter to the Chairman of the Education Committee, my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), which may inhibit a little what the Minister can say today.

The what will be all about the rebalancing—the winners and losers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) pointed out, one person’s fairness may be another person’s slight unfairness, but there is an absolute as well as a relative aim to go for. In addition to the what question, we have to look at the how, which is the process. It is easy for us to highlight the anomalies, but the Minister and his Department must find a solution, a process and a timeline.

The Library briefing paper contains a telling chart—exhibit A, which I am holding up, Mr Walker. In this flow diagram, there are simply too many elements. There is the guaranteed unit of funding, which was based on planned local authority spend some years ago, with three variables plus

“some subsequent additional funding for ministerial priorities.”

Then there is the dedicated schools grant, which was based on assessed levels of need plus locked-in historical decisions on spending, which I suggest led to the gap widening during the five years of the previous, coalition Government. Then there are four other grants, plus the local funding formula, in which there are 14 allowable factors, and local authorities can choose which values are actually used for each factor. That is too complicated, and I hope that the Minister today will confirm that whatever new process is introduced, it will be simpler, easier to understand and much fairer for everyone.

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend rightly touches on the point about the process. What I can say at the outset is that whatever the outcome of the spending review, there will be very careful consultation with everyone concerned, which means, I suspect, that this will not be our only debate here on fairer funding in terms of how we get to a resolution.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the Minister for his clarification, which will help all hon. Members on both sides of the House. We all want to see simplicity in the process, a system that everyone can at least understand, funding that is fundamentally fairer and timing that will fulfil the manifesto commitment. The more light that the Minister can shed today, within the constraints of the upcoming autumn statement and the Secretary of State’s commitment to an early new year proposal, the more that will help us all to go back to our constituencies and our counties and say, “The Government are on the case. We hear what you are saying and we want to fix it as soon as possible.”

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Gentleman has been a champion for his constituency, and not just a champion but an initiator and a creator of very good ideas and programmes. We are very keen to work with him to support disadvantaged learners in the outer Nottingham estates in the way he has outlined. We are currently looking at how we will fund that, but he has my commitment that we will be working with him to achieve his goals.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the business potential of marine energy for UK suppliers.

[The Minister for Business and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

We are strong supporters of marine energy and I can confirm to the House we have today granted funding to support Wave Hub, the world’s largest wave technology incubator in Cornwall.

[Richard Graham]

I understand that Tidal Lagoon Power, which is headquartered in Gloucester, will be sourcing at least half its £1 billion project in Swansea bay from UK suppliers. Will my right hon. Friend encourage UK Trade & Investment to work with me and the Gloucestershire local enterprise partnership to host a tidal energy supply chain seminar at our new growth hub at the university of Gloucester—and by the way this afternoon all Members will want to join me in congratulating it on announcing a new business school?

[Matthew Hancock]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating the university on announcing a new business school. His question also demonstrates that tidal power reaches all parts of the country, and the fact that Gloucestershire can benefit from the £1 billion investment we are working on in the Swansea bay tidal lagoon announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Budget demonstrates the value of supply chains and energy investments throughout the country.

School Funding Formula

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The emergence of multi-academy trusts provides another argument for fairness in the funding system.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Walker]

I am afraid not, I am sorry.

The F40 finance group recently met Department for Education officials and discussed these proposals. The initial feedback was very positive. It was clear that under F40 proposals there would be more gainers and fewer losers than under the current formula.

The only challenge now appears to be the political will to deliver. We are beginning to hear from all the parties what they will be offering in their manifestos. We hear that the Conservative party would protect the cash settlement for schools in per-pupil terms. The coalition is already targeting money per pupil numbers. The Labour party seeks to protect the overall schools budget and the Liberal Democrats to protect the whole of the two-to-18 education budget. The problem with any protection for budgets as a whole is that it might produce a reduction in per-pupil funding, as pupil numbers are set to grow rapidly. It has been argued that Labour’s promise of an inflationary increase in this era of low inflation could deliver lower per-pupil funding than the Conservative proposal of flat cash per pupil.

Whatever the outcome of the election, it is clear that there will be ongoing fiscal pressure on all our schools. It is perhaps understandable in that situation that Ministers are keen to avoid turbulence, but avoiding turbulence has been the main reason for not going further and faster on school funding reform in the lifetime of this Parliament. It can no longer stand. We need to make it clear that to translate any freeze in per-pupil spending overall into a freeze in the unfair formula that currently allocates it would be totally unacceptable.

We can see all too directly the pressures on schools in all of our constituencies. We know that those pressures have built up not just in a few short years of tighter budgets, but over decades of comparative underfunding. It is simply not possible in these circumstances to justify the £900 per-pupil gap between Worcestershire schools and those in neighbouring Birmingham; the £700 gap that used to exist between Leicestershire and Leicester; or the £550 gap between Devon and Bristol—still less the mind-bogglingly vast gap between the best funded and worst funded authorities. In rich London boroughs such as Kensington and Chelsea, the per-pupil funding is £5,866 and it is £6,221 in Islington, while in poorer northern towns such as Barnsley it is more than £1,700 less.

I say to Ministers and shadow Ministers that F40 has made detailed proposals for change and I hope that they can accept them. They should deliver us a fair formula and help us to close the gap between schools that have missed out for far too long and those in the best funded areas. Overall, the allocation we have put forward would be more even, fairer and would target deprivation more effectively. The pressure on the education budget makes the timetable for delivering this new formula more urgent than ever. F40 members recognise that minimum funding guarantees may be needed to smooth out the introduction of a new formula, but we are not prepared to wait for ever while they are applied. We therefore call for the move to be conducted in a maximum of three years.

We have come a long way. The argument for fairer funding has been accepted on all sides. We must now be clear that its non-delivery—whether it be for political or administrative reasons—would be totally unacceptable. To entrench the progress made, I urge the Minister to ensure that the £390 million already secured for the lowest funded areas should be baselined in the education budget for 2016-17 so that the move to a new formula will start with that downpayment taken into account. I challenge all parties to address that challenge and to deliver the fair and transparent formula that our constituents deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

Any progress should certainly be built on by a future Government. North Lincolnshire, the area that I represent, is historically underfunded. We stand to benefit and to be a potential winner, but the change must be smoothed for those who are less advantaged, and I think that the F40 principles will help in that regard. Core entitlement at pupil level is the main building block that will give schools access to similar resources for basic classroom costs, wherever those schools may be, but pupil needs beyond the core entitlement will also be recognised. Factors such as deprivation, special educational needs and the existence of small schools in small communities should be taken into account. That is the second building block. As for the third, the existing dedicated schools grant structure should continue to be part of the framework. I think that those three principles will be helpful to any future Government.

When we talk about school budgets, we should recognise that funding for those over 16 has been particularly badly affected in recent years.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is hardest for schools with sixth forms, and those that do not have a very large percentage of disadvantaged pupils who receive the pupil premium. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is essential to get the core funding right for the F40 group, so that those schools can balance their books in the next few years?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), whom I congratulate on raising this matter, referred to the observation of the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) that this subject resembles the Schleswig-Holstein question. As I recall, Palmerston said that of the three people who knew the answer to that, one was dead, one had gone mad and the other one had forgotten the answer. Perhaps that is why it has been so difficult for the Government to do what they pledged to do at the beginning of this Parliament: to introduce—[Interruption.] I am struggling to make myself heard because the Parliamentary Private Secretary is saying that it is ridiculous to suggest that it was difficult for the Government to introduce what they pledged to introduce at the beginning of this Parliament—that is, a national funding formula. It has been extremely difficult.

That is why the Schools Minister last year, rather than do what was promised in the coalition agreement and introduce that new national funding formula in the course of this Parliament, decided, understandably, to throw some money at it. I am not criticising him for finding it difficult to tackle this Schleswig-Holstein-style question with which he has been wrestling for some of the past five years.

[Richard Graham]

rose—

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham]

That is very kind of the shadow Minister. The reason why I used the Schleswig-Holstein analogy was that if one looks at the funding for Gloucestershire at £4,195 per head and compares the schools that we have, which are multicultural, urban, inner-city schools, with those of Birmingham, which get £5,210—over £1,000 more per pupil—it brooketh no understanding. Does the shadow Minister agree?

[Kevin Brennan]

I know the hon. Gentleman is not the one who is dead, I know he is not the one who is mad, and I do not think he has forgotten the answer because he has tried to provide us with it, but as I said last year when we debated the subject in Westminster Hall, I accept that there are undoubtedly wide disparities in funding among different areas. Some of those disparities—[Interruption.] Again, I am being barracked by the PPS. If he wants to intervene, I will be happy to give way. If not, I give way to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath).

Apprenticeships

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I will explain the numbers shortly. The number of young people on apprenticeships in my constituency has fallen by 18%, and in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency the number of apprenticeships overall has fallen by 18%.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

rose—

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

I was going to give way to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), before giving way to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne).

[Richard Graham]

I seek the hon. Gentleman’s thoughts on three quick points—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Sit down please, Mr Graham. This is not the opportunity to make three quick points—it is an intervention. [Interruption.] No, I am going to be really strict on this. You wish to speak in this debate as well, and I am doing my best to protect time for Back Benchers. The convention of an intervention is: one point relevant to the point being made. So not three points, but one, thank you.

[Richard Graham]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. My one point is simply to ask the shadow Business Secretary whether he has considered what the impact of 2 million apprentices is on the wages of the lower earners, and whether it is not natural that a substantial increase in the number of apprenticeships will lead to more people not earning quite as much as they will in the future when they are better trained.

[Mr Umunna]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his one intervention. I will come on to deal with pay and the 2 million figure he gives, but first I will give way to my hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

I hope that is a clarification that level 2 will not be removed from the hon. Gentleman’s definition of an apprenticeship, should he find himself in government. I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister is not right that this is some kind of ploy to reduce the numbers and save money.

[Richard Graham]

My right hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point. It is quite extraordinary that the shadow Secretary of State has not read his own motion, which states very clearly

“so that all apprenticeships are at least level three”.

What is the role for level 2? My right hon. Friend is right to question that.

[Vince Cable]

That is a valid clarification.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It falls on me to be tail-end Charlie in this debate on which so much consensus could and should have been reached, as the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) pointed out. We all, across the House, share enthusiasm for apprenticeships: their improvement, their widening and their breadth. Unfortunately, today that opportunity was lost in what was, frankly, a disgraceful speech by the shadow Business Secretary. His dire, tribal attempt to rubbish this Government’s—and, above all, the country’s —remarkable achievements in growing apprenticeships and shrinking youth unemployment led to a string of inaccurate and, frankly, almost offensive claims. Let me try to deal, very briefly, with some of them.

The shadow Business Secretary said that the numbers of young apprenticeships were down. The Secretary of State pointed out that they are slightly down for 19 to 24-year-olds in 2013-14. In Gloucester, however, they are still more than 80% higher than the comparable figure when the previous Government were in power, and were more than double that figure in 2012-13. Overall, apprenticeships for 19 to 24-year-olds in Gloucester are at 1,730 in the past three years, compared with 740 in the last three years of the Labour Government. The figures, however one tries to twist them, are remarkable.

The shadow Business Secretary said that many of the apprenticeships were not worth the paper they are written on. How insulting to the 5,000 new apprentices in Gloucester. He said, and it is in the motion, that level 2 apprenticeships are not worth anything at all. Let me tell the House that that is completely wrong. The evidence shows that many apprentices do a level 2 apprenticeship—for example, in business administration—for a year and then go on to do a level 3 apprenticeship in the second year. I know this to be true as the second MP to hire his own apprentice. The shadow Secretary of State admitted that he himself does not have an apprentice and I do not believe that any others on the Opposition Front Bench do. I am happy to take an intervention. [Interruption.] The shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) is saying that he does have one, which is encouraging, but it is disappointing that the shadow Business Secretary does not and does not have that first-hand experience.

[Jake Berry]

Very briefly, because I know we are pushed for time. On the point of MPs having apprentices—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has already made many interventions. I am sorry, but we are at the end of this debate.

[Richard Graham]

I think my hon. Friend was going to make the point that it is important that we lead by example and employ our own apprentices wherever possible.

The shadow Business Secretary went on to talk, with an element of derision, about the number of apprentices over 60 who have started since this Government came into power. I hope that my older constituents, Age UK and others will have noted that point carefully. In fact, he offended almost everybody I can imagine, including all the businesses, training colleges, councils and the NHS in Gloucester that have taken on apprenticeships in the past five years and have done so much to give the opportunities to young people that all of us across this House surely agree is incredibly important. In a sense, his final words rather summed up his speech. He finished by saying that he will be voting Labour. Well, I am delighted for the Leader of the Opposition that he has the vote of his shadow Business Secretary, but if that is the summary of his party’s strategy, it is pretty disappointing. We heard nothing about the opportunities to widen apprenticeships into more sectors, including nursing; the opportunities from the pilot scheme the Government have run to let employers take control of their training funds; and the ways in which the guilds can offer apprenticeships. There were many things that could and should have been covered today, and it is a great disappointment that they were not. I will certainly not be voting for this motion, but I do agree wholeheartedly with all the Members of this House who support apprenticeships and want to see more of them.

Grammar School Funding

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. Unfortunately, public grammar schools are all too often dismissed in public debate as a mode of education supported by an out-of-touch elite interested only in the education of a privileged few. Indeed, last August, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) accused the Secretary of State for Education of pursuing education policies based on “1950s Grammar School nostalgia”. I disagree. Such comments, which seek to make grammar schools a tool of ideological division, do not serve well those pupils who attend our grammar schools up and down the country and get so much out of them. It is not nostalgic to want our children to benefit from a rigorous education that inspires them to aim high, achieve excellent results and lay the foundations for success. I want those principles embedded in all schools, and we should embrace that approach to education generally. That has been at the heart of the Government’s policies, and it needs to remain so.

Some people may wish to talk about increasing the number of grammar school places, but we are here to discuss the challenges facing the 164 grammar schools in our country today. As a number of colleagues have said, there is a real concern that we are putting our grammar schools at risk—not, perhaps, because of a wilful desire to eliminate them, but as an unintentional consequence of some of the funding reforms that have taken place.

I have two outstanding grammar schools in my constituency: South Wilts and Bishop Wordsworth’s. They have faced similar, increasingly challenging financial settlements, primarily because of the decision to ring-fence the education budget for five to 16-year-olds, while the 16-to-18 budget has no such protection. That has had a significant impact, particularly on Bishop Wordsworth’s, which faces a deficit of more than £300,000 in its sixth-form budget this year. In the past three years, it has seen a 7% reduction in its per sixth-form pupil funding. Next year, it faces a budget deficit of more than £150,000.

I am not here to advocate special treatment for grammar schools, because this issue affects all 16-to-18 providers. However, there is a case for arguing that the problem needs to be re-examined and that we need to look at the principle of ring-fencing. It is illogical that a school can run healthy surpluses in its 11-to-16 budget, but that they are immediately absorbed by a growing deficit in its sixth form.

If we are honestly to discuss the financial difficulties facing grammar schools, in particular, we need to acknowledge the wider social mobility issues. Grammar schools must remain focused on doing more in that respect. It is true that, although 16% of pupils are eligible for free school meals in an average school, the figure is considerably lower in a large proportion of grammar schools. However, that is because the pool is smaller in the first place, and those figures do not tell the whole story because they are so small.

Importantly, we need grammar school heads to focus on extending the benefits of a grammar school education to as many as possible in the community, as Stuart Smallwood is doing at Bishop Wordsworth’s. I welcome the steps Salisbury grammars have taken to reach out to local primaries by running 11-plus coaching sessions in schools that have traditionally sent fewer pupils to grammars at 11. However, I ask the Minister how that can be sustained when budgets are in the position I have outlined. If we are to advocate more funding, we must unambiguously acknowledge the value of grammar schools—the transformational impact they have on children’s life chances and ability fully to achieve their aspirations.

I am a governor, not of one of the grammar schools, but of Wyvern college, which is very much on the up under a new headmaster. I can attest to the thoughtful partnerships that exist between grammar schools and schools such as Wyvern. Grammar schools act as beacons of excellence, and they raise standards across the board by working constructively with other local schools.

In welcoming today’s debate, I want to highlight the particular challenge facing grammars whose sixth forms are in dire need of cash injections. Many children in my constituency and nearby commute to Salisbury to attend sixth form, because many schools in the area do not have sixth-form provision. That demonstrates how grammars are perceived as the means of completing a high-quality education in south Wiltshire, providing opportunities not afforded to those educated from 11 to 16 at other schools nearby.

When I visited the Minister for Schools, all he really wanted to focus on was the percentage of pupils on free school meals. His logic was, essentially, that unless schools raise that percentage, they will encounter difficulties. It is quite obvious that they cannot sort out the problem overnight, and the Minister’s argument is an empty one when it comes to dealing with the realities schools have been faced with overnight.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

On funding and particularly the pupil premium for some of our poorer children, does my hon. Friend agree that there are occasions when the excellent grammar schools in cities such as his and mine lose some contact with the community by taking a majority of pupils from some of the richer rural areas further away? Does he agree that, if the DFE gave grammar schools a bit more flexibility on entrance qualifications so that people who have great potential but who are not necessarily well coached beforehand could come in, that might increase the number of pupils getting the pupil premium?

[John Glen]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his characteristically constructive and thoughtful intervention. There is a debate about how the 11-plus exam works and how it could be improved so that it brings in more people. Grammar schools in Salisbury are looking carefully at that issue. However, I repeat that that reform—that enhancement of the journey of moving to grammar school—will not happen overnight. There are some issues to do with the flexibilities, such as discretion over the catchment area, and so on; but let us not be ashamed of the fact that grammar schools are about academic excellence. There is an exam for entry to the school at 11, and we should not be ashamed of the academic criteria.

I urge the Minister to acknowledge the vital role that grammar schools play in social mobility and to allow them to do more of what they do. Let us celebrate the excellent outcomes that they achieve, and not be inhibited about talking about excellent grammar schools. We would do well to have a model of and approach to education that celebrates their achievements and acknowledges the desire that we all have for excellence in all secondary schools, whatever form they take and wherever they are. I believe that that is the motivation of all of us who are here for this morning’s debate.

Paediatric First Aid

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mark Hunter)—not just for securing the debate, but for his calm and measured argument.

This debate marks yet another milestone in democracy. A while back, the tragic death of a nine-month-old child would not have led to a giant petition, signed by over 100,000 people, being considered by Parliament, with the chance perhaps to change the law. Although that would not have happened but for changes in parliamentary procedure, it is above all the result of the remarkable reaction and leadership shown by Millie’s parents, the Thompsons. Joanne is motivated by the purest motive that any of us parents could hope for—to make something positive out of profound tragedy, and light a candle in the darkness.

Although many of us can think of other recent examples of constituents campaigning successfully on issues dear to their hearts, today’s starting point must be to recognise both the very sad circumstances of Millie’s death and the positive reaction of Joanne and her husband afterwards in founding their charity. The heart of today’s debate is whether it should be mandatory in law for everyone working at nurseries to be given paediatric first aid training, or whether the law should stay where it was when the Childcare Act 2006 was brought in, under which it is mandatory that someone on the premises is trained, but not everyone.

My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) made a case for first aid training for every individual in the United Kingdom. He has a point: it is right that we should all go on a course. It is one of the best things I have ever done—I did so fairly recently, and no doubt far too late in life. However, that does not necessarily mean that to do so should be mandatory, thereby having rules, regulations and punishments attached to it—that people should be fined or there should be some other punishment for not going on a first aid course. I am not sure that today is the moment for a discussion of whether we should legislate that everybody should go on a course.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I should point out to my hon. Friend that I was not saying that there should be first aid training for every person, but that it should be part of the school curriculum. Clearly, over three generations everybody in the country would then be a trained first aider; others could—this is the example he has set himself—go voluntarily for training. However, if parents are entrusting their children to a nursery, it should be mandatory for the staff to have specific training for the needs of the role that they may be called upon to perform.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is right to differentiate between the two. The point I was going to make was that the fact that I went on a first aid course about two years ago does not necessarily make me that competent to attend to someone in a life-or-death situation today, let alone at some point in the future. Although it is a great idea that everybody at school should learn first aid, again, that will not necessarily make them competent to act in a life-or-death situation. As other hon. Members pointed out, the stress of that situation, the possibility of panic and the absence of recent and up-to-date experience of handling dummies and so on, will be crucial.

That brings me to the key points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle. He rightly touched on the fact that the number of children in child care is rising and on the need for care for the most vulnerable—this point will be especially relevant to the Minister, whose son cannot be much older than Millie was at the time of her death in 2012. The case that has been made today for mandatory paediatric first aid training for everybody working in child care is therefore a powerful one. The coroner concluded that, first, the ambulance service should carry paediatric equipment for such a situation and, secondly, that there should be a national review.

Joanne and her campaign for Millie’s Trust have already achieved the first objective, which other ambulance services around the country may want to consider. I shall certainly write to my own ambulance service in Gloucester. The second objective is open for the Minister’s response, and I hope he will bear in mind the already remarkable achievement of the trust in having trained several thousand teachers for free. This is a fantastic objective, and the number of teachers who have already been trained is fantastic.

I do not know the precise cost of ensuring that every person in every nursery is trained, and I hope that it would not increase the cost of the child care provided to so many of our constituents around the country. I hope that it will be absorbed by the nursery as a necessary part of providing that trust in child care that all of us who are parents would expect.

Today’s debate is an important step in recognising what an individual has done on behalf of her own child and her own family situation, but it has much wider applicability across the land to all of us who are parents and to everyone who puts their children, with trust, into a nursery school. My hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle made a strong case that is the stronger for having been measured and reasonable. I hope that the Minister—a reasonable man and a young father to boot—will be able to give us some reassurance about the national review as quickly as possible. I suspect that all of us here today hope that that review will lead to mandatory provision of paediatric first aid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

That is a good question. There is an Ofsted inspection cycle for every nursery, but there is also a cycle for the first aid certificate. If someone has a certificate, it will expire after three years, and they will then have to go back and do a two-day course to have it refreshed. I am counselling against believing that the acquisition of a certificate alone will prevent such awful tragedies from happening again. What will prevent them from happening again is nurseries knowing what best practice is and implementing it, rather than just saying, “Our staff have the certificate, so we are covered.” That is what I want to avoid.

[Richard Graham]

In a sense, there are two slightly different issues. I think the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) was close to implying that, had everyone received paediatric training in the nursery where Millie, very sadly, died, these events would not have happened, but I am not sure that any of us here today is in a position to make that judgment. However, on the wider point, many of us feel that future tragedies would be much less likely if everybody did receive paediatric training, so will the Minister respond to the call for a review, which the coroner, in effect, made?

[Mr Gyimah]

I can commit to a review next year of how the requirements have been strengthened and how they are bedding down in the nursery sector. I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. None of us can say what would happen if there was another situation on the ground, but we do have the coroner’s response, and I can commit to a review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

It is a powerful point. To restate my argument, not everyone with a certificate is necessarily the right person to deal with an emergency. We can argue that the likelihood of not having the right person on hand is reduced if everyone has that certificate, but we want to have a situation where nurseries follow recognised best practice, rather than to mandate it just so that everyone can say, “I have the certificate, and that is it.” We obviously value what St John Ambulance does, which is why the EYFS requires nurseries to use its training or British Red Cross training.

[Richard Graham]

The Minister has helpfully confirmed that the national review will go ahead, as the coroner wanted. To avoid any doubt, will he confirm that it will include consideration of moves to make it mandatory for everybody working in nurseries to receive paediatric training?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is fast bringing me to the end of my speech—I was going to address that right at the end. Yes, when we have a national review, we will look at making this mandatory.