Education Act 1996 (Travelling Families)

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The subject of this debate may be obscure, but what is at stake is at the heart of this Government’s mission to build community cohesion, to inspire educational achievement and to encourage strong families. My goal this evening is for the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), who has been generous with her time in her Department and today in this Chamber, to ensure that the consequences of any proposed changes to legislation do not unintentionally damage the fabric of life of some 24,000 people; and that the Government’s drive to improve exam results is not at the cost of close-knit, resilient and independent families in communities where divorce and antisocial behaviour are conspicuously rare.

Let me explain my case in more detail. The origins of section 444(6) of the Education Act 1996 can be traced to section 39(3) of the Education Act 1944—the Butler Act—that remarkable creation of the second world war. Any proposed change to that section would therefore be a change to the Butler Act provision which has endured for 79 years. The reason for such a change may come from the consultation that the Government launched last November—“Improving educational outcomes for children of travelling families”—on whether to repeal the current legislation that protects travelling parents from being found guilty of school attendance offences in certain circumstances.

Those circumstances are where parents are

“engaged in a trade or business of such a nature as to require”—

them—

“to travel from place to place”

and where

“the child has attended…as a registered pupil as regularly as the nature of that trade or business permits”.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

On this review, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the fundamental issues is that the report produced by the Government does not make a proper distinction between Gypsies, other Travellers and showpeople? The issues that showpeople have, which I am sure he is coming on to deal with, are fundamentally different on this matter.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He has highlighted precisely the point I was coming on to, which is that the consultation document makes specific reference only to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children—indeed, they are defined more precisely as children of Irish Traveller heritage, and the acronym is GRT. The consultation noted that they were among the lowest achieving groups at every key stage of education.

My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point by noticing that the showpeople—the travelling showmen—are a specific group that would be inadvertently affected by the repeal of the legislation, which, we believe, does not apply to them.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this is a classic case of there being an exception to every rule? Is his argument that such an exception should apply in the instant case?

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One size does not always fit all, as he and I know from the different size of suits that we are wearing. Exactly the same is true for the showman community in the case of this section of the Education Act.

The specifics of the showmen are worth noting. They are not an ethnic group as the Romany Gypsies or, arguably, the Irish Travellers are, but a cultural one, united by the fairground industry. They are a community that put on in excess of 200 fairs weekly, many held in winter, too, both here and abroad. They can trace their ancestry back to charters and privileges granted as early as a fair held near the constituency of my hon. Friend the Minister in King’s Lynn in 1204. Adjacent to her constituency, the Norfolk fair, held every February since Tudor times, marks the opening of the travelling season. The community will mostly spend the next eight months on the road.

The showmen have one winter base and the whole family is typically on the road for the rest of the year. It is a travelling, traditional family business where the role of women is just as important as that of men. David Wallis, the president of the Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain, said earlier this year:

“Women…are the backbone of the industry, working in every area from accounting to driving, as well as fulfilling traditional roles as housekeepers and mothers.”

His point was that splitting the family unit up would be unthinkable. Educating the children on the road means that studies can be fitted around the demands of the businesses and wives can continue to work alongside their husbands.

The showmen are largely represented by the Showmen’s Guild of Great Britain, a trade body that has been in existence since 1889 and that is responsible for some 98% of the travelling showmen of Great Britain, representing about 22,000 individuals. There are also three other trade associations, the Amusement Catering Equipment Society, which represents 120 families, the Association of Independent Showmen, which represents 500 families, and the Society of Independent Roundabout Proprietors, which represents 140 families. They would all be equally affected by any change to section 444(6).

The Minister and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, would be disappointed if I failed to mention the Gloucester connection to the case I am making this evening. Showmen have been based on and around Alney island by the ancient Westgate crossing of the River Severn, an entrance to our city, for more than 100 years. For example, they participated in a great fair held for Edward VII on Alney island in conditions of a downpour almost as heavy as the one that heralded the great flood of 2007. They contribute to the diversity and unique heritage of a great British city and a constituency that has been represented in this House for more than 700 years. They contribute greatly to their nearest school, Kingsholm primary school, whose deputy head has written to me as follows:

“Over the years we have schooled many of the children from”

Alney island

“and other sites that house different traveller groups in the Gloucester area…we ask…that our families communicate with us about their travel plans so that we can prepare work packs for the children to take with them. We also ask that our families keep in touch during their travels…so we can facilitate a smooth integration back into school…Kingsholm C of E Primary School is enriched by the varied ethnicity and cultures of our families. Each and everyone is valued and celebrated…A significant majority of our”

showmen

“families hold their children’s education in high regard; both their academic and cultural education. In the main the children’s attendance when they are in Gloucester is exemplary and therefore we can maximise the impact of interventions in order to address any gaps the children may have due to their travelling.”

The Minister will be particularly interested to hear that last week, for the first time in its history, Kingsholm primary school was awarded “outstanding” status by Ofsted. This is significant because it is compelling evidence that the travelling showpeople are no hindrance to—indeed, contribute to—outstanding educational achievement.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

In addition to the excellent work that schools do with children of showground people, does my hon. Friend agree that with modern technology and the will of the showground people to get their children to learn and to achieve, there is a way in which, when they are away from their base school, showground people can make sure that their children are well educated?

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is right. He understands his own showmen community in Nuneaton so well. What has changed is the way in which remote education can take place successfully. Currently, children with travelling parents are registered with one school in the UK and they keep their place when on the move. The school sets work, which is completed on the road and sent back via a laptop with a mobile internet connection, and the children rejoin the school on their return. This is considered effective and efficient by both the parents and the schools involved. Over recent years there has been a consistent rise in the number of pupils taking GCSEs within the showmen community. These are the children who have benefited most from vast improvements made to distance learning with the help of technology, as my hon. Friend pointed out.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that those children are meeting the high educational standards that children in Gloucester are meeting? Is that what he is trying to achieve for all the families involved?

[Richard Graham]

It is fair to say that the educational achievements of all communities vary from place to place. Showmen are a community spread across the whole of the United Kingdom in 10 different regions. I do not have precise statistics for their educational achievements. It is one of the issues that I will mention before finishing my speech, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to, but he is right to raise the question.

Over the past few months I have created an online petition which has attracted almost 4,000 signatures, all opposing a repeal of section 444(6), and innumerable, often moving e-mails from around the country. I hope the Minister will not mind if I quote briefly from a handful of them. This is from James Breeze:

“Being a showman was a massive complement to my formal education. Can you think of a more stimulating environment for a child to live in? How things work? The value of service? The value of money? Social interactions? The list is endless.”

He goes on to talk about his nine GCSEs at A to C level, four A-levels, a 2:1 degree from Durham university and postgraduate diploma from Leeds Metropolitan university. He is now working in a significant role in a multinational company, managing a large team. He comments:

“This reinforces my view that a showman’s life combined with education as it is now gives the best life skills.”

In similar vein, Morgan Robinson comments in an e-mail:

“I come from a travelling showman background and as such have had to spend many weeks away from school in the summer months…I never fell behind, and in some circumstances, I was actually ahead by the time I got back to school!”

He lists his A-levels and GCSEs, and his chemistry degree course at the university of Warwick. He says:

“My hopes for after my degree is to get a job as an intellectual property lawyer”.

There are several such e-mails. I shall finish them with e-mails from two sisters based in Gloucester, Zoe and Olivia Sheldon. Zoe wrote:

“As a young showperson I have relied on this Act”—

section 444(6)—

“all of my school life. From the age of 4 my parents removed me from my base school…to travel with the fair for 6 months of the year.”

She continues:

“I was successful in gaining a place at Ribston Hall Grammar School for girls at the age of 11 and went on to achieve 11 GCSEs A* to C grades. My sister Olivia, also a student at Ribston, is now studying with the open university to achieve an English degree.”

Zoe finishes:

“The education of young showpeople is reliant on this Act and its abolition would result in the needless break-up of showmen families and cause a loss in the traditional showmen culture as it would force showmen children to be brought up outside of the showman way of life.”

Zoe’s older sister Olivia wrote:

“my sister and I are not isolated cases. I have several cousins and friends who completed/are undertaking University Degrees after having a similar educational background to mine. Among the Showman Community we are hearing more and more news of great educational achievements…Travelling Funfares can move vast distances to get to their next event and are sometimes only in a town for a couple of days, making the suggestion of registering at a different school at each location inconceivable and even detrimental to the education of Showpeople…such an education was imposed on some elder relatives of mine who found it ‘confusing’ as different schools were doing different subjects at different times. The end result was a poor education.”

She goes on to comment about the importance of forming long-term friendships at one school—people who know showpeople’s children when they come back from their travelling.

I met one or two of their older relations on Alney island, who described to me what it was like moving from school to school, in one case being forced to sit in the corner with a book while everyone else was learning. I cannot believe that that is what the Minister would wish to see among our children today.

I am conscious that time is moving on and we all wish to hear from the Minister. I also had a moving letter from Charlotte Barltrop, who worked in a circus for 10 years before getting a degree in theatre and professional practice at the university of Coventry. She now runs her own business teaching circus skills. She wrote:

“All my achievements wouldn’t have been possible if…I was not educated as a child and…was not able to travel whilst gaining this early education. The skills I learned as a child, both in and out of the classroom, are what has enabled me to have such an amazing career”.

I believe that the Minister’s response to the consultation will be published before long, but not, I hope, before she and the Minister for Schools, who shares responsibility for the response, consider carefully the case for the following constructive suggestions. First, we should make arrangements to measure the education results of different showmen groups as a separate entity from the GRT community on which the consultation has been based. Secondly, I encourage the Minister for Schools to meet me and others, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), interested in the case of the showmen, and to visit Kingsholm primary school in Gloucester to see how achievement and remote learning can be combined. Thirdly, and above all, we should exempt the travelling showmen and circus communities from any repeal of section 444(6). That would be a pragmatic, practical and appropriate way to ensure that the lives of some 24,000 travelling showpeople are not unintentionally and dramatically damaged by the Minister’s admirable focus on driving up educational results.

I am grateful to the guild, its representatives, the other associations, my own constituents, and many around the country who have committed their time to sending e-mails and messages of support and information.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Richard Graham]

I am sorry, but I have very little time left.

Not least, I am grateful to Lisa Deakin Stevens, the family of Matthew Stevens and many others, supported by the Westgate councillors. They have all contributed to my speech this evening, and I look forward to a sympathetic response from my hon. Friend the Minister, in the knowledge that she cannot pre-empt her response to the consultation, but in the belief that this debate may influence her response, and that she will see that what I have raised is a good cause for a valued community.

Engineering Careers

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nadine Dorries]

I agree with the hon. Lady that design and technology is an important core subject in the overall context of engineering. As I have said, however, one problem is that, on leaving school, pupils lack the basic skills of numeracy and English that would enable them to achieve in design and technology and other subjects or give them the confidence they require to go into an engineering apprenticeship. They lack the basic core skills that would give them the confidence they need to move into that field. Although I recognise that design and technology is an important subject—one of my daughters did it—others take greater precedence because they are absolutely essential, core key subjects that every student needs to move on to whatever they want to do in life.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate and for being so generous in taking interventions. She is absolutely right to highlight the importance of engineering, the shortage of female engineers and the essence of good qualifications early on. Does she agree that getting good sciences and maths is absolutely key? Does she recognise the good work being done by EDF Energy and Horizon in raising awareness of those needs, especially for the nuclear power engineering opportunities of the future with some 20,000 jobs at the three new nuclear power stations? Does she also agree that there are some great female role models? For example, the engineer behind the design of the world’s fastest vehicle, with which Squadron Leader Green broke the world record, was a woman. If we got women role models to go round schools, we would have more female engineers among the new ones coming forward.

[Nadine Dorries]

My hon. Friend makes his points very eloquently, as usual. I fully endorse the point that it would be fantastic if female role models went round schools to promote engineering as a career path for young women. He mentioned bigger companies such as EDF. One problem for Autotech in my constituency is that it does not have the budgets or the reach of so big an organisation as EDF. People in my constituency do not even know that Autotech is there; neither did I until recently. It does not have the advertising and marketing budget to reach out and sell itself to young people, whereas EDF is fortunate enough to be able to do the milk round and offer a global package. I want to focus on the problems faced by small companies that need to grow and are growing, and that are receiving orders that they cannot fulfil because they have not yet reached the dizzy heights of organisations such as EDF, with all the accompanying infrastructure and finance. Autotech is not quite there yet, although it has grown from 200 to 350 employees in a short space of time.

On top of the problems in education, students simply do not see engineering as attractive. They see media studies and many other courses as attractive. In preparation for the debate, I looked at the university courses for which the most people apply through UCAS, and engineering is way down the list.

Industrial Policy and Manufacturing

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to contribute to the debate. I thank the three Members who secured it for bringing the matter to the House’s attention and congratulate them on doing so. I have time to touch on only a few details of this important and broad subject. I wish to start by highlighting the fact that, although manufacturing in this country halved over the 13 years of the previous Government, in my county of Gloucestershire we operate at almost double the country’s current economic output for manufacturing, at 20%, which is close to that of Germany. The important ingredient in that success is that we grow things in the part of the county that is rural, which is most of it, and make things in the part that is urban, which is predominantly the city of Gloucester and other leading towns, including Stroud—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) will follow me shortly.

The key to growing and making things is a belief that they are important productive activities that will generate jobs for our communities and wealth for the nation. Members are right that this debate should not be partisan, but it is unfortunately true to say that almost 6,000 jobs in the business sectors were lost in my constituency over the period of the previous Government, which is tragic. Many were lost in engineering, a sector in which Gloucester has for years led the country, most spectacularly, of course, with the introduction of the world’s first jet engine.

During that period, apprenticeships all but disappeared. There were champions on the other side of the House—the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) believed in apprenticeships, as he still does—but the fact of the matter is that the number of apprenticeships has increased significantly over the past two and a half years. That is typified in my constituency by Gloucestershire Engineering Training, a company that has quadrupled in size through the number of apprentices it trains in its new premises, which were opened earlier this year.

The first words I spoke in this House, before making my maiden speech, were about apprenticeships, and that was because they are absolutely critical to manufacturing industries. I am talking about manufacturing industries beyond purely engineering; this spreads across a wide variety of sectors. I made my maiden speech wearing a shirt that was made on the Cross in the centre of Gloucester, and every Wall’s ice cream Members eat was made in my constituency. Manufacturing is a broad activity. The fact that we have seen some 3,000 new apprentices start in Gloucester and more than 10,000 start in the county since May 2010 is a huge credit to the coalition Government, to my hon. Friend the Minister, who has responsibility for skills, and especially to his predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), who famously championed apprenticeships during his time in that role.

The question today is this: what is the role of Government? We have heard about the many ways the Government can contribute positively, perhaps above all in the commitment to rebalancing the economy away from finance, property and the public sector and towards making and growing things. The export drive that the Prime Minister has led has been rightly congratulated by a number of Members. I am pleased to play a small role as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Indonesia, a market of some 250 million people, and one where our trade figures can surely increase rapidly over the next couple of years, in line with targets agreed between the Prime Minister and the President of Indonesia, who was here only two weeks ago.

There are also important tax policies, of course, and I pay tribute to the Government for reducing corporation tax. Research and development credits are extremely important to manufacturers, too. The visible encouragement given by Government is important psychologically as well, and I pay tribute to the Prime Minister for visiting the country’s largest independent spectacles manufacturer, Norville, whose product I am wearing on my nose today. Other initiatives should also be mentioned, including the advanced manufacturing supply chain. The Queen Elizabeth engineering prize is an interesting example of how we can help champion innovation.

The Government have a significant opportunity to rebalance the economy by bringing UK manufacturing back home. Companies that went overseas for cheap labour or relaxed environmental laws have often found that their new location is not as cheap as they had imagined. I strongly echo the statement of the chairman of John Lewis, who said he saw an opportunity for a resurgence of products that are made in Britain. We want to see more of those products.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

1. What assessment he has made of the level of satisfaction of participants and businesses with the apprenticeship system.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the level of satisfaction of participants and businesses with the apprenticeship system.

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

The Department recently completed the biggest ever survey of apprentices and their employers, which revealed the best ever satisfaction rates. Overall, almost 90% of apprentices were satisfied with their training. Employer satisfaction is also high: 88% are satisfied with the relevance of their training, and 80% remain committed to offering places.

[Richard Graham]

I welcome the evidence from the Holt review that we need to do more to make apprenticeships accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises. I know from my own apprentices’ business and administration non-vocational qualifications that they are not all user-friendly to the smallest businesses, which are the driver of future jobs. Does the Secretary of State agree that employers in, for example, the Federation of Small Businesses should have more say in the content of courses and in the setting of a reassuring series of national standards?

[Vince Cable]

I do agree, but let me preface my remarks by saying what a success story the apprenticeship programme is. Not only has there been a big increase in scale—more than 60% over the last two years—but there is a very high satisfaction rate. Let me also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the former Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes)—who has now moved on to higher things—and to welcome his excellent replacement, who is, indeed, part of an excellent BIS team.

The Holt study, which the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned, does acknowledge that there are barriers to SMEs’ access to the apprenticeship programme. We are trying to address them, most notably by channelling resources through employers rather than trainers: that will increasingly be the emphasis of the programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is being a little churlish in not even acknowledging that on Sunday, the Chancellor made it clear that we wished to proceed with a business bank. We are discussing the range of its activities and the resources that will be available. The hon. Gentleman knows well that growth prospects in all European countries are extremely depressed at the moment, not only in the UK.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

T4. As secretary of the all-party group for post offices, I strongly support the Government’s commitment to ensuring that there are no further post office closures, as well as the ambition to develop post offices to carry out more front-office Government services. I am, however, slightly concerned about the pace of progress in making new services available through post offices, and sub-postmasters in Gloucester are concerned about the possibility of losing the DVLA contract. I appreciate that the Minister has only just arrived in her post, but will she give that issue priority in the future?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments; he is a strong campaigner for post offices which we all recognise lie at the heart of many of our communities. He asked me to comment on a live procurement contract, which I hope he will understand I cannot do. There are, however, some reasons to be cheerful. Over the past year, the Government’s services revenue for Post Office Ltd increased for the first time in 10 years, reversing the trend of decline that we saw under the previous Government.

School Funding

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. There is a very strong representation from the south-west here today, including the Chair, and we welcome that.

School funding is an issue that has bedevilled the country, particularly for those of us who represent underfunded areas. In many ways, the problem of school funding reminds me irresistibly of the late 19th-century question of Schleswig-Holstein, about which Lord Palmerston says:

“Only three people…have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it.”

Although I would not suggest for a moment that the Minister responsible for schools and the Secretary of State for Education are the only two people who really know about school funding, it is fair to say that I certainly got lost early on in the quagmire of the local authority central spend equivalent grant—or LACSEG, which sounds very similar to some medicine that I once took for Barrett’s oesophagus.

None the less, the issue is clear to us all. There are many schools across the country, including all those in my constituency, whose pupils effectively lose out significantly in terms of the amount of money spent on them per year relative to pupils in the large metropolitan areas. In fact, there are some 2.5 million pupils in the F40 areas, which are the poorest-funded local authorities in England. Therefore, on average, £5,000 less per child is spent on children’s education in my county of Gloucestershire and other counties represented here today.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is exacerbated by the rural nature of constituencies in the south-west? Certainly, in Devon, that makes the problem of underfunding even more acute.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point and speaks powerfully for children in rural areas. Of course, there can also be a problem for those in urban areas within a rural county. In my case, one of the reasons why some of us in Gloucester feel so passionately about the issue is that we are a relatively poor city and a relatively rich county. I am sure that other hon. Members have similar situations, and I am happy to take interventions from them on that point.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Graham]

With great pleasure. I see a spokesman for Swindon emerging.

[Mr Buckland]

I cannot resist an invitation like that. Swindon has a similar demographic to that of Gloucester. We are in a relatively rich part of the world and have historically been underfunded. We are doing our best with the resources that we are given, but the option set out by the F40 campaign—an extra £99 million—would be a good interim way to deal with an historic problem that Governments of all parties have wrestled.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point that relates perhaps to a later stage of the argument that I will develop. I agree with him absolutely that although, as the saying goes, size—or, in this case, money—is not everything, it does go a long way towards improving the opportunities for children in our constituencies. As we all know, above all else, the Government are concerned with aspiration and providing equal opportunities for children across the country.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Would it not be a travesty if areas of social deprivation lose out on the school funding formula when the Government’s ethos is to encourage young people into education and perhaps to go on from that to vocational studies?

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman is implying that my argument is to beggar my neighbour, to give pupils in Gloucester a better chance. He is right in saying that a charge to the lowest common denominator to achieve equality is not necessarily what we are looking for, and that is not what I intend to propose. However, perhaps we will come on to the specifics of that in a moment.

Broadly, we have already established a degree of consensus in the debate—and I suspect across the House—that the principle of equal funding for every child in the country is one that we would all happily sign up to. The Secretary of State for Education has made it clear that that is his principle as well. Of course, the Government have, in a sense, made deprivation much easier to deal with by introducing the pupil premium, which hugely helps those children who come from very deprived backgrounds and who therefore deserve additional money being spent on them to give them the same opportunities as those children from more stable family backgrounds. We all agree on the principle, but what can be done about it? Given the length of time that the issue has been with us—some 20 years or more—and, I regret to say, the previous Government’s complete failure to tackle the problem, it falls upon the coalition Government to deal with it.

During the various debates that have already taken place in the House since the Government came to power, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has perfectly summarised the issue. He has said:

“The current system is not only ludicrously bureaucratic, it is also unfair as schools in different parts of the country are not funded on a rational basis. Moreover, the sheer complexity of the system gives schools less incentive to respond to the needs of local parents by expanding or establishing new provision.”

With the exception of not alluding to the Schleswig-Holstein issue, he could not have put it better, and I do not suppose that any hon. Member here today would disagree with him. How do the Government therefore propose to create a fairer system that will enable those authorities in which our constituencies lie to be reassured that the Government can right the wrong that has been with us for more than 20 years?

Of course, I should say that the Government first launched a consultation. At the announcement of the consultation, Lord Hill determined that it would address the disparities and inequalities within our school system. The consultation was the first step towards ensuring fair funding. None the less, the Department for Education has been unable to find the additional money that would have provided the top-up to all those areas in the F40 group. That would have provided us with the simple one-stop solution of equal funding for all pupils across the land. In times of extremely constrained finance, it is not surprising—no one in our constituencies could conceivably blame the Government for this—that the additional significant amount of money needed to solve the problem in one go has not been found.

However, there has been good news in terms of a significant reduction in the factors that local authorities can consider when constructing school formula. The number of factors that need to be considered have dropped from 37 to 10, which will slightly reduce the complexity of the education funding formula, to which I alluded earlier, and make it easier for schools to understand the rationale behind their budgets. The consultation also arrived at a much greater delegation of funding to schools and will ensure that local authorities can no longer top-slice school budgets. Above all, given that 75% of the secondary schools in Gloucestershire are now academies, the consultation provided for academies to be funded using exactly the same formula as maintained schools, because there had been a year’s lag under the system inherited from the previous Government. That single change will make a significant difference to the academies in my constituency of Gloucester and elsewhere.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

It is a bit like watching Martin Luther King in his prime. Is it not right that my hon. Friend has a dream, not only for all schools to be equal, but for the Schools Minister to give us the first step, the first indication and the first rung on the ladder to an equal and fair funding for all the schools we represent?

[Richard Graham]

Yes, apart from an alarming analogy with Martin Luther. [Hon. Members: “King.”] Martin Luther King—even more puzzling. Martin Luther was of course responsible for the great saying, “Who loves not wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long,” but I do not think that that was the object of my hon. Friend’s attempt to introduce him into the debate. However, my hon. Friend’s fundamental point—that we are looking for an early gesture from the Government to reassure our constituents that they do not just have warm sounds, but an initial step towards resolving the funding problem—is absolutely right, and one that I think all hon. Members endorse.

There are budgetary challenges to finding a solution, but the F40 group has submitted various suggestions for interim funding proposals that would improve the situation considerably. It has put forward four options to make steps towards equality, not all of which are hugely expensive. It is not for me to ask for a specific amount of money or a specific formula for the Government to start the ball rolling, but I urge the Government to look closely at the F40 group’s proposals in the hope that one of them is attractive and affordable, and, above all, can be introduced for the academic year 2014-15—before the funding settlement of the next Government.

My main wish is for the Minister to take from the debate the thought that not only are the Government able to agree with the principle and the direction of travel, but they can make the first steps to implement financial change to show that this long, 20-year inequality will finally be tackled.

[Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has mentioned timing on three occasions. Is that not one of the crucial points? Given that we have had that inequality for 20 years and that we have a very strained economic environment, it is vital that we resolve this problem as soon as possible and in the best way possible.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, the difficulty is in the words, “as soon as possible” and “the best way possible”. Neither he nor I have control of the finances, but I think we both agree strongly that this is our opportunity to lobby the Minister and for him to reflect the strength of our conviction to the Treasury in the hope that additional moneys can be found as soon as possible.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

This is happening because for more than 20 years civil servants have recognised that there will be winners and losers. As a group, we, and my hon. Friend in particular, must impress on the Minister that the most important thing is to get on with it now and have no further delay. There have always been winners and losers, and the F40 group are the losers every single time. We need to ensure that we level things out very quickly, because it has been 20-odd years.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about winners and losers. Personally, I am not trying to advocate taking money away from deprived areas in large metropolitan cities. They have benefited from generous settlements in the past 20 years, which is absolutely right, but this is not necessarily the moment to rob Paul to pay Peter. I am looking for additional funding from the Treasury to the Department for Education in a formula that allows gradual progress over a period to resolve this inequality of funding.

The Secretary of State sent a letter to a number of us, in which he commented on the consultation:

“Support for reform was widespread but responses also suggested this model would need careful planning. Getting the components and implementation of a fair national funding formula right is critical and we need to manage transition carefully”.

I think that we all agree with him. We would like him to move on as quickly as possible, rather than delaying until the next Parliament—the issue on which I will close my speech. This situation is not of the Secretary of State’s making. This is a 20-year legacy problem that could and should have been tackled by the previous Government. God knows, they had long enough to consider it carefully. None the less, the issue of fairness echoes powerfully for all of those involved in education in our constituencies, which is why so many of us are here today to engage with the Minister, who has once again kindly picked up the cudgel. I am sure he will respond with his usual positive and encouraging noises, but we are looking for more than just noises. We encourage him to take the message back to the Treasury that the strength of feeling is strong.

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, perhaps those who intend to speak will remain standing for a moment. There are six hon. Members, so there is no necessity to impose a formal time limit. Perhaps those who intend to speak can be aware that we have approximately an hour before the Front Benchers reply to the debate. I was going to the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce).

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure and privilege to speak in this debate that was so ably secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). We know that this is a debate about schools because everybody has started quoting famous names. By my account, we have had Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Martin Luther, Martin Luther King, and Reagan snuck in at the end. I prefer to take the Minister back to the ancient Chinese proverb of Lao Tzu who—as our eminent Education Minister will know—was the founder of Taoism and said that the longest journey begins with a single step. Is not the essence of this debate that we are all seeking that first step? It is not a large step; it could be a short step.

[Richard Graham]

Since my hon. Friend introduced Lao Tzu, he will no doubt also be aware of the more recent Chinese philosopher and statesman Deng Xiaoping’s great remark, “Yi bu yi bu”—one step at a time. Does my hon. Friend think that that is appropriate for the way in which we might resolve the issue of fair funding for schools?

[Guy Opperman]

I do, and I will reply with words from Sun Tzu who, when he talked about the art of war, said, “Know your enemy.” That is interesting given that there is no enemy present today, but does not the absence of Opposition Members—save for the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), who will no doubt act robustly in defending the 13 years during which we all endured a funding gap—speak volumes?

I will move on from the happy badinage in which I and my hon. Friend have been engaged to say that like other hon. Members, I represent schools in Northumberland that look enviously at counties and cities that have a greater degree of funding. To put it simply, no change is not an option. As has happened to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat), school governors and head teachers have drawn me to one side and whispered surreptitiously in my ear, “Do you really understand how badly off we are compared with X, Y or Z?” To be frank, they are correct in that analysis of the deficiencies in the present funding system, and significant issues need to be addressed.

We all accept the fair point raised earlier about the fact that there is a financial deficit and restrictions apply, meaning that progress is slow. However, when I go to areas of social deprivation in my constituency—of which there are a significant number—I see schools that survive only because of head teachers and governors who go so far beyond the extra mile that I shake my head in wonder.

I remember going to Prudhoe Castle first school where the head explained how she bought things out of her own pocket because the budget would not cover many of the basics, including essentials such as pencils. I was taken round that school by the head girl who said, “We really would like the lighting to be improved, because at times we cannot see the blackboard.” On a day when I welcome St Joseph’s school to the House of Commons, it is significant that everybody—quite rightly—has made the strong and eloquent point that we are gravely indebted, particularly in schools where there is less funding, to the unbelievable work and unstinting commitment of our head teachers, governors, teachers and staff who work in those schools. I pay tribute to the many members of staff whom I have had the opportunity to meet, but with more than 40 schools in my constituency I have not been able to meet every one of them thus far.

I will conclude my remarks because it is important that we hear from the shadow Minister and the Minister. However, I echo everything that has been said and believe that we should be spending the money more equally. I endorse the great support for the pupil premium, and eagerly await the Minister indicating how far the first step will be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

There are several answers to that. As a Member of Parliament for Westminster, I was anxious that we should not be drawn too far into our own local experiences. I just point out that the last time I looked, which was a year ago, my local authority had the ninth-highest entitlement to free school dinners—the imperfect but accepted measure of deprivation for funding purposes—in the entire country. The school deprivation is significantly greater than the deprivation of the local authority area as a whole. One of the other difficulties that we must face is that school populations are not necessarily the same as resident populations. That is another area of tension that must be dealt with. I am completely at one with those who say that not all the discrepancies can be explained, but some are more easily explicable than others.

[Richard Graham]

rose—

[Sheryll Murray]

rose—

[Ms Buck]

I will give way first to the introducer of the debate.

[Richard Graham]

Can the shadow Minister confirm that she, like every other hon. Member who has spoken in the debate, supports the principle that every pupil in the country should receive the same basic funding?

[Ms Buck]

The issue is more difficult than that. The core of the debate, which I want to come on to, is this. There need to be—the dedicated schools grant was taking us in this direction—some basic building blocks of education funding. The issue then is that although we do not have unlimited money—we did not have unlimited money even in the more generously funded years—we must also recognise that we need to address not just the deprivation element, but things such as special educational needs funding, which is a very difficult issue as well. It is very difficult to achieve what the hon. Gentleman wants to achieve without significant additional funding and without some of the consequences that none of the hon. Members who have so far spoken has been willing to deal with.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. Let me begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing a debate on a topic of great importance to us all; indeed, I met him and other colleagues on 12 March to discuss it.

I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns. Gloucestershire is ranked 136th out of 151 authorities for funding allocations per pupil. In 2011-12, funding per pupil was £4,661, compared with the national average of £5,082. My hon. Friend’s opening remarks and the whole debate reflect concerns across the sector about the school funding system.

My hon. Friend is the Martin Luther of school funding reform; indeed, I found a letter from the F40 chair, Councillor Ivan Ould, nailed to the door of the Department for Education. It listed four options or grievances, and we will respond to it in due course. I should, however, point out that option 3 would cost £99 million, which is not an insubstantial sum, given the current financial climate.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the passion, commitment and perseverance he has shown in campaigning for a fairer funding system and formula. He has raised these issues on countless occasions, including when I visited Tredworth junior school, Finlay community school and Gloucester academy in his constituency last July. I also pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who has provided the leadership and steering for the F40 campaign in Parliament.

I wholeheartedly agree with hon. Members that the current system for funding schools is in desperate need of reform. It is based on an assessment of need that dates back to at least 2005-06, if not further, so it has not kept pace with changing demographics and the needs of pupils across the country. It is also too complex and opaque, so head teachers and governing bodies are often unable to understand how their budgets have been calculated.

It is not right that schools with very similar circumstances can receive vastly different funding for no clearly identifiable reason. We have found that funding between similar secondary schools can vary by £1,800 per pupil. As my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said, the neighbouring areas of Luton, which is poorer than central Bedfordshire, and Buckinghamshire, which is richer, receive more funding per pupil than central Bedfordshire. My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) made a similar point, when she said that Leicestershire, which received the lowest amount in the country, received £900 less per pupil than the city of Leicester. That seems unfair.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) said, there is a 50% discrepancy in funding between Warrington and Westminster local authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) said that Redditch receives £1,000 per pupil less than Birmingham. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) noted that one side of the Sandwell road in his constituency receives £4,487 per pupil, while the other receives £5,469 per pupil. I have never been compared to Mr Gorbachev, but I accept the challenge to tear down these walls and end these absurd inequities.

The Government remain committed to reforming the funding system so that it is fair, transparent and reflects the needs of pupils across the country. On 26 March, the Secretary of State for Education announced our intention to introduce a new national funding formula during the next spending period. I am sympathetic to my hon. Friends’ wish to see us move faster and address the system’s inequities much sooner. However, in reforming a system that is so entrenched, we need to proceed with caution, and it is important that we introduce full-scale reform at a pace that schools can manage. At a time of economic uncertainty, stability is crucial.

Our priority must be to ensure that schools are able to focus on delivering high educational standards and are not side-tracked by destabilising shifts to their funding. Attempting to introduce any dramatic change to the funding system at a time when we are, by necessity, addressing the budget deficit could cause problems in those schools where there might otherwise be significant changes in their funding.

We will move towards introducing a new funding system, but at a pace that gives us sufficient time to agree the construct of a new formula and that allows schools enough time to adjust to changes in their funding arrangements. Since last spring, we have consulted widely on how to create a funding system that is fair and logical and that distributes extra funding towards the pupils who need it most. The Department for Education has had a number of conversations with key groups, including schools, local authorities, unions and academies, to consider how we can move towards a fairer funding system.

The announcement made by the Secretary of State for Education on 26 March not only reaffirmed our commitment to introducing a new national funding formula during the next spending round, but set out detailed funding arrangements from next year. The funding arrangements from 2013-14 will make the local funding system simpler and more transparent for schools, early years provision and high-need pupils. Under the new arrangements, education provision will be funded on a much clearer, more comparable basis than under the current system. Head teachers, parents and governors will be able to see precisely how their budgets have been calculated, and why.

The first step—we have heard a lot today about first steps, in various languages—to simplifying local funding will be to work on the basis that as many services and as much funding as possible will be devolved to schools. I firmly believe that schools are best placed to decide how to meet the needs of their pupils and to target funding effectively.

[Richard Graham]

Just to clarify, I think that we all welcome the announcements made by the Education Secretary on 26 March, which will, as the Minister says, simplify things considerably; but does the Minister see that as a first step, which can be improved during this Parliament?

Apprenticeships

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

What a pleasure it is to join this vital debate on one of my favourite subjects—apprenticeships. I start by paying tribute to the coalition Government and the Minister for rightly identifying apprenticeships as a crucial part of improving the nation’s skill base, helping business grow and providing the young with genuine future opportunities.

My constituency, Gloucester, is famous for making things, so I was an early convert to the concept and practice of apprenticeships. That is why I first spoke in this House to support the additional apprenticeships funded in the emergency Budget of May last year and urged the Minister even then to do more. That is why I recruited my own apprentice at the beginning of this year and am collating data on all Members to ensure that we hold the Minister to the generous promise he gave in a Westminster Hall debate to provide a reception for the first 100 apprentices employed by MPs. Let us hold him to that promise.

Today, the Minister highlighted his intention to fund higher apprenticeships in several sectors and I hope that inspires the insurance company, Ecclesiastical, which is headquartered in Gloucester, and banks such as the Co-op, which I hope will shortly take over the former Cheltenham & Gloucester branches, to join other sectors in taking on apprentices. The Minister also highlighted moves to incentivise SMEs to take on apprentices and I hope that they will respond. I believe that there is a challenge here, not in the funding, the will or the incentives—those are in place—but in business confidence and the time of very small businesses to absorb the details of new schemes.

My first recommendation to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), concerns the National Apprenticeship Service, which has done a fantastic job. I pay tribute to Gina Johnson of the NAS, who did a great job in Gloucestershire—I am sure her successor will do the same. The NAS has only one representative per county. I believe it needs to adopt some modern marketing techniques, such as having superb DVDs available on its website that can be shown by the Federation of Small Businesses and local chambers of trade and commerce to inspire the smallest employers to take on apprentices. I urge the Minister to consider that.

Secondly, all Members of the House could champion apprenticeship fairs in their constituency. I know the one that I helped to organise last year in Gloucestershire, which the Minister kindly came to, was incredibly positive and is part of the reason new start-up apprenticeships in our city doubled between 2009 and 2011 from 510 to 1,020. The fair contributed to the extraordinary increase across the county, where there are now more than 4,000 apprenticeships.

Thirdly, we are fortunate in Gloucester to have the extremely proactive Gloucestershire media and the local newspaper, The Citizen, which launched the 100 apprenticeships in 100 days campaign that has been widely copied around the United Kingdom. In 2012 it is launching the Gloucestershire apprenticeship awards. This happy event is taking place on my birthday and I hope very much to launch the MP for Gloucester’s female apprentice of the year award at that happy occasion. I urge other Members to consider doing likewise.

Fourthly, every local enterprise partnership should have a spokesperson for apprentices, as we do in Gloucester, in order to encourage employers to push the apprenticeship agenda forward and benefit from this growth opportunity. It can also encourage local content of public sector contracts, such as the one for the Gloucester academy, which is very important. Lastly, I urge all schools to bring their pupils to local apprenticeship fairs, recognising that the sky is the limit for apprenticeships and that this is a great way forward for many young people.

Adoption

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Lee]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I have many anecdotal examples of this issue. I have met many adoptive parents who have spent years hoping to adopt children and who have, eventually, had to turn to agencies overseas. It has taken years and cost them a huge amount to parent a child. That is a tragedy and must come to an end. Society has moved on considerably on this issue and those not involved in any way with the court or adoption process are often amazed to hear that they may not be considered as parents for a child because there is not a good cultural match. I do not think it is fair on BME children who are in foster care to be disadvantaged in such way. We must make progress on this issue.

On the issue of sibling placements, there is evidence that the loss of contact with birth siblings is a real regret to adopted children. We need to do more to support successful sibling placements and to encourage contact and communication between siblings throughout their childhood. I have friends who went from having no children to having three overnight, aged three, two and one. It was a life-changing moment for them, but it ensured that the sibling group were able to stay together. I can now report that those children are flourishing and experiencing a very happy childhood.

It is easy to be over-simplistic about this issue and there will be many examples of situations where it is not in a child’s best interests to maintain such relationships. None the less, if such relationships can be sustained they should be, and this is where the care plans that are devised at court and the role of the independent reviewing officer come to the fore.

When the case completes in court, the judge will sign off and approve the final care plan. A section in that will include the contact—contact with birth parents and with birth family, which will include siblings as well. A real regret for judges is that they do not know what happens after that point; they have no judicial role once the case has concluded. The case then moves to the management of the local authority and the independent reviewing officers, who have a key and pivotal role to play in the whole adoption procedure. I hope the role of such officers is supported and perhaps even increased and improved over the years. They are charged with the responsibility of checking on that care plan and seeing how it is being implemented. The loss of birth parents can be difficult for children as they grow up, but the loss of siblings with whom they may have been very close can be something of real regret. More needs to be done to improve and encourage not just the placement of siblings together but sibling contact if children have to be separated.

The issue of Criminal Records Bureau checks also needs to be considered and changed across many Departments. A constituent of mine wanted to volunteer to work with the local Home-Start charity. Erewash is lucky to have such a good Home-Start team who do great outreach work, especially for young mums, and work very well with the local authority. The constituent put in for her CRB check and she was confused with another lady who did not even share the same name. The check came back saying that she had a number of convictions. That is simply not the case and it has taken months to resolve the matter. My concern is again with the system that we have. We are dealing with an individual who wants to help; she wants to volunteer in her community and help young mums, and the system has done everything it can to try to prevent her from doing that. We must not let such problems with bureaucracy get in the way. Such problems are also reflected in the adoption process, but I have already covered them in this debate.

Martin Narey, the former head of Barnardo’s, has been appointed by the Government to advise on adoption. He has worked extremely hard and been bold and direct in his conclusions about how we move forward. Both his work and the campaign that has been championed by The Times have done a huge amount to raise the issues across the country.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend on today’s debate. On the campaign organised by The Times, would she join me in paying tribute to the newspaper for its leadership on the issue, to Martin Narey and to the Children’s Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who commissioned Martin Narey to write his report and who has adopted his recommendations? The Prime Minister has both warmly welcomed the report and called for an overhaul of the adoption process. Does she not agree that for the first time in many years, this Government are showing real leadership on the issue of tackling these problems?

[Jessica Lee]

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend said. I reiterate that there is a real momentum—within Government, across parties and across the country through The Times and other publications—to raise the profile of this issue, so we really must do more.

There are many threads and complexities to this issue, but at the heart of this debate is a wish to raise the profile of adoption, to encourage adoptive parents to come forward and to point out how rewarding and valuable adoption of children can be. Like any life-changing decision, it will not be without its challenges and ups and downs, but from the many, many discussions that I have had with adoptive parents I know that their lives have been enriched by the decision to open their homes and to care for children.

As politicians, what we need to focus on now are the real challenges of making the system of adoption as streamlined and as efficient as it can possibly be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

Absolutely. The key point is, “When does tolerance become intolerance?” The Catholics who came to see me thought that that had happened. They believed that providing choice could bring about equality, but that what we had stopped was choice.

My second point, which a constituent of mine, Paula Davies, raised with me, is about the lack of awareness in the education system. She had adopted a daughter, and thought that she had unique needs arising from the adoption, which had happened later in life. She was concerned that the schools did not seem to be fully aware of the requirements of children from such backgrounds. She did not want something specific for her child; she did not want anybody taking her aside or teaching her differently. She was not looking for something different or extreme. However, she told me that two county councils, Hertfordshire and Somerset, have documents for staff who work with looked-after or adopted children in schools, and she wondered why every county council could not have those documents to hand for teachers to read, so that they could be aware of such children’s unique sensitivities and awareness.

Children adopted later in life are particularly vulnerable to rejection. They might take being told off or made to sit over there in a slightly different way, having been rejected early or later in life. It would be a simple change. The documents already exist, so I am not asking for anything with a cost implication. We are asking that they be made available to other councils, and therefore to teachers across the country.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point about education for adopted children. Does she agree that local authorities treat adopted children differently from children in care, in terms of the support that they get and the schools that they go to? Does she agree with the proposal to change that and enable adopted children to receive the same support as children in care?

[Esther McVey]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. I was not aware that there were differences, but if so, of course they need to be addressed. Particularly for children adopted later in life, it is painfully apparent that they might need the same support as children in care. I will conclude on that point, but I would like replies from the Minister on my points about choice, equality and awareness of the need to help children in school.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I think that we all agree that we have to set targets that meet the need. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he represents Strangford, my old hunting ground. On the difficulties for those who wish to adopt or who have adopted, does he agree with my constituents, Mr and Mrs James, who told me the other day that, as people who have adopted children, had they known what they would have to go through, they probably would not have done so? Moreover, Mr and Mrs Nash told me that they did not know about the difficulties that they would have in relation to education or about the hidden trauma of the children whom they adopted—it was waiting to come out, but they did not get the same support as children in care. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with them that, if we could overcome those difficulties, we would be able to raise the rates of those who are adopted—in Gloucestershire, only 27 out of 500 children in care are adopted—and that the problem would be much less grave?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. I wholeheartedly agree with him and think that every other Member present does, too.

I am conscious of the time, so I will come to a conclusion. I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister has indicated that he is keen and anxious for a time scale of six months. If that is to happen, we will need more than a verbal commitment. I want action. It would be good to see that happen.

Finally, I am concerned that, in some, not all, cases, it is as though Christian families are interrogated about their ethics and morality, their homes, and their desire to adopt. In some cases, Christians, Christian families and Christian parents are being penalised because of their beliefs, but we cannot pass by what they have to offer. Those potential parents wish to adopt and we have a list of young children who seek adoptive parents. The answer is simple—let us put the two together and do it right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is right. We will have recruitment numbers to courses in November, when the Training and Development Agency for Schools has completed its census of training providers. That will include the figures for initial teacher training, but it looks as though we will have high numbers of quality applicants in all subjects. The latest evidence suggests that this will be another strong year for recruitment, and that we are on course for the best year ever in the recruitment of physics and chemistry trainees in particular.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

8. What progress he has made on extending support for children with special educational needs.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

We have finished consultation on our Green Paper, “Support and aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability”. Twenty pathfinders, covering 31 local authority areas, are under way and will be testing proposals set out in the Green Paper. We will publish details of how we will respond to the consultation and take forward the development of special educational needs and disability provision by the end of the year.

[Richard Graham]

Some of the experiences of my constituents suggest that adopted children are especially vulnerable to developing special educational needs as a result of trauma. Would the Minister consider extending support to adoptive parents, especially information and advice, so that any latent special educational needs of adopted children can be identified as early as possible?

[Sarah Teather]

The critical issue is that children in care have particularly high levels of special educational needs. We need to get better at picking up those needs at an early stage and putting in place the right kind of care and support package for those children so that their needs are not latent and not picked up by the time the children are being put up for adoption. I announced in September which areas would begin the pathfinders. Some of those local authorities will be looking specifically at how they can improve that process of assessment for children in care. I hope that will make significant differences as we begin to learn the results of that for families who adopt a child.

School Funding Reform

Richard Graham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is a very distinguished point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds). One of the problems with BSF is that £210 million was spent by local authorities on consultants, including IT consultants, and some of that money was invested in material that we would not describe as state of the art. It is critical to ensure that we get value for every penny we spend. Information technology is critical to effective learning in the 21st century, but so is ensuring that we get proper value for money.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

The Education Secretary will know from his recent and very welcome visit to my constituency how grateful parents and teachers will be for his announcement today about changing the schools funding formula, under which pupils in my constituency have for far too long received almost half the spend per pupil received for pupils from areas with similar levels of deprivation in other parts of the country. My right hon. Friend will also know that we have a short-term immediate problem with LACSEG funding. I seek an assurance that his Department’s officials will work closely with the local education authority to try to overcome those problems before the start of the new school year.

[Michael Gove]

I very much enjoyed my visit to Gloucester and Stroud on Friday, and the first thing I did when I arrived at the Department on Monday was to instruct my officials to co-operate with Gloucester city council and the Young People’s Learning Agency to ensure that we deal with this issue.

Apprenticeships (Small Businesses)

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Davies.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Minister has been able to find time at short notice to join us for this debate on a subject that lies at the heart of two of the greatest challenges for the coalition Government: first, how to increase growth in our economy and, secondly, how to reduce unemployment and, in particular, youth unemployment. Today’s debate on the take-up of apprenticeships by small businesses is therefore critical. During the next few minutes, I will lay out the structure of the debate in which I hope that as many hon. Members as are here today—there are many—will participate.

First, I intend to touch on the present Government’s approach to apprenticeships in general. Secondly, I will consider how successful that has been overall in the first year of the new coalition Government. Thirdly, I will examine the relative take-up of apprenticeships by large, medium-sized and small businesses. I hope that in today’s debate we will all focus to a large extent on businesses that are often described as micro-businesses—those employing 12 people or fewer. Of course, it is relevant that all of us in Parliament are in effect small businesses ourselves, employing typically between three and five people. I will come on to that aspect of the issue towards the end of my speech. Thereafter, I want to consider the obstacles to small businesses in taking up apprenticeships, how we might overcome them, what the challenges to overcoming them will be and what aspects of Government policy would help the process. Finally, I will bring all that together in specific recommendations.

The first question is the present Government’s approach to apprenticeships. The Government’s announcement immediately after the election last year that they would provide 50,000 additional apprenticeships, followed up later by a further 75,000, making a total of 150,000 new apprenticeships, was warmly welcomed by all of us who want to see business growth. That announcement sent a powerful message, especially to our manufacturing sectors, that this Government are determined not only to talk about rebalancing the economy, but to deliver by doing something practical to help that to come about.

Of course, apprenticeships today are not only about manufacturing. They are not the cliché of, on the one hand, hairdressing for women and, on the other hand, blokes in dirty overalls. They are about a much wider selection of opportunities. One of the things that I hope will come out of today’s debate is the breadth of opportunity—the breadth of training providers and sectors that offer apprenticeships. All my hon. Friends are seeing that in their own constituencies and of course have the possibility of taking on apprentices themselves.

There was a firm commitment right at the beginning of this Government to providing significant funding —hundreds of millions of pounds—for additional apprenticeships. That has been widened further. There have been significant efforts, led by the Minister, who has been a champion of vocational employment—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] That has been warmly welcomed, as you can tell by the response from everyone here, Mr Davies.

Let me run through some of the detailed figures. Nationally, there are many more apprenticeships now than there were in previous years. Locally, as far as Gloucestershire and my own constituency of Gloucester are concerned, we have seen a significant take-up of apprenticeships; there were about 30% more apprenticeships in 2010 than there were in 2008. The general picture is therefore very encouraging. Of course, that is complemented by Government programmes to create, for example, 100,000 work experience placements and additional commitments to help 10,000 vulnerable young people, which I am sure all of us welcome.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for securing the debate. Does he agree that in addition to the number of apprenticeships increasing, the type of apprenticeships available has shifted under the present Government? The previous Government left thousands and thousands of people in the classroom; the present Government are committed to the provision of work-based apprenticeships. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is much better for young and older people who are undertaking an apprenticeship?

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he says, although at some point in the debate we should touch on the removal from employers offering apprenticeships of the freedom to have the training element provided in the workplace. The new rules require 30% of the time to be spent away from the workplace, which for some employers is not necessarily practical. My hon. Friend and others may wish to comment on that as the debate continues.

The National Apprenticeship Service has provided the key facts. There are now more than 85,000 employers nationally offering apprenticeships in more than 130,000 locations, with almost 200 frameworks. That is highly encouraging. The statistics about employers who take on apprentices finding that it is a worthwhile thing to do are even more encouraging, with 80% agreeing that apprentices make their workplace more productive, which of course is ultimately the test in terms of the business growth element of the equation. Some 83% of employers who employ apprentices rely on those apprenticeship programmes to provide the skilled workers whom they need for the future.

The question for this debate is whether the take-up of apprenticeships by small businesses is quite so encouraging. I do not have the range of national statistics to argue the case as strongly as I would like to today, but I am sure that the Minister will share with us some of the Department’s research. I know that the Federation of Small Businesses has estimated that take-up by small businesses is only 8%. Anecdotally, in my own constituency and my own county, it is true that it is much harder to persuade a small business with fewer than 12 employees to take on an apprentice than it is to persuade, say, a company with 100 employees.

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very important point. One of the things that I have been trying to do in Halesowen in my constituency is to work with the further education college to develop specific engagement programmes for small business to overcome the barrier that my hon. Friend has correctly identified. I still see a very important role for FE colleges in reaching out to the small business community in local areas.

[Richard Graham]

Yes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that FE colleges have a critical role to play, as do some of the smaller, specialist training providers. A question for us all to consider—I am sure that my hon. Friend has done this in his own constituency—is the extent to which courses offered by further education colleges can be effectively tailored to the requirements of small businesses. Quite often, some of the courses—this is where the questions of the framework structure and the sector skills bodies come in—are fairly specific and technical, and small businesses often require an apprentice to take elements of a business administration course, elements of a marketing course and elements of other courses. So there is a question about whether there is an adequate structure of training to cater for small businesses, but I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that further education colleges have a crucial role to play.

Moving away from apprenticeships in general and their take-up nationally, and coming on to the small businesses sector specifically, I believe that there are just less than 5 million small businesses in the UK, of which more than 3.5 million have sole proprietors. An astonishing statistic is that 97% of UK companies employ fewer than 20 people, and 95% of them employ fewer than five people. That shows us that one of the key drivers in all our constituency economies is the extent to which small companies that employ fewer than five people feel able to take on an additional person.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

As a former small business owner myself, I recognise the challenges. For nine years, I wanted to get an apprentice, but I did not understand how to do so. The Government can play a proactive role in providing information to explain just how easy it is to recruit an apprentice. My suggestion, which I have raised on a number of occasions, is doing it through the annual business rates bill. All the information can be provided at a relatively low cost.

[Richard Graham]

That is an interesting suggestion, and one that I am sure the Minister will want to respond to in due course. The idea of using the annual business rates bill as an opportunity to explain how simple it is to take on apprenticeships would, I think, be widely appreciated. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) is right, and I was just about to come on to the question of education and information. There is undoubtedly a gap that needs to be filled.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

I want to add some personal knowledge as someone who has had an apprentice since last October and as the owner of a small business. It is the cost that concerns small businesses. What can the Government do to incentivise them to take on apprentices? We need to look at the cost to employ one and the payroll costs.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise those points. The incentives—the carrots—to encourage more small businesses are a crucial part of the argument, which I will come on to. May I take the opportunity to congratulate her? She has helped a number of us to take on our own apprentices, demonstrating the local and national leadership that she is renowned for in her constituency.

[Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)]

rose—

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

rose—

[Richard Graham]

I will give way in a moment, if I may. It is interesting that so many hon. Members from the coalition side of the House are here today. They are firmly focused on the importance of apprenticeships, are leading by example and have their own experience as small business men and women. It is disappointing to see the complete absence of any representation from the Opposition, apart from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden).

[Chris White]

I recently met the Warwick and Leamington branch of the Federation of Small Businesses. Skills were an important issue that was touched on, but the issue that caused most concern was the lack of information. Although I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that it would be good to have extra funding, the Government can do more to promote the apprenticeship training agencies, as proposed by the FSB, so that businesses can be more aware of the help that they could receive and the benefits for both themselves and the community at large.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The situation in his part of Warwickshire is not dissimilar to that in my own neighbouring county of Gloucestershire. The small businesses in the world of the bear and ragged staff have similar issues, which we will certainly come on to.

[Mr Hayes]

I would not normally interrupt my hon. Friend’s peroration, but he made a comment about the number of colleagues across the House who are taking on apprentices. Does he agree that it may be appropriate to hold some kind of reception when we feel that we have reached a critical number, so that we can celebrate that, use it as a way of advertising the apprenticeship brand and send out a message that we are leading, as he has described, by example?

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful for the Minister’s remarks. He has brilliantly anticipated the climax of my speech, which was to come a few minutes down the line. The part of my speech that he may not necessarily have anticipated, or will necessarily appreciate, is about the funding of the great celebration that I have in mind, which he has so kindly already agreed to host. He is quite right to mention our own involvement in apprenticeships. I will come round to that, because a number of hon. Members present will want to make their own points and contribute with their own work in the field.

Returning to the question of small businesses and their contribution to both our local economies and collectively the national economy, I mentioned earlier small businesses that employ fewer than five people and their contribution to the UK economy. Small and medium-sized enterprises account for, astonishingly, almost 99% of all enterprises and almost half the country’s private sector turnover. Therefore, the essential argument that I want to start with today is that we cannot underestimate the extent to which small businesses will be the drivers of growth—or of stagnation, should the economy falter, which we all fervently hope it will not, and believe it will not. The question that we have to debate is how we can stimulate, encourage and exhort small businesses to think that taking on an apprentice is the right way forward.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Richard Graham]

I will give way with pleasure to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), now with his royal duke.

[Dr Huppert]

I am afraid that the duke is not able to be here for various reasons. Does my hon. Friend agree that small companies now, particularly within the rapid growth sectors, such as many of the high-tech industries in my constituency, are the bigger companies of the future? Is he aware that many small companies in my constituency, which receive support from the excellent Cambridge Regional college, say that their biggest problem is not about finding excellent scientists and people to work at that level, but about finding technicians who can do things? Is he also aware that a good apprenticeship scheme at a high level is exactly what small businesses need to grow and become the large companies of the future?

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is, as so often, exactly on the money with his observations about small businesses. It is quite true—the cliché of acorns growing into oak trees is exactly what businesses are all about. He and I, and others here today, can give strong examples of businesses that started with virtually nothing and no one and have grown into great economic successes for our country. To use one illustration from my constituency, we have a successful hairdressing business that has now expanded into other constituencies in Gloucestershire, and which I believe is advancing on Worcestershire as well. Blushes is now a company with a multi-million pound turnover and multiple sites, and it is driven by the recruitment and mentoring of successful apprentices. Small businesses are undoubtedly, as I am sure all hon. Members present will agree, the foundations of tomorrow’s businesses. The purpose of taking on apprentices for small businesses is precisely to help businesses achieve growth.

[Dr Huppert]

My hon. Friend’s acorn-to-oak-tree analogy was so good that I should highlight that one of the companies that I was thinking of was Acorn, which was a company set up in Cambridge. It grew not into an oak tree, but into ARM, which is a massive designer of computer chips. There are now more ARM chips in the world than human arms, and it is a huge success, growing from a small, garage-type company into a FTSE 100 company that is transforming the world.

[Richard Graham]

There can be no better illustration of the acorn-to-oak analogy than the one given by my hon. Friend. We all agree that small businesses are the future, that large businesses dominate the opportunity for growth in the private sector and that that is an area on which we should therefore all focus.

The Federation of Small Businesses data show that only 8% of small businesses have taken on an apprentice in the past year, and that is an area on which we need to focus.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), I ran a small business for 25 years. At no stage during that time did it even cross my mind to take on an apprentice; we just had this notion of bureaucracy and cost. The critical thing is to get the message out to the 92% of businesses that have not taken on an apprentice and to pass on the information from the 8% that have done so successfully. That is the Government’s biggest challenge. Those businesses that have taken on an apprentice recognise the great value of doing so.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He, too, has brilliantly anticipated some of the themes that I want to bring up. He is right to focus on two key elements, one of which is administration and the second of which is cost, which also brings in the crucial factor of value. Let us delve deeper into the question of bureaucracy or administration. There are perceptions out there that taking on an apprentice is a time-consuming business; those of us who have done so know that it is not.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I commend my hon. Friend for his tremendous generosity in giving way so often. It shows the passion and support that there is in the Chamber for this debate. I also congratulate him on calling the debate.

Before I ask my question, I thought that I would give my hon. Friend some good news. Many of us are making a real difference in the area of apprenticeships within our own constituencies. Two weeks ago, with the support of the NAS, I launched an Eastbourne initiative to recruit 100 apprenticeships in 100 days. That was 17 days ago. I got a call yesterday from the training providers to say that we have hit 103. I am now going back to Eastbourne to say that I want 200 apprentices in 100 days. That demonstrates the real hunger that is out there for apprentices from both small and large businesses.

My hon. Friend used to be a colleague of mine on the Work and Pensions Committee until he was promoted to grander things. He will know that the Work programme, which was launched by the Department for Work and Pensions, is an enormous, costly and laudable effort to help people into work, but it appears somewhat disconnected from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which runs the excellent apprenticeship programme. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would make sense for both programmes to link up, so that we can improve job opportunities for everyone?

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. May I advise Members that interventions should be brief?

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful for your remarks, Mr Davies, not least because my capacity to absorb all the points at such rapid fire is limited. My hon. Friend has rightly congratulated his local paper in Eastbourne for promoting the “100 apprentices in 100 days” campaign, which was first started in my own constituency by Gloucestershire Media. The citizen who originally launched the scheme in 2010 is now involved in a second one, which is similar to the one that my hon. Friend mentioned. The third scheme, which is not time-capped, involves 100 apprentices being taken on by companies that have never taken on apprentices before. Other Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who have had similar successes may wish to comment on other such schemes.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate Worcester News on its “100 apprentices in 100 days” campaign and volunteer to sign up one of the apprentices, because all hon. Members should play a role in supporting such positive campaigns. Does my hon. Friend believe that the media has an important role in promoting the breadth of apprentices, and does he think that we should urge other hon. Members to use the media in promoting the jobs that are available for apprenticeships?

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend and near neighbour is absolutely right to congratulate the media in Worcester for taking forward the scheme. I congratulate him on making his commitment to take on an apprentice himself. When I outline the target that I have set for Members of Parliament, the Minister should note that we may be able to achieve it in fewer than 100 days, but I will deal with that towards the end of my speech.

My hon. Friend is right to say that the media has an important role to play. I should also stress that local radio can be extremely helpful, too. About six months ago, I held the Gloucestershire apprenticeships fair, jointly with the NAS, which is admirably represented in Gloucestershire by my friend Gina Johnson whom I was hoping to see here today. We had terrific support from Gloucestershire Media, which is something that could be replicated in Worcester, Eastbourne and elsewhere, and from Radio Gloucestershire. I strongly recommend my colleagues in the House to organise an annual apprenticeship fair; the national apprenticeship week is in February, which would be quite a good time to do so if they want to tie it in with national themes.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne also mentioned the co-operation between DWP and BIS. That is an inter-departmental question on which I will leave the Minister to comment in due course.

[Julian Smith]

Inter-departmental issues are coming up in the Government’s review of employment law at the moment. May I ask my hon. Friend to urge the Minister to ensure that all Departments focus on how we can create jobs and take on people, whether through apprenticeships or full-time employment?

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful for that intervention, and I am sure that the Minister will have noted that point and will come back on it in due course.

Developing the themes of our debate today, we now have to consider the obstacles that small businesses face in taking on apprentices. I have touched on the two key areas of bureaucracy and cost. On bureaucracy, the challenge for those of us who want to promote apprenticeships is that there are so many different ways of taking on apprentices. For example, it is generally the case that the training costs for 16 to 18-year-olds are entirely funded by the Government and those for 19 to 24-year-olds are half-funded by the Government. Members will find in their own constituencies that we have training providers who will provide certain training courses for 19 to 24-year-olds entirely free of charge. On the one hand, that gives the 19 to 24-year-olds a competitive advantage, and on the other, it offers to small businesses the opportunity to take on a slightly more experienced individual at a lower cost than might be the case normally.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned two schemes—I think that one of them was for 16 to 24-year-olds and that the other was for 24 to 27-year-olds—but some people lose their jobs and have to retrain. Does he not think that opportunities should be given to those who want to diversify into other jobs? Should they not be given apprenticeships as well, even if they are past those ages?

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point about the ways in which we can get people back into work. The Work programme is starting this week. I am sure that he is already in touch with both the contractors and sub-contractors in his own constituency. Working closely with those who are rolling out the Work programme offers the best chances of getting older people back into the workplace. What we are really talking about today is apprenticeships that are focused specifically on the 16-to-24 age group. I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s general point, but I think that it ranges wider than today’s debate, although the Minister might want to comment on that.

I will return to the obstacles for small businesses and quote from the NAS in Gloucestershire, which works with hundreds of SMEs on a daily basis. We know that the definition of an SME can include businesses that, on a constituency basis, are really quite large. Companies employing 250 employees are big employers as far as I am concerned, but they are categorised as SMEs. One of the challenges for the NAS, which is resourced by one representative per county, is to engage with the small businesses that we are discussing today, which would technically be called micro-businesses. I do not use the term “micro” because I do not think that companies enjoy being called “micro”—they do not relate to that word. We are talking today predominantly about companies with fewer than 12 employees.

The NAS in Gloucestershire has spoken to more than 15,000 small businesses in the past five months. That is an astonishing achievement, and I pay tribute to its hard work in spreading its tentacles so widely among small businesses in our county. Its experience has shown that it has been able to spread the word about apprenticeships and their role.

As hon. Members have said, the role of the media and further education colleges has also been critical in spreading the word, but it can be very difficult to reach businesses of the size that we are discussing today. Many people

“simply don’t have the time to come out of their businesses”

to attend events. Such companies—often one man, one woman or a family working together—do not have the sort of people who typically sit on the committees of their local Federation of Small Businesses. We are fortunate if we can persuade them to come to an event, a lunch or a supper to discuss topical issues.

There are some breakfast clubs for very small businesses—I have certainly been to them, as have other hon. Members. They are quite good at doing business-to-business with each other, but the process of filling in forms, searching on websites, discussing with training providers and working out whether to go to the further education college or a more specialist training provider is quite time-consuming for people who are dealing with customers minute by minute in their shops.

To try to ensure that very small businesses get the opportunities to incorporate apprenticeships into their companies, the Department and the NAS are therefore supporting projects among group training associations and apprenticeship training agencies. In response to a letter that I wrote him, the Minister highlighted that

“recently, Group Training Association and Apprenticeship Training Agency models have been proving successful in making it easier for small business to take on apprentices.”

I hope that the Minister will share some examples of those successes with us, whether they are geographical or sectoral, and share with us how we can help him to promote GTA and ATA models in our own constituencies, as a way of helping small businesses to overcome the apparent obstacle of administration.

It is true, for example, that the South West Apprenticeship Company in my own constituency is able to provide the legal ownership of apprentices taken on by small businesses should there be future employment law concerns with an apprentice who has not worked out. Many of us will know that the business of finding the right apprentice is the single most important thing and often a very hard thing for a small company to do. As far as employment law is concerned, ownership of the apprenticeship is with the training provider, which can be enormously helpful to small businesses.

The next stage covers what sort of carrots might be offered to very small businesses as part of the incentive to take on an apprentice. I start from the presumption that if we were all able to persuade half the small companies in our constituencies to take on one apprentice each, we would have solved the youth unemployment problem in this country by that step alone. The opportunity, if we were able to seize it, would be enormous. The goal would be considerable, so how can we get closer to achieving it? We could consider two or three things, the first of which is to provide a financial incentive. In March 2010, there was an apprenticeship grant for employer scheme—AGE—which gave a straightforward cash amount of £2,500 to employers taking on their first apprentice. As a result of that incentive, which was offered for a limited period of three months, 5,000 unemployed 16 to 17-year-olds were taken on during that time.

It is right to ask ourselves whether that incentive was entirely motivated by a long-term solution for youth unemployment or by a short-term concern to keep teenagers off the unemployment statistics in the run-up to a general election. It is also right to ask whether cash incentives for taking on a first apprentice, without necessarily a time commitment on how long that apprentice will work, will always generate good long-term results, or whether that is a very short-term way to enhance small business profitability without necessarily leading on to career opportunities for 16 to 17-year-olds, but it is something on which perhaps the Minister might comment today.

A slightly different thought offered to me by the chairman of the FSB in Gloucester was to look at ways to subsidise apprentices over a three-year period. For example, when a company takes on an apprentice for the first time, a percentage of the amount paid by the employer could be reimbursed by the Government at the end of the first year. A smaller amount would be reimbursed in the second year, and in the third year all the cost would be absorbed by the company. That is a slightly different and more interesting model to look at, were the Government able to offer financial compensation for some of the employment costs of taking on new apprentices for small businesses.

Other ways to help small businesses to take on apprentices could be considered. One of them could be to rationalise the training costs for 18 to 24-year-olds as well as 16 to 18-year-olds. The Government have previously differentiated between the two age groups on the basis that getting people started is the most important thing and that, by the time people are 19 to 24, they should have more experience and more maturity to offer employers. But we know that that is not always the case. Some 19-year-olds and older people might still need considerable investment of time and effort by very small businesses to bring them to a stage where they can contribute to the growth of that company. The cost of that investment in time is as important to the smallest companies as the financial cost of paying apprentices for however many hours a week they are employed.

[Esther McVey]

I totally agree. If there is one thing that small companies have told me about the hurdles to taking on apprentices and about why they want incentivising to do so, it is that the hidden cost of spending time with a person, bringing them on, encouraging them and making them work-ready cannot be underestimated.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. She has direct experience of these things, as do so many Members here today. It is absolutely true that the smallest companies’ greatest fear on the administrative or bureaucratic side relates not necessarily to the paperwork involved in filling in an application form or designing an advert, but to the fact that a huge amount of time and effort may be required, hour by hour and day by day, to manage the apprentice. The worry is that the investment that will need to be made over a year or two before the apprentice can make a significant contribution to the business may not be rewarded at the end of that time because the apprentice might leave, might be recruited by somebody else or might not be able to deliver the return that the small business is looking for on its investment.

I want now to raise a few of the points that the FSB has raised with me, which it believes are relevant to the promotion of apprenticeships in the smallest businesses. On the promotion of ATAs to help small business, one advantage of such agencies is that they would employ the apprentice in the same way that the training company I mentioned in my constituency does. The ATA would deal with issues such as employer compulsory liability insurance, and help of that kind with modern administrative requirements would be useful.

On skill recognition, GTAs could provide an effective route for solving the problem I raised in answer to the point about tailoring the training of apprentices to companies’ requirements. GTAs might well be able to help design new training programmes for specific companies to meet their requirements. Component manufacturers in the engineering sector, for example, which are an important employer in my constituency, may have more concerns and requirements regarding training than we realise. There might be small businesses out there that need something like a GTA to help them design the appropriate training course.

Perhaps I can bring that point alive with an anecdote. In my constituency, we have two makers of high-quality shirts; in fact, when I made my maiden speech in the House last year, I was delighted to be wearing a shirt made in Gloucester. Their shirts are made from high-quality English cotton and sometimes cotton from abroad. They are made in England, but one of the firms is increasingly taking on workers from Poland, where there is a high-quality sewing qualification. People arriving here with that qualification can immediately be put on the factory floor to contribute to the making of high-quality English shirts. It appears that this country does not yet have a similar qualification, which could easily provide the basis for a new form of apprenticeship with shirt manufacturers in my constituency and elsewhere.

I have also touched base with the British Chambers of Commerce, and it is important to recognise its remarks on the take-up of apprentices among small businesses. It believes that there is a case for better marketing to businesses of the resources that are available to them and of the benefits of apprenticeships. If we follow the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), such issues could be covered in what would, effectively, be a marketing flyer. Indeed, it could be designed by the company that he used to run in Swindon. That could be done at very low cost—possibly even pro bono—and the Department could distribute the details with information on business rates.

The British Chambers of Commerce also wants to place greater emphasis on the relevant agency sifting through candidates to find the right ones, rather than simply box-ticking. It says that small businesses have

“a greater fear than larger companies of the wrong candidate”.

From my own experience, I know that finding the right candidate and spending time taking them through an induction programme before offering them a job, which is difficult for a small business, will be increasingly relevant.

Two weeks ago, I presented certificates to people on an apprenticeship course in a large distribution company in my constituency. I asked the gentleman in charge of recruiting apprentices how he did it. He explained that he took all the people who applied, and who had not been ruled out because of a criminal background, on a one-day induction course in his warehousing company. He made a point of having an escorted walk through the company, which was led by a manager who explained the business as the group went through the various parts of the company. A lot of candidates were ruled out early on because they simply were not paying attention or contributing. When the group sat down later for a PowerPoint presentation on the business and what it was trying to achieve, some of those at the back of the room were texting on their mobiles or BlackBerries—something, Mr Davies, I am sure would never happen in this Chamber. In effect, there was a series of soft hurdles, which, by the end of the day, had reduced the number of candidates from about 40 to 15.

The vast majority of our teenagers do not realise how important such things are and what an impact they will have on their job opportunities. There is therefore a duty on us all as constituency MPs, and possibly on the National Apprenticeship Service, to ask employers to lay out in schools, before teenagers leave after their GCSEs or A-levels, exactly what is involved in getting a job, because it is not just about writing a CV. The NAS and the Department for Education could do something on that. The Minister wears the hats of two Departments, and he might want to comment on the way in which the Department for Education could co-operate more with employers to promote apprenticeships for businesses and, indeed, for small businesses that decide to take them up, so that school leavers really understand the challenges ahead.

[Mr Hayes]

Given the interest in the subject, it might be helpful if I dealt with that point now. Yesterday, in the Select Committee on Education, I was able to advertise the fact that, given my responsibilities in the Department for Education, I want to work with Lord Hill and others to encourage much greater engagement between the world of work and the world of learning by bringing employers into schools and letting people know about the employment opportunities available to them. My hon. Friend can rest assured that we are on the case.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the Minister; it is extremely helpful to be aware of that. He will have heard me say before—others may wish to comment on this in due course—that I ask every apprentice I meet in my constituency how much help they got from their schools in winning their apprenticeship, and nine and a half times out of 10, the answer is nil, so we have a long way to go on that front.

Let me bring together some of the threads in the debate. We have covered the Government’s welcome commitment to see a vastly increased number of apprenticeships, and the Minister will confirm the figure of 150,000 additional apprenticeships, with 450,000 overall during the lifetime of this Government. We also touched briefly on the greater take-up of apprentices, particularly by large and medium-sized companies across the land in a variety of sectors, and the welcome pick-up in manufacturing, which has certainly driven forward the number of apprenticeships, for example in the crucial engineering sector. I am delighted that the Gloucestershire Training Group, a specialist engineering organisation in my constituency, is now overbooked with new apprentices for next year. I am working with the group to try to achieve new and larger premises to cater for that demand.

We also covered the take-up of apprentices by small businesses. Both the statistical and anecdotal evidence is that it is a great challenge for this, or indeed any, Government. We have looked at some of the factors that could encourage and incentivise the smallest businesses to take on apprentices: administrative and bureaucratic questions, cash incentives, and cost reductions, possibly through wider training funding for older apprentices. We touched briefly on the role of GTAs and ATAs, and I am sure that the Minister will want to say more about that. We have looked at the role of local media and at the feelings of the FSB, the BCC and some Members’ constituents.

The last part of my speech is about what we as MPs can do. I talked about how we can be champions of apprenticeships, both in general and more specifically for smaller businesses. I mentioned the role of apprenticeship fairs and having a specific sectoral focus. I have organised a job fair, which will have a large apprenticeships element, for the black and minority ethnic community in Gloucester in 10 days’ time, and there will be something similar for those with disabilities in due course. There is a large amount we can do, but there is also one specific thing. There are 650 of us in Parliament, and if we each took on an apprentice, that would be 650 additional apprenticeships. Some of my hon. Friends here today have already done so or, like my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), are committed to doing so.

If 100 MPs took on apprentices, it should be celebrated in Parliament with a reception, perhaps generously funded by BIS, with a welcoming speech to all the apprentices by the Minister who champions their cause so doughtily in Parliament and elsewhere. That would send a message across the land that we are not only talking the talk, but walking the walk in finding our own apprentices and, as small business people with fewer than 12 employees, promoting apprenticeships. That is an exhortation to my colleagues, but it is also an advance call on the Minister’s funding, to which I hope he will respond warmly.

I hope that today we send a message around the country that the Government are committed not only to increasing the number of apprenticeships, important though that is, and to highlighting their value in driving forward the future growth prospects for our businesses, vital though that is, but also to stimulating the smallest businesses in the land each to take on an apprentice, because that will both help their growth and serve their community by helping to reduce youth unemployment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend has highlighted the flawed ethos of the Labour Government and their target culture of wanting to get 50% of our youngsters into university. Although that has been useful for many of our young people, and we should certainly not decry the importance of a university degree, it has led, as he has said, to a culture where people frown on youngsters who have not gone to university, which has left those youngsters feeling dejected and undervalued. That is a poor position to put ourselves in.

To refer back to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle), we need to fill the gap in the skills sector, and there are many younger people who would be better off taking the skills route rather than going to university and perhaps doing a degree that is not necessarily recognised by employers or that is not relevant to getting into the labour market.

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is developing a powerful case for the role of apprenticeships in general. Does he agree that the statistic that 15% of employment in the private sector is provided by sole proprietorships shows that if we were to persuade sole proprietors to take on a single apprentice each, it would make an enormous difference to take-up in the country as a whole?

[Mr Jones]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s important point. Another point is that many people who have traditionally taken the skilled route and come from small businesses have ended up as the entrepreneurs of the next generation. They are the ones who have taken forward their work for an engineering business, for example, started their own business and employed a number of others. It is important that youngsters get a good grounding, whether that be by getting a good degree at a good university or by going straight into employment and getting the right skills with an employer, through an apprenticeship, which will give them not just a meaningful career, but, potentially, a business through which they can support the economy by employing a number of other people.

In conclusion, I urge the Minister to consider how we can give our small businesses far more confidence to employ apprentices and break down some of the prohibitive barriers that I have mentioned. I am absolutely sure that, if he does that, it will add great value and complement the sterling work that he is undoubtedly doing to give our youngsters the skills to drive our economy not only for today, but for the future.

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[Mr Ward]

I should like to conclude by coming back to the focus of my comments. I think that the figure of 8% was mentioned as the number of businesses who take on apprentices. If we look at that figure, however, the vast majority are small businesses. Those are the statistics. We know that the vast majority of businesses are small businesses—the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker and so on. We want to fill the supply side gap. Yes, we want to get the big companies involved and that in some ways that is relatively easy. If we are to provide at a practical local level experience and apprenticeships in small businesses, we need to consider some element of wage subsidy.

[Richard Graham]

The figures back the hon. Gentleman up. Some 3.3 million businesses have sole proprietors; that is, 3.5 million people. That is 16% of all people in business. One apprentice for a third of those would take a million people into employment.

[Mr Ward]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for those comments, and for giving me time to look at my own notes.

The FSB has pointed out that two thirds of apprenticeships are offered by small businesses. Of that 8%, the vast majority are in small businesses, so we have a problem. Small businesses, certainly in areas of high youth unemployment, have been the main provider. However, small businesses in those economies are struggling the most and can ill-afford the cost associated with apprenticeships. I would argue that there may be a case for businesses—small businesses in particular, in areas of high unemployment, particularly high youth unemployment—to consider some element of wage subsidy to enable those who will simply not otherwise get into apprenticeships to be taken on by those businesses and partly fill the gap that has been left by the withdrawal of the future jobs scheme.

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[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to you, Mr Davies, for chairing this debate and to all the hon. Members who have participated. I am grateful to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Blackpool South, for his contribution and to the Minister, who believes so strongly in the cause to which all of us are so committed, for delivering his response to my debate. He has reassured us about the future of apprenticeships overall. There is a renewed focus on tackling the smallest businesses and making apprenticeships accessible to them, which can only provide reassurance to the young unemployed who are seeking opportunities from the Government.

Question put and agreed to.