Academies Bill [Lords]

Robert Flello Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vernon Coaker]

I beg to move amendment 71, page 3, line 7, at end add—

‘(7) Before making any payments under an Academy agreement the Secretary of State shall make an assessment of the extent of centrally-provided SEN provisions that, were the school to operate as a maintained school—

(a) would be required by a school with the likely pupil profile of the proposed additional school, or

(b) is currently called upon by the maintained school which is converting to Academy status.

(8) Before making any payments under an Academy agreement the Secretary of State shall make an assessment of the likely disruption to centrally-provided SEN services that might result from equivalent reductions in local authority budgets.

(9) Payments made under an Academy agreement must reflect the assessment made according to subsections (7) and (8).’.

We come to another important amendment. However, before I start, I should like to welcome the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) to his new post. He has just been allocated a ministerial post in the Department for Education, as the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning. I congratulate him on that appointment, which I gather will involve shared ministerial responsibilities with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I very much welcome his appointment to that position, and I know that he will work with diligence and determination. He and I have known each other for a long time. We go back over a number of years, in our various roles in Nottinghamshire, so I sincerely hope that he does well. I wish him the best and wish him good luck with things over the next few months, years or whatever it turns out to be. [Interruption.] Well, maybe not decades—I certainly will not be here if it is, but that is another story.

I have tried to be conciliatory and reasonable in the debates on amendments that we have had so far in this Committee stage on the Floor of the House. The debate, on a whole series of issues, has so far been of a high standard, with contributions by Members from all parts of the House, as is appropriate for the Committee stage, which in many respects is different from the full debates that we often have on motions. The Committee stage is about trying to ascertain what the real meanings of clauses are and what the consequences of different parts of the Bill will be, and to see whether we can adapt, change and improve the legislation, or at least the guidance that goes alongside it.

Nowhere is that more important than in special educational needs. I do not doubt for one minute that Members from all parts of the Committee will have at the front of their minds how we can ensure that the provision that we make for special educational needs—particularly through the changed arrangements, with the academy model proposed in the Bill—protects those with special educational needs. Again to be reasonable, we also know that the Government made some amendments in the House of Lords that significantly improved the Bill. If I might say so, those changes—made as a consequence of the debate and discussion in the other place—have made a significant difference to the Bill, a point that is also worth putting on record.

The point of amendment 71 is to try to understand in more detail the consequences for special educational needs provision of the changed arrangements for schools, with more schools opting out, becoming academies—or free schools—and being independent of local authorities. We want to know what that will mean for the provision of services for those young people who we would all want to ensure received the quality of education and support that we would want them to receive.

There is no doubt—I am sure that this would be true whatever the challenges that existed—that we can all point to the quite exceptional services provided by local authorities to support young people with special educational needs, either in school or through their families. Often, the important thing is not just the support that the child receives in the school, but the support that the family receive to support their child in that school. Clearly, the local authority’s role in that is crucial. I am sure that we can point to many excellent examples, but I know that we could all identify instances where things have not worked out so well, and where a local authority has not provided the standard of service that we would want. Overall, however, the role of the local authority in co-ordinating support is extremely important.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that there are far too many young people across the country who still have not even gone through the assessment process with their local authority and been identified as having special educational needs?

[Vernon Coaker]

That is a very good point. I mentioned yesterday that this is not simply a question of young people being assessed by a local authority and not receiving a statement, even though most people think that they should have received one. I have no professional expertise in that area, however.

To be fair to the Government, the inclusion in clause 2 of proposed new subsection 8A, which deals with low incidence special needs, is important and significant. We are talking not only about the young people who everyone would expect to have statements for their special needs, and for the first time the Government have put into the legislation the term

“low incidence special educational needs or disabilities”.

That represents a significant improvement to the Bill. I know from my own experience that young people with low incidence special needs often do not receive the support that they deserve, and neither do their families. They often do not receive the kind of educational or social support that they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

That is true, and it is stated in the Bill that where a local authority fails to secure satisfactory provision the Secretary of State may intervene and make “alternative arrangements”. The problem is what does “low incidence special educational needs or disabilities” mean? How will a local authority or a school—an academy or special school—know whether they are meeting the expectations of the Secretary of State without a definition of what that actually is? Without that, the response will just be subjective, with people saying, “That isn’t very good” or “That isn’t working,” which is clearly unacceptable.

The Minister might not be able to do this today, but it is extremely important that at some point—even late on Monday—something is read into the record that defines what that term means. Other Members may disagree, but it is my view that for that to be done otherwise through guidance or a letter will not be sufficient. The force of Parliament needs to be behind some definition and criteria for the term, over and above its mere mention in the Bill and, even with the best intentions, something in a code of practice. I cannot say how important that is to making this bit of the Bill work.

[Robert Flello]

What I say will to some extent reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson). For a host of reasons, not the least of them financial, local authorities will already decide how well to staff the team who go out and make the assessments, and if there is any wriggle room whatever they will wriggle: they will avoid putting resources into that team or department. It is therefore crucial for the future of some of the most vulnerable children in this country that we get something on the record today so that local authorities—of whatever colour—cannot wriggle out of their responsibilities.

[Vernon Coaker]

That is right, and my hon. Friend’s comments highlight that we are not trying to make a party political point. We want to ensure that that is the case for local authorities of all political colours and types; that is fundamental and crucial. As I have said, however, I accept that it may not be possible to do this today, as the lawyers will, no doubt, need to check it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

I am saying that the existing state of play is not good enough and that the amendment that was made in the House of Lords to apply the 1996 Act to academies was a good one. We are debating the further changes that the Bill will make to delegate funding straight to schools rather than via local authorities—money that would have been retained centrally to provide services. Government Members—not only Front Benchers, but Members such as the hon. Lady—need to explain how SEN services that are currently provided centrally will be protected if all that money is delegated out to schools. How will that work? The point of this Committee is to understand the Government’s thinking about how that will happen.

[Robert Flello]

rose—

[Vernon Coaker]

Before I give way, let me say what we did yesterday, very successfully. I gave way a lot, and nobody complained at the end that we did not get anywhere, so I will keep giving way, if it means that nobody complains.

[Robert Flello]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, who is extremely generous in allowing interventions. My apologies for labouring the point, but I think that it is crucial. My view is that we have not made enough central provision for special educational needs services. My fear is that the measures, instead of going further and strengthening the central provision of SEN services, will water it down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

The amendment is on a really important matter, and the fact that so many Members are present after 4 o’clock on Thursday shows how important.

Given my background in this area, I wish to start by saying that a lot of it is about definitions. I welcome what the Minister has said, but as someone who is steeped in the issue and has worked in special educational needs for many years, I have to say that I am sorry, but it just is not enough. SEN is a notional term—it is almost in the eye of the beholder. It is not defined in law. There is a huge code of practice intended to give the term feel and shape, but that code of practice is nothing more than guidance. It mentions the responsibilities of local authorities, but not necessarily those of schools or academies. If we are to rely on the code of practice, it will need to be rewritten with those things specifically stated.

SEN is also a disputed term. The very fact that we have an SEN tribunal, with which local authorities struggle all the time, and which is large, growing and very costly, and that SEN cases are in the courts all the time, suggests that the term is not defined now and will become less defined in future.

I have gone into many schools, some of which achieve incredibly highly, and found that 50% of their children are on their SEN register. That is clearly nonsense, and there are all kinds of reasons for it. It is the teacher in the classroom, or the head teacher, who defines whether a child has SEN and places them at school action or school action plus. In many cases, they do not even advise the parent. That is illegal, but it happens. Head teachers do that for myriad reasons, including that they feel it will improve the school’s contextual value added and its standing with Ofsted.

Some local authorities still delegate funding on the basis of school action and school action plus, however stupid that may seem, as I tell them. The number of children who are at school action or school action plus or defined as having SEN depends on so many different contextual issues in different places.

That brings us to the comments about who gets a statement and who does not. In defence of my former colleagues, I have never dealt with services that do not want to do a good job or want to prevent children from getting the support that they need. However, they are rationed services and they have to prioritise. No matter how much money the previous Government and the Government before them put into the more severe and complex end of SEN, which is growing, it inevitably drifted off to the less severe end. That is why there is a problem of children with statements who should not have them, and others who need them but do not get them. I hope that the Government can resolve it, but previous Governments have not been able to do so. One can put as much money as one likes into the hard end of SEN, it will inevitably drift off to the mild end of the spectrum.

As the Chair of the Select Committee rightly pointed out, low incidence SEN is exactly that—SEN that occurs rarely. It is sometimes called, “low incidence; high need; high cost.” Low incidence SEN services are generally classified as services for deaf and hearing impaired children and for blind or partially sighted children. Autistic spectrum disorder is not classified as low incidence SEN. It was in the past, but it is the fastest growing SEN. What will happen to autism services? If the provision is not defined, services for children with autism may be delegated.

[Robert Flello]

I am listening with great interest to my hon. Friend’s extremely well-thought-out speech, which clearly shows her vast knowledge. Does she recognise the situation that I came across in one of my surgeries at the end of last week? A family came to see me about their 18-year-old son, who is now, sadly, in the criminal justice system. It took until he was 14 before he was diagnosed with autism—far too late for the proper interventions to be made. He is now 18 and in the criminal justice system.

[Pat Glass]

Sadly, that happens far too often. Unfortunately, when children are diagnosed with ASD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, whether they are put through the behaviour system or the autism system greatly depends on family background and the clinical specialist they see.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Robert Flello Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in rushing the Bill through with such haste precisely the danger she mentions arises because we are not scrutinising its measures properly and so we may end up with an Act that needs to be changed?

[Glenda Jackson]

That is an extremely salient point, and one is left wondering why the Bill has to be rushed through in such a short space of time. I personally have received no comfort from the Minister when it has been pointed out during this afternoon’s debate that we are running into the long summer holidays and he has replied, “Well, work is going on and schools will open in September.” We do not know which schools they are. I am secretly hoping that the Minister will, with the best will in the world and not because of his own individual failure, be proved wrong on this matter, as his Secretary of State was when he made his five varying announcements on which schools would or would not be in the Building Schools for the Future programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vernon Coaker]

Such a difference in intake is certainly true in many cases. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn pointed out, it is also crucial for us to understand the difference between the profile of pupils at the new academies that the Government intend to set free and give all sorts of freedoms to, and those at the existing academies. The study by the Centre for Economic Performance is extremely important in that respect.

[Robert Flello]

Does my hon. Friend understand my concern that at the moment, not just in Stoke-on-Trent but more widely, there are young people in the education system, such as those on the autism spectrum, who have undiagnosed conditions and who have problems in school? Under the Government’s proposals, they will be much more readily kicked out of their schools, whereas they should be getting more support and help in them.

[Vernon Coaker]

That is absolutely the case, and people are concerned that schools that are already fairly exclusive in many respects may not wish to admit pupils of that type.

I shall give an example of how difficult the matter is, and I hope that the Minister will comment specifically on it. The Government’s view is that none of our suggestions needs to be on the face of the Bill. We fundamentally disagree, hence the amendments that we have tabled. We do not believe it is enough for the admissions provisions to be set out simply in the funding agreements. One of the most fundamental changes that I can find in annexe A of the draft funding agreement, on admissions—I am sure there are many others—relates to the annual procedures for determining admissions arrangements. In the current model agreement, the relevant annexe contains detailed provisions with which an academy has to comply in order to remain within the terms of the funding agreement. The proposed draft completely removes those provisions.

Somebody cynical would ask why, when the Government are seeking to reassure Members throughout the House who want a fair admissions process, the Minister or the Department has signed off a model funding agreement that removes some of the detailed provisions on admissions.

Education Funding

Robert Flello Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I entirely agree. It is irresponsible, cynical and poor politics. It was one of the terrible things about the last Government that they raised hopes before the last election knowing that they would not be able to honour them.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will know that I asked him in education questions a few weeks ago about Stoke-on-Trent. My city was in the unique circumstances of being in phase 1 of the process. He said that he would look at the position sympathetically, so can he now give the people of the area, who are anxiously awaiting this decision, a positive answer?

Free School Meals

Robert Flello Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I thank you, Mr Weir, for giving me the opportunity to speak for the first time under your chairmanship.

I shall speak only for a short time, as I am most interested to hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana R. Johnson) has to say, as the free school meals pilot in the area that she represents was stopped by the Liberal Democrat-controlled council. I also want to hear what the Minister has to say. It is only a failure of the imagination that stops the Government understanding the importance of free school meals, both for their nutritional and social value to the children and for their economic value to hard-pressed working families that struggle from day to day to make ends meet.

I represent one of the poorest parts of the country. Newham has the fourth highest level of child poverty in the country: 30,525 under-16s live in families with less than 60% of national median household income before housing costs. Despite that, only 29% of children in Newham are eligible for free school meals under the current system. In Newham, 46.9% of children are living below the poverty line. We are talking about the working poor—families that go out to work but do not earn enough money to make ends meet. Their children suffer as a result, and it is their future that we are talking about today. They have the same right to fulfil their potential as every child in this country, and the free school meals programme was a tiny way of making that possibility a reality for some.

This is about families struggling to keep their heads above water. We might not understand what £600 or £1,000 a year means to a working family because it is less than some of us would spend on a weekend away. For the families that I represent, however, it can make the difference between surviving and not surviving. That is the likely damage of taking away the universal free school meals programme. Prior to the pilot, more than one in six children living in poverty in my constituency was not entitled to free school meals. I find that shocking, and I hope that the Minister agrees.

To my working families, the universal free school meals programme represented savings of between £690 and £1,000 a year. Families who are not working or who work less than 16 hours a week and have an income of £16,000, however, would be eligible for free school meals. I do not want to take that from them, but the current system offers no incentive to work and presents a barrier to people who have taken the first steps into work.

Research carried out by the London borough of Newham shows that if, prior to the pilot, eligibility had been extended to all who claimed benefit, of any kind, an extra 2,094 households would have been eligible. Each of those households would have saved on average £614 per year—9% of the group’s typical weekly pay. As a direct result of the pilot, figures from March show that 75% of pupils in Newham are now taking up free school meals. In 16 schools, the uptake is now more than 80%, and in some it is as high as 90% or more. I hope that we one day reach the 100% level mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods). It has to be good news.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said eloquently in her excellent contribution, only 1% of the packed lunches that children take to school—not only in Newham, but throughout the country—meet the nutritional standards set for school meals. As a result, those children who are not eligible or who do not claim free school meals, and whose parents are unable to afford nutritionally balanced packed lunches, are eating less nutritionally valuable food than their peers. That has an impact on their health and ability to concentrate.

The impact of a healthy meal on behaviour and concentration, and therefore on academic performance, has been discussed this morning. There is a high level of consensus about the fact that to thrive at school, children need to be well nourished throughout the school day—through breakfast clubs, which were mentioned earlier, as well as free school meals. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston stated, the recent study by the School Food Trust found that eating healthy school lunches in modern dining rooms can improve pupils’ concentration by almost 20%. That has to be good news for the children and their educational achievement. However, in so many ways it is also good news for us all—in productivity at work, in the sort of work that people can get as a result of their education and, as was alluded to earlier, in many other social aspects of life. The impact is on not just the few, but the whole of society.

On take-up, in Newham it was obvious that a key factor in children deciding to take up the offer of free school meals was whether their best mates did so. I know that things have moved on and are a lot better than when I was at school, but it can be extraordinarily humiliating for a child to have to claim free school meals. It is stigmatising for families to have to go through that sort of inspection. I remember a woman at my surgery being in floods of tears because she had recently become ineligible for free school meals; she had ratcheted up a bill that was far beyond her reach to be paid as a lump sum. She was being humiliated almost daily, being harassed by members of staff attempting to get her to pay for school meals that had not been taken. Obviously, with the change in eligibility rules, such a situation will no longer arise. However, she told me that she could no longer afford to work, because she could not take the hit on free school meals as well as having to pay all the other costs associated with going to work.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I have been listening intently to my hon. Friend’s extremely good speech. Does she agree, however, that sometimes school staff, lunchtime supervisors and canteen staff risk their own careers by regularly giving food to children who they know are not getting meals? In other words, we also see a positive side from staff.

[Lyn Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The story that I related stuck in my head because it was so different from the other stories that I normally receive from parents. Bills such as the one I mentioned are often torn up and put in a waste basket and do not become an issue. Even the small amounts of money charged by breakfast clubs across the country are often not taken from families who are known to be struggling.

Stigma, combined with the complexity of administering a free school meal system to the poorest members of our society, is discouraging take-up, which explains why there was only a 50% take-up from those who were eligible in Newham before the pilot. Let me pay tribute to Sir Robin Wales, the leader of Newham council, who, despite the threats of massive budget cuts by this Government, recognises the importance of free school meals to the children of Newham and will use his ever decreasing budget to extend the pilot. I pay tribute to him because he truly understands the impact of free school meals on the children that he and I represent. He and his council will do all that they can to ensure that the widest section of our children will be eligible for free school meals, because the impact on opportunities at school and on a healthier life in the future is so significant.

[Diana R. Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Weir. I welcome the Minister to his new role. He was an assiduous shadow spokesman for children, and I wish him well in the months and years ahead.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing this debate and on her excellent contribution. She set out very well the reasons why there is such support for free school meals and for the pilots to be extended. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) on her campaign work. They have both campaigned year in, year out for the pilots to be set up and ensured that there was the evidence base to persuade the Government that they needed to make the universal free school meal offer to children in this country. They should be congratulated on their persistence.

I should like to pay tribute to the other speakers in the debate. With her background in the Child Poverty Action Group, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) gave us a very informed contribution and a straightforward approach to the matter. Free school meals deal not only with educational attainment but with the issues around reducing child poverty.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) set out very clearly the practical effect of the pilot on her constituents. She correctly paid tribute to Sir Robin Wales, the mayor of Newham, who has a personal commitment to ensuring that the pilot, which has been running in the constituency since last September, continues at the end of the two-year period if at all possible. The contributions made by my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) and for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) also showed a commitment to the children in their constituencies and to getting free school meals.

Let me start by saying why I feel so passionately about the subject. As the MP for Kingston upon Hull North, I saw the effects of the “Eat Well Do Well” scheme that was in place for three years. It gave all primary and special school pupils the right to free healthy school meals. We are talking about not just lunches, but a healthy breakfast club, fruit at break time and healthy snacks for children doing sport after school. Over the three years that we were lucky enough to have such a scheme, we saw the effects on both the learning and the long-term health of those children who, unfortunately, do not always achieve as much as they should at school. In the long term, the health inequalities in my city need to be addressed by early intervention schemes such as free healthy school meals. As other hon. Members have pointed out, that scheme was abandoned by an incoming Liberal Democrat council. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said, it did not even wait for the results of an evaluation before it made its informed decision. It just decided to scrap the scheme. The pilots that the last Government set up are a useful tool for incoming Ministers to assess what has happened and to make some informed decisions about the future direction of free healthy school meals.

The last Labour Government understood that good nutrition and a healthy diet were very important to young children. If we get such things right early on, we will reap the benefits by having people who will not get sick at a young age, who cannot work, who are on benefit and who do not achieve as much as they should educationally. There are all sorts of health and educational benefits to be gained if we invest early on. As the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) said, 1.5 million children in the United Kingdom are overweight or obese at the moment. If we do not grapple with that issue, we will see an explosion in medical conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. We all have a vested interest in doing what we can as early as possible to ensure that children have the best possible start.

We have talked generally about free school meals. My hon. Friends have addressed the stigma, the fact that children who are entitled to free school meals do not always take them up and the cost, especially for families on low incomes. The school census in 2009 showed that of the 16% of nursery and primary school pupils who were eligible for free school meals, only 13.6% took them up. In secondary school, 13.4% of pupils were eligible for free school meals, but only 10.3% took them up, so that is a real issue that needs to be addressed.

The previous Labour Government recognised the need to improve nutrition in schools for all pupils. For the years 2005 to 2011, they invested £650 million to help support the cost of healthy school lunches, to build or refurbish kitchens in schools and to improve dining facilities. Where pupils eat their lunch is an issue. They are put off school meals if the environment is not very nice. Moreover, investing in catering staff and lunchtime supervisors is important. I was very fortunate to attend a meeting of lunchtime supervisors that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South organised in his constituency. As he said, those supervisors play a valuable role in looking after pupils, who, through no fault of their own, cannot have school lunches—either because of cost or because their parents have not bothered to apply for the free school meals. Those supervisors have such an important role to play, and I am very proud that we wanted to work with those catering staff, to ensure that their role was recognised and that they received all the training that they required.

[Robert Flello]

It was indeed a pleasure to have my hon. Friend come in her ministerial capacity to Gladstone primary school in my constituency to meet lunchtime supervisors and staff from across my constituency. Does she recall some of the comments made by those staff about situations in which children were passing out in the playground because they had not eaten, in some cases for a couple of days? Situations such as that are horrific. We are in the 21st century, not in Victorian times, yet we sometimes have to wonder what time we are in. Does she recall those conversations with staff?

[Diana R. Johnson]

Absolutely. Those conversations made me even more committed to the idea of looking at the evidence about free school meals, ensuring that we have a proper evaluation of the pilots that are running in the city of Durham, Newham and Wolverhampton and making a strong case for free school meals, so that those situations do not recur. That leads me very nicely on to the free school meal pilots, which we have heard quite a lot about in this debate, especially from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham.

I was very fortunate, as the Minister responsible for those pilots, to visit all three of the pilot areas and to speak to the children, teachers, parents and the governors of the schools involved, to see what the effect of those pilots was within the school environment. The effect was very positive, and I very much look forward to seeing the evaluation of those pilots, which will be carried out by the National Centre for Social Research. The Minister is a very fair and open-minded gentleman. I know that he will look at that evaluation, and I very much hope that he will see the benefits to children in those pilot areas and that he will want to increase the availability of free school meals to children around the country.

I want to consider the Wolverhampton pilot in particular today. As other Members have said, that pilot was set up to look at the eligibility criteria and to extend them, so that parents who were receiving working tax credit and who had an annual income of up to £16,190 would become eligible for their children to have free school meals.

I also want to pick up on comments made by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws), who was a shadow Secretary of State for the Lib Dems when we had the Department of Children, Schools and Families. He said at that time that 500,000 children living in poverty are not entitled to free school meals. He also said:

“It is outrageous that half of our poorest children are missing out on free school meals. For the most disadvantaged children, a school dinner can be the only hot meal they get… The Tories caused this problem in the 1980s when they changed the rules to deny free school meals to half a million children living in families who were working but on low incomes. The Government must now look at restoring the entitlement to free school meals to this group—including to families on working tax credits.”

It is very interesting that the right hon. Gentleman said that.

I looked through the coalition agreement to see what the coalition is saying about school food and school meals. I was very disappointed that, in section 26 of the coalition agreement, there was no mention at all of school food and school meals, despite the right hon. Member for Yeovil making it very clear what he wanted to happen. I also looked under the public health section of the coalition agreement—section 25—where it sets out that

“The Government believes that we need action to promote public health, and encourage behaviour change to help people live healthier lives.”

What better way is there to do that than by introducing free school meals? Unfortunately, however, there is no mention of free school meals in the coalition agreement.

Industry (Government Support)

Robert Flello Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the need for a clear deficit reduction plan, and that such a plan must have at its heart measures to foster growth and create the conditions for a strong business-led recovery; believes Government has a crucial role to play in fostering economic growth and in creating a better-balanced economy; supports strategic decisions to back key sectors such as digital, life sciences, low carbon manufacturing and civil nuclear power; congratulates the previous Government for supporting businesses through the downturn and laying the foundations for the UK to be globally competitive as the country makes the transition to a low carbon economy; expresses serious concern that the Government’s decisions risk removing key support for business and industry at a critical moment in the economic cycle; further believes that cutting investment allowances will pull away vital support for manufacturers seeking to invest and grow; further notes that the Government’s scaling back of the regional development agencies at a time when recovery is fragile will impact on investment vital for regional economies; and regrets the coalition Government’s decision to place a question mark over a number of vital industrial support decisions taken by the previous Government.

Let me make it clear at the beginning of the debate what I said during our initial exchanges at oral questions a couple of weeks ago—deficit reduction is important and I do not say that every decision to reduce expenditure is wrong. The Secretary of State and I both fought the recent election on policies to reduce the deficit. But the Opposition believe that this must be done in a way that supports economic growth, and not in a way that undermines it. It is critical to our future that fiscal consolidation is done in a way that supports rather than undermines growth.

On the timing of deficit reduction, I am still saying what the Secretary of State and I were both saying back at the time of the election, but he is now saying something very different. Just a week before polling day he said that

“it would be foolish to rush into significant cuts now which take the economy down even further, which lead to an even bigger deficit problem”.

Yet just days later, the Secretary of State was signing up to his part of £6 billion of cuts in this financial year—cuts that mean 10,000 fewer students going to university than under the published plans, and £300 million being taken out of the regional development agencies this year.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Such cuts will hit my constituency and those of my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt). The cuts will hit places such as Stoke-on-Trent particularly hard—areas that have struggled to come forward from the 1980s. The impact will be devastating.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr McFadden]

The answer will be shorter than the question. I am aware of that report. However, my point is that if we want to stimulate private sector investment through some of the companies that I have mentioned, Government have a role to play. Simply walking away will lead to fewer, not more, private sector jobs.

[Robert Flello]

Returning to the subject of RDAs, a firm in my constituency wishes to bring the manufacture of ceramic products back into Stoke-on-Trent from abroad, but it is unlikely to be able to pursue that ambition because Advantage West Midlands is now unable to confirm its support. The ceramics industry is trying to bring jobs back into Stoke-on-Trent, and it is quite capable of doing so, but not without a little extra support.

[Mr McFadden]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Sometimes a bit of investment from the public sector can lever in significant extra investment from the private sector.

I want to turn to the criticisms of the approach that I have set out that have been made by the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister in recent weeks. They have made specific accusations, saying that the projects were agreed in a hurry and were politically motivated. Indeed, the Prime Minister repeated that allegation a short time ago at Prime Minister’s questions, when he spoke of fiddled grants for political reasons. Last week, he alleged that we had spent tens of billions of pounds on industrial support. I have to say that it is no wonder that he is sharpening his public spending axe if that is his grasp of the amount of money that we were spending on industrial support.

Let me deal head-on with the accusation about rushed and politically motivated largesse. These projects were not agreed in a hurry. We negotiated for months with the car companies, with the wind turbine suppliers and with Sheffield Forgemasters. All those projects were subject to careful scrutiny by officials and to the usual value-for-money criteria used in decisions of this kind. In the last Parliament, time after time, I stood at the Dispatch Box opposite and was criticised by some of those who are now Ministers sitting in front of me—not for going too quickly on industrial aid or for being rash about it, but for dragging my feet.

In a report published as long ago as July 2009, the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, which was chaired at the time by the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), who is now an Under-Secretary of State for Defence and a ministerial colleague of the Business Secretary, said that it was

“profoundly disappointed that to date not one single penny has been advanced through the scheme”—

the automotive assistance scheme—and added:

“We hope that this will change rapidly.”

That is the same scheme that has funded Ford and General Motors, so let us have fewer accusations that there was a huge rush in the run-up to the election to spend money profligately.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Flello Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising her concerns on behalf of the F40 local authorities. It is our intention to try to ensure, consistent with making provision for the very poorest children, that all local authorities, including those that have been most disadvantaged, have fairer funding.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Stoke-on-Trent was in phase 1 of the Building Schools for the Future programme, and my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Labour Front Bench will know full well the number of times that I have raised this issue. We were within a hair’s breadth of securing the BSF programme—there was just the issue of the 20:20 academy to be resolved. May I urge the Secretary of State to look carefully at the situation in Stoke-on-Trent and to try to give us some certainty about ensuring that we get the much-needed and much-deserved BSF programme through?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. His colleague, the newly elected hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), recently said on Radio 4 that he wanted money available for school buildings to go to Stoke rather than to vanity projects for yummy mummies in west London. I defer to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central when it comes to knowledge about yummy mummies in west London; however, we have been, and are, looking very sympathetically at the case for specific additional spending in Stoke.