Ofsted’s Work with Schools

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This House is both the best and worst workplace in the world for those with a disability or disadvantage. The reason I raise this is that constantly lifts do not work, buttons do not work in lifts, doors do not work properly and toilets are always out of order and take months to fix. Just below the Chamber on the lower ground floor there are toilets that have been out for almost six months on end and no one ever seems to be there doing anything to fix them. This is not acceptable any longer.

I have been here for 14 years and, while every single member of staff is incredibly kind, especially the Doorkeepers, I find it incredible that things have got worse over the past 14 years in terms of doors being shut, lifts not working, buttons not working, lift doors not working, toilets being out of order, and people who should not be using disabled toilets using them. We do nothing about it, yet we publish press statements saying we are inclusive and diverse employers but that means nothing to anyone. So may I urge you, Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Speaker and the other Deputy Speakers to look at this issue with the Serjeant at Arms and get these facilities fixed once and for all so that people with disadvantages can go about their business without having to worry about doors being shut and toilets being broken and the other things I have mentioned?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

As the right hon. Gentleman may know, it might be appropriate to raise those matters with the Administration Committee as well, but I will certainly ensure that his comments are fed back. The Deputy Serjeant at Arms is present, and I am sure that he will be one of those feeding it back. I am very sorry to hear of the experiences that the right hon. Gentleman has described. Of course it is right that those facilities should be in good working order, and that there should be proper provision for people with disabilities.

Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

2nd reading
Monday 27th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I just want to answer some other questions that the Labour spokesman asked first.

To be clear, as part of the pathway towards the LLE, the Government will stimulate the provision of high-quality technical education at levels 4 and 5 through the HE short-course trial that he talked about, with 22 providers. [Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Could I ask Members to be quiet, because we cannot hear what the Minister is saying and he is not able to hear where interventions are coming from?

[Robert Halfon]

We will keep the student finance system under review to ensure it is delivering value for money both for students and the taxpayer. The forecast costs for the LLE, which the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington asked about, will be outlined in a future spending review. He also asked about the QAA. It released a public statement in July 2022 requesting to step down from its position as the designated quality body. We are currently consulting on the de-designation of the QAA as required by the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. That consultation closes on 3 March.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Once again, there are clearly important interventions being made. I am sure right hon. and hon. Members want to hear those interventions, and the answers as well. I urge all colleagues to listen to the remaining part of the debate. Even though there is an important statement coming, we want to hear the interventions and answers.

[Robert Halfon]

Of course I will consider the representations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester and others across the House. We will try to get the consultation out speedily, but it will be published by Report.

Educational Poverty: Children in Residential Care

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the Opposition spokesman for her question. To be fair, I do not think everything the Government have done is bad: they have done some very good things for vulnerable children, and it is important to mention that. My job as a Select Committee Chair, as well as that of my colleagues, is to provide challenge on some of the things that need to be improved.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, with his Man from Del Monte suit, made the point that there had been a lot of reviews and reports about this issue, and that we need action. Obviously, there will be a new Prime Minister in the next few weeks, but I very much hope that whoever takes the post of Education Secretary looks seriously at the MacAlister review and adopts many of its important proposals. I also hope that they look seriously at our report on educational outcomes and the educational poverty that too many children in care face, and respond to our recommendations as soon as possible and enact some of them sooner rather than later. We have waited long enough, and children in care need help and support. As I said in my statement, they should be given the chance to climb the educational ladder of opportunity along with everyone else, and it is wrong that we have not even brought them to that ladder to help them climb up.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his statement, and for answering the questions in such detail.

Education Catch-Up Programme

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Robert Halfon will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement, and call Robert Halfon to respond to them in turn. May I emphasise, as I did last week, that questions should be directed to the Select Committee Chair and not to the relevant Minister? Interventions should be questions, and should be brief; they should not be long statements. Front Benchers may take part in questioning.

I call the Chair of the Education Committee, Robert Halfon.

1.42 pm

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank you and the Backbench Business Committee for giving me a chance to make a statement on the Committee’s new report, entitled “Is the Catch-up Programme fit for purpose?” I also thank the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker). It seems a bit like groundhog day, because we have spent the last few weeks debating this subject, and we did so in the Committee just last Tuesday. I want to give a special mention to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), who is an incredibly hard-working member of the Committee, and to thank her for being here today.

Let me begin by paying tribute to all the teachers and support staff, not just in my constituency but around the country, who have done everything possible to keep children learning, and to the children and young people themselves, who have had to deal with extremely difficult circumstances. I only wish that the chair of the covid inquiry had not forgotten to mention the word “children” in the draft terms of reference; I hope that that will change.

To date, the Government have spent almost £5 billion on the catch-up programme, which I warmly welcome, but, as our report points out, more targeted efforts are needed to help our children to recover from the pandemic. The impacts of school closures were devastating for most of them. Many now face an epidemic of educational inequality, a widening attainment gap, worsening mental health, an increase in their safeguarding risks, and an adverse effect on their lifetime chances. One study found that children locked down at home spent an average of two and a half hours each day doing school work, but one fifth of pupils did no learning at home, or less than one hour each day.

Our report sets out four key findings. First, it notes that disadvantaged pupils have been the worst hit. The Education Policy Institute told us that disadvantaged pupils could be

“five, six, seven—in the worst case scenarios—eight months behind”

their most affluent peers. There are regional inequalities too. By the second half of the autumn term in 2020, the average learning loss in maths for primary schools was 5.3 months in Yorkshire and the Humber, compared with just 0.5 months in the south-west.

By March 2021, the national tutoring programme, the Department’s flagship programme, had reached 100% of its target in the south-west, but just 58% in the north-east, 59% in the north-west, and 60% in my region of the east. These regional disparities should not be occurring.

Secondly, rates of persistent absence remain high, but without up-to-date data from the Department we do not know how many “ghost children” continue to experience severe levels of absence. In December, the Department announced that rates of persistent absence had risen to 16.3% in secondary schools in the autumn of 2020. That equates to almost 502,000 of the 3 million secondary-age pupils. I strongly support the work of the Children’s Commissioner in this regard. Her new report suggests that 124,000 children were severely absent last year. However, we do not yet have the Department’s official absence figures even for the summer term of 2021. Without that data, we risk creating an Oliver Twist generation of children, lost to the system forever.

Thirdly, Randstad and the national tutoring programme are not delivering for the most disadvantaged pupils. Our inquiry found that the NTP had reached just 15% of its overall target. Some headteachers described the “bureaucratic nightmare” of navigating Randstad’s tuition hub, and said that there was a “lack of communication” with schools about the programme. Concerningly, Randstad has also reportedly removed the requirement to reach 65% of children eligible for the pupil premium from its tutoring contracts with providers.

On Friday, the Secretary of State announced that the Department had agreed to publish mid-term data on the performance of the NTP, and that the £65 million originally allocated to the tutor and academic mentor NTP pillars would now go directly to the school-led tutoring arm. We strongly support that move, which we called for in our recommendations. I believe that all the money should have gone to schools, because they would have known how best to spend it, and could have been judged on the outcome.

Figures published by Randstad, mentioned by the Department, suggest that more than 1 million young people have now started tutoring courses, but there are questions to be asked about those figures. For instance, 311,000 of these new starts were made in the previous academic year, when the previous contractor, EEF, was leading the roll-out of the NTP. In total, only 720,000 new starts have been made this academic year, according to the statistics. Moreover, Randstad has revealed that about one in six pupils are enrolled on multiple courses, and are therefore double-counted. Of course I am pleased that more young people are accessing the help and support that they need to catch up on their lost learning, but much greater effort is required to target that support at those who need it the most. The Government must ensure that Randstad shapes up. They have made some changes, but if things do not improve dramatically they must cancel the Randstad contract.

Finally, the Department needs to do more to support young people’s mental health. Our Committee heard that the number of children referred for mental health support in 2020 represented an increase of nearly 60% in comparison with 2018. The impact of social media was especially concerning. Research shows that, just last year, 16.7% of 11 to 16-year-olds using social media agreed that it had had a negative impact on their wellbeing. One in three girls said that they were unhappy with their personal appearance by the age of 14, and 78% of Barnardo’s practitioners reported that children aged 11 to 15 had accessed unsuitable or harmful content through social media. These are worrying trends. Our report asks an important question: how can we ensure that the catch-up programme delivers for the most disadvantaged?

First, we need more reliable and up-to-date data to establish the full effect of the pandemic on children and young people. This data must include regional breakdowns, and must pay due regard to disadvantage and special educational needs. Greater statistical transparency is also needed on the performance of Randstad and the NTP.

Secondly, we need to end the spaghetti junction, as we call it, of catch-up funding. It is a fragmented catch-up programme with complex and bureaucratic funding applications that schools have to navigate. Teachers know their pupils best, and our report recommends that the funding schemes are simplified and merged into one pot for schools to access and spend where the recovery need is greatest. Any future initiative should direct funding to schools using existing mechanisms for disadvantage, such as pupil premium eligibility. Then, schools should be held accountable for how they spend the funds on improvements for the children.

Thirdly, the Department should launch a pilot scheme in the country’s most disadvantaged areas to explore the benefits that a longer school day—in terms of extracurricular activity such as sport, music and drama—could bring to pupils’ educational attainment and mental health recovery. The Minister will know that there is a wealth of statistics to show that such extra activities improve both the mental health of children and their educational attainment. This is topical, given that we have heard mention of the online harms Bill. The Government should introduce a social media levy on the profits of social media companies. That could be distributed to schools to support better online harm and mental health resilience training. For example, from a 2% levy, the Government could raise £100 million, which could be spent on resilience for children. It would certainly concentrate the minds of the social media companies.

Finally, the Department for Education should take really urgent steps to address the issue of persistent and severe absence by working with schools and local authorities proactively and appointing attendance practitioners to work with parents, local authorities and schools to return these children safely and quickly into school. There are 13,000 children missing in year 11, a crucial exam year. The most disadvantaged schools have the equivalent of a whole classroom missing. Dramatic action must be taken by the Department to get these so-called ghost children back into school and learning again.

Education catch-up must be for the long term. If the Department is to make the case to the Treasury that the programme is making a difference and if it is to get more funding for the future, it has to prove that the programme is providing value for money for the taxpayer with the existing funds and also, most importantly, that the catch-up programme is really working for the most disadvantaged pupils. Education should be the cornerstone for levelling up, and every avenue should be taken to extend the ladder of opportunity to every child. Charles Dickens wrote of

“so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired”.

If we are to ensure the catch-up is fit for purpose and to the benefit of every child, we must act to fix it now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

I have been worried about this, and I have raised it with the Minister on the Floor of the House and in the Select Committee. The Minister has said that that target remains, although there is some flexibility in terms of some of the tutoring groups. I am absolutely clear that the catch-up programme should reach the most disadvantaged. My worry is that it is not, and we will continue to press the Government and make sure that it does.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Select Committee Chair for his statement and for answering the questions put to him.

Bill Presented

Online Safety Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Nadine Dorries, supported by the Prime Minister, Secretary Dominic Raab, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Priti Patel, Secretary Sajid Javid, Chris Philp, Julia Lopez and Mr Damian Hinds presented a Bill to make provision for and in connection with the regulation by OFCOM of certain internet services; for and in connection with communications offences; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 285).

Ordered, That the Explanatory Notes relating to the Bill be printed (Bill 285—EN).

Education Recovery

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I will be very brief, given the events that are going on. There is actually a lot of unity in the House on this issue, behind the inevitable political barney. I thank all Members who spoke in the debate, particularly my fellow Committee members, the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), who is an expert member of our Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford).

I will just say that there must be a focus on a long-term plan for education with a secure funding settlement, on which there has been a lot of agreement across the House. I really welcome the Minister’s remarks, especially what he said about the longer school day, but I urge him to look at these 100,000 ghost children and make sure that they go back to school and we do not destroy their life chances; to focus the covid package on the most disadvantaged; to do everything he can reduce the attainment gap, and—he knows that this is where we possibly have a slight disagreement—to ensure that the curriculum prepares pupils for the world of work and does not just focus on knowledge.

Question deferred until tomorrow at Seven o’clock (Standing Order No. 54).

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I will suspend the House for two minutes to make arrangements for the next business.

Ofsted Review of Sexual Abuse in Schools and Colleges

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We now go to the Chair of the Education Committee, Sir Robert Halfon.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

I thank the Minister for all that she is doing. The report greatly focuses on safeguarding failings within schools, but the question must be raised as to why such failings were not previously identified by Ofsted or the Independent Schools Inspectorate in the first instance. Peer-on-peer abuse is one aspect of the wider systemic safeguarding failings and cannot be seen in isolation. Why is there not a consistent approach to safeguarding through the school inspections regime, and does a lack of consistency not perpetuate the problem further? Will she consider a review into the advice provided to schools by the local authority inspectors to ensure that there is a consistent and joined-up approach in safeguarding? Finally, can the Government identify how they will raise parental awareness of safeguarding issues, such as peer-on- peer abuse? Will parental safeguarding induction and engagement programmes be provided to parents and carers?

A Brighter Future for the Next Generation

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

I am excited by this Queen’s Speech—excited that, for the first time in many years, skills and further education are a core part. My maiden speech in 2010 was about apprenticeships, and I have yearned for the skills agenda to be embedded within Government. If the heart of levelling up is about education and skills, then we are truly in a good place. If levelling up means providing a ladder of opportunity for millions of our countrymen and women to learn, train and reskill, providing job security and prosperity for themselves and their families, then we will both meet the skills need of our nation and equip ourselves for the coming fourth industrial revolution. As the skills and FE Bill passes through Parliament, we will of course examine the finer details, but the vision of a lifetime skills guarantee providing all adults with the opportunity to retrain and skill for a lifelong learning entitlement is a huge step forward. The offer of free level 3 courses for those without A-levels could do much to retrain those who do not have the right qualifications to advance in key professions. My only wish is that this would come much sooner than 2025. I hope that in time the Government can build on this by providing an adult community learning centre in every town and by giving businesses a skills tax credit for every worker they retrain in vital skills.

We need to address the huge fall in part-time learners for higher education with maintenance support and greater financial muscle for institutions such as the Open University that do so much for disadvantaged students. The Open University is one of the great education inventions of the 20th century and an institution that puts levelling up first and foremost. For too long further education was denied the opportunities given to higher education, both in terms of funding and prestige. Over many years, there has been a culture of snobbery about FE. This has been all the more astonishing given that further education colleges meet our skills needs, provide a ladder of opportunity for thousands of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and are places of social capital. I have seen this myself in over 70 visits to Harlow College in my constituency. I have urged the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), or the Secretary of State to visit our wonderful college to see the work that it does as a showcase for the importance of FE to our country. The proposals look to build the prestige of further education and create more employer-led qualifications. As the Secretary of State, who has demonstrated a real passion for FE, has acknowledged, this must be backed up by a real-terms increase in funding. Further education has often been described as the Cinderella of our education system, but we should be reminded that Cinderella became a senior member of the royal family and could banish the two ugly sisters of snobbery and underfunding once and for all.

In the longer term, the Government should, alongside the remarkable kickstart programme of financial support for businesses that hire apprentices and young people, look at reform of the apprenticeship levy to ensure that more disadvantaged would-be apprentices can climb the skills ladder. Degree apprenticeships should be rocket-boosted with the ambition of having at least half of all students completing degree apprenticeships over the next 10 years.

Alongside FE, I would like the Government to do more to support university technical colleges. They have some superb outcomes and our ambition should be to have a UTC in every town across the country. Sixty-one per cent. of UTCs were rated good or outstanding in the past year compared with a national average of 50%, while in 2020 55% of students went on to university in contrast to 50% nationally, and 13% went on to do an apprenticeship whereas the national average is just 6%.

The White Paper mentions careers guidance. We will not transform skills unless we change careers guidance fundamentally. There is too much replication, duplication and overlap with the Department for Work and Pensions. Department for Education careers advice must be about skills, skills, skills. It must ensure that all the way through schooling pupils are taught about apprenticeships and FE and given more opportunities for work experience. Ofsted should focus on this kind of careers guidance, in short implementing the Baker clause—a much stricter criterion of inspection. Our curriculum should be changed to embed work and skills all the way through children’s, pupils’ and students’ learning.

The Government have put out the levelling-up skills ladder of opportunity. I am really optimistic that this Queen’s Speech will bring people to that ladder and help them climb to the top.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We now go to the SNP spokesperson, Clare Monaghan.

Health and Social Care Update

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and pay tribute to him for the vaccine programme, along with everyone else in the NHS. Given the £200 million already spent on the move of Public Health England to Harlow, first announced by the Government in 2015, and the additional £120 million given this year to facilitate the move, will he set out the progress on and timings of the move of Public Health England or its successor body to Harlow and the next steps on the completion of the Harlow campus, as part of our country’s programme to modernise our public health science?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the Secretary of State, I wish to reiterate that there is a dress code for people participating by video link. We expect them to be dressed in the same way as they would be if they were in the Chamber—with a jacket.

Skills for Jobs White Paper

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 21st January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before we move on to the Chair of the Select Committee, I want to say that this statement will finish at 1.53 pm, so we will need brisk questions and brisk answers if we are to have any chance of getting through everybody.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

My first ever speech in the House of Commons was about apprenticeships and skills, so I give a huge welcome to the White Paper, and to Secretary of State’s passion for further education. The White Paper will help us to close our skills deficit and ensure that qualifications and training are led by employer needs. The lifetime skills guarantee and the flexible finance will allow disadvantaged people to climb the skills ladder of opportunity at any age.

I note that the White Paper says that young people tend to get careers advice from their family, but also that just 28% of parents are confident advising their children on apprenticeships. That plummets to 21% for technical and vocational options. It is therefore hugely welcome that the White Paper pledges to toughen up enforcement of the Baker clause, makes funding conditional on compliance, and lowers the age at which children must be offered independent careers advice at school, so that it is given to those in year 7. Will my right hon. Friend make it his mission to ensure that schools encourage skills, FE and apprenticeships as much as they do university, and will he consider establishing a real UCAS for FE and skills?

Town and Country Planning

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that the 300,000 dwellings per year target is indeed delivered, and that, as part of that, some innovation in the planning system, with the right controls, is needed? Does he also agree that we would not be in such a challenging situation if it was not for the failure of the Mayor of London to deliver housing in the centre of London, and our businesses are paying a terrible price for the failure to make London a proper live-work city?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We need interventions to be short. Lots of Members want to speak, and they will not be able to do so if there are lots of interventions, and long ones.

[Robert Halfon]

I go back to my previous argument: we need quality housing. We need a lighter planning regime, because I want affordable houses for my constituents, but I want them in the right place. I therefore welcome what the Secretary of State said to me in our meeting yesterday: the introduction of a prior approvals process for these new rights, and local planning authorities and the community will now have a say over any new redevelopment, with the ability to object to plans. Local authorities can also now consider the external appearance of the building, the development’s impact on transport and neighbouring premises, as well as the provision of adequate natural light.

I understand—I would welcome the Minister’s confirmation of this—that a time-limited PDR allowing for the conversion of warehouses and buildings on industrial estates lapses today and that the Government will not be renewing this right. It was noted by the shadow Minister that the rights introduced today are so limited that this is just to deliver around 800 homes per year.

On the basis that the Secretary of State is putting an end to rabbit-hutch housing and creating a level playing field by prohibiting unwanted through-the-backdoor developments, I will support the Government. However, as I have said previously to my right hon. Friend the Minister, I ask that the Government hold to account those councils that are socially cleansing their boroughs by moving people to strange areas without any links to their families and friends. If councils must make out-of-area placements, they should contribute financially to the receiving councils’ associated costs, so that Harlow does not bear the brunt financially.

Extended PDRs have caused irreparable damage to Harlow’s landscape, social cohesion and reputation. There are unintended consequences to the drain on our local resources, which is why I strongly welcome the Secretary of State’s moves. I note that we will be able to repair some of the damage because of our £25 million bid for the Government towns fund, and I very much welcome the £1 million of accelerated funding for Harlow, announced last week, to regenerate our town centre and make sure that what has gone wrong in the past can never happen again.

Education Settings: Wider Opening

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

We now go to the Chair of the Education Committee.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

Why can we turn a blind eye to thousands of demonstrators  and campaign for pubs and garden centres to open, yet it is so hard to reopen our schools? We know that about 700,000 disadvantaged children are not doing school homework and 700,000 do not have proper access to computers for the internet, so what are the Government doing to help those disadvantaged children to learn again and avoid an epidemic of educational poverty? Can we have a long-term plan for a catch-up premium for education to look after those left-behind children? Will the Secretary of State reconsider ensuring that those children get free school meals over the summer, given the financial anxieties their families are facing during the pandemic?

Points of Order

Debate between Robert Halfon and Baroness Winterton of Doncaster

Thursday 30th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware that there is a feeling that it is quite helpful for colleagues to have a rough idea of when business is starting so that they can be fairly certain of when they need to turn up for debates. I think many colleagues agree on that. So that is why there are firmer time limits for statements and urgent questions. However, I am sure that Front Benchers will take account of the points that the hon. Gentleman has made about the importance of getting Back Benchers in as well. Obviously, business questions are a very important part of the week—I accept that—and we did manage to get most people in today, which was because there were shorter questions and shorter answers. I think we should bear that in mind for the future.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given that the Select Committees are soon to be established, will you use your good offices, through the Speaker, to ensure that every Committee that wants one has the chance to employ an apprentice to help it in some capacity? The Education Committee has an apprentice, but I think that if all Select Committees employed them, it would send a very good signal in relation to building an apprenticeships and skills nation.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

That is not actually a matter for the Chair, but obviously the right hon. Gentleman has put on record his views about Select Committees and apprentices, and I will certainly pass them to the Speaker and other appropriate authorities.

Bill Presented

Environment Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Secretary Theresa Villiers, supported by the Prime Minister, Michael Gove, Secretary Stephen Barclay, Secretary Andrea Leadsom, Secretary Robert Jenrick, Secretary Grant Shapps, Secretary Alister Jack, Secretary Simon Hart and Secretary Julian Smith, presented a Bill to make provision about targets, plans and policies for improving the natural environment; for statements and reports about environmental protection; for the Office for Environmental Protection; about waste and resource efficiency; about air quality; for the recall of products that fail to meet environmental standards; about water; about nature and biodiversity; for conservation covenants; about the regulation of chemicals; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Monday 3 February, and to be printed (Bill 9) with explanatory notes (Bill 9-EN).