Draft Further Education Bodies (Insolvency) Regulations 2018

Debate between Robert Syms and Anne Milton

Wednesday 31st October 2018 General Committees

[Anne Milton]

I should reassure the hon. Gentleman that I do not feel the need to erect an air-raid shelter over anybody, and certainly not Her Majesty’s Treasury, which is quite good at looking after itself to be absolutely honest. I am not really in that business. However, it will be important to look back and ask what has worked and why. The problem is that the debate at the moment, not just in this House but among the public, is all about money. That is a mistake; it is not just about money. I know that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that. It is about what you do with the money. Good management and leadership are important in making these institutions work.

The hon. Gentleman quoted the UCU, but it would be unfair to suggest that we have got to this moment without me or any of my predecessors being acutely aware of where FE colleges get their money and of the need to make sure that that is funded in future. We are doing several pieces of work. He referred to Philip Augar’s review of post-18 education funding. FE colleges come into that remit. We are also looking at level 4 and 5 provision. A lot of universities are providing level 4 and 5 provision. Should that happen or would it be better done in FE colleges?

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

Clearly there are concerns about funding for FE colleges. One difficulty is that many of them have foreign students and under the current visa regime, if they change their course they have to go back to their country of origin and if they want to go on to university they have to go back to their country of origin. That does not help. When the Government publish the White Paper, I assume that the Ministers who have responsibility for FE will make representations to make the situation a little easier, because this is additional money for the sector that many colleges can earn. Bournemouth and Poole College earns about £1 million a year in such fees, so this is a way in which we could get more money into the sector.

[Anne Milton]

I hesitate to talk about joined-up Government because it never feels as joined up as it ought to be, but joining it up so that a decision about the visa rules does not have an adverse impact on the sector is critical, because having students on courses means financial income. We are doing quite a lot of work on that at the moment, as my hon. Friend might imagine.

I know that Hull has had huge problems; I have spoken to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) about that. I would just say that money is going in; there is a danger of forgetting that when we look at the base rate of funding of further education colleges. The pot of money that the Treasury made available for the restructuring facility was £700 million, and a substantial amount of that will have been spent; that is important. We will also put in £500 million by 2020, with the full roll-out of T-levels.

On the subject of T-levels, we are putting in £20 million over the two years to March 2020 to support providers as they prepare for them. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East mentioned technical education; this is at the heart of that. We are also putting together a £20 million investment, including recently through Taking Teaching Further, which tries to get industry expertise into colleges. People with that expertise are often exactly the people we want teaching in FE colleges. There is quite a light regime regarding what qualifications people need in order to teach in an FE college—rightly so. We need to inject people like that into the system. We are providing a maths premium and £38 million for the initial providers of T-levels, so that they can invest in the sort of equipment that is needed.

Candour in Health Care

Debate between Robert Syms and Anne Milton

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Westminster Hall

[Anne Milton]

The hon. Gentleman pre-empts me by a second; I was about to come to legal aid. My experience is that even with legal aid, the courts are rarely an option for most people. Allowing discretion on the reporting of near misses would, I fear, open another minefield beyond which people could hide, as he also mentioned.

I have certainly brokered meetings between NHS organisations and my constituents to try to bring them together and make the NHS organisations stop feeling so defensive. I have been an advocate for people in my constituency just so they could hear what happened. I should think that many hon. Members rely on personal relationships, particularly within hospital trusts, for such purposes. Maybe they know a supportive medical director to whom they can say, “Look, this family, this couple or these relatives just want to know what happened; this isn’t going to go anywhere.” That is a leap of faith. The NHS organisation has to say, “Fair enough.” When that happens, closure can follow.

The hon. Member for Southport rightly pointed out that accidents occur across the NHS and mentioned, in particular, the failure to diagnose in general practice. That is an ongoing, rumbling issue that I hear about not only as a constituency MP, but as a Minister. I thank him for recognising that the solution to getting to a situation where we have effective measures in place to ensure candour is a dilemma. It is not an easy decision. He is also right to point out that the NHS is not alone in protecting itself. My goodness me, we know a lot of professions that close their doors when one of their members is under attack—the legal profession is one. People just want the truth, but sadly the shutters go down and the doors close, and closure cannot be achieved.

[Mr Syms]

I am pleased with the way the Minister is responding to the debate and recognise that a statutory duty of candour is one of a range of measures that the Government are considering. However, if they decide not to take that route initially, it is important that they do not rule it out, because the culture change that is needed might not come about as a result of what they are doing, but we will still need to get there at some point. I still think that a statutory duty of candour would be the biggest and most successful leap towards that goal—the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington made a good point on that—but even if the Government choose not to go there, they should not rule it out, because I think that ultimately that is where we will end up.