School Building Conditions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Robin Walker)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) on securing this debate and speaking up for the school that he himself attended. He has made a passionate and clear case.

I also take this opportunity to say how pleased I am to be addressing the Chamber today as the Minister for school standards. I am looking forward to working alongside the new Minister for the school system, Baroness Barran, to ensure that our schools are working effectively and to provide every child with the best start in life.

As a constituency MP who has written over the years to the Department about a number of condition issues, I have great sympathy with where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. I recognise also that he says that this is an exceptional case.

I recognise that well maintained buildings are essential to support high-quality education so that pupils gain the knowledge, skills and qualifications they need. All pupils deserve an effective and safe environment to learn in, which is why maintaining and improving the condition of our school estate is a Government priority. The Department does not directly own or manage the school estate, but it has an important stewardship role and we are focused on supporting those responsible for school buildings to improve schools throughout the country. We do that through annual capital funding, delivering rebuilding programmes and offering guidance and support for the sector.

[Mr Sheerman]

What is the Department going to do about the quality? Who gets on the list of people who are reputable enough and have enough of a track record to be good contractors? Is it not time we have the good list and the not-so-good list and that those come from the Department because it has so much knowledge about who is in the contracting industry?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman speaks from his enormous experience and he raises a sensible point. It is for the Department to work with local authorities and the various commissioning bodies to ensure they are working with the most reputable people. We all know—and successive Governments have worked with—some businesses that do not succeed.

In the case of Carillion, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish has given some shocking examples of the way it behaved, particularly with regard to the playing fields. That should not have been the case. The hon. Gentleman has raised the condition issues facing a specific primary school in his constituency. I understand the challenge the school is facing with its buildings, many as a result of the refurbishment and the expansion carried out by the local authority with Carillion in 2015, about three years before the company went into liquidation.

I recognise that Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council can no longer pursue Carillion for redress on that project, following its liquidation in 2018. It has invested its own capital funding to address issues at the school over recent years. As the hon. Gentleman said, the former Parliamentary Under-Secretary with responsibility for the school system recently met him and representatives from the council to discuss those issues. I have been speaking to her successor today. I alerted her to the debate and can assure the hon. Gentleman that she is determined to deliver for the school system in a way that achieves value for money but also delivers according to need.

Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council has assured us that the school is currently safe and operational. I know, however, that a number of issues remain, such as leaking roofs, uneven floors, inadequately installed fire doors and, most significantly, the inadequate drainage that has led to repeated flooding. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Department will continue to engage with the council and, where appropriate, with the Environment Agency and local water boards to consider the wider level of surface water flood risk within the schools and what support would be required. We look forward to reviewing the detailed condition reports from the council once they have been submitted. I checked with officials ahead of the debate: we have not seen them yet, but we are certainly happy to make sure that they are properly engaged with.

I reassure the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish that the Government treat every school throughout England on a consistent basis. As I will set out, our condition funding and rebuilding programmes are targeted at schools in the worst condition, regardless of which constituency they are in and whether they are academy trusts or local authority maintained.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I perfectly accept what the Minister is saying, but does he recognise that one of the flaws of the condition survey is that it is basically sending somebody to look at the school? Aesthetically, Russell Scott looks modern—fit for purpose, wonderful—but we do not have to scratch very hard to see that that is not really the case. However, it was given an A grading by the school condition survey.

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point; I was just coming to that. Our school condition allocations are based on a consistent way, regarding the relative condition of schools. The data provides a consistent picture of relative condition, helping to inform funding allocations. We recognise, though, that it is a non-invasive survey and that does not assess structural issues, for example, which appear to be the issue in this case. It is not intended to be a substitute for the more detailed condition reports that local authorities use to prioritise investment across their schools, based on local knowledge.

We are currently consulting on the approach to prioritising schools for future rounds of the new school rebuilding programme and we expect there to be opportunities for evidence of severe condition needs to be submitted for consideration for that programme. More broadly, I am pleased that six schools in Tameside have benefited from new or refurbished buildings through the Department’s priority school rebuilding programme. In 2021-22, Tameside council also received an annual school condition allocation of £1.3 million to address condition issues at its schools and, over the past five years, it has received £9.1 million in total.[Official Report, 23 September 2021, Vol. 701, c. 2MC.] In February 2021, we announced that Tameside will receive £6.3 million to provide new school places needed in 2023.

[Rachael Maskell]

I want to refer back to All Saints school. The school was inspected following my meeting with Baroness Berridge, and although it was acknowledged that it had significant premises challenges, it has not yet progressed on to a capital funding programme. Will the Minister look at how a school such as All Saints can go forward in that programme?

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady has made her case very clearly, and I can assure her that officials have been engaging with the diocese about the school. I am certainly happy to make sure that my ministerial counterpart in the Lords, who is responsible for this area, follows through on that commitment.

The Department expects schools and those responsible for school buildings to manage their estate in an efficient and effective way, working proactively to comply with the relevant regulations, and to plan maintenance programmes. That is why we are supporting schools with advice, tools and resources such as good estate management and guidance on managing asbestos. We also provide support to get best value, including free access to our procurement frameworks.

I move on to how the Department provides support in maintaining and improving the condition of the wider school estate. Responsibility for identifying and addressing concerns in schools lies with the relevant local authorities, academy trusts or voluntary aided school bodies. They can prioritise available resources and funding to keep schools open and safe, based on local knowledge of their estates. Day-to-day maintenance, checks and minor repairs are typically funded from school revenue; we also provide annual capital funding to schools and those responsible for school buildings so that they can invest in improving the condition of their buildings and meet their duties to maintain a safe school estate.

The Department has allocated £11.3 billion in condition funding since 2015, including £1.8 billion in the financial year 2021-22. We also provided an additional £560 million in 2020-21 for essential maintenance and upgrades, on top of more than £1.4 billion already allocated during that year. Schools access capital funding to improve the condition of their building through school condition allocations or the condition improvement fund. School condition allocations are provided to eligible responsible bodies to invest in their schools on the basis of local knowledge. Since 2015, allocations have been informed by consistent data on the condition of buildings across England, so that funding is targeted to where it is needed most. Every school is treated consistently.

The condition improvement fund is an annual bidding round for eligible schools. Bids are robustly assessed against published criteria, and in 2021-22 the funds supported 1,400 projects at 1,200 schools and sixth-form colleges. The fund gives the highest priority to condition projects that address compliance and health and safety issues, which include fire protection systems, gas safety, electrical safety or emergency asbestos removal.

We also provide schools with annual devolved formula capital allocations to spend on smaller projects or purchases in line with their priorities. Capital funding for future years will be determined by the spending review, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish, as well as the hon. Members for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), who intervened on him, for the extent to which their speeches inform and reinforce our submission to that review.

In addition to annual condition funding, we centrally deliver major rebuilding programmes. The hon. Gentleman will be well aware that the Prime Minister announced a new school rebuilding programme last June; we have confirmed the first 100 schools in the programme as part of a commitment to 500 projects over the next decade. The programme will transform the education of thousands of pupils around the country, and continue to benefit children and their teachers for decades to come. It will replace poor condition and ageing school buildings with modern facilities, and all new buildings delivered through the programme will be net zero carbon in operation, contributing to the Government’s ambitious carbon reduction targets.

The first projects include primary and secondary schools, as well as a sixth-form college and special and alternative provision settings. One example is Lytham St Annes High School in Lancashire. The original school building was built in the 1950s, with later extensions in the ’60s and ’70s. The Department is funding the replacement of the main building and sports hall, with a separate sports hall in a new build two-storey block.

The programme represents a substantial investment in schools in the midlands and the north of England, with 70 of the first 100 projects located in those regions. We have published the methodology used to prioritise the first 100 schools, and we are consulting on how schools could be prioritised for inclusion in the future. We want that to be inclusive and effective. The consultation closes on 8 October, and we will set out plans for future rounds of the programme in 2022. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish will appreciate that I cannot make specific commitments about future rounds of the funding, but he has set out his position very clearly and placed it firmly on the record. It will certainly be taken into account.

The hon. Gentleman asked for a named official—a point of contact—and I am very happy to follow up on that after the debate; he will understand why I will not name an official on the Floor of the Chamber. However, my understanding is that conversations about both the application for support and the contingency planning are going on between my officials at the DFE and those people at Tameside council. I am certainly happy to take this forward, and I congratulate him on making his case so strongly.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I feel as though I hardly use any of the skills that I have acquired during my long life—certainly not in this job. The hon. Lady is right that that applies to many people. It is one of the key reasons why we have resisted pressure to make apprenticeships something only for young people and only for new recruits, because for someone of 45, for example, who is returning to work after a career break or who has suddenly discovered in themselves an interest and a potential that they did not know about, it is right that there is Government support through apprenticeship training to enable them to develop those new skills and go on to a rewarding career.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

19. Local businesses in Worcester tell me that they worry about skills shortages and they want to invest in young people. In order for them to do so, it is crucial that young people coming out of school have information about apprenticeships. Does the Minister agree that we need to keep on making sure that inspiring apprentices and their employers get into our schools to talk about the opportunities that apprenticeships can offer?

Trade Union Bill (Discussions)

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is true that the noble Lord Cormack is a very special “parli-a-mentarian”.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

As the grandson of a trade union shop steward who went on to become a Conservative activist and whose son made it to the other place, I can say to the Minister that he has had correspondence on this issue from Government Members raising the concerns of their constituents who also happen to be trade unionists. May I thank him for listening in relation to that correspondence and paying attention to it? It is a profoundly Conservative principle not just to get through the business in our manifesto, but to engage with the other place to improve it.

School Funding Formula

Robin Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that, given the continued fiscal pressure on the schools budget in the next Parliament, the speedy implementation of a fair and transparent school funding formula is more urgent than ever.

It is a pleasure to open this debate and to speak on an issue that I have raised during each year of my time in Parliament, and one that still needs addressing and never more urgently than in the run-up to a crucial general election. I hope today’s debate can inform the manifestos of all the main parties and lay down a challenge for the next Government to deliver on.

Today’s motion has cross-party support: more than 64 Back Benchers from across the House have signed it. I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for recognising that it is an urgent and important enough matter to merit debate in the main Chamber. I am also very grateful to the two vice-chairs of the F40 campaign, who are both in their places: the hon. Members for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). We are here to correct a long-standing injustice, and it is a credit to Parliament that there is such a strong turnout.

We have seen some progress on this issue, but the key decisions on the shape of a new national funding formula have been delayed until after the 2015 spending review. To say that that was disappointing in a place such as Worcestershire, which has lingered at the bottom of the funding table for far too long, would be an understatement. One local head teacher, in a letter to our local paper, recently described it as “immoral” that the issue of fair funding has been unaddressed for so long.

Local MPs have repeatedly made the case for a new formula that is based more on activity and the characteristics of schools and their catchments, and less on accidents of geography. We have attended debate after debate on this issue, and not just in the current Parliament. Colleagues with experience of previous Parliaments have often regaled me with their efforts to press this issue and point out the glaring disparities that affect their schools and constituents.

[Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have been here since 2001 and this has been a thorny problem since then. I was in the same intake as the Minister, who is in his place. I hope that when he gets the chance to speak he will address the situation in Somerset, where we face the same problem as Worcester.

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have seen the gap between the best and worst-funded authorities continue to widen long after the flaws which caused it were acknowledged.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for leading this debate. In Devon, we have now seen £193 in extra funding per pupil. That is great news, but there is still a big gap to fill, especially with so many small rural schools and a sparse population. We do a very good job with very poor funding. I look to the next Parliament to do better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I point out to colleagues that in addition to the hon. Member for Worcester and the Front Benchers, who need briefly to speak, there are on my list nine colleagues who wish to speak? The hon. Gentleman is perfectly entitled to make a full contribution, but I know he will find that helpful to weigh in the balance.

[Mr Walker]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who has always been a great champion for rural areas.

F40, the cross-party campaign formed more than 20 years ago to represent the lowest-funded areas, used to rail against a gap of hundreds of pounds in funding between rural areas and their urban areas, and in Worcestershire, local MPs spoke out against a gap that doubled during the 13 years of the previous Labour Government. Until the current year, it had never once narrowed. When the gap started, there was no justice in the fact that similar schools serving similar catchments with similar levels of deprivation on different sides of a random border could receive wildly different funding. As the gap has widened, so the challenge for schools to raise the attainment of all their pupils has become greater and the challenge to hold on to their best teachers bigger. Although the pupil premium has helped some schools in F40 areas, it has also added to the disparities by piling targeted funding for deprivation on top of the untargeted funding that went before.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is particular difficultly in fast-growth areas, such as Devon, where there are large distances to take children back and forth to school?

[Mr Walker]

My hon. Friend is undoubtedly right that there is a problem in fast-growth areas. As I shall explain shortly, per-pupil funding is crucial to this debate.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I want to draw the House’s attention to Ofsted’s excellent report on the long tail of underachievement, which identifies rural and coastal areas among those parts of the country facing difficulties, as is precisely reflected in the F40 group. Is that not one of the reasons we have to tackle this problem?

[Mr Walker]

I agree.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Yet again, my hon. Friend is leading off the debate—in 10 years in the House, I have raised this matter only eight times, so I stand behind him in that respect. Does he agree that the Government did the right thing last year by closing the gap a little but that we need all parties to commit to a new funding formula in the next Parliament, as the Conservative party has done, to ensure that we have a fair and just settlement, not just in rhetoric but in reality?

[Mr Walker]

I absolutely agree with the Chairman of the Education Committee and join him in that plea to all parties to deliver a fair funding formula, as has been promised.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

The other point that surely needs addressing is the pupil premium. Although we all support it as a principle and in its effects, is it not a blunt instrument, because it skews an already unfair system? Does that not need reviewing?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walker]

What needs reviewing is the underlying system of school funding to create something fairer and more transparent. I believe that the pupil premium can play a role in such a system, but my hon. Friend makes a good point.

I welcome the fact that last year saw the first real step forward. The schools Minister, with help from the Chancellor, was the first person to provide funding to address the funding gap. His announcement of what started as £350 million and then grew to £390 million of extra funding to help the lowest-funded areas was a genuine step forward and the first concrete sign that real change was on its way. At the time, Members spoke of a down payment and welcomed the benefits for those who stood to gain. We queried elements of the allocation and pushed for F40 areas to receive more of it, and between the initial allocation and the second, the F40 areas did indeed receive more—so the parliamentary pressure made a difference.

This first small step will mean £6.7 million for Worcestershire schools this year—an additional £97 per pupil—which will make a real difference from April onwards, and it will mean that this year, for the first time in decades, the gap between schools on our side of the border with Birmingham and those on the other side will grow smaller rather than wider. However, cost pressures on our schools will make these victories seem minor. We will all have heard from teachers and head teachers in underfunded areas who say that costs are running ahead of their funding. I have written to Secretaries of State and Ministers countless times with local examples.

There is not time in this debate to enter into the complexities of the funding system itself—a system so devilishly complex that my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) compared it to the Schleswig-Holstein question—but fortunately, F40 has a dedicated team of governors, teachers, heads, councillors and council officers who have worked up their own proposed changes to the funding formula. Their analytical work has been robust, and their proposals would achieve a formula based on the nature of the school and its catchment, funding a small lump sum for secondary schools and a slightly larger one for primary schools to help smaller schools; providing a proportion of funding for deprivation; and providing smaller proportions for low prior attainment, English as an additional language and sparsity—there is more work to do on sparsity.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

On the question of sparsity, the rural schools of South Dorset are trying to form multi-academy trusts, and what is so extraordinary is that the funding is different for each pupil, depending on which local authority they come from. This is another anomaly that we must sort out.

[Mr Walker]

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

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Walker]

I am afraid not, I am sorry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apprenticeships

Robin Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Yes, I believe there are lot of good models of that kind, and I commend the one that the hon. Gentleman mentions.

That leads on to another issue that the shadow Business Secretary raised—devolution and how we capture decision making to a local level. He is right that we should have as much devolution as possible. That is what we are trying to do through the city deals and the local deals. There are many good models. Leeds is one, and Manchester is also getting off the ground. Sheffield is pioneering a lot of the local-level commissioning of apprenticeships that is particularly good for getting through to SMEs.

Devolution is not simply about local government or LEPs. One thing we had to do when I came into office was strip away some of the bureaucracy governing further education colleges as leading providers. We had to simplify greatly a very bureaucratic top-down system. Devolution is also about devolving to companies, and one of our major initiatives—employer ownership schemes and the trailblazers, which set industry-level standards—has reduced bureaucracy for small companies and helped them at industry level to formulate standards that they can use. Devolution is not just about local government.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that LEPs can be great champions of apprenticeships when they are given the power to do so? Today, the Worcestershire LEP announced that the ambitious target it set itself of having 10,000 people participating in apprenticeships in the county by 2015 has already been achieved. Is that not an example of how by using the existing structures in our existing counties, rather than creating artificial regions, we can drive forward apprenticeships and skills?

[Vince Cable]

That is one of the examples. The LEPs have demonstrated the success of devolution and there are many other models. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) has done brilliant work locally by simply working with local colleges and local authorities. There are many local examples and that is what we should be trying to achieve.

I know that you want to bring more people into the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, so let me make two points in conclusion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Although I am speaking in part about an inquiry by the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills that took nine months and made many recommendations, I shall try to keep my comments within the time limit.

I welcome the debate and the cross-party agreement on the importance of apprenticeships and the skills agenda. I find the concentration on figures and party-political point scoring, shall we say, about the number of apprenticeships supremely unhelpful in determining our skills needs and how we will meet them. The Government, to their credit, have been prepared to invest £1.6 billion in apprenticeships in the past financial year, but we have seen a fall in the number of starters. Notwithstanding the substantial increase in the number of apprenticeships overall, we know that the increase has been much lower in construction and engineering apprenticeships, which are incredibly important in the development of our economy.

If we take the education system as a whole and add in the money we put into the apprenticeships programme, we see that we are investing a huge amount of money but are not addressing the skills imbalance in the economy. I will single out two crucial areas in which we need to improve our performance if we are to address the problem. The first area is the education system, particularly the careers service in schools. Much has been said about parity of esteem, and I welcome the concentration by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) on reinforcing the status of apprenticeships, which is absolutely vital if we are ever to change the mindset in schools. If I have time, the second area on which I will comment is engagement with small businesses, but I will first talk about schools and the culture in the education system.

When the Committee visited Sheffield, it came across a very bright apprentice who had been offered a university place at school, but was virtually ostracised when he told the school that he would take an apprenticeship; he was not even invited to the school’s end-of-term event. That experience is reflected more widely. The Edge Foundation has said that 26% of those surveyed had been actively discouraged from becoming apprentices. I do not blame schools or teachers, because they are delivering on an agenda set by the Government. If the Government want to change the situation, they must set the agenda on Ofsted and monitoring to ensure that vocational training receives the same support and promotion in the education system as universities and A-levels.

[Mr Robin Walker]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Bailey]

I will certainly give way to my colleague on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee.

[Mr Walker]

I agree completely with the Chair of the Select Committee. I recently held an event in my constituency for apprentices to talk to school careers advisers. One thing that came across very strongly was that apprentices and their employers told careers advisers that people expected to increase their earnings in the long run by going for an apprenticeship. Careers advisers seem to start from a natural assumption that apprentices are paid less. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is one of the myths we need to take on? The long-term earning potential of apprentices is often much higher.

[Mr Bailey]

I entirely agree. For too long the careers service has been seen as a bolt-on to the educational process, as reflected in criticisms by the Education Committee and Ofsted. I am not satisfied that the guidance issued to schools in April fully addresses that issue. The ability to understand a student’s potential and to place them in the most appropriate skills setting is absolutely essential both to the individual involved and to the economy as a whole. That area of education is grossly neglected.

I want to move on briefly to small businesses. In my experience, blue-chip companies understand apprenticeships, deliver on them and play a vital role. However, our economy is dominated by small businesses—more than 90% of businesses are small ones—and it is generally recognised that that sector has the potential to increase employment. It is essential to get more small businesses to take on apprentices, but all too often they do not have the capacity, time or finances to train them in skills.

I accept that the Government have recognised the need for more employer involvement, but the latest statement on 13 January fell short of what small businesses need both in relation to the funding regime and the guidelines necessary for them to have the confidence to take on apprentices. There is a lack of clarity and too much bureaucracy, and the Government need to take a consistent approach to small businesses if we are to overcome the problem.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

Those qualifications did not help the young person who took them to get work and were not valued by employers. The qualities we are talking about run all the way through education at all ages and are important skills, but having spoken to providers of ASDAN qualifications in my constituency, I know that other skills and qualifications give those young people the best start in life and the greatest credibility with employers.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

15. What progress her Department is making on delivering a fair and transparent funding formula for schools and supporting areas that have been historically underfunded.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

We have now made significant progress towards fairer funding for schools and in 2015-16 we will distribute an additional £390 million to 69 of the least fairly funded local authorities, including Worcestershire, which will receive almost £7 million a year extra as a consequence. I congratulate my hon. Friend on his robust campaigning over a long period of time on this issue.

[Mr Walker]

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer and this Government have done more than any other to address long-standing flaws in our school funding system and to commit to fairer funding. We have started the process, as my right hon. Friend says, but it still has further to go. Even with the £6.5 million for Worcestershire, local schools tell me that they are struggling to manage cost pressures. Is my right hon. Friend committed not just to the creation of, but the delivery of, a fair and transparent formula in the lifetime of the next Parliament?

[Mr Laws]

I think I can reassure my hon. Friend on behalf of both coalition parties that we are committed to the delivery of a fair and transparent national funding formula in the next Parliament. We have already made the first big step and I agree with him that it is vital that we deliver a full solution to this long-standing injustice, which Labour failed to tackle in its long years in office.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

It gives me great pleasure to disagree with literally everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. I certainly will not withdraw my suggestion that the last Government was conning young people. An apprenticeship that lasted less than 12 months and did not even have an employer was a fraud on them, because it was not preparing them for a life of work or giving them relevant skills. It is a bit strange for the Opposition to suggest that nobody over the age of 24 deserves any investment in new skills or any chance to acquire a new ability. I welcome the fact that people over the age of 24 are taking up apprenticeships more than ever before.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

One of the benefits of the real apprenticeships that the Government have brought in is that they provide long-term avenues into work. I recently visited a small business in Worcester that was taking on its 13th apprentice. Every single apprentice that had been through had been given a full-time job by that business. But there is still a challenge in persuading careers advisers that apprenticeships provide real value. What can my hon. Friend do to encourage them to support apprenticeships more generally?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is often careers advisers and teachers who, perhaps for the best reasons in the world, just do not understand the opportunities out there in apprenticeships, or the fact that someone can now get a degree through an apprenticeship or rise to almost any position in the senior management of a company. It is no longer about a young lad under the bonnet of a car; it can still be that, but it can also be about a young woman who has just got a first-class degree at BAE Systems through a higher apprenticeship. We are trying to get that message out in every way we can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

The taxpayer is, of course, always responsible for statutory redundancy and this case is no different. I have talked to the head of the union and the secretary-general of the Trades Union Congress on how to deal with the implications for the labour market. The labour force is very widely distributed across the UK with no major concentrations, but where there are, and if there are people who really need help with finding employment and reskilling, we are certainly willing to do the maximum we possibly can to help.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

T7. The ringing of tills, especially among small independent shops, should always be welcome in this nation of shopkeepers. In the last week of December, Worcester’s high street saw a 13% increase in footfall. That is very welcome. Small shops in Worcester are looking forward to the £1,500 discount to business rates this year. May I urge the Minister, as the Government consider further reform to business rates, to ensure that small businesses continue to benefit?

[Matthew Hancock]

I am delighted to hear of that improvement in Worcester, which is no doubt in part, though not all, down to the work of my hon. Friend. Business rates raise revenue and revenue is necessary, but the review has to ensure that they work better. The £1,500 discount for retailers is a step forward, but this is a major opportunity to improve the way the tax works.

Preparing Young People for Work

Robin Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is about inspiring our young people to consider all the different careers out there. Various sectors have changed over the years. For example, we see much more advanced high-tech manufacturing nowadays. I am passionate about ensuring that our girls and young women are inspired to go into sectors that they might not traditionally have considered. That is why I am so passionate, too, about backing campaigns such as Your Life.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on this announcement, and particularly on the appointment of Christine Hodgson, who is an inspirational business leader. Does my right hon. Friend agree that getting role models into schools—whether they are business leaders or successful apprentices—is vital, and can she explain how this company will be able to support that move?

Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

2. What progress she has made on reducing pupil absence from schools.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

16. What progress she has made on reducing pupil absence from schools.

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

In the autumn and spring of 2009-10, 45.8 million days of school were missed by pupils. By 2013-14, that figure had decreased to 35.7 million, the lowest number since comparable records began. The number of pupils who were persistently absent has also decreased, from 439,000 in 2009-10 to 262,000—again, a record low level. Time off for holidays has also dropped, by about 1.4 million school days, compared with the same period in 2009-10.

[Mr Gibb]

The Secretary of State mentioned to me how much she enjoyed her visit to the George Eliot school in Nuneaton on Thursday and how valuable she found the round-table discussion with the head teachers from Nuneaton and north Warwickshire schools. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) is assiduous in fighting for small businesses and more jobs in his constituency, and that he therefore understands the importance of education. I join him in paying tribute to all the teachers, parents and pupils for their efforts to reduce pupil absences, particularly in Warwickshire, where the number of school days lost owing to absence has fallen from 5.7% in 2009-10 to 4.2% this year. There have been similar falls in persistent absence.

[Mr Walker]

Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to Perry Wood primary school in Worcester? Against a backdrop of falling absence levels in the county, the school has used pupil premium funding to introduce a walking bus and a breakfast club, and it has increased attendance from around 90% two years ago to an average of 96% today.

[Mr Gibb]

I pay tribute to the teachers at Perry Wood school for the innovative way in which they have reduced absence there. In fact, I congratulate schools throughout Worcester on improving school attendance. In Worcestershire as a whole, overall absence has dropped by a fifth and persistent absence by almost a quarter since 2009, and I pay tribute to all the teachers, parents and pupils for the work they are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

We are trying to be as transparent as possible. If my hon. Friend wishes to give me his specific concerns, I will ensure that he gets a full response. This is a technically challenging programme, precisely because these masts are going up in areas that are difficult to reach and where there has previously been no coverage.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

11. What recent funding his Department has provided for the fabric of cathedrals in England.

[The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Sajid Javid)]

In this year’s Budget, the Chancellor announced a £20 million fund to allow cathedrals to undertake urgent repair work. As my hon. Friend knows, that included £330,000 for the beautiful Worcester cathedral. In addition, cathedrals have access to the listed places of worship grant scheme, which has a budget of up to £42 million per annum.

[Mr Walker]

I am grateful for that answer. May I add my condolences on the tragic death of Phil Hughes, who is fondly remembered in Worcestershire, where he used to play?

I was pleased recently to welcome the Secretary of State to Worcester cathedral for a magnificent performance of Shakespeare. Will he join me in celebrating the fact that, in the year that Bishop John of Worcester has taken the lead for the Church of England on cathedrals and church buildings, the east window at Worcester cathedral will be being restored with that grant of £330,000?

[Sajid Javid]

May I first say to my hon. Friend that I thoroughly enjoyed visiting the cathedral with him and seeing “Julius Caesar”. It is an excellent demonstration of how our cathedrals can be open to so many activities in our local communities. In fact, I have seen similar events recently at Rochester and Portsmouth cathedrals. With regard to Bishop John, I was actually just discussing that very matter with His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday, and I join my hon. Friend in warmly congratulating the bishop on his position.