Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I am keen to come to Hackney. We have been working on some dates, but we will renew our effort. I agree with the hon. Lady, not least because those who do not have natural networks through their family links often find it harder to break into high-quality jobs, and networking and mentoring can do an enormous amount to break down those barriers and improve social mobility.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

2. When he plans to publish the results of the recent consultation on fairer funding for schools; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Our consultation on fairer schools funding closed on 30 April. We are currently analysing the responses and will publish our final response next month.

[Mr Walker]

The Government have been right to commit to delivering fairer funding and I welcome the first small steps that have been taken. Schools in Worcestershire tell me that they are facing major challenges from increases in national insurance and pension costs. May I press the Minister to listen carefully to the concerns of the F40 authorities, which want to see fairer funding sooner?

[Mr Laws]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the strong lead that he has taken in arguing the case for fairer funding, which is long overdue. As he has acknowledged, schools in his area will gain to the tune of some £5 million from the proposals that we made a couple of months ago. I repeat the commitment that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have made on previous occasions: we are committed not just to this first big step towards fairer funding, but to a national fair funding formula, which should have been introduced many years ago but which the last Labour Government did nothing to address.

Free Schools (Funding)

Robin Walker Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We are actually spending more on basic need and on free schools as a result of the wise decisions that we have taken. It was interesting, in the hon. Gentleman’s question, that he did not take the opportunity—but I shall—to praise Corby technical school, which is the wonderful new free school that has been opened in his constituency. It is providing an outstanding standard of education for young people in his area. I hope he will take the opportunity the next time that he speaks on education to praise those who have provided such an outstanding quality of education.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

A moment ago, the Secretary of State mentioned a football club that is supporting alternative provision in a free school. Will he join me in congratulating the Worcester Warriors in its support of the Aspire academy, a free school soon to be opening in Worcester? I thank him for the fact that, along with that free school in one of the areas of highest need in my constituency, the Government are also investing in 500 more primary places in Worcestershire.

[Michael Gove]

I am delighted to hear that. We are very grateful for the role that football clubs and other charities play in supporting free schools. One of the best free school applications that I have seen came from Everton football club and was enthusiastically supported by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), another predecessor of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central and another Labour supporter of free schools—

Schools Funding

Robin Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to open this debate and to see such strong support from Government Members. It is a particular pleasure to speak again about a campaign that has been central to my career as an MP, and it is good to do so during the Government’s consultation to do something that no Government this century have done: to help the lowest-funded education authorities and provide a minimum level of funding to those who have suffered from unfairness for too long.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate and for the cross-party support that helped to secure it, which ranged from my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) to my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) and for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and the hon. Members for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) and for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin). F40 is and always has been a cross-party campaign, and as we celebrate some measure of progress today, I acknowledge the role played by Members in previous Parliaments, such as the former Member for Stafford, David Kidney, who led the campaign for many years.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. I apologise for intervening so early, but he mentioned my predecessor and I want to put on record my tribute to the work that he did. I point out that it is rather ironic that Staffordshire is one of the few counties that, despite this excellent move by the Government, has been left out. I am sure that my hon. Friend will return to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walker]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend and I will indeed return to that. My hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), as Chair of the Education Committee and over a long period, has championed this cause in this and previous Parliaments. Alongside them, Members of all parties and none in Parliament, councils, governing bodies, parent forums and unions have spoken up for the lowest-funded education authorities over the years.

I am grateful to the House of Commons Library, the Association of School and College Leaders and the Local Government Association for producing helpful briefs for the debate and, in particular, to the voluntary members and officers of F40 for the detailed work that they have put into informing Members. The F40 campaign has been running, representing the interests of the least-well-funded local authorities, since the Major Government, and this is the first time in all those years that it can celebrate a decisive monetary step towards fairer funding.

The previous Labour Government accepted the premise that the system for allocating school funding was unfair, non-transparent and in need of reform, but they did not have time to deliver on their consultation on a fairer system. The coalition Government have already delivered a new consultation, committed to a fairer and more transparent formula and delivered new, simplified local formulae, as well as the pupil premium, which is a better system for targeting deprivation than what went before. Until recently, however, F40 had won the argument for changing national funding but had precious little to show for it.

Despite all the aforementioned changes and the Chancellor’s welcome commitment to greater fairness, the same list of authorities remained resolutely at the bottom of the funding tables and, year after year, the gaps between those authorities and some of their better-funded neighbours grew bigger and bigger. F40’s long, hard campaign to get a better deal looked as though it had won plaudits but no pennies; words but not pounds. The announcement by the Schools Minister in March of £350 million specifically to help the lowest-funded areas changed that for most F40 authorities.

Many hon. Friends in the Chamber today were with me in the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) in April 2012, when we welcomed the Government’s commitment to a fairer formula but bemoaned the lack of a down payment to begin its delivery. I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) who invoked the Chinese proverb of Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, who said that the longest journey begins with a single step. That single step has now been taken. Many parts of the country can rejoice at that. Of the £350 million targeted at helping the lowest-funded authorities, some £172 million—slightly less than half—is coming to F40 authorities. Cambridgeshire, South Gloucestershire, Northumberland and Shropshire all see gains of more than 6% as a result of the projected allocations and, of 34 current members of F40, 23 are seeing some uplift.

In Worcestershire, the £4.9 million of additional funding that we have so far been allocated—an increase of just 1.7%—has been queried by some as less than our due, but celebrated by most as the first major step forward after decades of underfunding.

[Sir Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

May I congratulate my hon. Friend on his significant role in achieving that breakthrough? It is, however, only an initial breakthrough, as he has said. As long as schools such as Prince Henry’s school in Worcestershire face significant real-terms funding cuts, despite those achievements, much more work needs to be done. I offer him every best wish in pursuing this excellent campaign into the future.

[Mr Walker]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He has been a long-term champion of fairer funding for schools, and I think that his constituent, Helen Donovan, would be very proud of the work he has done on that front. The Worcestershire Association of School Business Managers and head teachers and governors have expressed their appreciation for the progress made so far, but he is right that there is still much further to go.

Having made the campaign my No. 1 priority as a result of meeting all the primary school heads in Worcester during my time as a candidate—every single one of whom railed at the unfairness of the funding system—I promised them that further progress will and must follow. Some F40 areas have not however been so fortunate, and I want to ensure this debate hears the voices of those such as Warrington, Trafford, Solihull and Nottinghamshire who, despite being F40 members and languishing towards the bottom of the tables for per pupil funding, have yet to see progress.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on all the work that he has done on this. One authority that he did not mention is York, which is moving towards the bottom of the school funding table. We have made great steps forward, and we must congratulate the Government and the Minister on doing that, but we are still some way off having that level playing field that authorities such as mine strive for.

[Mr Walker]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. I will come on to some of the reasons why that might be the case in my later comments.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for mentioning the situation in my local authority, Trafford. He will be aware that Trafford in general is a well-off borough, but it has pockets of very serious deprivation. Does he agree that it is extremely difficult to deal with such deprivation when other neighbouring Manchester boroughs are so much better funded and that that puts our children at a real disadvantage?

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The evidence that we saw at the recent F40 conference was that, although there is little link between funding and overall attainment, there is a link between funding and raising the attainment of the most deprived cohorts. That is where the F40 campaign has always said that funding does make a difference and fairness in funding is vital to help those people. I completely agree with her, and I will come on to some of the urban areas represented by the F40, such as Trafford and York, that could have done better out of the consultation.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and the Government on the moves that they have made. Will the Minister comment on what we are doing about special educational needs in that regard? Does my hon. Friend support reversing the Government decision whereby schools used to have more say over their budget, which in rural areas really helped those schools most in need?

[Mr Walker]

I hear what my hon. Friend says and I hope that the Minister will answer her point. I agree that giving schools greater say is important and very much in line with some of the Government’s policies.

The East Riding of Yorkshire is by most calculations very low in the table for school funding, yet gets only 0.3% through this allocation, and Staffordshire’s MPs have been among the most consistent in pressing F40’s case.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

I have a little list and Staffordshire is 12th from the bottom. Given that the F40 campaign began in Staffordshire, does my hon. Friend understand the surprise of all MPs in Staffordshire that we have had no uplift at all? Can he explain that?

[Mr Walker]

That is obviously for the Government to explain. I share my hon. Friend’s mystification, though, that a county so close to the bottom of the table has so far received nothing, and I hope that because consultation is continuing that is something that can be changed and that areas such as the East Riding of Yorkshire, Staffordshire and Trafford, which have so far missed out, may still have something to gain from the process. They certainly have something to gain from fairer funding.

In its consultation response, F40 has queried the methodology used by the Government in allocating the £350 million. One substantial difference between its calculations and the Government’s is the unit of funding used. F40 has tended to use the guaranteed unit of funding, whereas the Department used a new measure called the single basic unit of funding. I do not want the debate to be dominated by the technicalities of funding mechanisms. However, I understand that that technicality is part of the reason why the East Riding of Yorkshire may have done less well than Cambridgeshire, despite similarly low funding. Differences in the local approach to the allocation of high-needs funding account for much of the difference in the outcomes. F40 has asked the Government to look at those matters again, to ensure that each poorly funded authority gets a fair chance to secure better funding. I hope that the Minister will be able to look into that.

[Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)]

I want to express support for the hon. Gentleman’s efforts, and I congratulate my hon. Friends on what they have achieved in government; they have done something that two previous Governments failed to do. Does the hon. Gentleman share my anxiety that nothing that happens in the consultation should undo the benefits that a number of authorities have now received—not before time—such as Northumberland’s extra £10.6 million?

[Mr Walker]

Absolutely. I completely agree. After fighting for so long for any improvement at all, it would be tragic if at this stage the benefits that the consultation brings to areas that have suffered for far too long were to unravel. However, there are one or two allocatons in the consultation that F40 would question.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his valiant efforts to get fairer funding for schools. I do not want to sound ungrateful for the extra £203 per pupil that Leicestershire gets, but we have jumped in the league table from 151st to 150th and continue to receive almost £1,000 less than schools in the city of Leicester. What does my hon. Friend think about that?

[Mr Walker]

Clearly, there is much further to go in the process of providing fairer funding. What has been done is a down payment—a first step. I am glad that Leicestershire, which has been at the bottom of the table for too long, is getting substantial uplift from the process, but that is by no means the end of the story. I share my hon. Friend’s concern about the need to go further. Indeed, by F40’s own calculations, it seems that Leicestershire, as the least-well-funded authority, deserves at least the 5% uplift that it is receiving. The East Riding of Yorkshire, the third worst funded, deserves more than its 0.3%, and Worcestershire—much as we appreciate our gain—has not done as well as might have been hoped, with an increase of less than 2%. Every other F40 member among the 20 authorities in the lowest position has had at least that uplift, with the exception of Warrington, Staffordshire and Solihull.

Higher up the table, more F40 members have missed out. There are some surprising gainers who, according to F40’s calculations, might not have been expected to gain so much. F40 does not mind—nor do I—that authorities outside its membership benefit by a move towards fairness; we should celebrate the fact that low-funded areas such as Wiltshire, Rutland and Poole have gained substantially from what has been done, despite not being members of the F40 campaign. Cornwall has also gained, although not as much as it might have hoped.

Harder to explain is the fact that some of the better-funded local authorities—high in the table of funding by GUF—are nevertheless receiving substantial uplift. In the words of the secretary of F40:

“We think it is odd that so many LAs in the higher part of the funding league table (too high in the league to be f40 members) are gainers, whilst LAs that are obviously more poorly funded have small gains or are overlooked”.

The gains made by Westminster, which is one of the 10 best-funded authorities in the country, and by Brent, Sutton and Bromley, the three biggest gainers in per pupil terms but all in the top half of the funding table, look much harder to justify from an F40 perspective. In its response to the consultation, F40 argued:

“We do not understand the rationale for adjusting for labour market costs—as they are already fully taken into account in the main funding distribution between local authorities.”

It said:

“We can see no case for supplementary funding for area costs. The research work undertaken by f40 has clearly identified that the very large funding differential between London and f40 authorities enables schools in London to employ significantly more staff; it does a great deal more than compensate for additional employment costs.”

It is perhaps the inclusion of such an allowance for costs that has allowed relatively well-funded London boroughs to benefit from the uplift, while urban F40 members such as Warrington, Solihull and Trafford seem to have missed out. I ask the Minister to look at that carefully.

In previous debates, hon. Members from both sides of the House have set out their concerns about the challenges of rural sparsity and delivering education to sparse communities. F40 has always supported the idea of including a sparsity factor in the national formula and welcomed its inclusion for the first time in the new local formulae. However, without national funding in the national funding formula, there has been surprisingly little uplift from sparsity. In its consultation response, the group said:

“We agree that sparsity is potentially a useful means of targeting funding at small rural schools. Many authorities have not introduced a sparsity factor for 2014/15, taking the view that further work is needed on producing a viable model. We would welcome an evaluation by the Department on the approaches local authorities with different characteristics have adopted for 2014/15.”

Although the constituency that I represent is not a sparse one, it appears to suffer from a lack of funding because it is in a larger local authority that suffers significantly from sparsity. I think that the Government have further to go to meet the challenges of rural sparsity and to ensure that rural authorities are properly funded for the future.

Perhaps the most important part of F40’s consultation response is about the challenge that many of the lowest-funded areas still face:

“The Department will be aware that schools are facing major cost increases at a time of ‘flat cash’ funding settlements, particularly: September 2014’s 1% pay increase for teachers (typically, teacher’s salaries account for 65% of school costs)”—

in Worcestershire that figure is more like 85%, because of years of underfunding—

“The anticipated increase to non-teaching staff pay—which as yet remains unknown; The increase in the employer’s superannuation contribution from 14.1% to 16.4% from September 2015; The introduction of a flat rate state pension from April 2016, the impact of which will be to increase schools’ costs of in excess of 2% for teaching staff and most ancillary staff; For schools with sixth forms, a continuing reduction in sixth form funding; Energy, fuel and other cost increases”.

F40 says:

“We urge that these cost pressures are fully taken into account in the Spending Review for 2016-17 onwards. Without additional funding a typical secondary school will need to identify compensating savings of around £350,000, the equivalent of ten teachers.”

F40 schools, which have suffered from decades of underfunding, have no spare capacity to make such savings.

In meeting the challenges, we must recognise that March’s funding announcement was not and was never intended to be the end of the shift to fairer funding. As the Minister made clear at the time, it was a one-off measure to help those areas that were hit hardest by unfair funding and a precursor to more substantial reform. Ivan Ould, the chairman of F40, said in his response to the announcement:

“The additional funding is seen as a down-payment, or first step towards a new and fairer allocation system. This marks a huge step forward for our campaign for fair funding. The fact is that pupils and schools in f40 local authority areas have been dis-advantaged by an archaic system for nearly twenty years: they have been the poor relations in terms of the share of education funding.

This is a red letter day for members of f40 who can now look forward to a time when the injustice will end.”

F40 members will scrutinise closely the manifestos of each of the major parties, to see what they will propose with a view to ending the injustice swiftly and surely. F40 has always been a cross-party campaign, and we will look to each of the parties to deliver progress and will judge their manifestos by how clearly and within what time scale they commit to fair and transparent funding. Our funding has been unfair for far too long, and F40 authorities will not have endless patience for interim measures to ensure that better-funded authorities hold on to their advantage if that means holding back long-awaited justice for our constituents. We must have progress and we will scrutinise each statement of every party for what it can deliver.

I was not in the Chamber for the announcement of the £350 million for underfunded areas. Had I been there, I would have welcomed it, but I would have called, as I do now, for further progress. The debate is not a partisan one, but I was mildly disappointed by the Opposition Front Bench response on that day. In response to those who have argued, wrongly, that the first steps that have been taken are in any way partisan or designed to help coalition members, I would point out that many of the Conservative seats that have benefited, including my own, were held by Labour until 2010.

[Michael Fabricant]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. As he said, the F40 campaign was started by a Labour MP, David Kidney, in Staffordshire. Is he as surprised as I am to see just one Labour MP—no, two? [Laughter.]

[Michael Fabricant]

Am I wrong? There are two. [Interruption.] Anyway, is my hon. Friend as surprised as I am at the lack of turnout from Labour MPs apart from the shadow spokesman?

[Mr Walker]

I am delighted that we have a Labour MP in the Chamber, arguing the case for her F40 constituency. I am also delighted that, in proposing the debate, I had the support of the hon. Member for Bolsover, whose constituency stands to gain 34 times as much as the Prime Minister’s. The hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), who made critical points in the debate, stands to gain more in his constituency than does the Minister for Schools, who made the announcement about fairer funding. If every F40 authority were to benefit from the changes, the winners would also include the shadow Chancellor, the shadow Education Secretary and the shadow Health Secretary, so Labour has a strong interest in supporting proper reforms. We want to see them step up to the plate.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman referred to me, so perhaps he will point to any part of my statement in the House at the time that was party political. There were no such remarks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Walker]

I would not claim that the hon. Gentleman’s remarks were necessarily party political, but many Members present at the time commented on his attitude to the announcement, which seemed to be negative.

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to respond later.

The F40 campaign has been driven by many hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I am only one of many voices who have been calling for progress. I hope that we will hear those voices following up on that in the debate, but I also hope that we hear from all such Members recognition of the progress that has been made to date. I urge the Minister to listen particularly closely to the concerns of those long-suffering F40 areas that have so far missed out and to ensure that all the lowest-funded authorities get the fairest deal possible from the consultation. I urge her to keep up the pressure for progress towards a fair and transparent system of funding and to commit ever more firmly to real fairness in the years to come.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Free schools is one area that is party political. I am sure that we all welcome the excellent progress made by the Government and that the funding formula for free schools has had a stronger impact on the lowest-funded areas than, perhaps, on the wealthier ones. Does he agree that the Government need to address that in F40 areas?

[Mr Walker]

Changes to the system for free schools and to the LACSEG—local authority central spend equivalent grant—a couple of years ago have produced some effects that have tended to hurt the lowest-funded areas more. That is a consequence of unfair funding, rather than of the changes, and the key thing is to get the funding system right, so that we do not have such pernicious effects in future. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, because it gives me the opportunity to welcome the Government’s decision to fund the Aspire academy in Worcester, a free school that is taking over pupil referral unit provision in the county, which is badly needed and supported by a wide range of secondary schools in Worcester.

I want our party to set down clearly in its manifesto our commitment not only to a fair, transparent funding formula in years to come, but to its rapid implementation. I am proud that, with the help of so many colleagues, I will be able to face the electorate of Worcester and say that we have won a better deal and that fairer funding is on its way, but the fight is not yet over—it has scarcely begun. We have secured the first down payment on fairer funding. F40 MPs must keep campaigning together to secure the real fairness that our schools, their teachers and, most importantly, their pupils have been denied for too long.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I thank hon. Members for that excellent start. To get all 10 speakers in, there will be a time limit of four and a half minutes each, which should leave the Front Benchers with 10 minutes each at the end of the debate. It will not work, I am afraid, if there are interventions. To assist Members, this nice bell next to me will be rung by the Clerk, which will indicate that there is a minute to go. After four and a half minutes, we will move on to the next speaker.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I am very glad to say that unemployment is falling throughout Wales as part of our long-term economic plan across the country. I am sure that in Wrexham, as elsewhere in the country, small businesses will be celebrating the fact that they are getting £2,000 off their jobs tax, which the Labour party has proposed to put up.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to promote trade opportunities for UK business in high-growth markets.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)]

UK Trade & Investment’s strategy confirms its continued focus on China, India and other high-growth markets, including some in Africa and central America. UKTI has identified more than 60 high-value opportunities in those markets, and with the help of our trade envoys, it promotes those opportunities to business. The £4 million announced by the Chancellor to support mid-sized businesses will enable UKTI to introduce such companies to those opportunities in high-growth markets.

[Mr Walker]

In export week, will the Minister congratulate Worcester firm Waste Spectrum, which is exactly one of those mid-sized companies that has recently achieved its first sale to China and will be dispatching one of its specially designed incinerators, built in Worcester, to that high-growth market at the end of this month?

[Michael Fallon]

I congratulate Waste Spectrum and the Worcester ambassadors, and I thank my hon. Friend for his work to promote trade with China. I know he visited China with the trade mission and was involved with an inward delegation from China, and understand that he is planning to visit China again. We need to thank him for his work in promoting links with that particular country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend will know that funding after 2015-16 will be determined in the next spending round, and we cannot make precise commitments now about funding in that period. We have been considering the options for funding large programmes such as those containing five or more A-levels, the international baccalaureate, and large vocational programmes, and we plan to announce how those will be treated after 2015-16 in the near future.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I welcome enormously the real progress made on fairer funding, and I salute the Minister and the Secretary of State for delivering in this Parliament on an issue that went unaddressed for decades. May I encourage the Minister to keep on engaging with the F40 campaign, which includes Solihull, Staffordshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire, and to ensure that all areas that have suffered from unfair funding for too long can hope to benefit—as Worcestershire and Buckinghamshire already have—from fairer funding?

[Mr Laws]

We will certainly remain engaged in that debate, and I am delighted to congratulate my hon. Friend on the leadership that he has given to this campaign over a sustained period. That has led to our recent announcement, which has sought to resolve the issue in those parts of the country that have traditionally been very badly funded.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Of course we want to see maximum compliance. We realise that there are abuses in the construction industry and I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are committing to stepping up enforcement action.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I am very pleased with the Government’s rapid response in providing support for businesses that were directly affected by the floods, but evidence is emerging in Worcester of substantial indirect effects from transport disruptions, particularly to small businesses. I understand that Worcester received around £57,000 of funding in the first tranche of the floods fund. Can the Minister confirm that as more evidence emerges, there may be more money to support local SMEs?

[Michael Fallon]

I can confirm that a second tranche of funding will be made available under the business support scheme, and my Department is talking to all local authorities where businesses have been affected. Where they have been significantly affected, of course we want to help.

Vocational Qualifications

Robin Walker Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

One thing that the hon. Lady could do to make the process simpler is to support the measures in the Deregulation Bill that is going through the House. We are taking a whole series of measures, but if she has specific examples of bureaucracy getting in the way, I would be very keen to look at them.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

In each of the past two years, more than 1,000 people in Worcester have started an apprenticeship, more than doubling the uptake since the end of the previous Labour Government. I am very glad that that is happening, along with an increase in the quality of apprenticeships. With new research from the Association of Accounting Technicians showing that each apprenticeship in Worcester adds £2,229 to the local economy, does the Minister agree that more businesses in our area should take on apprentices?

[Matthew Hancock]

Yes, I agree. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work to bring exactly that benefit to the attention of employers in Worcester and across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Ensuring that the commercial property market works effectively is an important part of reforming the banking system and getting it back on its feet after the crisis. That market is one of the main routes through which we can open up more development and ensure that there is more capacity, so that when small businesses want to expand, they have the physical space in which to do so.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

Small businesses on Worcester’s high street are looking forward to the employment allowance and to the generous rebate on business rates that was announced in the autumn statement. Will the Minister join me in urging Worcester’s Labour-led city council not to put up parking charges by 10%, which would be a kick in the teeth for the high street?

[Matthew Hancock]

Ensuring that any agency of Government or any council can live within its means is a crucial part of good governance in these difficult times. The approach that the Government have taken is to do that through making savings, difficult as it is. That is clearly working and I recommend it to the Labour-led council in Worcester.

Engineering Skills (Perkins Review)

Robin Walker Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Peter Luff]

I absolutely agree. Having come from an engineering background, the hon. Lady says that with much more effect than I can—politics’ gain is engineering’s loss. I am most grateful for her helpful and entirely correct remarks.

In a ten-minute rule Bill in February, I tried to be simple and focused. I wanted to increase demand from young people and to make them more enthusiastic about pursuing STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—and careers, whether as apprentices or graduates; to inspire them about the possibilities in engineering, science and technology; to show them by practical example and experience while at school that engineering and technology are exciting and important careers; and then to sustain that interest throughout their time at school.

Some things have changed for the better since February. A new design and technology curriculum provides the opportunity for schools to work with businesses to deepen understanding of the realities of engineering, which was my first objective. I want to pay real tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), the Minister with responsibility for schools, for working with all groups involved to transform the Government’s original proposals. Sadly, I see fewer signs than I would like that the Department for Education really understands its role in helping young people to prepare for the world of work. Employers still sense reluctance at the Department for Education to regard schools, in the memorable phrase of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), who hoped to be here but is sadly indisposed, as part of the supply chain for industry.

I suspended my campaign on the policy suggestions in my Bill and said that I would wait for the Perkins review. It was due in July and sadly delayed to November, but it proved well worth waiting for. As I waited, I concentrated on two issues. The first was the need to do much, much more to inspire young people about the opportunities in engineering, and second was the need to counter the appalling gender stereotyping already discussed. I was therefore delighted to see those two issues considered so thoughtfully in John Perkins’s review, but the response of the engineering community now needs to be clear and convincing and needs above all to take on the challenge of marketing engineering to young people, starting at primary school age.

I should step back a moment and offer categorical congratulations to Professor Perkins. Indeed, the Royal Academy of Engineering has encouraged me to offer a bouquet to Professor Perkins and the wider Department for Business, Innovation and Skills team

“for conducting an exemplification of open policy making. John actively sought out the views of the engineering profession and created the conditions where institutions large and small could get their voices heard. It was brilliant work.”

It also offers a bouquet to the Department for Education, by the way, which, despite my earlier reservations, I do endorse,

“for their reforms to Computing, D&T and vocational education and their willingness to take detailed advice from the engineering profession. The engagement on both sides has been excellent.”

Steve Holliday, chief executive officer of National Grid described the Perkins review to me as

“one of the best reports I have seen in quite some time”.

I agree with all that, but I want to examine one or two details with a critical eye. The royal academy offers the correct cautionary note:

“None of this is easy—particularly the things around diversity—and so on-going collaboration between Government and the engineering profession is key. We’ve had that during the periods of review and reform [good] and now the challenge is to find a mechanism to keep that going in the long term steady-state.”

We need an implementation plan from the Government and from the engineering community.

Against that background, I offer eight observations on areas of the report. The first is a particular bête noire of mine: the lack of attention to defence. The report is strangely silent on the wider security and national resilience issues caused by a shortage of British engineering talent. Defence and security face the greatest threats, as they often cannot use non-British labour on national security grounds. It is true that the bigger companies, such as BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, have no problem recruiting as they are so well-known. They are now over-recruiting to their apprenticeship programmes to feed apprentices into their supply chains, which is welcome and good of them. Smaller companies, however, face huge challenges in finding the right skills. Organisations such as GCHQ are also challenged and need all the home-grown cyber-expertise they can find. I am delighted to be a member of the skills group of the defence growth partnership, and I hope to be able to play my part and to address some of the issues.

My second concern, at which I have already hinted, is that the age group recommended by Perkins is too old. We need to go younger. The National Foundation for Educational Research looked at features of the activities and interventions in schools that were most successful at improving young people’s engagement in STEM. It found that of the five most beneficial activities they identified, the first was to engage pupils at an early age and at key transition points. Indeed, the Perkins review actually says:

“If we are going to secure the flow of talent into engineering, we need to start at the very beginning…Starting to inspire people at 16 years old is too late; choices are made, and options are closed off well before then. So we need purposeful and effective early intervention to enthuse tomorrow’s engineers.”

It is no accident that the “inspiring women” campaign, organised by Inspiring the Future and recently launched by Miriam Gonzalez, aims to start talking to girls at the age of 8, not 11 as Perkins recommends. A recent report from King’s College London on young people’s science and career aspirations said:

“Efforts to broaden students’ aspirations, particularly in relation to STEM, need to begin at primary school. The current focus of most activities and interventions—at secondary school—is likely to be too little too late.”

Steve Holliday told me of his company:

“National Grid’s current strategy is to ‘get in early’ by presenting engineering as a vibrant and viable career choice to a mixed culture and cross gender audience from the age of 8 years upwards.”

If hon. Members want to see a good video for encouraging people to get into STEM careers, I recommend the film produced by Nigel Whitehead of BAE Systems. I have the YouTube address here, but if hon. Members google “engineering careers and BAE Systems”, they will find it. I will happily share the link with anyone afterwards. Perkins’s fifth recommendation to reach out

“particularly to girls aged 11 to 14”

should be rethought. Eight is a much better age to begin.

My third concern is about female participation; the report contains insufficient detail on what we can do to address that problem.The Women’s Business Council’s report, “Maximising Women’s Contribution to Future Economic Growth”, makes the point that while women need work, work also needs women. Ford of Britain said to me:

“Above all there is a need for stronger and more systematic collaboration between educators, industry, BIS and the Department for Education to improve both the reputation and the uptake of STEM subjects and engineering amongst girls.”

I agree with that and worry that, despite the damning evidence produced by Perkins, his recommendations fall well short of a credible path to do something about it. I am working with Science Grrl, a creative group of young professional women working in STEM, to produce specific recommendations to address the issue. We aim to produce a report in March. The Select Committee on Science and Technology, which is chaired by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), is holding its own inquiry and will hopefully produce its report in the not-to-distant future. The Women’s Engineering Society has some pretty clear and compelling advice to employers and schools, which I commend. We certainly need a clearer plan of action than that offered in Perkins.

The report fails to address the failure to engage local enterprise partnerships, whose potential contribution could and should have been addressed. As the Minister of State at BIS said in a recent written answer:

“At local level, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) have the lead role in setting strategies for skills within their overall Strategic Economic Plans”—[Official Report, 8 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 268W.]

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the excellent points he is making, and on the enormous impact he has already had on turning round the design and technology curriculum. Does he welcome the work going on in the Worcestershire local enterprise partnership to get local business, such as Worcester Bosch and Mazak, working with local schools to promote engineering at both primary and secondary level?

[Peter Luff]

I welcome the intervention from my hon. Friend, who is my own Member of Parliament. He is absolutely right that the Worcester LEP is doing all the right things, but I doubt whether that is necessarily the case in every LEP area. The Government need to do more to ensure that best practice is shared, even if they do not go down my preferred route of LEPs having a statutory responsibility to share it.

There is also the question of careers advice. Engineering fits into a bigger picture of careers advice in schools. Some interesting research from the Education and Employers Taskforce on NEETs—those not in education, employment or training—was recently drawn to my attention. It is actually two years old, but I only found out about it last week. It was published in February 2012 and asked young adults aged 19 to 24 about their current employment status, and to reflect on their experiences of the world of work while they were at school. The findings were striking. Of the young people who could recall no contact with employers while at school, 26.1% went on to become NEETs. That reduced significantly to 4.3% for those who had taken part in four or more activities involving employers such as career insights, mentoring, work tasters, work experience and so on. As Steve Holliday of National Grid puts it:

“Beyond the Perkins report, the final point I would make is that for the engineering sector to land its messages well, there needs to be a solid foundation of general careers advice/awareness in schools…This will require a joined up strategy between DfE and BIS, with schools and business then having their part to play in making this a reality. I fear that without it, interventions will be too fragmented to make a real impact.”

That would be very serious.

On a slightly more positive note, the report’s recommendations 12 and 13 on vocational education are valuable. The Royal Academy of Engineering offers this perspective:

“In all of John’s work, probably the bit with the greatest potential for long term impact relates to apprenticeships. All critiques of ‘modern apprenticeships’”—

those under this Government and the previous one—

“show that not all have matched the generally accepted benchmark of the advanced engineering apprenticeship. And government’s response to the Richards’ review promises to make even the engineering apprenticeship better. But the potential significance of those reforms is not obvious to most readers of the Perkins review. With cross-party consensus on apprenticeship, this is the time for a drive to quality outcomes and not just growth in apprenticeship starts”—

as welcome as those are.

“Britain could close the gap on the German dual system if she put her mind to it”.

That is an important point for the Minister. I know he is working hard for this and I congratulate him on and thank him for all his work, but it is encouraging to see the Perkins review so welcomed by the engineering community in that respect. I would labour the point, but I want to make progress and leave time for others to speak.

Moving on to my final two related points, for something to happen, someone has to own the issue, and what is needed is a proper marketing campaign devised by experts, not the engineering of ever more elegant solutions by engineers. I am afraid that the Perkins team clearly did not speak to any marketing experts as they prepared their report. The recommendations under the heading “Inspiration” are helpful but, to be blunt, inadequate. Recommendations 3, 4 and 5 are well intentioned, but not informed by proper understanding of communications. They are recommendations by engineers to engineers. Recommendation 3, on core messages, is okay, and the fourth one, on support for the Tomorrow’s Engineers programme, is correct but limited. Recommendation 5, however, desperately needs to be strengthened.

Rightly directed at the Government and the engineering community, recommendation 5 is for a:

“High profile campaign reaching out to young people, particularly girls aged 11-14 years, with inspirational messages about engineering and diverse role models, to inspire them to become ‘Tomorrow’s Engineers’. The engineering community should take this forward as an annual event.”

For me, this recommendation is groping towards a definition of the central task, but it does not address the right age group and is too limited in its understanding of what is involved. Furthermore, remember that reference to an “annual event”. I repeat my profound concern that starting at 11 is simply too old. Girls in particular are being told at primary school that they do not do science, engineering and technology. We must address that problem. Rightly, the report states that

“we need purposeful and effective early intervention to enthuse tomorrow’s engineers”,

and that there are

“widespread misconceptions and lack of visibility that deter young people”.

The logic of those compelling points, however, has been pursued rigorously. A full, year-round marketing campaign is needed to address not only young people—primarily eight to 14-year-olds—but their parents and teachers; all the other valuable initiatives can sit under that campaign, from which they will all benefit. There are literally thousands of such initiatives. The better known include Big Bang, Tomorrow’s Engineers, STEMNET, Primary Engineer, the 5% Club and Bloodhound SSC, as well as the programmes of individual companies, voluntary bodies, public sector organisations, trade associations and professional institutions. Much work has been done by Engineering UK to bring all those initiatives together under the Tomorrow’s Engineers banner, but we need to do much more to explain the overall message of engineering.

I am indebted to George Edwards—he is sitting not a million miles away from us in the Public Gallery—an 18-year-old A-level engineering student from Kent who told me just how bad things are. He had some suggestions to make:

“As a student who has been on the receiving end of almost all of the engineering propaganda aimed at schools, 1 genuinely couldn’t describe what I am supposed to think about a career in engineering. Other than the need for more engineers, there are no clear or pragmatic messages being put across and as the problem becomes of a higher agenda for the media, the response is just to shout louder about the need for engineers.

Outreach must have substance and peer-led inspirational marketing, targeted at appropriate age groups”.

He is absolutely right.

Professor Perkins correctly speaks of the need to inspire, which requires not engineering skills but marketing and communications professionalism. He says in his report’s introduction that he has

“spoken to…industrialists, professional bodies, and educators.”

Although he rightly concludes that inspiration is essential, he appears not to have spoken to people with the appropriate marketing skills to inspire eight to 14-year-olds. This leads him to a limited understanding of what is needed to address the problems he identifies.

The UK marketing sector, similar to engineering, is world class and noted as such by many leading global brands. It is time for engineers to stop engineering solutions to the skills issue and to turn to professional marketing, just as any other organisation, product or brand would. Perkins rightly says:

“We should ensure that…messages are carefully crafted, based on the best available evidence about how to influence and communicate effectively with young people.”

I underline the point that this means working with marketing experts with proven expertise and success, not engineers. What engineers think is important might have no resonance at all with their audience.

The Government and the engineering community are both good at patting themselves on the back for all that they are doing. For example—I tread on dangerous ground here—Professor Perkins praises the Royal Academy of Engineering’s STEPS at Work initiative because it reaches 1,300 teachers and enables them to spend a day with a local engineering employer. I bow to none in my admiration for the royal academy and the outstanding work of Matthew Harrison on such issues, but with respect to them and to Professor Perkins, that scheme is a well-intentioned failure, not a success. There are more than 400,000 teachers in the state sector alone—can engineering really boast that only a little more than 1,000 of them have been persuaded to spend just one day finding out more about local jobs for their students?

The report tells us that the majority of boys and girls have had no encouragement from anyone at all—parents, teachers or friends—even to consider engineering as a career.

Small Businesses

Robin Walker Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Anne Marie Morris]

I would indeed. That is a very sensible suggestion and I am sure the current review will look at it.

When people start up a small business, they are concerned about mortgaging their house and having to give personal guarantees. Can we not separate the liability of the business from the home and secure it instead on the business asset? We could do that if we introduced limited liability for sole traders and reintroduced the potential for banks to take a fixed charge over book debts.

The Government have welcomed the plethora of new so-called challenger banks and new alternative lenders, but let us be clear that they need more support. We need to look at the right sort of light-touch regulation in order to make them safe funding institutions in the fabric of our society. More importantly, the Government need to ensure better communication, because businesses do not know what is out there or how to assess it.

We also need to address the issues of European Union regulation, because the micro moratorium addressed only domestic regulation. The EU red tape taskforce has identified 30 areas to be addressed, which is welcome, but more needs to be done. I would ask the UK better regulation taskforce to look not just at what we can do to encourage EU initiatives, but at how we make regulations in this country. My understanding is that most of the review looks at whether a piece of legislation will be burdensome for the SME community as a whole, without really addressing the issue of very small start-up businesses.

The Treasury has been good. It has introduced small business rate relief and extended it, and I hope it will be extended further in the Budget. It has reduced corporation tax: we are ever closer to 20% all around. Perhaps most valuable is the national insurance employers’ allowance, meaning £2,000 off the employer’s contribution. That is good news.

Again, however, more needs to be done. Business rates are one of the biggest challenges. They need to be seen as fair and transparent. A firm with a business on the high street that is not the main footfall area of the town still pays high rates, and yet the rates for an out-of-town retailer covering the same amount of square feet seems disproportionately low.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent and powerful speech. On business rate reform, I am sure she has heard, as I have, from local businesses that feel they would struggle without the extension of the small business rate relief that the Government have already given them. My hon. Friend has already said that she wants it to be extended, but does she agree that there needs to be more fundamental reform of the business rate system to support our small businesses?

[Anne Marie Morris]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that there needs to be root-and-branch reform. The whole way in which rateable value is calculated is a mystery. The rulebook has got a bit like the tax code. Why are some pubs assessed on turnover, while others are assessed on freehold or rental value? That is arcane and requires a thorough overhaul.