Student Loans

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Georgia Gould]

I think it is really relevant to make sure that the public know who created this system—and not only created it, but froze those loans 10 times over the last 12 years—[Interruption.] I know that it is inconvenient for the Conservatives to be reminded of these truths, but we have lived through them.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I must be suffering from some sort of political amnesia, because I was absolutely convinced that it was a Labour Government that introduced tuition fees in the first place. Maybe the Minister will correct me.

[Georgia Gould]

I was talking about plan 2—[Interruption.] The debate today that has been called by the Opposition is about plan 2 loans—a system that was created in 2012 by the Conservatives.

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[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

When I woke up this morning and sprang out of bed thinking about my upcoming 57th birthday, I was feeling quite young and sprightly, but having listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Kettering (Rosie Wrighting) I feel particularly ancient and amazed that I have managed to get to my feet to give this speech. The hon. Lady gave a compelling and interesting speech, which gave those of us of an earlier vintage when it comes to university experience much to think about. The House should be grateful to her for what she had to say.

The Government’s prognosis is slightly odd. It seems to be, “It’s a terrible system—it’s broken and it’s not working. We will have a little think about it. I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do or when we’re going to do it. You’re at the back of the queue, but we’re not going to tell you how long the queue is.” It like one of those call centre things where we are told, “Your call is important to us—please wait,” and we are waiting and waiting in the queue, but we do not know for how long. Such policy issues require long-term, settled solutions. It cries out to me as something that would really benefit from cross-party working, which would give some solidity and sense to long-term policy making.

I welcome the motion tabled by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, because it starts to address a pressing issue in our inboxes that is of concern to our constituents. Should we go back to the idea of a graduate tax? I do not know. It is clear that all Governments and all parties should view money spent on education in the university sector and elsewhere not as expenditure but as an investment, from which the state and society should have an expectation of a return.

It is crucial that we are sensitive on the point about controlling the number of places available. We do not want to reduce the evaluation of education to a utilitarian exercise, but clearly one has to look at value for money. Education is more than just the end of the process: it is an enriching, personal development, friend-making process providing us with all the keys to life’s doors as we face them.

When I went up to university way back in 1987—I do not suppose that the mother of the hon. Member for Kettering had even thought about her then—one in eight did so. That was not a sustainable figure if we wanted to see a growing economy. I had gone to an ordinary state school in south Wales and was the first in my family to go to university. Is 50% of our young a sustainable figure when clearly the job market is changing?

I welcome whatever anybody wishes to do to support vocational and technical education and apprenticeships. There are other ways. I say this—I suppose I must declare an interest—as someone whose eldest daughter is applying to university at the moment, but it is often my fellow sharp-elbowed middle-class parents who push their children towards university and fail to recognise the importance, value and use of apprenticeships and other forms of getting on in life. There needs to be a societal step change. We have to think seriously about that and particularly about supporting our FE colleges. Many of my young constituents attend Yeovil college, just over the border in Somerset. It is a first-class college with great ties to local businesses such as Leonardo, and it provides a good start in life for many young people in North Dorset.

I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Kettering about the benefit of stability that a settled future—putting down roots, starting a family and so on—can bring. We should encourage our young to think like that, but also to understand the wide range of educational opportunities that exist for them. We cannot ignore this any longer. Too many of our university institutions are just about hanging on in there financially, many are tottering on the brink, and we have a model that we cannot sustain, the utility of which is proving even harder to demonstrate to our constituents. I say to the Minister that doing nothing and putting this at the back of the queue is not a sustainable solution.

[John Slinger]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hoare]

Of course—it gives me an extra minute.

[John Slinger]

The hon. Gentleman keeps referring to “the back of the queue”, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not say “back of the queue”. She actually said, after her Mais lecture:

“we want to make improvements. But is it front of the queue? No, it’s not.”

May I just say—[Laughter.] Right hon. and hon. Members can chunter from a sedentary position, but Conservative Members have repeatedly said “back of the queue”. That is not what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that point?

[Simon Hoare]

What I do accept is that the hon. Gentleman is swiftly gaining a reputation in this place as the only Labour Member who would defend a policy of the slaughter of the firstborn. He will defend anything. I seem to remember that he was one of the only Labour Members who stood up and defended Lord Mandelson’s appointment to be ambassador to Washington.

[John Slinger]

Will he give way?

[Simon Hoare]

No, I will not give way; one can be a useful idiot only so often in an afternoon. I say to the Minister: whether it is at the front of the queue, the back of the queue or the middle of the queue, this is an issue that cannot be put aside any longer.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Simon Hoare]

I am just about to give up and I will not get an extra minute. I like the hon. Gentleman very much and in ordinary circumstances I would, but I will not.

We need some urgency on this matter, and I urge some cross-party working to make sure that all our constituents, whether urban or rural, and whether first, second, third or fourth-generation university students, get the very best deal and start in life that they can as they begin their working lives.

Children with SEND: Assessments and Support

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Josh Newbury]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I, too, have heard many examples of families who feel that they have had to work almost full time to manage their children’s EHCP processes, and even of some relationships that have broken down because of the strain—on top of the strains that already come with supporting a SEND child.

Parents also constantly raised the issue of waiting times. One mum in Wimblebury told me that she started the process for her daughter in reception but did not get an EHCP until just before she started year 7—and even then only with intensive support from one of our fantastic local councillors, Julie Aston. In fairness to Staffordshire county council, it faces an increase in the number of EHCP applications from around 600 a year up to 2019 to over 2,000 now, but after such a wait, too many children are left with an EHCP drafted by someone who has never even met them.

Another shocking reality is the profiteering that fills the void where state provision falls woefully short: the most expensive placement in my constituency is £166,000 for a single school year. Now, the last thing I would call for is to take the support away from that child—I hope that they are thriving in that setting—but it should shame us that ever more expensive private provision is the only way of meeting the spiralling need.

I have three practical asks rooted in what families have told me. First, we need a fair funding model that is based on need, not postcode. A child supported through the high needs block in Staffordshire receives less than £1,000, but in Camden a child gets more than £3,500. That discrepancy is not defensible. Secondly, we need true multi-agency working in practice—with a single front door for shared assessments, clear escalation routes and shared records—so that parents do not have to retell their story over and over.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Josh Newbury]

I will proceed with my speech in the interest of time.

Thirdly, on transparent timings, we need to meet statutory deadlines, publish a dashboard of local waiting times and outcomes, and co-produce communications with parent-carer forums using clear, respectful and up-to-date language.

I could say reams more on things such as off-rolling and intermediate support, but I will end with this request: let us rebuild a SEND system with people, not processes, at the heart of its provision and with good communication and joined-up services as the norm. We can do better than this—and for the future of the children and young people stuck in a failing system, we must.

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[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

In anticipation of the White Paper, I held a roundtable with parents and children with SEND in my constituency of Bolton South and Walkden. They told me that it is still very much a postcode lottery when it comes to SEND provision, and that children with autism and other SEND conditions are being placed in classrooms that do not meet their needs.

[Simon Hoare]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is not just a postcode lottery but that it is often about the confidence of the parents or carers in standing up to, questioning and challenging officialdom? Some are very comfortable, others less so. Some people use the phrase, “It is the sharp-elbowed who get ahead”, but it needs to be a fairer system, reflective of that issue.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

That point was made by the parents, and I was going to come to it in my speech.

Children are being placed in classrooms that do not meet their needs, and some of them are being forced out of school—others attend for just a few hours. Often, teaching assistants are given just one afternoon of generic training; they are not even experienced in these matters. Quite often, they have not even seen the plan, so implementation is inconsistent or absent. Schools, particularly academies, are very difficult to hold accountable. And one of the big frustrations that parents talked about is that there are no systems in place to deal with complaints, and that they often had to navigate the system and work very hard to try to get provision for their children.

I know that, since last year, the Labour Government have invested £1 billion in high-needs budgets and supporting children with complex needs, and that £740 million has been committed to adapt school rooms and build specialist facilities, even in mainstream schools. Great progress is being made, but I am sure that many of you find, when you go to your local junior schools, that headteachers are saying that since covid—

Fair Taxation of Schools and Education Standards Committee

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That the following Standing Order shall have effect until 31 December 2023:

Fair Taxation of Schools and Education Standards Committee

(1) There shall be a select committee, to be called the Fair Taxation of Schools and Education Standards Committee, to consider reforming the tax status of private schools in order to raise funding for measures to increase educational standards across the state sector, including the recruitment of new teachers, additional teacher training, and careers advice and work experience for all pupils.

(2) It shall be an instruction to the committee that it shall make a first report to the House no later than 20 July 2023.

(3) The committee shall consist of eleven members of whom ten shall be nominated by the Committee of Selection in the same manner as those select committees appointed in accordance with Standing Order No. 121.

(4) The chair of the committee shall be a backbench member of a party represented in His Majesty’s Government and shall be elected by the House under arrangements approved by the Speaker.

(5) Unless the House otherwise orders, each member nominated to the committee shall continue to be a member of it until the expiration of this Order.

(6) The committee shall have power—

(a) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from time to time; and

(b) to appoint specialist advisers to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee’s order of reference.

(7) The committee shall have power to appoint a sub-committee, which shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report to the committee from time to time.

(8) The committee shall have power to report from time to time the evidence taken before the sub-committee.

In this House we often talk of tough choices, especially since the Conservatives crashed the economy, but today I present the House with a very easy choice: to invest in the future of every child or to protect tax breaks for the wealthiest. We on the Opposition side know where we stand. Labour believes that excellence is for everyone—excellence for every child, in every school, in every corner of our country. I ask hon. Members to support that ambition by establishing a new Select Committee to consider how to end the inexcusable tax breaks that private schools enjoy and invest that money in driving up standards across all our state schools.

The evidence for ending private schools’ tax breaks is very clear:

“Removing the tax advantages of private schools would boost standards in the state sector and raise vital extra funds”.

I agree, but those are not my words; they are the words of the now Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. It should be an easy choice, but we have tabled this motion because once again the Government are failing—failing to stand up to the vested interests in their own party, failing to consider the evidence even when their own Members have previously urged them to act and, yet again, failing our children.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

There will be nobody who does not agree with the basic premise that we want to see excellence in all of our schools. Can the hon. Lady explain why she thinks she needs a Select Committee to achieve her aspiration? Surely she needs either an amendment to a Finance Bill or primary legislation? She does not need a Select Committee.

[Bridget Phillipson]

We will be considering all of our options for how to force this issue, but this is a choice for Conservative Members. There is a clear and straightforward way that we could look carefully at this issue, and the motion sets that out. The question for Conservative Members is whether they are prepared to defend inexcusable tax breaks for private schools, or whether they want to invest that money in ensuring that all our children in our state schools get a great start in life.

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[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown), who spoke with her usual passion and great knowledge of her constituency. There are a few of us in the Chamber who cut our political teeth on, or were involved in, the 1997 general election campaign. For every problem that came before us, the Labour answer was the windfall tax. They would say, “The windfall tax will sort this, that and the other.” It seems to me that the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), and her colleagues see the motion as the educational equivalent of a windfall tax to solve all the problems, which many of us are alert to and which need to be addressed.

The money raised—this £1.7 billion—will, according to the motion, go to

“the recruitment of new teachers, additional teacher training, and careers advice and work experience for all pupils.”

In speeches, we have been told that it will address mental health, deal with SEND, underpin TAs, deliver mandatory digital skills and extend free school meals. This is the windfall tax that covers everything. This is the goose that will lay the largest golden egg in educational history.

Let me share a secret with the House: maths is not my favourite subject—please do not tell the Prime Minister—but, by my calculation, on the sums suggested divided by the number of schools in the state sector who would be recipients of that funding, that amounts to about £53,000 per school, per year. That is on the expectation that the £1.7 billion remains a continual, but some schools will get smaller, some will close and so on. It is therefore an entirely false prospectus.

I think that the shadow Secretary of State must have read in the press that her leader is thinking of having a shadow Cabinet reshuffle and scratched her head to think, “What might get me on the front page of the newspaper and to lead a debate?” May I say gently to her that it might have seemed a good idea in theory to have this debate, but the practice is not playing out.

I am a huge supporter of the Select Committee system—I happen to chair one and enjoy it—but we do not need another one to address the issues of what could be done to help education. I am sure that the Education Committee will look into it, if that is what its work programme wants to do—[Interruption.] But let me set out my stall. I will yield to no one in my support for state education in our country. I went to what Mr Blair as Prime Minister would have called a “bog-standard comprehensive” in Cardiff. Of my three children, one goes to a church primary and the others go to one of our local high schools. They are receiving excellent education from first-class teachers. I have been a governor of two state sector schools and my wife is a current school governor, because we understand entirely that education provides the keys that are going to unlock all of life’s doors.

Conservative Members believe in a meritocracy. We are far more interested in where people are going than from where they have come. The motion—this idea—is all about class envy. It is all about divide. It is all about pulling down. May I say gently to the Opposition Front-Bench team that we do not improve things that need improvement by pulling down and reducing the excellent. We should be focusing on fostering that which lots of schools already do. There is a good example in my constituency: Bryanston, which is a leading independent school, teamed up with Blandford School, sharing resources and expertise in a whole load of areas to the improvement of children and their educational experience. That is what we should be focusing on, not pulling down something that is working. The effect on global soft power from the experience of coming to the UK, which the independent sector provides for so many young people, is always overlooked when we come to this debate. It is a very important tool in our arsenal; we must not forget it. We need to focus on those important issues. Nobody in my constituency says, “You are going to make my school better by stopping that school having VAT relief and charitable status.” They want to know what the Government are going to do to make their schools better and the attainment of their kids better. They are not motivated by this narrative of envy, and it is a shame that the House is being invited to be so today.

The motion presupposes that it will be of no cost to the public purse, but a conservative estimate suggests that about 100,000 children would be taken out of the independent sector and put into the state sector. That would have a cost, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) indicated, on already pressured state places, particularly, although not exclusively, in the secondary sector. Bursaries and scholarships would be removed. Who benefits? Nobody, apart from a narrow class interest suggested by some Opposition Members and certainly not shared by those on the Government Benches. I do not believe it is shared in the country either.

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[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to conclude this debate in support of the motion in my name and the names of the shadow Education Secretary and the Leader of the Opposition.

I wish to start by saying thank you—thank you to teachers, school support staff, school leadership teams and everyone who works in schools across the country. Their job can often be a thankless one, but it has been particularly difficult in recent years. The work that they do could not be more important and I hope that they know that they have our respect, our admiration and our support.

My hon. Friends the Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), for West Ham (Ms Brown), for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne), for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) and for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) have articulated the importance of this debate in raising educational standards for children in England’s state schools.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood made powerful points about the value of quality teaching and the significant challenges of recruitment and retention and morale of the workforce. I know that she is a tireless champion for schools in her constituency and I thank her for her contributions today. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham spoke with her usual passion and energy about the challenges that schools in her constituency are facing and the 12 years of failure by the Tories to tackle these issues head on.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby made helpful points about his continued efforts on food poverty and the political choices that the Government could make to transform children’s lives. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle robustly challenged those on the Government Benches on the views that they have expressed today, and I thank her for her consistent work on raising issues around oracy in this House. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East helpfully shared issues in her area with regards to school funding and concerns about the impact that is having on the education of children in her local community.

Members of the Conservative party may be trying to airbrush their former leader out of history, but they cannot airbrush their record in Government. Over the past decade, the Conservatives have turned back the clock on education, with attainment gaps widening, teacher pay falling, SEND education broken, school buildings crumbling, and teacher recruitment and retention in crisis. This situation is not fair, it is not sustainable, and Labour will not stand for it. We believe that excellence is for everyone. Labour wants to raise educational standards across the country. We want to pay for teachers, pay for mental health support and pay for careers guidance to drive higher standards for the majority of children in all our state schools, The tax breaks that private schools enjoy must end. That is why we are asking all Members to support that ambition by establishing a time-limited, focused new Select Committee, to report by July this year, to look into how we end these tax breaks and invest that money in our nation’s schools.

Every parent wants the best for their children. We will not criticise any parent for the judgments that they make on how to do that—not now, not ever. But Labour wants to deliver the best for every child, in every school, in every corner of our country. This is simply about children’s outcomes: recruiting more excellent teachers to improve those outcomes; improving the mental health of our children to improve those outcomes; and revitalising careers guidance to improve those outcomes. While those on the Conservative Benches were busy last year each taking a turn at being the Secretary of State for Education, the Labour party was busy building a vision for the future of education. That means funding it fairly and properly.

Labour has set out how we will do that. We will use the money that is raised to drive up standards in every state school. We will do that: through a national excellence programme, recruiting thousands of new teachers; providing professional mental health support for every child; and ensuring young people leave education ready for work and ready for life, with professional careers guidance and work experience for all. As the shadow Education Secretary said earlier, this is what aspiration for our children looks like.

[Simon Hoare]

It all sounds absolutely fantastic, but the shadow Minister is hiding his light under a bushel. If that is not on his Labour party website and if his Leader has not mentioned education at all in his new year launch speech, how are we supposed to know about these things—telepathy?

[Stephen Morgan]

I would expect better of the hon. Member, but I am delighted that he is already looking at the Labour party website. I can send him the membership links so that he can join the party, too.

Arthur Labinjo-Hughes

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I will always go where the evidence leads. The reason why we asked Josh MacAlister to conduct the review prior to the tragic murder of this innocent young boy is that we want to make sure that we deliver a system that is fit for purpose. We have made more funding available, but it depends what the review comes back with, and I will certainly return to the Dispatch Box and go through that with colleagues to make sure that we get this right.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

May I say, as many have, what a relief it is that my right hon. Friend is at the helm on this issue? This has been a bone-chilling case. He was right in his statement to say that no Government anywhere in the world can legislate for evil, and we have seen evil in this case. We also know that hard-working professionals cannot be everywhere all the time.

Quite rightly, the campaign to end violence against women and girls has a high national profile and commands the respect of Ministers across Government. May I urge my right hon. Friend to begin such a crusade to combat neglect and violence against children, so that, as others have noted, the precautionary principle—the taking away of a child if there is a scintilla of a doubt—is at the forefront of people’s minds, the resources are available, and the law stands four-square behind them?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question and suggestion. I would certainly like to take that away, and to work on a cross-party basis to make it culturally unacceptable for children to be neglected, harmed or abused in any way.

Budget Resolutions

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown). I agree with the point that he made about the shared prosperity fund and the need for it to be announced quickly so that we can get the funding that we need in all areas.

I do not want to be too negative, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I was a little disappointed when, in the Treasury Committee, I raised concerns about debt advice directly with the Chancellor and he did not seem to be fully aware of the situation, so I hope that, today, those on the Front Bench will take this point really seriously.

Hull has been named one of the debt capitals of the UK. We have double the average number of people unable to service their debt levels. At the moment, a face-to-face service is provided by the Money and Pensions Service. I am aware that that does not operate directly through the Treasury, but I am also aware that policy decisions relating to debt are informed by the Treasury. What I am asking for is an assurance that that face-to-face advice service remains, because what the service is proposing is to move towards regional call centres where people can access debt advice remotely. I am sure that everybody here, including, hopefully, Conservative Members, will acknowledge that if a person is in a desperate situation—they are saddled with debt, have perhaps not been opening their bills, and are incredibly worried about the situation that they face—the idea that they can go through all the issues on the telephone with someone is simply unrealistic. That is ignoring the fact that some people might have autism or learning disabilities or be in an extremely distressed state. I do hope the Treasury will take that point really seriously and speak to the Money and Pensions Service.

Let me turn now to the Budget. I had six clear asks of the Budget to provide what I believe was needed by the people of Hull West and Hessle. One was on fuel poverty. I support the Labour party’s call for the ending of VAT on domestic fuel as one way to try to alleviate the problems. This really lovely lady told me that she was worried about the issue. She is a pensioner and reliant on her pension. She likes to be warm, as elderly people often do—when people get older they like to keep their homes nice and warm. She is at home all day, so is extremely concerned about the rise in fuel costs, telling me that her bills have gone up by more than 40%. This is an area that needs a lot more Government action, because the problem will not go away; it will continue. I hope the Government will put party politics to one side and review a sensible proposal from the Labour party to look at cutting VAT on domestic fuel.

I raised the issue of adult social care in interventions on the Secretary of State and on my own shadow Front Bencher. I also raised it at the Treasury Committee. The issue has nothing to do with the type of council in control, or the political party that represents it. My constituency is in the East Riding, and it is also in Hull. Hull is urban and a Labour authority. East Riding is rural and a Conservative authority. Both councils have come to me and said that, as the local MP, could I do everything possible to lobby the Government for support for adult social care. In fact, the Conservative-run East Riding of Yorkshire Council has just passed a motion in its council chamber on this matter.

This should not be a political issue. The situation is a crisis. I said in an intervention on the Minister that East Riding council is unable to provide the amount of care hours that constituents need. It has admitted that in a letter and has been quite open and honest with me, saying that it simply cannot provide the service. Its solution is to tell families that they will either have to take care of the person in need themselves or that person will have to go into residential care. That is not a choice that we want people to have to make, so the council has asked me to lobby the Government for increased funding for adult social care, because it says that it is unable to compete with companies such as Amazon, which is offering £11 an hour, because all that it is able to offer is the minimum wage. It told me that it is facing budget pressures of £1.4 million with the national minimum wage increase that the Government have already announced. Of course I support the national minimum wage increase—in fact, I believe that it should be more, as I think all Labour Members do—but we have to acknowledge that the cost has to come from somewhere, and if it is coming from the adult social care budget, it is not going on providing the hours that are needed. The letter has been sent to the Health Secretary. I hope that he reads it, acknowledges it and sends us a reply.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

My own council in Dorset tells a similar story. Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be helpful if when we were talking about adult social care, particularly in the media, we did not just concentrate on those who are older, but remember the complete age range of people who require daily support from our local government? I agree with her entirely that the local government family, which is hardest hit in hard times, really should be the beneficiary of extra cash as the purse strings loosen.

[Emma Hardy]

I absolutely agree; the hon. Gentleman is completely right. We do often forget all those people with learning difficulties and adults of all ages requiring support. He is correct to draw attention to that point.

The situation really is one of crisis. Yesterday I was talking to the OBR—again, in the Treasury Committee—and it said that it believed that 95% of councils are going to raise their precept to the maximum amount. That is another tax increase that is not being mentioned by the Government and we are not talking about. It is another impact on the cost of living, and councils are having to do that because they simply cannot afford to cover social care as it is.

I want briefly to mention universal credit. Even with the changes to the taper and the other changes that the Government have introduced, a lone parent who is working part-time on the minimum wage still loses £361. All the time throughout this Budget, it seems that people on lower pay are paying more in taxes. That just does not feel right.

I often hear Government Members say, “Well, where would you find the money? What are you going to do with it?” It always comes down to choices; in politics, everything is about choices. We have a certain amount of finance and then we make a choice. My personal priority would be not to give more money to whisky price cuts and tax cuts than I would give to children needing educational catch-up. That is just a principle that I have: children before whisky—call me radical! I would also not spend £5 billion sending a rocket up into space funded by the British Government, when we have lots of children here on earth who might require that money a little bit more. Again, it comes down to choices: rockets and whisky, or kids.

We also need to look more seriously at business rates. Interestingly, Government Members talked about a whole radical change to business rates, which I support. This is a disappointing Budget, filled with many issues that need resolving. I hope that the Government will finally do something about them.

Higher Education (England) Regulations

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I hope that the hon. Lady notes that after having to bring this Government to the House to discuss this really important issue time and again, we have had to do this in Opposition time. I hope that Conservative Members who promised the electorate that they were against rises in tuition fees will take that on board today and support the Opposition’s motion.

Ministers seem to have found a parliamentary Catch-22 which, in effect, makes it impossible for this House to have a say on regulations like these if they decide that they do not want to grant one. They refuse a vote within the time limit, and then afterwards say that the deadline has passed. Even more incredibly, they seem to be suggesting that they would simply ignore this House if we voted the wrong way on today’s motion—that is, of course, if they allow us even to have a vote. In the space of this week they have gone from Henry VIII to King Charles I. Let me be clear that so far as we are concerned, it is unthinkable that this House would pass a substantive motion and that the Government would refuse to honour it.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I do not wish to behead the hon. Lady’s argument, but she is labouring this point of process. I wonder whether that is to mask her lack of policy; let me be charitable and suggest that it is not. When we will we hear what her policy is on this important issue?

[Angela Rayner]

First of all, let me say that my husband would have been Charles I; I probably would have been a Cromwell. On the important point about our policy on tuition fees, we were clear in our manifesto that we would abolish tuition fees. I think the general public absolutely were clear on our policy on that. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says, from a sedentary position, “What about Wales?” In Wales, we have a policy, despite this Government, of giving maintenance grants. What will the Secretary of State do for the students in England who need maintenance grants? The Government still refuse to give that support to students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Schools Update

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I do not agree. What is important is that we are able to maintain the rates of per-pupil funding in our schools. That is what I have set out today, and we can only do it because we have a strong economy that is creating jobs, growth and taxes that fund our vital public services. We must not fall into the trap of thinking that, every time we want to increase our public spending, we have to reach into the public’s pocket and raise taxes. That is simply not sustainable. Neither is it sustainable to have increasing debt when our debt interest is still more than the amounts we are investing every year in our schools and high-needs funding. It is vital that we have a long-term strategy to deal with that debt, and I believe that we can make our departmental budget work more effectively and, in doing so, get more money to the frontline of schools. That has to be the first port of call for anyone in my role, rather than simply resorting to higher taxes or more debt.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

As a parent and a Member of Parliament for a rural constituency, I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. May I urge her, as the new formula is finessed, to keep at the forefront of her mind the higher cost of staffing and running a school in a rural area, compared with schools in an urban setting? I hope that will be reflected in any formula.

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend has done a good job of raising that issue and setting out his local area’s concerns. This was part of the consultation we launched earlier this year, to which we have had 25,000 responses. We have gone through most of them, but we will set out our full response in September. Suffice it to say that I recognise those issues, and I am looking to get it right.

Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Simon Hoare Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before I call the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), I emphasise that I would like to call the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) from the Scottish National party as well, so extreme brevity is required.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I rise to speak in warm support of new clause 15 and to congratulate the Government. The Minister will remember that I served on the Public Bill Committee and spoke in support of the then new clause, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). I very much welcome the two safeguards in the new clause—on age-appropriateness and parental rights to withdraw—which I think address the points that have been raised.

This is a new clause—a 21st-century clause—for a 21st-century education system and for the world in which we live, and it reflects the deep need to provide our young people with the education and skills they require to meet challenges that many of us on the Conservative Benches did not face when we were their age.

Many people rail against the rates of divorce, abortion, teenage pregnancy and the like, and I am absolutely convinced that there must be a causal link between those statistics and the very patchy and relatively poor levels of sex and relationship education we have had in this country hitherto.

The new clause appears to have garnered the support of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, of which I am a member, as well as of Barnardo’s, the Terrence Higgins Trust and others. I would therefore suggest to right hon. and hon. Members that the Government are clearly on to something and are approaching it in the right way.

We do nothing that could be described as moral if we leave our young people unprepared to meet the challenges of relationships and modern life. I certainly support the fact—I raised this in the Adjournment debate brought by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller)—that the clause covers academies and free schools. Given the direction of travel in the education environment, that seems entirely appropriate, and I support the new clause.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

I wish to speak to the amendments in my name to new clauses 13 and 14. Let me say in passing that new clauses 12 and 11, on universal credit and local housing allowance, both have our full support. On new clause 4, while we sympathise with the sentiment behind it, the method of progression is not the correct one, and we could not give the new clause our support.

Let me turn to new clauses 12 to 14 and to my two amendments. New clause 13 would put the strategy for the safeguarding of unaccompanied refugee children on a statutory footing, and that has our support. Given that many of the laws and services that will be involved are devolved, I have suggested that the new clause be amended to require consultation with the devolved Administrations before the strategy is published.

New clauses 12 and 14 require assessment of the capacity to provide safeguarding and welfare services, including to unaccompanied child refugees. I welcome the cross-party support new clause 14 has attracted, and the Scottish National party fully intends to give it our support. My small amendment to it simply borrows the wording of new clause 12 in relation to the devolved Administrations. It is appropriate to include the devolved Administrations, because, as we have heard, the key driver behind new clause 14 is to force the Government to rethink their move to wind the Dubs scheme down. This was a UK-wide scheme, and Scotland was and is absolutely willing to play its part in it.

With the rationale for closing Dubs falling to pieces, the Government have belatedly come to the Dispatch Box to make a concession. However, in making that concession, they have actually made the case for new clause 14, rather than giving an explanation of why we should reject it, so I see no reason why we should not proceed with it. If it comes to a vote, the SNP will absolutely support new clause 14, whether amended or not.

School Funding

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper).

The Secretary of State and her team are to be congratulated. To many Conservative Members, and probably to some Opposition Members, this problem seems almost too large and intractable to wrestle with. However, we are in a consultation process. Of course there will be one or two anomalies and a few little creases will have to be ironed out. There will be unforeseen circumstances that need to be attended to. The scary thing is that those Opposition Members who have spoken so far have been either unable or unwilling to see the inherent unfairness of a system that they not only promoted but fed, either because it was to their advantage to do so or because they had no interest in rural areas.

The Government have been trying to counterbalance the differentials in funding for 2016-17, but when House of Commons Library research shows that Manchester has a per-pupil figure of £4,619 and Doncaster has a figure of £5,281, but the figure for Dorset is £4,240, we know that something has gone wrong. This tells us quite clearly that it is thought that taxpayers in Dorset and their children’s needs are less important than taxpayers and their children in other areas. There was nothing fair in the funding formula that Labour bequeathed to us. We could have had a knee-jerk reaction, which really would have put the cat among the pigeons, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and her predecessor have adopted an incremental approach to try to address and arrest the problem, and they are to be congratulated on that.

I concur with many of the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), among others. When we go into our village primary schools, we see the enthusiasm of the teachers, parents, governors and staff in general. We see their enthusiasm for education, but we know that they have been trying to do their work with one hand tied behind their back because they have been penalised for living and working in a rural area.

[Ms Buck]

There is great passion among the teachers in schools such as the Westminster Academy, which has one of the highest proportions of children on free school dinners anywhere in Britain, but that school stands to lose at least £250,000. How is that fair?

[Simon Hoare]

I took over from the hon. Lady as chairman of the governors of Wilberforce primary school many years ago, so I am familiar with the problems facing schools in her constituency, as well as those elsewhere. Perhaps I need to make the point to Opposition Members quite baldly that just because schools that have done very well under an unfair system start to see some rebalancing while the cake is being re-divided, that is not necessarily an argument for saying that there should be no change for those schools that have disproportionately enjoyed funding while those in rural areas have not.

[Rebecca Pow]

Does my hon. Friend agree that many of our rural schools in Somerset and Dorset have been doing so well with the funding they have had? This extra funding might enable them to put in place some of the things that they have not been able to have because there simply has not been enough money to go around.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Back in the summer, I convened a roundtable of all the headteachers and chairs of governors at my schools. They said that the key thing was the recruitment and retention of teachers, and that the heart of the problem was the inequity in funding and the lack of a formula that recognises rural sparsity and the additional costs that such schools face.

[Amanda Solloway (Derby North) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Simon Hoare]

I will not.

I declare an interest, because I have three young daughters at a village primary school in my constituency and—here is the plug—my wonderful wife is the chairman of its parents, teachers and friends association. The hard-working farmer Spencer Mogridge gets up at 3 o’clock or 4 o’clock in the morning to look after his livestock, but he still goes to the PTFA meeting at 7 o’clock in the evening to organise the school fun run—[Hon. Members: “Were you on the fun run?”] I was not on the fun run. I think the words “fun” and “run” should never be used in the same sentence; it is an oxymoron.

I see such keenness at all levels of the rural educational establishment. That is why people want a fairer funding model that addresses the imbalance, recognises needs, and ensures that the lifeblood of many of our rural communities, which I believe our rural schools are, can continue long into the future.

Sex and Relationship Education

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Lady makes an incredibly important point. We need consistency but, as I pointed out earlier, we do not have that at the moment. Placing provisions on a statutory footing would provide such consistency.

The internet has changed everyone’s lives. For some, it has normalised sexualised behaviours, which children can find it difficult to respond to. I see the Barnardo’s research as a cry for help. Parents have to take overall responsibility, but schools have a pivotal role to play in helping more children to understand what a good relationship is and to make better decisions.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend makes a cogent and compelling case. When we are discussing schools in this context, will she clarify that we are talking about not only local authority schools, but the growing academy sector? It is important that academies are included in such provisions.

[Mrs Miller]

I am sure that one of the many challenges for Ministers will be to ensure that every child can have the right sort of support and teaching. I do not underestimate the challenges that that will present, but I agree with the essence of what my hon. Friend says.

We can pretend that what we are talking about today does not affect children, or that parents have all the specialist knowledge that children need. Alternatively, we who are entrusted to shape our communities can do something different and act to clean up the internet, to support parents, and to give children the understanding that they need to make informed choices. Today’s debate is supported by leading charities including Barnardo’s, the Terrence Higgins Trust, the Children’s Society, the National Children’s Bureau and Plan International UK, as well as by the guides, the scouts and Liberty. They all want sex and relationship education to be compulsory. At the moment, schools are relying on guidance that was agreed more than a decade ago when the internet was still out of most children’s reach. They have failed to adapt to what children need, and it is little wonder that Ofsted recently judged 40% of schools to be inadequate in their teaching of SRE.

Who are we to ignore children calling for change? Children have only one chance of a childhood. We know the damage that is being done by cyber-bullying, sexting and the underage viewing of extreme pornography, and we have an obligation to act. I therefore have a question for the Minister, my friend from Hampshire: how will the Government respond to the seven in 10 children who want change? What are the Government doing, and when will that change happen?