Sex and Relationship Education

Debate between Simon Hoare and Maria Miller

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?

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Maria Miller

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but I am sure that I would incur the wrath of Madam Deputy Speaker if the new clause did not deal with starter homes, as it needs to be read in the context of the Bill. I am glad that my hon. Friend has made that point, however, because this is a problem for every new home owner.

As I said, the shortfall of skilled tradesmen and women means that too many new homeowners are experiencing the problems that I have set out, with inadequate work not apparent for months or even years, and not caught at a time when things could be put right. Some more unscrupulous builders could even play the system for short-term gain, using substandard contractors, perhaps poorly supervised, knowing that problems would not reveal themselves until after their sales targets for the year are reached, or indeed their liability ends and the new house build 10-year warranty kicks in and they are long gone.

The new clause would remove perverse incentives and this apparent quality control lottery, and would increase consistency and transparency in the house building process. It would simply enforce the existing regime for all new homes, rather than some. It would ensure that every new starter home was checked for correct construction. I am not talking about a higher standard or a new standard, but about the same standard for every house, thus removing the lottery that is currently in place. The new clause would simply put building control performance standards on a statutory basis and require the records already kept to be made available to the new buyer, so that they could satisfy themselves that proper checks had been made.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

In the new regulatory regime that my right hon. Friend seeks to advocate, whom does she envisage funding, managing and employing this new army of new-build inspectors? Local authorities up and down the country are seeing their budgets under pressure, so this is not going to come from that side of the equation.

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend is right, which is why independent approved inspectors were set up when they were, to take pressure off local authorities. The problem we have seen is that because we are not working within a defined statutory scheme, those approved inspectors can vary the way in which they work. Indeed, some could argue that there are pressures on approved inspectors to come in at a lower price or to offer to do fewer inspections because it would cost the house builders less. What I am advocating here is a level playing field where all approved inspectors would be acting in the same way, and this is firmly something that would be a cost covered by the house builders. After all, we are dealing with properties worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds, and we would want to make sure that they were going to last for the long term and not simply be subject to inappropriate and inadequate quality checks.

I urge the Minister, on behalf of the homeowners from many different constituencies around the country who have contacted me, to listen to the arguments being made today and to respond positively to what is being suggested. With a nationwide shortage of skilled tradespeople, ever-growing demand for housing and home builders looking to keep costs low, buyers need protection afforded by the building control performance standards regime, and the work of approved inspectors is more important than ever before.

As I have just said, we need to remove the pressure that could exist on approved inspectors to reduce the number of inspections that are made in order to cut costs. We need a robust system to safeguard the quality of what is being built, particularly given the taxpayer investment in schemes such as the starter home initiative. Of course these concerns go far wider than starter homes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) mentioned in his intervention. I hope that the Government will look to further extend the requirements in this new clause to all new-build homes. I have spoken to the Minister about this issue in recent months and I know that he has a clear understanding of the problem. I look forward to his response and an indication as to whether the objectives set out in new clause 1 could be achieved for all new builds, perhaps through further regulations. With that, I shall draw my comments to a close.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Maria Miller

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

A trust that looks after almshouses in my constituency has expressed a similar concern, but as I understand it the Minister has already confirmed that almshouses will be specifically exempt from the proposals in order not to break up a rather important historical and heritage legacy in housing.

[Mrs Miller]

I raise the issue particularly because Colonel Massey, clerk of the Ironmongers Company and the Sir Robert Geffery’s Almshouse Trust, has written to me about it. The trust owns and runs the almshouses called Geffery’s Fields in my constituency. Like my hon. Friend, I understand that the right to buy proposals do not affect almshouses, but the Sir Robert Geffery’s Almshouse Trust needs reassurance in this area. In his remarks, I hope that the Minister will put minds at rest by ensuring that such people can see that a particular exclusion has been put in place for them.

This Government understand that owning one’s own home is simply part of the DNA of being British. It is part of the British dream. I believe that the Bill will help more people to realise that dream.