Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is right that this is not a matter for levity, but he is also wise enough to acknowledge, I hope, that it is a structural problem. The number of young people not in education, employment or training began to rise, as he knows, long before the current economic challenges. It requires a structural solution and at the heart of that is building the skills people need to get and to keep jobs, which is precisely what this Government are doing.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

The Minister has been good at understanding that we need good careers guidance for young people, but if we are to have fewer people out of work and doing nothing at all post-16, high-quality work experience for all young people must be delivered in every school and college. Will colleagues in the Department for Education work with colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to ensure that such a programme is in place very soon?

[Mr Hayes]

I am the personification of the relationship between the two Departments to which the right hon. Gentleman refers. It is essential that our strategy for growth and our approach to business work in tandem with what we do in schools. Although he cannot welcome it, as he has already asked his question, I am sure that he will want at least to contemplate the excellent advice to schools on this very subject that I issued just before the summer recess.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we have some of the best universities in the world in this country. However, what we have to do—this was not necessarily successful under the previous Labour Government—is to raise aspiration right across the board so that we do not end up in the position where too few students from state schools are going to our best universities, particularly children who are eligible for free school meals. I am sorry to mention Oxford and Cambridge again, but it is a disgrace that under his party’s Government, only 40 out of 80,000 children who were eligible for free school meals achieved Oxbridge places.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

The Minister, like all Ministers, will be very pleased that last year the number of people applying from underprivileged and poorer backgrounds was much better than the Opposition and others predicted, and in the end kept up the numbers from the year before. Can he assure me that mentoring and peer group support, with youngsters going back to the schools they attended a year or two ago, are absolutely part of the Government’s policy and that they will encourage every school to do that, so that every youngster has a mentor and every school has successful graduands going back?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that proposal. We need more of these schemes so that more young people are encouraged to enter universities. I am concerned that too few schools are entering our young people for the best universities and persuading them to apply to those universities—that must be an objective of all us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

The right hon. Gentleman raises an important industry and an important location. The local enterprise partnership is doing very well in that area and we are encouraging offshore energy through the work of UK Green Investments. If there were additional points in his comprehensive question, I know that the relevant Ministers will be happy to deal with them.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

T7. The Government’s introduction of the national careers service is welcome. The Business Secretary has made it clear that there must be face-to-face careers advice for targeted groups of adults. Will the Department try to win the argument across Government, including in the Department for Education, that face-to-face careers guidance is vital for everybody, and that mentoring for all young people in an important complementary project?

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

It was Odysseus who entrusted Mentor with the guidance of his son, as now the nation’s sons and daughters are entrusted to me. To that end, we have set up the first all-age careers service in England’s history. It is right that schools should have a statutory duty to secure independent and impartial advice and guidance. The right hon. Gentleman is correct that face-to-face guidance is an important element of that. I commit to having further discussion to see what more we can do to ensure that such guidance happens.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I will do everything in my power.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

My colleagues in London are arguing that there should be youth hubs across the city, open five days a week and in the evenings and at weekends for young people to receive advice and support. Whoever wins the London elections and is elected to the Assembly, will Ministers support that proposal so that young people can have better services across the capital city?

[Tim Loughton]

My right hon. Friend has been a great champion of some of these youth centres and he has one of the soon to be 63 myplace centres in his constituency, which have been such successful hubs, and which I hope will be open during the whole week and at weekends for as long as there are young people who want to use them—a policy that was started by the previous Government but without the funding that has been secured by this Government to make sure that they all open.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I trust that the hon. Lady, wanting to give a fair representation of what the Government are doing, was very speedy in sending her constituents a copy of “Positive for Youth”, which was published just before Christmas. It is one of the most comprehensive documents bigging up young people produced by any Government ever, and she should be proud to disseminate it among her constituents, as I am mine.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I applaud the Minister on “Positive for Youth”, and last week I was at two voluntary sector youth clubs, Pembroke House and New Image, where there was fantastic talent waiting to be released into the adult community. Will he ensure that every youth club in England, statutory or non-statutory, has all the knowledge that it needs about apprenticeships, training, education and the national citizen service, so that every opportunity can be known by every youngster in every youth club in the country?

[Tim Loughton]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. I want a mixed provision of youth services up and down the country, whether in brand spanking new buildings such as the 63 myplace centres, a great investment by this Government, or in well established youth clubs, schools or other buildings. I want young people to have full knowledge about the availability of all those schemes—not just youth services but training opportunities, apprenticeships, the national citizen service and everything that they can do in our communities. “Positive for Youth” is a gateway for young people in this country to see that the Government value them. Our whole society should value them, and we want to do everything we can to ensure that they contribute to society in the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Prisk]

There are substantially more small businesses now than there were when we came to office, and they have confidence in what we are doing. We need to support and encourage them, and we will do that. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s wholly negative analysis.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

8. What steps he plans to take to address executive pay and reduce rewards for failure.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

Last week I announced a comprehensive package of measures to tackle the disconnect between executive pay and company performance. These proposals will increase simplicity and clarity, give shareholders more effective power through binding votes, increase the diversity of boards and remuneration committees, and encourage employees to be more engaged.

[Simon Hughes]

In the last few weeks the chief executive of Lloyds TSB, then the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and then its chief executive appear to have got the message that huge bonuses are not acceptable in this time of austerity. Given that this month we expect both banks to announce significant losses amounting to millions of pounds, how can Government, Parliament and constituents such as mine in Southwark convey the message to the rest of the directors and investment bankers in the publicly owned banks that they too should not have huge bonuses in times of austerity?

[Vince Cable]

Those two individuals are symbolically very important, but what is much more important is that we have a proper system governing executive pay over the long term, and that is what my proposals were designed to achieve. Bonuses in the banking sector as a whole are now running at roughly a third of the level at which they operated at the peak of the boom when Labour was in power. As for the state-owned banks, my right hon. Friend will know that a set of disciplines is being introduced through United Kingdom Financial Investments Ltd.

Financial Education

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

That came through in the evidence. If we go into primary schools and start talking about pensions, we might not necessary engage, but one thing leads to another, and if young people have the basic skills, they can go on to use them later in life.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

When I was going around the country earlier this year doing some work for the Government, I talked with young people not about pensions, but about paying for life after leaving school at 16. The overwhelming message I heard was that they wanted financial education not for the long or even medium term, but for dealing with their questions on where to study, how much it will cost, about apprenticeships and what the impact on the family income of those choices will be. That is really urgent, really important and universally supported.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention and echo those comments. We have seen that response as we have made our visits.

Personal, social and health education should be clearly defined as four separate strands, one of which should be personal finance. By reworking the PSHE syllabus, more focused training and assessment can be developed, and individuals would have an opportunity to learn about the implications of their decisions.

Earlier, I pointed out that we are all individuals, with our own individual challenges, priorities and things that we consider important, so there is not necessarily a right answer in this area of education. I shall use yet another example from Martin Lewis to illustrate that point. An individual has been unable for 12 months to find a job; they have been offered a job in a neighbouring town but with only a three-month guaranteed contract; and the only way in which they can get to the town is if they take out an expensive car loan. Does that individual take out the loan? There is not necessarily a right or wrong answer. Are they confident that they will be so good in their job that they will last beyond three months? That is probably the determining factor, but such examples offer young people the opportunity to talk through the day-to-day, real-life challenges that they may face when they enter the big, bad world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

We will examine them as part of the curriculum review, but our first priority is to establish what knowledge children need. That will then feed into the qualifications. We have also benefited from Alison Wolf’s review of qualifications in schools. A process is under way to ensure that every qualification offered by schools is of sufficient size and quality, and commands respect in the real world among employers and further and higher education institutions. Those are the factors that will determine whether a qualification continues to be recognised in performance tables.

[Simon Hughes]

The Minister rightly concentrates mostly on primary and secondary schools, for which he is directly responsible, but does he accept that it is also important for young people to receive financial education elsewhere, for instance through the youth services? After all, they spend much more time outside school than at school. Will there be, as it were, a draft proposal for consultation after the Government have formed a view but before they finalise their proposals? I realise that this is controversial, but it seems to me that it would be wise for the Government to say “This is our thinking now that we have taken all the evidence, but before we form a final view there will be a debate in the House and a short time in which the public can respond.”

[Mr Gibb]

My right hon. Friend has made a legitimate point, with which I agree. Our intention is to consult widely on the curriculum review. There is an important set of decisions to be made. We have received nearly 6,000 responses to the call for evidence, and we will report on them shortly. The draft programmes of study will be published during the next year and beyond, and there will be wide consultation on them. Even before they have been published, there will be a great deal of consultation with stakeholders and subject specialists. We want to establish a consensus in the country about what we want children to be taught. However, we must slim down the curriculum and differentiate it from the school curriculum in order to identify a body of knowledge that we want all children to have acquired. How it is taught is a matter for teachers, and will depend on their professionalism.

Financial education is also an important strand of personal, social, health and economic education. We know from the Ofted report “PSHE in Schools”, which was published in July 2010, that provision for financial education is patchy. Some schools have not yet got to grips with the economic well-being and financial capability strand of PSHE, which was introduced in secondary schools in 2008. The aim of the review is to determine how we can help schools to improve the quality of PSHE teaching, while giving teachers enough flexibility to enable them to judge for themselves how best to deliver PSHE. We have finished collecting evidence, and will publish proposals for public consultation next year. The financial education curriculum report will play an important part in helping us to draw conclusions for the purpose of the PSHE review.

Good-quality teaching is also fundamental. If we want an education system that ranks with the best in the world, we need to attract the best people and give them outstanding training. There is strong evidence that links teacher quality, above all other factors, with pupils’ attainment. Our plans for initial teacher training show the Government’s commitment to recruiting the very best graduates into teaching, securing better value for money from ITT and reforming training. There is a focus, then, on the most important elements of being a teacher.

In 2012-13, we will prioritise places on primary ITT courses offering a specialism in mathematics and science, and in 2013-14 we expect to adjust financial incentives to favour trainees on specialist primary courses with a good A-level in mathematics, science or language over those on generalist courses. For serving teachers, the mathematics specialist teacher programme aims to improve the practice of primary maths teaching by improving mathematical subject knowledge and pedagogical approach and by developing teachers’ expertise to provide effective professional development. More than 3,200 teachers are currently on that programme.

The all-party group’s report on financial education and the curriculum is an important report. It is grounded in solid research and data, with practical solutions and a commitment to ensuring that young people receive the education that they need to become confident consumers. Much can be achieved by supporting finance education, working with those in the finance sector, finance education experts and schools. There is huge enthusiasm among teachers and young people, and we will give careful consideration to the report and all its recommendations.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Our reforms will ensure that universities are well financed, and that there is more funding available for access than ever before. Perhaps the hon. Lady would explain to the House why she proposes to double fees and, at the same time, reduce the funding available for scholarships and access money.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

T2. It is clear to me that the more young people and adults hear the actual facts about the funding for universities, the more likely they are to apply. Given that there are five weeks left before the conventional cut-off date for applications, will the Minister tell the House what the Government propose to do to make sure that young people and adults, whether full or part-time students, understand the benefits of applying to university.

[Mr Willetts]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the excellent work that he has done on this important subject. I can report to the House that 90% of schools and colleges have been visited by graduates explaining the facts of the system. In addition, they are reaching out to parents evenings. Every hon. Member has received a copy of the DVD that has gone to every school with the information that shows that no student has to pay up front to go to university.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Prisk]

It is nice to have the hon. Gentleman back on planet Earth. It appears that he has been away from it for a long time. We have heard about the work that the Government are doing on apprenticeships, we have seen the investment in infrastructure, and there is a positive story to tell. Why cannot the Labour party understand that?

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Very much on planet Earth, there are many sites that are not being developed but could be. Will the Minister talk to his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Treasury to ensure that financial incentives are offered to the owners of sterile land so that it can return to use and be developed, thus providing jobs in the construction industry?

[Mr Prisk]

My right hon. Friend has made an eminently sensible suggestion. This is why we are adopting a positive approach, and trying to ensure that when Departments have redundant land, we can return it to use.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am familiar with that anomaly; it is a situation we inherited from the previous Government. We are seeking to ensure that funding is equalised between colleges and school sixth forms.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

Following the very popular announcement that there is to be a university technical college on the Southwark college site in Bermondsey, may I encourage the Secretary of State to complete the set by allowing a college, a UTC and a secondary school all to be on the same campus, given the breadth of experience that many youngsters in an inner-city seat such as mine are really looking forward to?

[Michael Gove]

I will do everything I can. How lucky Southwark is to have such an outstanding MP, and what a pity it is that the local authority has taken a grudging response to new school provision.