Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Neil Carmichael(8 years ago)
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Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that if we are to make a realistic attempt at becoming economically productive, we have to make sure that our infrastructure works—and that includes the internet? Small businesses in rural areas would be able to thrive if it did.
School Governing Bodies
Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Neil Carmichael(10 years, 11 months ago)
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Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. We are having an interesting debate, which I am pleased is being held, because the Education Committee did a huge amount of work on the subject.
I also applaud those who have supported me in the all-party group on education leadership and governance, which has been an important vehicle to promote school governance. It has struck me that not only have we been debating governance within these walls lately, but I have been invited to several debates in London and beyond to discuss it; most recently, I attended a debate hosted and organised by The Guardian. That underlines the point that school governance is becoming an important subject, largely because of the changing landscape in our education system.
We need to look back to 1944, 1988 and the legislation that paved the way for the academy programme and all the rest to understand that the system has changed considerably, but that the governance structure of governors has not kept up—the pace of change for school governors has not been fast enough. We must understand that central point if we are to debate governance properly.
The other major overall point is that our schools need to engage not only with the community, as the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) said, but fully and thoroughly with business, professions and opportunities in the world of work. Governing bodies have a role to play, and I want to talk about that in some detail.
First and foremost, I urge the Government to start thinking about how they might inspire the best governors to be even better and great people to become governors. We need to attract from a broader range of society the kind of people whom we want to run our schools. That means talking up the role of governors, enhancing the role of governance and ensuring that people feel that, when they become governors, they count, are valued and can make a difference. We have to think about the need to inspire, and I urge the Minister to consider how the Department and others can inspire people to become governors.
On the question of regulation or deregulation. I am not a great believer in regulation; I like to see things operating freely and individuals using systems to promote good things in a good way. My inclination, therefore, is that we should not have more regulations or training programmes specifically tailored by someone else to be superimposed on people who might well have their own opinions. What is important, however, is for us to create an environment—a framework—for governing bodies to make such decisions for themselves, so that they know who they need to recruit and to train and how such training should be done. Only they know what their school and governing body need.
Therefore, I ask the Minister what can be implemented to encourage governing bodies to think about how they are structured, how their membership is formulated and other such matters. I have already urged the Education Committee to write to the Department to see how the draft Deregulation Bill might help—I would be grateful to hear from her about how that might be done.
In my constituency, I want to see more interface between business and schools; I want to see medium-sized and small businesses more engaged with education. Furthermore, I will come up with a plan to implement that, which will, broadly speaking, involve a series of seminars at which chief executives and board members of businesses can meet governors. Two things will be achieved: first, governors will see how boards operate, make decisions, decide strategy and ensure the highest standards in their businesses, whether they are a recruitment firm, a manufacturer or whatever; and, secondly, on the other side of the coin, businesses will be able to talk to education as a whole and schools in particular with a view to saying, “These are the sorts of skills that we need for our recruitment”, and to explaining the sort of people they need to design and manufacture their products, operate their services and be their professionals.
There is not a sufficiently clear interface between our education system and employers as a whole. One of the ways in which we can improve that is through improving governance, so that it becomes more business-oriented, benefiting from business skills—not to the exclusion of all the other vital skills, but to ensure that business skills are part of the narrative.
On the question of what happens if a governing body fails, I pressed the case in the Education Committee that we should be tough on failing governance—because we have to be. Too many schools are simply not doing well enough. Worst of all, too many schools are coasting and seem to think that that is okay. We need a governing system that holds those schools to account, to ensure that coasting or the quiet tolerance of some rather poorly taught subject does not happen. As we know from the past week, we have a long way to go to ensure that our schools deliver the kind of education that we need for the long term.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes an important point about failing governing bodies. It is key that we encourage local authorities to intervene accordingly. Sadly, in my constituency a school has recently been rated inadequate; that rating included the governing body. We need quick change when there are those kinds of problems.
Neil Carmichael
I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a powerful point. I can point to similar problems in my constituency. Any Member of Parliament interested in schools in their constituency will be able to say the same thing. That is rather a sad fact.
We need to find ways of making sure that governing bodies almost fear the consequences of failure. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools, has suggested that he should have powers effectively to remove governing bodies that are quite clearly incapable of turning a school around from failure to success. If we see that local authorities are unwilling to act—perhaps because everybody knows everybody and no one is willing to upset someone they knew a long time ago or have worked with successfully in some other department or school—we have to find other ways.
The people we should really be thinking about are children and their parents. They are the real stakeholders. We have to provide a system that guarantees that their school will be promoted, managed and dealt with in the best possible way. So my next request to the Minister is to make sure that we have a way of getting rid of governors who cannot do the job. It is dead easy: that is what we would do in a business, so it is what we should do in a school.
We want to see self-improvement. Our whole education system is about self-improvement. Any organisation should always be motivated to improve. The question we should always ask ourselves each day is, “How can I do this better?” That is a natural thing to do, so we want to see governing bodies doing it. Of course, that must be in conjunction with head teachers. As my hon. Friend the Chair of the Education Committee correctly pointed out, we need clarity as to what the head is supposed to be doing and what the chair of governors is supposed to be doing.
Again, that may well be a matter on which different types of schools would have different opinions—I accept that. But we cannot have a situation in which chairs of governing bodies are sitting around in schools for a couple of days a week trying to do what the head should be doing—that is completely unacceptable—and we cannot have a head basically taking on the role of the chair by steering the governing body through a difficult course to cover up or disguise inappropriate results and the like. We have to have clarity on those roles. That is where the Department for Education comes in: we need an explicit description of what the chair of a governing body is supposed to do. That should be part of the attempt to inspire people that I referred to earlier: we want to inspire the best people to be chairs of governing bodies, so we need to make sure that they know what they are doing when they approach the job.
I have talked a lot on the Education Committee about interim executive boards. As we all know, IEBs are used to replace governing bodies if the big decision to dismiss a governing body is taken. That is quite right. But that raises the question of why, if the solution is an interim executive board—a smaller body than the one it is replacing, made up of skilled people and with a focus on improvement and the capacity to get on with the job—we do not have something similar to that in the first place: a smaller structure, made up of people equipped with the right skills, so that the school can benefit from that kind of flexible, imaginative, innovative, robust governing system. That is where I have a slight variance of opinion with some of my colleagues on the Education Committee.
NHS Care of Older People
Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Neil Carmichael(13 years ago)
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Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) on securing the debate through the Backbench Business Committee, and all hon. Members who supported the call for it—as I did.
I do not pretend to be a health care professional, even though I use the title “Dr”. Nor do I profess expertise in that area. However, the care given to those older people who need it—I tend to use the word “elderly”, although it may not be politically correct—is important. Usually, the start and end of life is when we use NHS care the most, and those people should be given the best care possible. We should make sure failures are dealt with, and we should speak up about them in Parliament.
Given the time constraints, I had thought of spending a little time on talking about the terminally ill. Hon. Members may know that I have introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on the provision of hydration and nutrition. We have also had Westminster Hall debates about palliative care in eastern England, and I recognise the valuable work that is done. However, it is right to focus on the Care Quality Commission report and individual hospitals, so that our constituents know we are speaking up for them, and so that their voice is heard in Parliament.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge went into great detail about the CQC report, and the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) went into detail on a particular case. The view of representatives of the Royal College of Nursing, given in informal discussions, about evidence given or sentiments expressed in submissions to the Francis inquiry, was telling. There was concern about leadership and about how people would be treated if they stood up and spoke up for patients—that they would be ignored, or, worse, demoted. I am sure that that shocked the nursing profession and other people, and I recognise that attempts are being made to deal with that, so I do not mean to be condemnatory.
My constituency has the 15th highest proportion of pensioners. Some 55% of my constituents are over 55, so the issue we are discussing is important there. The constituency also covers two primary care trusts—NHS Suffolk, and Great Yarmouth and Waveney—and we have three hospitals that provide care. They are the Norfolk and Norwich university hospital, Ipswich hospital and James Paget university hospital. I am afraid that two of those were on the list of failing hospitals and, understandably, local residents were very upset. That is reflected in the number of complaints made to me, or copied to me, about people’s experiences when they are trying to get care.
As to Ipswich, after the first failure, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) met the chairman and director of nursing. I was impressed straight away that the director of nursing recognised absolutely that there had been failings. That recognition and acceptance of failings was important to me. The suggestion was made at the time that not all the staff accepted, initially, that there were failings, and that the feedback was met with an element of rejection. However, every member of staff quickly recognised that things had to change.
An action plan of changes and improvements to local ward leadership was set out, and fresh training was provided. A high focus was put on that, including additional support for patients with dementia. The hospital was inspected on a second occasion and, although the report has not yet been formally issued, I understand that it will pass—it should be congratulated on that—that a marked improvement was noted and that patient satisfaction was much higher.
Neil Carmichael
It is worth distinguishing between acute and community hospitals. That would inform the debate, because, obviously, chronic and non-chronic conditions are different. It would be helpful to know which hospitals are which, and whether that will help us to think about the subject.
Dr Coffey
Ipswich hospital is a district general hospital, if that helps my hon. Friend. It provides acute care, and is not just focused on community care. I want to say thank you and well done to the director of nursing and all the medical teams at the hospital for the changes they have made.
In contrast, James Paget hospital, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), has failed a second inspection. The second report showed improvements, but not consistent improvements. There were still minor concerns in several areas, and continued moderate concerns on meeting nutritional needs and the management of medicines. The second report is complimentary about staff and training, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge has already mentioned, the hospital was cited in a Nursing and Midwifery Council report as having good training levels. To reinforce that point, the CQC suggested that patients’ needs were generally met. At times it was possible that not all the staff were available or deployed in the most effective way, but generally patients had the staffing appropriate to their needs. The third inspection has taken place. Its outcome is not yet formally known, and the hospital has not received the draft report, but I have not heard positive vibes so far.
As to my interaction with the leadership, I must say at the outset that I recognise that it was limited. My hon. Friends the Members for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and for Great Yarmouth have taken a much greater role, because a relatively small number of patients from my constituency go to the hospital in question. After the first inspection, however, I was assured that the failures were just a blip, and that things were already under way. Doubt was cast on the quality of the inspection carried out by the CQC—that was said to me by the chairman of the hospital trust. I did not accept that, because those CQC inspections are intended to be a snapshot and to take a view. Frankly, if one patient experiences bad care, that is an automatic failure. I think that hon. Members would recognise that.
I was reassured, however, by the expectation of changes, which were under way; but, as I have mentioned, the second inspection continued to find failings in dealings with older patients. I did not meet the hospital manager and chairman after the inspection, but my colleagues did and I was not reassured by the report of that meeting. Yet again it seemed that doubt was being cast on the validity of the CQC inspection by the chairman of the trust—though not, I understand, by the chief executive.
We three MPs have together agreed a course of action to press the hospital on its improvements for our constituents, and it has responded. As I said, a third inspection has been held, and I am highly concerned that a third failure will be reported. Monitor has now issued a red governance rating, which I believe is automatic, but I understand that it has also had conversations with the leadership. I have received copies of constituents’ complaints, and seen a whistleblowing letter from GPs from the consortium Health East. The letter says:
“As a group of concerned GPs we have been forced to pursue this whistle blowing option, because we are concerned that our new GP consortium ‘Health East’ may fail to be successful due to the failings of our main, acute provider the James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Health East will be depending on the Trust to provide the acute care for most of our patients and we have lost confidence in the ability of its leadership to correct its current failings. Please act quickly before we have yet another Mid Staffs on our hands.”
It ends:
“We apologise once again for having to take this whistle blowing option, but we need you to put pressure on appropriate organisations to put the issues right before our patients suffer.”
I do not suggest that someone going into the hospital will automatically suffer poor care, but that is the reaction of GPs who are expected to work with patients to ensure that they receive the best care.
In the circumstances, it is my role to press the leadership of the James Paget hospital on constituents’ behalf. In particular, the chairman of the hospital trust should consider his position. I appreciate that the financial risk at the hospital is low, and that that may reflect good financial governance, but patient care is key. The chairman has provided useful leadership, but—after two failed care inspections and with the possibility of a third—it is time for him to step aside and allow new leadership to come forward.
I will apologise to the chairman of the trust, because although I sent him a communication about what I would say in this debate, I could not speak to him personally. I should also say that I do not make my suggestion on behalf of my hon. Friends the Members for Waveney—who is in his place—and for Great Yarmouth. I do not make such a call lightly, but there is concern that patients may be reluctant to go to that hospital. Perhaps that is not a widely-experienced feeling, but often people worry about going to a particular hospital because of the perception of concern. We cannot afford that, and must not stand quietly by without expressing a view.
I have spoken for 10 minutes and understand that others want to speak. There are other issues, such as community care and confidence in that. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich and others, including myself, have pressed the case about ambulance services and response times. Some of our constituents live more than an hour from the nearest hospital, so concerns about failure to respond within the eight-minute target are appropriate. I am meeting Ministers another time to discuss that matter.
I do not make the request that I made about the James Paget hospital in Parliament lightly, but I believe that it is necessary for the safety, well-being and protection of patients in Suffolk Coastal.
The Future of Pubs
Debate between Thérèse Coffey and Neil Carmichael(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I declare straight away that although I am not a pub landlord, I am a member of the Campaign for Real Ale, and so often associate the words “beer” and “pub”. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate and the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) and my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) for making a compelling case and securing the debate a couple of weeks ago.
Everyone knows that the pub is the heart of the community, especially in our rural parishes. I grew up in a city and so have a different relationship with and memory of the pubs I visited there, but in the parish, the pub is truly the place where one goes to get gossip, beer, often food, and companionship. I used to live in Hampshire, and even now I can say “pub” to my dog and she knows that we are going to the pub. Dogs are mainly welcome in rural pubs, which is another reason why they are a good place to be. I am sure that for many of us the most important feature when organising our election campaigns was the choice of which pub to go to at lunchtime and in the evening as part of our rest time.
Of course, going to the pub for the first time is a rite of passage. In the main Chamber today we heard about the rites of passage that some of our young people go through, but turning 18 and going for that first legal drink in a pub is an important one in this country. Anyone who has ever been to Epcot, a theme park in Florida where every country from around the world is represented by a particular village, will know that the bit that represents the United Kingdom is the pub, which shows the international recognition of that institution. Even Madonna was keen on her Friday night drinks when she lived in London.
However, the debate is not about rites of passage, or recognition that the pub is the heart of the community, but about the future of pubs. The statistics seem rather gloomy. The number of pubs closing each week seems to be increasing. We recognise that there are financial difficulties, partly because people are tightening their purse strings and deciding how much they want to spend, and partly because of the increasing duty that pub landlords and landladies face when selling their goods and because of the rent for the lease, which may have been fixed in the good times, but still has to be paid in the bad times.
The difficulties pubs face can also be the result of a lack of support and a lack of customers, perhaps because of changes in lifestyle. I think that another Member plans to talk about changes in permitted practice, particularly the ban on smoking indoors, which some have indicated has led to a drop-off in the number of people attending pubs. Anecdotally, I recognise that to be true. As most landlords will confirm, the smoking ban has led to a lack of drinking because people are outside smoking, so there is an element of transactions falling as well.
To be honest, there are some awful pubs in our country, but there are some terrific ones as well. Pubs are so much about the people who run them and the customers who go there. Like any small business, they have to be excellent in order to thrive, but we, as politicians, need to ensure that they have the conditions in which they can thrive. As any business knows, it is all about footfall, average transaction value and costs, and the first two can be increased only with a great business leader, and a great landlord and landlady.
There are about 54,000 pubs. About one third of them are free houses, which leaves a significant proportion of the trade tied and managed. I could be wrong on this, but I believe that there are more pubs than churches in our country, which reflects how important they are. Like churches, many of our pubs are tied to one religion—or one brewery. There are some excellent breweries. The brewery in my constituency, Adnams, has a significant number of excellent pubs. It promotes the community and has community awards—that is an important part of running an Adnams pub. I should also refer to the other excellent Suffolk brewery, Greene King, which also has a number of excellent pubs around the country.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I am a great fan of pubs, as many pub landlords in my constituency know perfectly well, not just by what I say but by what I drink. I want to mention microbreweries, which perform a valuable function. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a good idea to encourage microbreweries? I have done so by having a brew made called “Neil’s coalition brew”, which is proving popular. That underlines the role of microbreweries.
Dr Coffey
I hope that there is not too much froth on the beer when it is pulled—I am sure there is not. I am sure that the beer has a good head and a stout body. [Interruption.] He will bring us a bottle—excellent.
Of course, I recognise that there are restrictive practices. My hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands referred to the tie, and how it can be damaging to a landlord who wants to experiment with extra guest beers and so on. They can be told that they cannot do something. They can actually be told by the brewery, or by a landlord of a different kind, that they are not allowed, for example, to show football anymore. It can really kill a pub if the landlord has decided to branch out into a particular area and is then told that they cannot. I believe that sometimes that is done deliberately to try to run down the custom of a pub and lead to its closing. Why would someone do that? The reason has already been alluded to: planning. Let us be honest: sometimes the land, the building or the pub garden could fit in six or 10 houses, which would provide a great deal more instant income for a landowner than keeping a pub going in a particular area.
Options are coming forward. I am delighted that the Minister with responsibility for pubs is here to give us answers about community right to buy. Pubs are not small things to take on, but at least communities will be given the powers to take them on if they wish to, and that is good news.
My hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) has introduced the Protection of Local Services (Planning) Bill, which he sees as a way of trying to restrict the change of use of certain amenities such as pubs, community centres and shops. I do not think that that is necessary. I cite Basingstoke and Deane borough council, where I used to live some time ago. Its planning policies were very restrictive. In fact, they virtually ruled out change of use of any community facility, including pubs. If a pub or shop is lost, they are gone for ever; it is almost impossible for them to return. We should encourage our local councils to look at examples of good practice where that element has been restricted without the need for primary legislation.
Looking forward and trying to be much more positive, pubs with the right ownership and freedoms have a safe future in our country. They need stronger freedoms. My hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands referred to guest beers, and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) referred to relaxing laws about, for example, live music. I will name my landlords, but this will be the only time, Mr Benton. Rick and Jennie Powling run the White Horse in Westleton, which is the fine hostelry that I frequent every Friday night. They are paranoid whenever someone brings in a guitar. They almost leap on them and say, “You can’t play that here. You can play it outside, just not inside.” That is ridiculous and crazy. Music in pubs—not just specialist music pubs—is important. The community should be able to enjoy fine songs such as “Wild Rover”, and talk about beer, money and landladies to their heart’s content.
There are many people who want to speak today, so I shall come to a halt. The future will be brighter for our pubs if they are freer to operate—if they are set free from unnecessary regulation. Other Members will speak about pricing, but I would like to remove the distortion in the market that makes it cost that much more to drink in the pub than at home, where people can drink beer that they have purchased at below cost price. This is about planning, and encouraging our councils to be more restrictive and protective of their precious assets in villages, towns and cities across the country.
We must also encourage other income streams; I think of what is happening with post office essentials. If a pub is open from 11 until 11, there is no reason why one cannot buy stamps and get driving licence forms and so on there. There are also aspects such as the internet hub. We have the digital village pump, and I know that schemes are afoot already to try to ensure that it is near the pub, so that people can use the internet there as well. Of course, we had the endorsement of His Royal Highness Prince Charles in 2001, when he spoke about the pub as the hub. On that note, I raise my glass and toast the future of British pubs. Cheers, everyone.