Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

I agree that there are lots of job opportunities in the years to come in clean technology, green jobs and much more besides. That is why we have started work very quickly to begin the process of legislating to establish Skills England, which already exists in shadow form. It has already undertaken an audit of what more is required. I know that there are lots of fantastic new jobs out there connected to construction and engineering that align very much with our drive towards net zero. I am more than happy to ensure that the hon. Lady gets a meeting on the topic.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

There has never been greater urgency for us to equip our young people with the skills they need to enter a career in farming, yet only half of those who took level 3 agricultural apprenticeships in Cumbria last year completed them, and no level 4 apprenticeships were available. Will the Secretary of State look at this worrying situation, pay personal attention to it, and provide the funding necessary for us to have agricultural apprenticeships in Britain’s leading agricultural county?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am more than happy to look personally at the issue that the hon. Gentleman sets out, to ensure that we do more in this area. He will be aware that we have a review under way of level 3 qualifications, but we know that as a country we need to do much more on level 4 and 5 qualifications as well. If he will share further information with me, I will happily look into the matter.

Home-to-School Transport: Children with SEND

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jen Craft]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is unacceptable that disabled families are faced with choices about their children’s education that parents of children who are not disabled are not.

During the election campaign, I spoke to another woman, Julia, and had the pleasure of meeting her 18-year-old son Oscar, who has cerebral palsy, which affects his right side, and epilepsy. For 10 years, he had received free home-to-school transport, but now his parents have to make the case every year for why he should continue to receive that support to reach his sixth form. Thanks to the new costs, his mum has had to withdraw Oscar from one of his sessions at his weekend care provision, because she cannot afford both. Despite the new charges, there is still no guarantee that their application will be approved. She said that life is hard enough without this discrimination and pressure.

Another mother, in Thurrock, told me about her ongoing fight to secure transport for her daughter. Twice her daughter was refused passenger transport to the education setting she attended and twice the family successfully appealed. That mother said:

“As parents to children with SEND we have to fight for every single step, for their existence. Fighting for what is right, what our children are entitled to.”

This is the reality for thousands of families across the country. This disruption at such a vital point in education can be devastating, with serious impacts on a young person’s mental health and development. Let us be clear: this places a financial barrier to education in the way of disabled children and their families that other families simply do not have to face.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Does the hon. Member acknowledge that lots of local authorities, and indeed lots of schools, seek to do the right thing? Councils in Cumbria have more than doubled their spending on SEND transport in the last five years, but is it not the worst thing about it, from a local authority perspective, that councils and schools that do the right thing get penalised? Is it not right that we instead support all local authorities and schools to support special educational needs children without disadvantaging them or their families?

[Jen Craft]

As I have said previously, the important thing is to see a long-term goal where disabled children are truly able to receive a mainstream, inclusive education, so that we get out of this cycle of families having to pay to transport their children miles and miles from where they live.

Apprenticeships and T-Levels

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Sir Christopher. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), whose speech was really interesting. I also praise him for his tenacity, expertise and seriousness on this subject.

I will restrict my remarks to the issues of T-levels and apprenticeships in tourism and agriculture, which are two huge employers in my constituency and around the rest of Cumbria—some 60,000 people in Cumbria work in tourism and there are 1,500 farms in my constituency alone. Those are hugely connected, without a doubt. For example, something like 20 million people visit the lakes every year, and we know that many of them come because of the beauty of the landscape, which is maintained by our farmers.

In terms of our workforce, 80% of the entire working-age population living in the Lake district already work in hospitality and tourism. Therefore, if we do not do something to bring people in, to create more affordable homes, to build our workforce, or, specifically, to train and retrain our young people so that we do not carry on losing over a third of them every single generation, we are in serious trouble.

When it comes to T levels, there is no doubt whatever that employers in the tourism economy of Cumbria strongly believe, as I do, that T-levels are an important potential source for boosting the pipeline of skilled workers, and that offering level 3 qualifications will enhance young people’s employability and enable progression to higher education, linking, for example, with the University of Cumbria’s excellent graduate apprenticeship programme.

Those employers recognise, and strongly believe, that the previous Government delayed and took too long to introduce the T-level in catering, and are pressuring this Government on that. I met Baroness Smith of Malvern just last week to raise that point directly with her, and I ask the Minister to look at this issue again. Please will she consult employers within Cumbria to make sure that the T-level in catering, and other equivalent level 3 and level 4 qualifications, is made available so that we can qualify our children for this important area of work? Some 85% of employers who host T-level students—when that is available—report improved access to skilled talent, so I ask the Minister to take this seriously.

I will quickly switch over to apprenticeships in the agricultural sector. The total number of apprenticeship starts in agriculture in Cumbria for the year before last—the last year that we have data for—was 140. Only 70 were completed and no higher-level apprenticeships, at level 4 and above, were accomplished. We have 1,500 farms; that is far too few people coming forward as potential entrants. We have had all the discussions this week about succession, which is so very important, but the decline in new farm entrants threatens the sector’s long-term viability.

The future of the farming sector is also exacerbated by the loss of educational infrastructure. The previous Government failed to intervene to save Cumbria’s agricultural college, Newton Rigg, and although Kendal college and other FE and HE institutions around the county are doing their best to fill the gap, we still seriously feel that loss.

The UK provides 55% of its own food. Apprenticeships and succession in farming are crucial to our food security. The agricultural policies of this Government and the previous one have disincentivised farming production, which is fateful and foolish. This week we have seen the complaints, quite rightly, about the inheritance tax changes, which will lead to more farmland moving into ownership of equity and large corporations, and not being used for food production. Our failure to grow the workforce is also enormously significant.

I ask the Minister to look closely at higher-level apprenticeships in agriculture, to address the gap in advanced agricultural training at level 4 and above, and to develop leadership skills among future farmers to sustain the sector and the rural economy as a whole. Will she also introduce agricultural degree apprenticeships, in partnership with the University of Cumbria and local colleges, to create a pipeline for agricultural leadership? I will leave it there at four minutes.

Family and Work Visas

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your guidance, Mr Pritchard. I give my serious thanks to the hon. Member for Belfast South and Mid Down (Claire Hanna) for bringing an important issue to this place. Britain should control our borders and regulate migration effectively, and we should do it humanely and in our own interests, yet so often we do not do that at all. We obsess about the shallow politics of it all and we ignore practicalities for the people involved and for businesses in Britain and the wider economy.

There are two areas to cover. The first is family visas and the minimum income requirement. I ask the Minister to ensure that the driving principle is about what people need to earn in order to support a family, not a ham-fisted way of limiting numbers. The current income floor is £29,000—up from £18,600 under the Conservatives. The plan to take it to £38,700 will absolutely divide families. I ask the Minister to consider the impact upon child poverty, child development and family welfare. Will she assess the impact of splitting up children from one or both of their parents, which has happened in my constituency? I have been talking to constituents near Grange-over-Sands recently. I also spoke to a gentleman in Oxenholme, and he and his wife would not qualify under the rules even as they are. Will the Minister look carefully at the policy and ensure that it does not destroy families by splitting children from their parents, or parents from one another? That would be a deeply unpleasant thing for this Government to do, the scheme having been designed by the previous Government.

Because of time, I will move on to skilled work visas. The threshold is moot and is being discussed. In a letter to me just a few days ago, the Minister said:

“Raising the salary criteria is designed to ensure that resident workers’ wages cannot be undercut and ensures that the Skilled Worker route is not used as a source of low-cost labour.”

Yes, I completely agree, but will she accept that things are different in some parts of our country? I will give a quick run-through. The Lake district is the most populated national park in the country. Some 80% of the working-age population in the lakes already work in hospitality and tourism. There is no reservoir of talent for us to delve into. What we desperately need to do is control the excessive numbers of second homes and holiday lets, and build genuinely affordable homes for local people so that we can build our workforce that way. We also need to upskill our young people and stop them leaving our communities, so that they can remain and contribute to the workforce.

There is no doubt whatever that a smallish population, serving the biggest visitor destination in the country outside London, will always need to import labour, so we desperately need consideration. The chief of Cumbria Tourism, which serves our community so well and represents businesses right across our area, said:

“Without legal migration Cumbria (in particular central Lakes) will suffer in terms of labour shortages. We don’t have enough chefs, we don’t have enough experienced Managers and we don’t have enough people in customer service roles. All roles that we didn’t struggle to fill when...overseas workers were able to take up jobs more freely.”

To finish, I will give a picture of what this issue means on a macro level for our economy. Some 66% of hospitality and tourism businesses in the lakes and dales are operating below capacity because they do not have enough staff. It is good to control our borders, but let us do so humanely. Let us control our borders in a way that works for Britain, rather than damaging our economy.

School Transport: Northumberland

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

It is an absolute joy to serve under your guidance, Mrs Harris. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris), who is becoming almost as much of a regular in this place as our recently departed friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). As he rightly set out, he, I and the hon. Member for North Northumberland (David Smith) are the big three—we represent the three largest constituencies in England. The hon. Members for Hexham and for North Northumberland made really great points, not just on behalf of their constituents in Northumberland, but on an issue that is of huge significance across the country, particularly in rural communities such as mine.

The hon. Member for Hexham talked about rural communities paying more and getting less. Sadly, that is absolutely how things are. About a year ago, the Rural Services Network calculated that if a single region was created from rural England and compared to the geographical regions of England, it would be comfortably the poorest. Although the depiction of rural life is often full of a bucolic, ideal, wonderful and high quality of life—of course rural places are beautiful, and we are proud to live in them—poverty is undoubtedly real, and the cost of transport and the distance people have to travel to get to the services they need are a major driver of that.

As the hon. Members for Hexham and for North Northumberland set out, one issue we face in rural communities is that, with huge catchment areas, the divide between two school catchments can be incredibly blurred. Someone may well be sending their child to the nearest school, but it may technically not be the one in catchment, so they are left having to pay a significant amount for their child to go to that school. As the hon. Member for Hexham rightly pointed out, people often find that one of their children can get a bus to school but that the other cannot. That is definitely the case in parts of my constituency.

This problem is exacerbated by the reduction in the number of small village schools over the last few decades. In my constituency I have at least three schools with fewer than 20 children and three schools that have closed in the last few years as well—in Ravenstonedale, Satterthwaite and Heversham. The communities around those schools are now, and have been for a generation in some cases, forced to make alternative arrangements. That has largely come about because of the growth in second home ownership, unchecked, in many communities in the lakes and dales, which has gobbled up the homes available for a full-time permanent population. Without that, where are the children coming from? Where are affordable houses being built to replace those second homes? There are some, but nowhere near enough. It is all part of the fabric of rural life, which comes under enormous pressure. The community’s school is at risk and may go, and bus services are lost, along with the post office, as mentioned by the hon. Member for North Northumberland.

The patchwork of rural life under such strain is often maintained by decent public transport links, if they exist, but they are often lacking in rural communities. I will come back to the debate about £2 and £3 bus fares. It is hugely regrettable that the Government have increased that cap on bus fares. As I often say, any bus fare cap is of no use if there is no bus to use it on.

It is important to look at this issue seriously, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hexham for bringing it forward. One reason a child might not be sent to the nearest school is that that child has special educational needs. That may be formalised, and I have some figures on that. We have seen a 24% increase in the number of children travelling to special schools in the past five years. We have seen the number of EHCPs increase from 105,000 in 2015 to 230,000 across the country in 2023.

The County Councils Network estimates that by 2027 spending on special needs transport will have trebled over a decade to a vast total of £1.1 billion. Many children do not have an EHCP because there is an incredible backlog, and there are people who have special needs who are not formally assessed. Nevertheless, parents will send those children to the schools more able to cope with them and provide the best quality of education. If that is not in catchment and the child does not have an EHCP, parents pay for that themselves. Many parents in my communities are struggling as a result. They cannot afford it but, for the sake of their children, they do it.

The use of taxis over the past five years to get children with special educational needs to school has gone up by 36%. The school and the local authority between them bear the cost of that. It is encouraging to hear the new Government talk about special educational needs and try to focus on this as a crisis to be fixed. The Liberal Democrats believe strongly that there should be a national body for special educational needs, with additional support for local authorities and schools to fund provision. We should not be in the situation where those schools that do the right thing by children with special educational needs are penalised for doing so, and end up losing staff as a consequence of paying the costs of those children they have rightly taken on and supported.

I will talk about the communities across the Pennines in Westmorland and Furness. We have historic spend factors that account for 28% of our high-needs allocation and which do not reflect the changes in demand and the costs incurred in the past six years. Historical spend factors mean that Westmorland and Furness is funded 45% less than other high-cost authorities, and the impact is felt by children across our communities.

It is worth bearing in mind that Northumberland and Cumbria have very high visitor numbers. Although we do not pay for the education of visitors, we do pay for lots of other services that visitors use when visiting Northumberland national park, the lakes and the Yorkshire dales. There are 20 million visitors to Cumbria in the average year. That costs the local authority, and there is nothing in the funding formula to recognise that, to ensure that we do not dip into money that might otherwise be spent on education, in order to prop up other services, because we have all those visitors and do not have the money to pay for and support them.

When talking about school transport, we should pay attention to the plight of young people over 16. I am deeply concerned, along with others who represent rural constituencies, that although we rightly have young people continuing their education beyond 16, as is mandatory, we do not support or fund them to get to those places of education. It is probably quite straightforward in an urban area, where people could just walk to their nearest sixth form, but students at Kendal college are coming from right across Westmorland and north Lancashire, travelling maybe 40 or 50 miles in one direction to get there each day.

The sixth forms at the Queen Katherine school and Kirkbie Kendal school also take young people from far outside Kendal. At the Lakes school in Troutbeck Bridge, people travel from Grasmere, Ambleside, Windermere and the likes to get there. Dallam school takes children from the rest of south Cumbria and north Lancashire. There is also Ullswater community college. Kirkby Stephen and Appleby sixth forms are really small and in wonderful schools, and young people travel there at great cost to themselves and their parents. A student might find their brother in year 9 has his place at school funded, but they may have to pay £700 or £800 a year for the privilege. As a result, young people are choosing not to go into further education and take A-levels; they are choosing other routes instead, because they simply cannot afford to do so. That is why this issue is so important. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Hexham has managed to secure this debate, because it is of great significance to all of us who represent rural communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

It was a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend ahead of the election—and what a brilliant champion he is for Burnley and his constituents. I would be very happy to visit again. As part of setting out our commitment to further education, at the Budget we put in place an additional £300 million, alongside £300 million of capital funding for our colleges.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I call Tim Shannon—I mean, Farron. [Laughter.]

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and I are indeed never seen in the same place together. [Laughter.]

Stramongate nursery school in Kendal faces closure following an Ofsted inspection. If it had been a regular school, it would have had help to remain open under special measures, but as it is, the nursery has to close. Will the Secretary of State pay attention to this particular issue to ensure that the children and parents are protected, and that childcare can continue?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I will look carefully at the case and ensure that the hon. Gentleman has a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss it further.