Parental Involvement in Teaching: Equality Act

Tom Brake Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

This Government, supported by Members on both sides of the House, introduced the regulations making RSE compulsory in schools—an amendment to the Children and Social Work Act 2017 introduced that requirement.

Today, we are publishing the final version of the guidance, which was put out for consultation. We are determined to press ahead with this policy, which has been carefully crafted with help from across the House. Individual Members helped us to devise and write the policy; Ian Bauckham, an experienced headteacher from Kent, helped us to draft the guidance; and, of course, officials from the Department for Education worked extremely hard in crafting the guidance. We will, of course, press ahead with the policy.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I apologise for not being here for the earlier part of the debate, but I am pleased to have arrived in time to hear the hon. Members for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who encouraged me to stay to the end.

I have a specific follow-up question on the point raised by the hon. Member for Wallasey. What, precisely, are the Government able to do to counter what appears to be an organised campaign? For instance, can the Minister provide materials to Members of Parliament, such as me, who are now getting representations on this issue from, in my case, a local mosque?

[Nick Gibb]

We will certainly be providing materials to schools, together with the guidance published today, on how to consult and engage with parents on this issue. At Education questions yesterday, the Secretary of State made clear his view on the importance of teaching about LGBT issues in schools, including primary schools, and I have written articles, and so on. We will continue to make the case for the importance of RSE.

Global LGBT Rights

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell).

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) for securing this important debate and the Backbench Business Committee, which keeps keeping me in the Chamber on a Thursday afternoon for really important cross-party debates. I know that my right hon. Friend is working hard on LGBTI rights here at home and abroad. Parliamentarians from across the House, by coming out and, most importantly, speaking out, are leading the way. It takes courage. As a fellow human, I see and support that courage.

We in the UK, which is leading the world on LGBT rights, have been on a positive journey. We will all have friends, family members, neighbours or colleagues openly identifying themselves as belonging to the LGBT community. And this has been reflected in Government policy. We have made huge strides since 2010, particularly under David Cameron, with the introduction of marriage equality, Turing’s law and the abolition of offences that have affected so many people, and this summer when the Prime Minister announced the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004. I am fortunate to be working alongside a constituent, Tara, and the transgender community, which is working so hard on these issues. I welcome all the Government’s plans, and look forward to them moving forward.

As a former member of the Women and Equalities Committee, I am absolutely delighted that it is this Parliament that has carried out the first investigation into transgender rights. We were absolutely right to do that—some 650,000 people have been identified as transgender. We must tackle the issue as it affects families, mental health, our NHS and our communities. Our work in this area is world leading.

May I thank Julie and the lesbian and gay liaison team at Hampshire police for all the work that they do across our communities? We all want equality for all. It makes us safer, happier, and healthier. I also wish to thank those who work openly on this matter in the NHS, the fire service and all our communities, because by working together we become stronger, and by working with trans people in particular our communities become stronger.

It is hate crime awareness week, and we all have a huge responsibility to be temperate in our language and in our actions. Tolerance matters. Hate crime can leave an individual, a family or a community isolated from society. It highlights a broken society, and the UK is no place for hate. Tolerance and understanding make this a safer place in which to live.

I congratulate the Hampshire police and crime commissioner on his focus on joint working with the Hampshire Citizens Advice service on safe reporting spaces. I also congratulate the Isle of Wight on securing the right to host a UK Pride event in 2018, so next year will be a great occasion. I have been contacted by constituents in Eastleigh who also want to hold a Pride event. They want to see their town flying the flag. I was delighted to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) also say the same thing.

We are here today listening to stories about those living in fear across the world. We must remember that being who you are is not a crime, but targeting, bullying or threatening a person—wherever they live and whoever they are—is a crime. People do not have to put up with that behaviour. They should report it and ask for help. I congratulate Hampshire and Isle of Wight Youth Commission, which has carried out a project on tackling such behaviour. The behaviour is learned—perhaps from school or college—and it is unacceptable. If we can achieve all this here, we need to focus our attention abroad. We have heard about the perils of being born in Chechnya, Azerbaijan or Egypt. One’s heart sinks when one hears that, in Chechnya, an LGBTI person does not even exist.

We have also been talking about Australia, where voting is compulsory. We can see the simple question that should be posed: should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry? A strong yes vote would be a huge victory for LGBTI Australians, and such a move would help their Government to send out a clear global message.

I welcome what we are doing in the UK to make the lives of people around the world better through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and through our aid budget. We must ensure that we continue to work with the UN Free and Equal campaign, which has reached an estimated 2 billion people through the use of social media, which gives us a huge ability to change attitudes.

We have made some huge strides in LGBTI rights here in the UK. We as parliamentarians do set an example in our local communities, in this Chamber and across the globe.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I will not seek her support immediately for the amendments to which I am about to refer, because they relate to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and she may want to look at them more carefully, but may I encourage her to look at amendments 287 to 290, which are supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International? They are relevant to ensuring that, as part of that process of conversion from EU law to UK law, we do preserve human rights aspects of that EU law, which often has been used in support of LGBT rights. I hope that she will at least look at them.

[Mims Davies]

To me, Brexit means Brexit. It is not about going back on equality. I feel extremely strongly about that.

I mentioned the WHO, which made such a regrettable decision, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley mentioned, but I am sure that UK pressure really made a difference in reversing that decision. So, yes, the world does watch us. The Prime Minister’s speech at the PinkNews awards this month recognised that. I support the fact that she, Ministers and colleagues from across the House have the chance to support the LGBTI community. I look forward to my children—not just my children’s children—growing up in a world where sexuality and gender are no measure at all by which to judge a person.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Equalities (Nick Gibb)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) on securing this important debate and on a powerful opening speech. As the chair of the all-party group on global LGBT rights, he knows just how important it is that we tackle widespread violence and discrimination against LGBT people around the world. I pay tribute to him for the commitment and energy that he gives to this cause. This has been an excellent debate, with many powerful and moving speeches, including by my hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) and the hon. Members for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) and for Hove (Peter Kyle).

This year we are marking 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in England and Wales. Over the past 50 years, this country has made considerable progress, including by introducing same-sex marriage in 2013, equalising the age of consent and introducing the Gender Recognition Act 2004. The effect of successive Governments’ efforts in recent decades means that the UK has one of the strongest legislative frameworks in the world for LGBT people. Yet we also know that LGBT people still experience discrimination in their day-to-day lives. The Government are committed to eliminating all prejudice and discrimination against LGBT people in this country, wherever its last vestiges remain.

As the hon. Member for Livingston pointed out, achieving that begins at school. It is important that all schools are truly inclusive for LGBT pupils. The Government want to tackle the bullying of LGBT pupils that, sadly, happens all too often. That is why we are currently running a £3 million anti-bullying programme to tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. Young people should feel safe and able to be open at school so that they can focus on their studies.

[Tom Brake]

I seek some clarity on the issue of sex education, which the Government are making compulsory. I welcome that, but what does the Minister think should be done on LGBT rights within that, including in faith schools, which take a different approach to the issue?

[Nick Gibb]

We will consult on the content of relationships and sex education shortly, but we want to ensure that it is LGBT-inclusive.

We announced in July that the Government also want to consult on reforming the Gender Recognition Act to ensure that we are providing the best possible support for transgender people. We know that many trans people now find the focus on medical checks in the gender recognition process very intrusive and stigmatising. In July, the Government launched a national LGBT survey, to help us to understand the experiences of all LGBT people in the UK. The survey closed earlier this month and the response we received was unprecedented, with well over 100,000 responses. That makes it one of the largest surveys of its kind in the world. The survey will be hugely important in policy development on LGBT issues.

One area of focus for the all-party group was LGBT asylum seekers, an issue also raised by the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald). We are focusing on building an inclusive society. An important element of that is ensuring that Britain is a safe haven for those who may be experiencing persecution and abuse because they are LGBT. We must ensure that LGBT people seeking to escape extreme discrimination are safe in this country while their claims are processed. In September last year, the Government introduced the “adult at risk” concept into decision making on immigration. This concept acts on the assumption that vulnerable people who may be at risk of particular harm in detention should not be detained. That builds on the existing legal framework already in place. We have worked closely with organisations such as Stonewall, the UK Lesbian & Gay Immigration Group and the UN High Commission for Refugees to develop guidance and training for staff in detention centres. We continue to liaise with these groups to consider what further improvements can be made.

As a world leader on LGBT equality, this country has a moral duty to work to improve the lives of LGBT people living in other countries. Sadly, homosexuality is still illegal in 72 countries and punishable by death in eight. The Government remain committed to working with like-minded countries and with the Equal Rights Coalition, of which the UK is a founding member, to stand up for LGBT rights internationally. At the very highest levels of government, we are challenging those who inflict or allow discrimination against LGBT people. We urge those countries that continue to criminalise same-sex relations to take steps towards decriminalisation, and we urge all countries to ensure that they have legislation that protects LGBT people from all forms of discrimination.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs raised the issue of funding of local LGBT groups internationally. We have committed over £1.6 million from the Magna Carta Fund for Human Rights and Democracy to projects working to promote and protect LGBT rights. That includes about £350,000 for the UN Free & Equal campaign. Last year, the UK supported the establishment of the UN’s first ever independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, and we vigorously defended his mandate when it was challenged by other states. We truly regret the resignation of the independent expert due to ill health and commend Professor Muntarbhorn for his work. It is vital that a successor be found quickly to continue this important work. We will continue to support that mandate.

My hon. Friends the Members for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) and for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) raised the issue of rainbow flags. We are proud to fly the rainbow flag on our buildings both at home and abroad for key events in the LGBT calendar, such as Pride. We work closely with our heads of mission around the world to ensure that flags are flown. We will continue to do so. I hope the flag will be flown in as many countries as possible.

Schools: National Funding Formula

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That very point was made to me in Scarborough, which is one of our opportunity areas. The situation is exacerbated by the very different funding levels of different schools, which of course has knock-on effects on the amount of staffing that schools are able to provide. The formula’s consistency will put us on a much firmer footing.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Sutton has excellent schools and teachers, but it is a London borough with a very high cost of living—higher as a result of Brexit-driven inflation. Now that the Government have breached the pay cap for police and prison officers, and as they could not defend NHS pay levels yesterday, do they agree it is time to fund a proper pay rise for teachers, to reward them for their professionalism and to help them address the pressures of cost of living increases?

[Justine Greening]

The right hon. Gentleman may be aware that we accepted the recommendation of the School Teachers Review Body, an independent review board that considers all the evidence provided not only by the Government but by the unions, labour economists and all sorts of interested stakeholders. The review body made its proposal to me earlier in the summer, and I accepted it. I have no doubt that, when the review body next assesses teachers’ pay, it will continue to consider recruitment and retention alongside affordability, which is quite right.

School Funding Formula (London)

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

Mr Speaker, may I express my appreciation for being able to speak from these Benches again, after a two-year lapse, and to take advantage of the real privilege we have of being able to raise in an Adjournment debate matters of acute concern to our constituents? I wish to raise the issue of school funding, which proved to be one of massive importance during the election campaign, not just to me and my constituents, but to many others.

Let me give some examples of the kind of problems that have surfaced. I have visited three primary schools in the past week, one of which has already had to seek a parental contribution of £120 a head from each parent in order to balance its budget. Another had to put a proposition to the parents to go on to part-time schooling for one day a week, but that has subsequently been withdrawn in favour of a parental contribution and redundancies. This pattern is now being repeated throughout my borough and many others.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I can confirm that we face exactly the same issues in the London Borough of Sutton, and I believe that every secondary head has written to me expressing concerns, for instance, about requiring schools to cut back on the A-level options that are available. Does my right hon. Friend hope, as I do, that the Minister for School Standards will respond positively and set out how London can benefit from the bonanza that was available to the Democratic Unionist party in the past couple of weeks, so that we can see the right level of funding in our schools as well?

[Sir Vince Cable]

My right hon. Friend anticipates a point I was going to make, but he is absolutely right to say that this problem is widely shared. Several elements have contributed to this anxiety in the schools sector, one of which is that we have had flat or falling funding in nominal terms per pupil, certainly over the past couple of years—it is a small fall but it is significant. Much more seriously, there has been a very big increase in costs. Costs that were previously borne by central Government are now being offloaded on to individual schools. Some of them are obvious ones, such as national insurance contributions, which have added a couple of percentage points to the payroll—that is 80% of the cost of a typical school. The increase in pension contributions is another.

One particularly bizarre item causing considerable puzzlement in schools is the apprenticeship levy. I can perhaps claim some authorship of the original ideas behind the levy, from the coalition years, but none of us ever intended that it would apply to schools. The training of teachers, and indeed other professionals, does not go through an apprenticeship route. It appears that this is being introduced because people in maintained schools are regarded as council employees, and of course the whole direction of Government funding is to move in the opposite direction. In addition, there is a completely bizarre distinction between academies and non-academies. I wonder whether the Minister, in discussions with his colleagues, can lift what is not a massive but an extremely irritating and, at the margin, onerous burden on schools. It is something that would help significantly, and the burden is clearly inappropriate.

The consequence of these changes, together with the new funding formula that the Government have mooted, is very significant indeed. The National Audit Office has estimated that, between 2014-15 and 2019-20, which is when the funding formula comes in, there will have been an 8% real cut overall in English schools. The Education Policy Institute, which has done a parallel study and is broadly in favour of the principle of the funding formula, notes that the cut is something in the order of 6% to 11% in the narrower period of 2016-17 to 2019-20, with more than half of primary and secondary schools facing cuts of that magnitude.

Let me take the discussion very specifically to the funding formula, which is how I couched this debate. I have no objection—I do not think that any of us possibly could have—to the principle of trying to achieve fairness in the allocation of funds. It is a perfectly desirable objective. Although there is never likely to be much of a consensus on this, striving to achieve better fairness in distribution is a perfectly acceptable philosophical principle. I am not coming here to make a particular whinge about my own Twickenham constituency and borough, because, as the figures net out, we are not significant losers. Indeed, on some calculations, there may be a small gain, but that is not the case in many parts of inner London, which will be hit very severely. None the less, there are some very serious problems with the funding formula as it is due to be applied, and I just wanted to raise them with the Minister in the hope that he can give us some confidence that they will be addressed.

My first concern is that, clearly, it is much easier to introduce a new funding formula when budgets overall are flat or rising than when they are falling. It is a simple matter of common sense. Some secondary schools in my constituency face 3% real cuts to meet the funding formula. If that were done at a time when their budget was flat and others were rising, one can see how they could accommodate it, but imposing on already very stressed financial budgets real cuts as a consequence of the formula is just making this deeply, deeply unattractive.

The informed estimate is that if the Government were to bring in the funding formula while ensuring that no school actually loses in absolute terms, it would probably cost them £335 million. That sounds a lot of money, but, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out, in relation to some of the other transactions of the past 48 hours it probably is not all that significant. Can the Minister clarify a commitment, which I think was made in his party’s manifesto, that the Government will ensure that no school is absolutely worse off as a result of the formula? That would certainly help to lubricate the whole process.

My second concern is different and has nothing to do with money. It is about the centralisation of decision-making that is a consequence of this new formula. At present, there is a significant degree of flexibility for local authorities in moving money within the funding blocks, particularly within the school block. That enables local authorities to take account of local circumstances. In my particular case, we have a significant number of problems in the secondary sector. This involves a significant number of outer borough pupils, the fact that we have a large number of pupils who go into the private sector at 11 or thereabouts, and more challenging demands on the secondary sector. There is an understanding locally that, effectively, there should be a cross subsidy from primary to secondary. That is the result of local circumstances, and people understand that and accept it. Under the funding formula, such local, particular concerns can no longer be taken into account. One of the practical consequences in my area is that the secondary schools, which have particular needs, will be very savagely hit, because the cuts will fall on them disproportionately. As I understand it, there will be very little capacity in the Department for Education or with regional commissioners to handle the kind of local negotiation that would be required to take account of such particularities. I ask the Minister to try to ensure that as we move to a new funding system, it does not become hopelessly over-centralised. There is a real danger that we have a Soviet style of financial allocation that takes no account of local circumstances.

My third concern is about special needs and disadvantaged pupils who fall within the special educational needs block. As the Minister knows, funding for that at a local level is a complete mess. Local authorities are not funded up to anywhere remotely near the level that is required to meet the special needs of statemented pupils. The new plan system, which was passed in the last Parliament, requires substantial funding, which is simply not available. Local schools are having to use out-of-borough private providers of special needs education, which is often very high cost. Indeed, one of the things the Government should think about is a Competition and Markets Authority referral for some of these institutions.

Whatever the reasons, local councils have run up very large deficits on their special needs budgets. They are having to use school block money in order to support it. Many schools are in great difficulty as a result of the financing of special needs, so much so that schools that were regarded as centres of excellence are now trying to deter people from coming because of the extra cost involved, and a pass-the-parcel system is developing with special needs, which is deeply unhealthy, and completely inimical to good schooling.

A fourth concern I have about the proposals as they currently stand is that all kinds of perverse incentives are built into the rather complex formula that the Department has evolved, one of which is that it penalises high achievement. I happen to represent a borough where 50% of schools are regarded as “outstanding” and the other 50% “good”. It is a very high achievement area. Parents have very high expectations: schools deliver. Under the formula, high achievement will be penalised, and the funding is being redirected to schools in which there is low achievement. One of the utterly perverse consequences is that schools in London, particularly in inner London—areas such as Hackney, Lewisham and Lambeth, which 20 or 30 years ago were regarded as dreadful sink schools—are now very high-achieving schools in terms of value added, and those schools will need significant amounts of funding.

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[Nick Gibb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: as pupil numbers rise, so funding for schools will rise as well, because it is based on a per-pupil approach. We are spending record amounts on school funding—£41 billion this year—and that is set to rise further as pupil numbers rise.

In December last year, we launched the second stage of the consultation on the detailed design of the formula. As part of the consultation and to ensure maximum transparency, we published detailed illustrative impact data for all schools and local authorities, and that enabled us to hold a truly national debate during the three months of the consultation. During that period, as I said, I met parents, teachers and governors. Both the Secretary of State and I met hon. Members from across the House. We received more than 5,000 letters on the national funding formula and held more than 10 debates in the House. We received more than 25,000 responses to the consultation itself.

[Tom Brake]

I thank the Minister for meeting me and the heads of Wilson’s School and Carshalton High School for Girls a few months ago. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable) said, irrespective of what the Government do about the funding formula, significant funding pressures come from the apprenticeship levy, pensions, national insurance and the additional recruitment costs that schools face because of the shortage of teachers. How will the Minister address those cost pressures?

[Nick Gibb]

The right hon. Gentleman has anticipated my comments, as he did his right hon. Friend’s. I will come to those issues. On the apprenticeship levy, schools can use apprenticeship levy funds not only for training support staff, but for training teachers. We are developing a teacher apprenticeship and the Government have asked Sir Andrew Carter to help develop a high-quality teaching apprenticeship to enable schools to draw down funding available through the apprenticeship levy.

We will publish our response to that consultation in due course. We will build on the strong support for the basic objective of reforming the current system as well as addressing the detailed issues and concerns raised throughout the consultation. We remain committed to working with Parliament and bringing forward proposals that will command consensus.

The right hon. Member for Twickenham raised the issue of introducing a national funding formula at this moment. We felt that at a time of constraints on budgets it was even more important to introduce such a formula to ensure that the unfairnesses are ironed out—more important than when budgets are rising.

Not only do we want the system for distribution to be fair; we also want to ensure that every school has the resources it needs to deliver a world-class education for every child. We have protected the core schools budget in real terms since 2010. We have given record levels of funding for our schools, and we set out plans to increase funding further in our manifesto, as well as continuing to protect the pupil premium to support the most disadvantaged pupils in our schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Caroline Dinenage)]

Maintained nursery schools are a very small but very important part of the early years sector, providing high-quality childcare and education often in areas of disadvantage. They have a potentially important role in shaping best practice with other providers in their area. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend and representatives of Pen Green to discuss this further.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

T3. Does the Secretary of State acknowledge that many schools, including the primary school in the most deprived part of my constituency that contacted me on Wednesday, are struggling financially as a result of, among other things, the overheads that are being heaped on them, and that children with special educational needs are likely to suffer most from the financial squeeze?

[Justine Greening]

In fact, under the national funding formula that we announced last week in relation to starting the consultation on high needs, no local areas will lose out. Indeed, we have been able not only to do that but to ensure that the areas that have been underfunded will be able to gain up to 3% over 2018-19 and 2019-20.

Term-time Holidays

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is ample evidence that even taking a few days off school can have a serious effect on a child’s education, particularly in those secondary school years leading up to GCSE, but also in primary education, where the pattern of attendance is set. Charlie Taylor, our behavioural expert in the last Parliament, took the view that it is more important to set the precedent in primary school, so that when children enter secondary school they are already in the habit of attending school every day.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Government underline the importance of giving heads autonomy, which I support in almost all cases, perhaps with the exception of the unacceptable opt-outs in relation to sex education. On term-time absences, does the Minister agree that some holidays or attendance at, for instance, family funerals abroad can be informative, educational or necessary, and that heads should have the autonomy and discretion to decide whether, in those exceptional circumstances, children should be allowed term-time absences? Should not the law reflect that?

[Mr Gibb]

The right hon. Gentleman accurately reflects the law as it stands: headteachers do have the discretion to grant term-time absence in exceptional circumstances, including funerals, which he cited. However, a term-time holiday to take advantage of lower prices would not be regarded as an exceptional circumstance.

Apprenticeships

Tom Brake Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

Absolutely. One of the reasons that we have established the national college programme is to have colleges that can teach the higher and degree apprenticeships, in particular, for which we are so ambitious. The only reason that there is not already a national college for wind energy in my hon. Friend’s region is that the partners were not quite ready, but we are very happy to work with them on bringing a proposal to the Chancellor once they are ready.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I should like to start by paying tribute to my apprentice, Callum Morton. If the Minister is doling out praise for those who have contributed to apprenticeships, I hope that he will add Vince Cable to the list, because he played a fantastic role in government. This Government have decided to include in the definition of payroll the bonuses paid to employee owners, although dividend payments to shareholders are not covered. Will this mean that companies such as John Lewis and other employee-owned companies will end up paying more in the levy? If that is the case, will it not act as a disincentive to that model of enterprise?

[Nick Boles]

I am happy to pay tribute to the work of the former Secretary of State, with whom I worked. He managed to increase the budget for apprenticeship training at a time when most other budgets were not increasing, and that was an admirable feat. I can give the right hon. Gentleman a general answer to his specific question, but I do not want to tread on the territory of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs so I will write to him with further details. The general answer is that the levy will be applied to all PAYE pay, but I will get a further answer to him, either from me or from an HMRC Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to talk about previous records, he should think about the previous record of his own party in government, when it completely failed to prepare young people for the world of work. In fact, it perpetuated fraud on them by allowing them to do technical and professional qualifications that did not lead either to satisfying the requirements of employers or to university. He clearly failed to listen to my earlier answer in which I said that Ofsted already inspects on careers advice and almost £70 million is being spent during this Parliament in relation to careers.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

7. What steps she is taking to implement the recommendations of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s report, “State of the Nation 2015: Social Mobility and Child Poverty in Great Britain”, published in December 2015.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

The Prime Minister made it clear in his first major policy intervention this year that improving life chances is a key priority for this Government. We will, in due course, publish a strategy setting out all the ways in which we will be fighting disadvantage and spreading opportunity. The strategy will focus on the root causes and human dimensions of child poverty. We will work with the reformed Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, which will play an important role in this.

[Tom Brake]

I am sure that the strategy that the Minister mentions will recognise that early intervention is key to improving social mobility. Has he looked at the impact of the removal of the ring-fencing of the early intervention grant, which has led to a 40% drop in the money available for early intervention? What will the impact of that be on social mobility?

National Minimum Wage: Sports Direct

Tom Brake Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

That is absolutely right. That has happened because the majority Conservative Government have run the economy sufficiently well that we can expect employers to do that and still prosper.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Minister has pointed out that HMRC conducts risk-based enforcement in sectors where there is a high risk of workers not getting paid the legal minimum wage. Is the sector in which Sports Direct operates a high-risk sector? If so, how many proactive initiatives has HMRC launched in it?

[Nick Boles]

The targeted sectors are those where low pay is prevalent and where many employers are therefore close to the minimum wage boundary and those where there have been significant breaches in the past and where there is therefore good reason to expect other such breaches in the future. I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman how many such investigations there have been, but I am happy to write to him and place a copy in the Library.

Electoral Registration

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Tom Brake)]

The debate has been important and wide ranging. We have heard many analyses of the issues we face and a number of possible solutions. The problem of under-registration did not happen overnight, and it will not be fixed overnight. Its causes are complex and are linked to increased population mobility and disengagement from traditional party politics. It is nonsense to suggest, as I am afraid many Opposition Members did, that this Government do not take the issue of under-registration seriously. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As the Minister for the Constitution made clear, the Government are committed to enhancing both the accuracy and the completeness of the electoral register. That is why I cannot support the idea of block registration. The whole purpose of individual electoral registration is that it is individual; it is not block registration. It is not people being put on a register who do not know that that has happened.

The decline in the completeness of the registers between 2000 and 2010—in other words, under the last Government—has been arrested. The most recent research by the Electoral Commission shows that levels of electoral registration have stabilised since 2011. I hope we can all welcome that, but it is of course not enough.

[Chris Ruane]

The right hon. Gentleman is entirely correct. The figure was 7.5 million under Labour and it is 7.5 million now. Is he aware that the EC’s aim is still to have 7.5 million people on the register by 2019? Does that not show a lack of ambition by the EC?

[Tom Brake]

I think that Members on both sides of the House would like the Electoral Commission to achieve much more than that, and of course that is why the Government have set out £14 million of spending, which I am going to come to, to boost registration.

We have taken a number of vital and novel steps to transform electoral registration in this country. Online registration, which has been welcomed by everyone, was introduced for the first time last year and makes registering to vote easier than ever. Of course young people in particular, who spend a significant percentage of their time online and are very familiar with using systems online, will be able to use that very easily. It is easier, too, for people to encourage others to register, simply by sharing a link to the gov.uk website.

[Nick Smith]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) showed how difficult it is for young people to know their national insurance number. What action are the Government going to take to ensure that 16 to 18-year-olds know their NI number so that they can register to vote, and thereby deal with this problem?

[Tom Brake]

First, as the hon. Gentleman may know, EROs can advise on alternative sources of that information, and I am sure that best practice in helping young people in that respect will be disseminated. I should also say that given that the Labour party supports, as I do, the idea of young people being able to vote at 16, I am a little worried that Labour Members seem to think that young people are completely incapable of keeping any records themselves.

Last month the Government announced a further package of funding of up to £10 million to support activities to maximise registration.

[Helen Goodman]

rose—

[Tom Brake]

I will make a little more progress.

That was on top of the £4.2 million invested last year. The Labour party has rightly wanted to know some of the detail of that, and I will come on to that. Most of this money has already been distributed to EROs, to support their work. Earlier today we announced how the rest of the funding will be used to encourage traditionally under-registered groups to register. If this was part of a Government conspiracy to stop either young people or poorer people registering, as has been suggested by some Opposition Members, then I do not understand why we would have spent £14 million over the last two years on trying to boost registration.

The funding will be provided to a number of national organisations, including the British Youth Council, Citizens Advice, Citizens UK, Homeless Link, the National Housing Federation, Mencap, Operation Black Vote and UK Youth. Many of these organisations work directly with the groups of people the Labour party has suggested the Government are trying to deny the right to vote.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I acknowledge the money being given to councils such as Durham to send out “cleansing” letters, which they are doing next week, but why was reference to 17-year-olds missed off those letters? That was not up to Durham county council; that is the letter it had to use, which the right hon. Gentleman has agreed and the EC has used.

[Tom Brake]

My understanding is that the Electoral Commission provides guidance that the EROs then act on, but they do have some leeway in how they interpret it. Given that the hon. Gentleman has raised this issue four times today and clearly wants a response, I will ensure that he gets a written reply.

I have listed the organisations that are going to work very actively on promoting voter registration among the people they work with. They have direct experience of working with unregistered groups and insight into what works. The £2.5 million campaign is funded from the £10 million announced in January to increase voter registration rates. From this we will also be funding student bodies, including the National Union of Students. As I said earlier, if the Government intended to stop students registering, as some of the more overheated Opposition Members have suggested, we would hardly be funding the NUS.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Will the Minister congratulate Sean Goulding, John Treacy, Nathan Coe and Mitchell Murdoch—from Carshalton Boys Sports college, in his constituency—who, unfunded, are running their campaign for first-time voters, which can be found on Twitter at #ftvote?

[Tom Brake]

I am of course very happy to support that initiative, as I am indeed doing.

As a number of Members have highlighted, national voter registration day, organised by Bite the Ballot, which I have worked with, takes place tomorrow. Events will be held up and down the country and I urge everyone here in the Chamber to do what they can to support this and similar initiatives. Of course, we all have at our fingertips the ability—through the many tweets Members send out, through Facebook postings, through the e-mails we send out—to encourage young people to register to vote, and we should all be participating in that.

Tomorrow, the Electoral Commission’s overseas voter registration day marks the launch of its activities over the coming months to encourage British citizens overseas to register and to vote. The Ministry of Defence will also be launching its annual information campaign for the armed forces tomorrow—the start of a range of activity to encourage service personnel and their families to ensure they are registered to vote ahead of the general election.

[Helen Goodman]

As well as having a publicity campaign with the telephone number for national insurance numbers, why does the Minister not change the letter so that when people get it, they know that they will need it when they register to vote? No mention is made of that at the moment.

[Tom Brake]

I am very happy to take that point on board and see whether it can be acted on.

The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee will be publishing its report on voter engagement, and it will no doubt include a range of thoughtful recommendations for the future. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) suggested that the use of photo ID might be appropriate, but the PCRC has recommended that the Government do not adopt the Electoral Commission’s suggestion that people take photo ID to the polling station.

There will be things the next Government can do further to modernise electoral registration in this country.

In the time left I will try to respond to some of the specific points that were made. This is all about ensuring that the electoral register is accurate. That is what the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) wants, and that is what we are trying to do.

On attainers in Liverpool, I have concerns that the best practice that exists in some local authorities is clearly not being picked up by others. My own local authority has successfully exchanged census information from schools with the ERO to ensure that a very significant percentage of young people at school are now on the register. The small number who are not are being individually chased by local authorities to ensure that that happens. So it can be done, and in fact an EROs conference is taking place today at which I am sure some of these issues will be debated.

Yes, we should give special focus to young people, but it is worth pointing out that we will not support the proposed legal requirement for EROs to go into schools. Of course, there are local authorities such as mine where the issue is not registering young people to vote but ensuring that older people in care homes are registered. Forcing EROs to go into schools, where there is not a problem, would tie down resources, which could result in there being insufficient resources to enable them to focus on the areas that they need to focus on. Clearly they have the ability to go into schools now; there is no need for the law to be changed to enable them to do it. We would of course encourage all schools to be participating in this regard. As I have said, there are things that the next Government—

[Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question accordingly put.