Defending Public Services

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

In many cases, we are talking about the Government wanting to charge people who have come here to work and who are already paying their taxes. What a disgraceful way for any Government to behave! That measure is the latest indication that the Tories represent a real and present danger to the NHS.

The Conservatives have mismanaged the junior doctors’ contracts in England and shamefully filibustered the recent debate on a Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) that would have restated the principle of the NHS being public and free. In the Scottish election, the Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, stood on a platform of reintroducing prescription charges. Such a measure would be a regressive tax on the ill. It is estimated that the SNP’s abolition of prescription charges has benefited around 600,000 adults living in families with an annual income of less than £16,000.

In England, the Health Secretary—who is no longer in his place—seems to favour confrontation with the health service, but we in Scotland favour a more consensual approach that delivers results. The SNP Scottish Government have delivered record funding for Scotland’s NHS despite Westminster cutting the Scottish budget. They will ensure that the NHS revenue budget rises by £500 million more than inflation by the end of this Parliament, meaning that it will have increased by some £2 billion in total. Health spending in Scotland is already at a record level of £12.4 billion. Under the SNP, the number of employees in the Scottish NHS is at a record high—up by nearly 9% since 2006.

Patient satisfaction with the NHS in Scotland is high, with 86% of people being fairly or very satisfied with local health services, which is up five percentage points under the SNP. That is the result of a popular SNP Government working together with our health professionals to deliver results. Unlike the UK Government, the SNP values and respects the work of all our medical professionals. Were we to move towards a new contract for junior doctors in Scotland, it would only ever be done on the basis of an agreed negotiated settlement. Thank goodness that we are still wedded to the principles of Beveridge in Scotland and will protect the ethos of the health service as a public asset for the common good.

Turning to further and higher education, one of our driving principles is that access should be based on ability, not ability to pay. Tuition fees of £9,000 and potentially more remain a heavy burden on the working families and students of England, and the UK Government must rule out the Higher Education and Research Bill raising the cap. The SNP has guaranteed free university education for all in Scotland, but Ruth Davidson and the Tories would have tuition fees north of the border if they ever got near Bute House.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the SNP secured free higher education by butchering the further education budget, affecting some of the poorest in the community and those who need FE’s assistance most?

[Ian Blackford]

No, I will not, because that is not true. Full-time places at Scottish colleges have increased, and I will return to that point.

Ruth Davidson would want to introduce tuition fees in Scotland by the back door. Down here, the Tories are all for front-door fees. In Scotland, the Tories are all about back-door fees. The doors are locked to many who want to participate in education unless they can pay the price. Front door or back door, with the Tories there is always a price to pay. Young people from the most deprived areas in Scotland are now more likely to participate in higher education by the age of 30 since the SNP came to power—up from 35% of young people in 2007-08 to 41% in 2014-15—which is the result of the SNP’s successful education programme. The number of qualifiers from the most deprived areas increased by over 2,300 from 8,035 in 2007-08 to 10,395 in 2014-15.

Overall, since the SNP came to power in Scotland, the number of Scottish-domiciled, first-degree students going to university has risen by 11%. Last year saw a record number of Scots accepted to universities across the UK. That is a record to be proud of. Rather than carping from the sidelines, the Labour party should perhaps get behind what the SNP has delivered in Scotland for the people of our country.

The Scottish Funding Council has invested more than £76 million in additional widening access and articulation places over the past three years and continues to fund a wide range of other initiatives to support access. We will ensure that those who have a care experience and who meet minimum entry requirements will be guaranteed the offer of a university place and a non-repayable bursary of £7,625. In Scotland, we recognise that access based on ability, investing in our human capital, is the right thing to do. That is a non-negotiable principle. It is price worth paying for our children and our future. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) said some time ago:

“The rocks will melt with the sun before”

the SNP imposes tuition fees on Scotland’s students.

There is little good news for young people. Whether someone is young and looking to start a journey towards eventual retirement or is nearing retirement, there is much to fear from this Government. Given the injustices for many women, the UK residents living in many overseas countries suffering from frozen pensions, or the constant tinkering with pensions that undermines saving, there is little for which to commend this Government. The Government are playing a risky game on pensions; the new lifetime ISA muddies the waters in an already complex area. ISA savings from taxed income undercut the pension saving from pre-tax income—in other words, the Chancellor has found a convenient tool to increase tax receipts today, but that is not necessarily good news for individual savers. According to the Association of British Insurers, presented with a choice, no employee will be better off saving into a lifetime ISA than a workplace pension because of the loss of employer contributions. ABI calculations indicate that the long-term cost of forgoing employer contributions would be substantial—for a basic-rate taxpayer, the impact would be savings of roughly one third less by the age of 60.

--- Later in debate ---

[Huw Merriman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that clarification—it turns out that I will be satisfied, then. However, the point is that when we talk about a truly seven-day NHS, we need to be absolutely clear what services there will be on a Sunday. Those who work in the profession want the flexibility and freedom to work hours that allow them to experience an enriched life and to raise a family. They want to succeed in the workplace and to make a contribution in their field. If they cannot, they will decide to work in another profession. I hope that that will be taken into account when changes are made to Sunday operating practices.

From discussing the pressures on the modern-day NHS with Government, clinicians and managers, it appears to me that there are many shared views on patient safety and individual patient responsibility. Like most of my constituents, I yearn for the day when politicians and clinicians join together and recommend the difficult decisions that both parties know are required. Our NHS would be stronger for it, and our patients would be better served.

I turn to our schools. I was particularly pleased by the introduction of the new White Paper on education. The day after it was announced that schools would be forced to become academies, I spoke in this place about the need to allow good and outstanding schools to make their own choice. I am delighted that the Government have made that alteration, although rightly not for schools for which local education authorities are not fit for purpose or those that are no longer of a viable size.

That is not to say that becoming an academy is not a good idea for a school that wants to. I have just spoken of junior doctors’ desire to take control of their career and their destiny, and it strikes me that we now have a generation of headteachers who are no longer willing to be told what to do by their LEA but want to make their own decisions about how to run their school and whether to expand. It comes down to choice, which drives up standards. I hope that my local schools will consider making their own determination on expansion.

[Tristram Hunt]

The “Educational Excellence Everywhere” White Paper, published in March, states that every school will become an academy. Is that choice?

[Huw Merriman]

The choice to become an academy will be there for every school that wants to take it. As has been made clear, if the LEA is no longer fit to deliver and is not functioning properly, a school will be required to do so. [Interruption.] I see that the hon. Gentleman is now having a separate conversation having asked me that question, but I have done my best.

Somewhat unusually, I have a high proportion of Church of England and Roman Catholic schools in my constituency. For academisation to work in my community, a local cluster of schools forming a multi-academy trust looks the most feasible idea. I welcome the Department for Education’s guidance to help the Church to become a part of that, and I look forward to working with my diocese to ensure that it is able and willing to do so. Without it, the advantages of academisation will be hard to deliver.

Overall, I am incredibly excited by the proposals contained in the White Paper, which will deliver fairer funding to a rural constituency such as mine, where our spend per pupil is almost half of that in parts of London. They will also give headteachers more freedom to train and recruit, which is a particular challenge in a rural constituency such as Bexhill and Battle.

In the past 12 months I have visited a school a week in my constituency and have been fortunate enough to spend time with my brilliant local heads and teachers. I welcome the Government’s ring-fencing of schools spending, but I am conscious that schools are addressing a funding gap following increased national insurance and pension contributions and the advent of the national living wage. The more power my local schools are granted to determine how to spend their budget, the better they will deliver education. I look forward to playing my part in helping the education Bill become law.

I confess that I am a happy and enormous supporter of the BBC. The programme for its future that the Government are seeking to deliver is intended to promote social mobility and empower people from all backgrounds to succeed to their true potential. Having failed my 12-plus exam and attended a secondary modern school, I found that much had passed me by in the years between 12 and 16. It was only when I went to a further education college for my A-levels and experienced independent thought and working that I discovered a love of learning. Having the BBC as an additional source of learning and inspiration was essential in getting me to university. This rarely comes up in debate, perhaps because many in positions of influence had the benefit of a more rounded education, but for those of us who have had to grab every opportunity to better ourselves, the BBC has been an essential rung on the ladder in the advancement of social mobility. Having got involved in discussions on the details, I am delighted that the Government’s charter renewal will preserve and improve the BBC, and I thank them for that.

The programme that the Government outlined in the Queen’s Speech is evidence that they will fight to defend public services, not just by preserving all that they do well, for instance through the BBC’s charter renewal, but by introducing reforms that enable more innovation and provide more power for decisions to be taken locally, such as through the education White Paper. I look forward to supporting the Government when difficult decisions on reform have to be made for the benefit of my constituents in Bexhill and Battle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani), who gave a powerful speech about child sexual exploitation, extremism and Wahhabi ideology. I am glad that she sits on the Home Affairs Select Committee. She also mentioned the Trojan horse affair; if she looked into it in detail, she would realise that the speed and nature of the Government’s academisation programme increased the risk to children, as Peter Clarke laid out in his report to the Government. I urge the hon. Lady to read it if she has not already done so.

To deliver the Gracious Speech, we were told that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II required a lift to get up to the relevant Floor in the House of Lords. That strikes me as a rather suitable metaphor for the Queen’s Speech, which needs a fork-lift truck to make it relevant, effective and indeed challenging for the modern era. This is, contrary to what the previous speaker said, a rather tinkering set of measures, setting out the narrowness of the current Tory vision, especially on public services.

Today’s debate is about “Defending Public Services”, but I am more interested in the reform of them. What was missing from this Queen’s Speech was what we were told was the guiding principle of this Parliament—productivity. Absolutely no mention was made of the kind of wealth creation and productivity we need to pay for the public services that we all rely on. Productivity has already gone from this Government’s agenda. If we want to move away from the low-wage, low-skill economy, which my new hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) highlighted in her wonderful maiden speech, and find a way through secular stagnation, we need a focus on productivity. There was nothing in this Queen’s Speech about it.

Let me turn first to education and schools policy. In March, the Government White Paper on schools policy came out. It said that “every school” would become “an academy”—and I thought the Conservatives believed in choice. It said that

“by the end of 2020, all…schools will be academies”.

We now know that this policy has been junked in a series of U-turns on education policy. What was once one of the intellectual strengths of the Conservative party—education policy—has now collapsed. We have had the stats fiasco and the free school fiasco, where even Toby Young has revealed that the policy he sought to pioneer was doomed from the beginning. We have had the term-time holiday fiasco. We have had a Conservative Government trying to ban parent governors from schools. What could be more un-Conservative? [Interruption.] I am sorry if I am wrong about that; the policy may have already changed during my speech.

We have also had a U-turn on mass academisation. The Government have devalued the policy on academies: what was a pioneering Labour programme to help the most disadvantaged schools—those suffering the most difficulties—has become a “one size fits all” policy, which is not working. My local secondary schools in Stoke-on-Trent are academies, and their conversion from local authority status has not altered the challenges.

I must put on record my horror at the sponsorship of St Peter’s School in Stoke-on-Trent by the Woodard Corporation. It has betrayed the prospects of those children. We have seen a regional schools commissioner fail to step up to deliver change, and we have seen Ministers let five years of education collapse under the Woodard Corporation. The fact that the corporation runs any schools in England is, to my mind, totally shocking.

When it comes to schools policy, we know what matters: strong leadership, well-motivated, well-qualified teachers, and a faculty that is committed to change. It does not matter whether we are talking about a local authority school, a free school, a university technical college or an academy. However, the Government’s “every single school an academy” policy—maybe it comes, maybe it goes—is not the right approach.

I support the policy on national citizenship service, and I think that the Government should make it a vehicle for more effective teaching of citizenship. I look forward to the proposals on the national funding formula. As for reform of the university sector, I think that the Minister has listened to some of the concerns that have been expressed, but I oppose the fee hike. British students—English students—are among the most indebted, if not the most indebted, in the world, and now we want them to pay even more. If we want more money to go to our universities, it should come from general taxation rather than the pockets of students.

The liberalisation of entry to the university market is another issue. Universities can play an important regeneration role, and I respect that, but we must also protect the brand of Universities UK and its success around the world, which can be lost quite quickly. I think we need some reassurances about that.

At this point I should declare an interest, as a university lecturer. I am in favour of rigour in teaching and the teaching excellence framework, but I must urge Ministers to beware of the bureaucracy that surrounds that. University teaching is currently subject to a great deal of quality control. We certainly need more transparency and quality, but the creation of ever more regulations, and perhaps a new Ofsted, requires careful judgment.

One continuing theme is planning for the northern powerhouse. I am a supporter of combined authorities and of metro mayors, and I hope that our Front Bench will be more supportive of those policies, because I think that they demonstrate the capacity of the Labour party and what it can do in office. However, I should like them to go further. I think that, in creating combined authorities, we have missed an opportunity to reform public services. I should like to see more decentralisation of finance, and more liberalism allowing combined authorities to raise and spend taxes locally. I should like to see the commissioning of schools taken away from Whitehall and given to combined authorities, so that we can have real local control over schools policy. I should like to see a much more innovative programme for local utilities and the provision of local power in combined authorities.

One of our greatest public services is the BBC. It is bizarre that—just as with universities—a great global force for Britain should spend half its time trying to prevent Her Majesty’s Government from undermining it. In most other countries in the world, the Government would be supporting an institution like the BBC. We need reassurances from the Minister, who I know takes these issues very seriously, about appointments to the new unitary board: will that mean more jobs for the Conservative boys and girls? We need reassurances about the five-year review: will that mean an ability to restrain influence? We also need reassurances about the ratchet of distinctiveness.

I do not know the lift in which Her Majesty rose to give her gracious address, but something tells me that, rather like Her Majesty herself, it might contain German elements. That is a symbol of the great debt that we in this nation owe to Europe. If we vote to leave Europe, everything in the gracious address that the Government want to do will be lost.