School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill

Debate between Vicky Ford and Nigel Evans

2nd reading
Friday 2nd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

With the leave of the House, let me start by thanking everybody who has spoken today, especially those from the Back Benches—my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and my hon. Friends the Members for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) and for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon). They all care passionately for children and young people, and those who are educating them in their constituencies. They raised a number of very important points.

I would like to address the issue of mental health support teams. The various mental health charities that wrote to me, such as the Centre for Mental Health and the Centre of Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, do excellent work. They recommended the introduction of a mental health absence code. I listened closely to the Minister on this issue. It may not be as simple as one would like. In their letter to me, they welcomed the laudable—that is their word—progress made in rolling out mental health support teams to many thousands of schools. I know we would like more. They do a super job, and the difference that that initiative has made is amazing.

There is an important point about not putting extra burdens on schools and local authorities, and I thank the Minister for that. I thank, again, all the staff in the Department for Education and others who have helped with this Bill. I thank His Majesty’s Opposition for saying that they will support the Bill. However, we must not talk down our children. Our children are doing exceptional things and have had very difficult times. Our children are the best readers in the western world. They have leap-frogged past so many other countries in what they achieve in reading and writing. It has been exceptional what has been achieved in the 14 years that has been a child’s journey from reception to year 13. We must be so proud of them.

It is this Government who put in place those early reading improvements through the use of phonics, which gave children that basis, and who introduced those early years extra hours and are rolling that out even further. If His Majesty’s Opposition truly cared about attendance in school, they would have supported the Bill during their Opposition day, but they did not. This Bill was the No. 1 recommendation of the Education Committee and others. The Bill means that schools and local authorities will have to follow best practice; too many do not, and this Bill will make sure that they do. I would like to say a huge “Thank you.” Let us get this Bill through.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Congratulations.

Northern Ireland

Debate between Vicky Ford and Nigel Evans

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

As one of the few Members of this House who was born and raised in Northern Ireland, I want to make it very clear that this is not about the Secretary of State’s correspondence, but about the future of the people of Northern Ireland. The vast majority of them support the Windsor framework, as does the business community. They believe that the deal negotiated by the Prime Minister is much better than they ever thought possible. The people of Northern Ireland and, indeed, the people of the UK need to move on and focus on more important things.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

The hon. Gentleman has spoken for eight minutes now, and this is really a very time-limited debate, because it has to finish at 2.21 pm.

Strategy for International Development

Debate between Vicky Ford and Nigel Evans

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

Why do we send programme aid to China at all? We have reduced it by 95% and we do not send any direct aid, but sometimes there are projects that are important for human rights. For example, we funded an important piece of research by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute called “Uyghurs for sale”, which did a huge amount of good in exposing forced labour in China. There are elements that are doing really important work. I hope that that example is useful.

On tied aid, we are untying aid in line with and beyond the work of the Development Assistance Committee, the global group of major development donors.

BEIS has recently announced that it will not be sending any more ODA aid to China. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield wants more detail about what it has done; I can confirm that there is no ODA aid spent in Chinese prisons. I hope that that has answered some of his questions.

I was asked why we were not at the UNRWA meeting at ministerial level. We were there at a senior official level, where we pledged. The meeting took place in New York in the same week that the Minister for Asia and the Middle East was visiting an UNRWA-supported refugee camp in Jerusalem. I hope that that explains what the Minister was doing.

I have not answered all hon. Members’ questions, but I hope that I have answered a number of them and explained why our international development work is so important. I commend it to the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I will now ask Sarah Champion to briefly wind up. You might as well speak until just a few seconds before 7 o’clock so that we do not need to suspend.

Children and Young Persons

Debate between Vicky Ford and Nigel Evans

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

I thank everyone for their contributions to this debate. It is good to hear that the shadow Minister will not be opposing the regulations, as to do so would potentially have put children at risk. I am glad she agrees that it is better to have left the EU with a deal than without one, but I am sorry that I did not hear her put on the record her thanks to all those who negotiated right up to the deadline in order to secure a deal. I would like to put on the record my thanks to all those from both sides of the negotiations, including the EU negotiators, who worked through that holiday period to ensure that we could have as smooth an exit as possible.

The shadow Minister asked what had been done to inform people of changes to the law, so let me be extremely clear that the underlying law has not changed. What has changed is where people will be prosecuted if they breach the underlying law. That is extremely important and it should be clear to the shadow Minister, so I am surprised that her lawyers have not got that extremely important point. All that is changing is where people will be prosecuted.

The regulations do not diminish in any way the offences I have described as set out both in the Education Act 2002 and in the 2005 electronic commerce directive regulations. They do not impact in any way on the policy behind those regulations. The identity of teachers who are accused by a pupil of an offence will be protected until the point at which relevant legal proceedings have begun and children in care will continue to be kept safe and protected by our ensuring that arranging and advertising adoption can legally only be undertaken by adoption agencies.

The regulations simply fix the deficiencies of retained EU law. They will ensure the enforcement of UK laws when the offence is committed in the UK, irrespective of the country in the European economic area in which the online service providers are based. My understanding is that the devolved Administrations were consulted—I did have discussion on this—and Northern Ireland did give its consent. On the point about malpractice, that is covered only in England and Wales and there is a devolved point in this regard, but I can assure colleagues that the Administrations were contacted as part of this exercise. On that basis, I commend the regulations to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We will now suspend for a short period to sanitise just the Government Dispatch Box.

Proportional Representation: House of Commons

Debate between Vicky Ford and Nigel Evans

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Vicky Ford]

We could use the German system—a national system with a national list, which means that a candidate needs 0.7% of the vote to get a seat. My point is that, especially as turnout is low, a very small number of votes can give people with quite extreme views credibility, funding and access to support, so we should be very wary.

In my experience, proportional representation also really changes a Member’s relationship with their voters. Because there are multiple Members for each seat, there have to be wider constituencies, meaning that Members do not have the same close relationship with their voters. [Interruption.] I will not give way, I am afraid, because lots of people want to speak. Under proportional representation, Members do not have the same intimate relationship with their voters, in which the voters know, “That is my MP; I can hold that person responsible,” and the Member knows they are responsible to those people. Proportional representation breaks the link between the voter and the elected representative. I would be very wary of doing that to our democracy.

Democracy, as Winston Churchill said, is the worst form of government, apart from all the rest. Trust in our politics is very low, but I do not believe that changing our electoral system is a miracle cure or a silver bullet that will solve that problem.

[Mr Nigel Evans (in the Chair)]

I am extremely grateful for the hon. Lady’s brevity.