Online Pornography: Age Verification

Debate between Jim Shannon and Matt Warman

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman]

I am glad my hon. Friend raises this point. In many ways, this is a technology problem that requires a technology solution. She mentions Yoti, and I have already met SuperAwesome, which is another company working in a similar space. People have talked about whether facial recognition could be used to verify age, so long as there is an appropriate concern for privacy. All of these are things I hope we will be able to wrap up in the new approach, because they will deliver better results for consumers—child or adult alike.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The age checks for porn have been backed by children’s charities. The NSPCC said this morning that

“viewing this explicit material can harm their perceptions of sex, body image and health relationships”,

and it has said that the climbdown was “disappointing”. May I therefore ask the Minister how the Government will allay my fears and those of charities such as the NSPCC, and how they will deliver the objectives of the Digital Economy Act to ensure the protection of children and vulnerable young people from online pornography?

[Matt Warman]

The hon. Gentleman is completely right that the concerns of the NSPCC are those that I know he and I, and, I am sure, Members across the House, would share. We will work with such charities to make sure that we deliver, as I quoted earlier, the “robust and effective”—and comprehensive—regime that they and I think we would all want to protect children online.

Bereavement Counselling

Debate between Jim Shannon and Matt Warman

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and that is why in some ways I am calling on the Government to have ongoing support for those who are recently bereaved and an open-ended offer of counselling on the NHS which can be accessed when they are ready, not at the easiest point for the NHS.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I also commend the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate and telling his own personal story. Across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland one in four people suffers from mental health issues, and many of them are a result of the grief from someone close to them leaving, especially when that is sudden. Early intervention is key, and I would like the Minister to respond on that. Does the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) agree that we should have early intervention through the use of Cruse and perhaps other groups—I am thinking of church groups and ministers who are on call if needed?

[Matt Warman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I agree with him and will mention that issue in a few moments.

There should be a dedicated mental health helpline provided through the NHS, which under the long-term plan will be accessed via 111. It is important that there is an understanding within that that bereavement for a long time is an exacerbating factor in loneliness, suicide and more; it is a red flag that should be recorded for a long time.

The importance of such ongoing support cannot be overstated. We have spoken in this House many times about the tragedy of the rise in male suicide; while things are improving there is still a huge stigma around men feeling unable to open up and show their emotions—although I am hopefully doing all right today.

This is why it is particularly important to normalise the support around bereavement, and we must not leave it solely to those affected to reach out to organisations such as the Samaritans or Cruse. That registrar who I spoke to 10 years ago should have been trained to offer a signpost—although I confess that if he was or if he did I was in no state to listen—and the NHS and our volunteering strategy should include better plans to encourage more people to train as volunteer bereavement friends and counsellors, as in the hugely valuable work we see with Dementia Friends, or, as Sue Ryder has called them, the bereavement “first aiders”.

Cashless Transactions

Debate between Jim Shannon and Matt Warman

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered cashless transactions.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in a debate that is already better attended than I had suspected it might be, Mr Gray. It used to be said that cash is king, but in reality that is no longer the case. Politicians used to talk of the pound in your pocket, but today just three out of 10 transactions use cash, whether coins or notes; in 2008, it was six out of 10. The Access to Cash report sponsored by, but independent of, LINK, estimates that just one in 10 transactions will use cash by 2033. I do not intend to call for that to be slowed down, but rather to be sped up. Although 98% of adults in the UK have a debit card and the opportunity to use a cashless or digital transaction, some 46% of them still do not like the idea of a cashless economy, even though there is clear evidence that the vast majority of people would be better off in a cashless world.

The so-called poverty premium costs each of our constituents hundreds of pounds a year. Those hit hardest by using cash and sticking to the tried-and-tested methods are disabled people who live in medium-size market towns, where it is estimated to cost over £500 a year not to take advantage of the better tariffs and so forth available online. There is a huge premium on people who are not taking full advantage of the latest digital technology and contactless cards.

There are 2.2 million people who say that they rely day to day on cash. Only 2.5% of those in higher income groups say they do, compared with 15% of those earning under £10,000 a year. There is a clear sense that the greater number of people relying on cash in their everyday life would benefit most from not using it so much. That is why I am calling on the Minister to speed up the Government’s bid to increase the use of the cashless economy, which has not yet yielded the results that we might want to see.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this issue to Westminster Hall; I am very aware of it in my rural constituency. Does he agree that it is essential that we ensure the viability of cash transactions due to continuing cyber-security issues? This is especially true in the case of rural areas such as my constituency of Strangford, where people cannot rely on the availability of digital means at all times. In other words, cash is king in my constituency and it cannot be ignored.

[Matt Warman]

The hon. Gentleman is currently right, but we will all be better off if we hasten the transition, so that people do not have to rely on cash and all of our constituents can use more secure and efficient digital means, whether they live in rural areas such as my constituency and his, or in big cities.

[Matt Warman]

I completely agree. Much of this is about trust. It is true, as I said, that 46% of people do not trust a cashless society, whether that involves crypto-currencies—although I suspect most of those 46% are not wholly familiar with every detail of that—or simply contactless cards. Part of this is about regulation; much of it is about trust.

It is worth examining in a small amount of detail why people want to continue to use cash. About 20% say it makes them feel more in control, 16% say it helps them with budgeting, and 3% want to hide their guilty pleasures—perhaps we had best not dwell on those. Some 5% do not trust online transactions at all, and 3% just do not trust the banks. That is a real issue if this trend is to be mitigated for vulnerable groups where needed and if the broader society is to take advantage of cashless transactions.

Countries such as Sweden already have twice the level of cashless transactions as we have in the UK, and their authorities have taken conscious action to slow down the pace of cashless-ising, to ensure that vulnerable groups are not left behind. It is also reported that 4,000 people in Sweden have had chips inserted under their skin, so that they do not even have to use cards—I am not sure that I would go quite that far, although I know the Minister might want to consider it as a personal experiment.

We are at risk of ending up with two cultures: those who embrace a wholly digital way of living, and those who do not. There has been an 8.5% decline in the use of ATMs in London, but just a 2% decline in Northern Ireland and a 2.9% decline in my area of the east midlands. There are very different views on what is important for people and on the pace of change.

It is instructive to look at what people use cash for. Figures from the LINK report show that just 13% of people pay their rent in cash—disproportionately those on lower incomes. Some 85% said that they use cash to pay for taxis, which is a particularly instructive example. That is obviously a nationwide figure rather than a conversation about London taxis, on which we could perhaps spend many hours. Taxis are a particularly interesting example because the giving of cash to a driver makes them more vulnerable to theft and to being a target for crime. It also means that they are responsible for ensuring that they have change, so they have to carry a float even before they have taken any cash. It is of course true to say that it would be naive in today’s society to get into a cab outside London and expect the driver to take a card transaction. This is a complex landscape.

Some four out of five people say that they pay their gardener—if they have one—in cash. I am sure that neither the Minister nor I wish to cast aspersions on gardeners, but there is a suspicion that there are parts of the economy where cash is used to avoid the taxation that I know he is very eager to collect at every possible opportunity. There are a whole host of reasons to promote cashless transactions, whether it is ensuring that people are at less risk of the crime that goes with cash or that businesses are at less risk of the increasingly expensive costs of handling cash.

[Jim Shannon]

I am mindful that in my constituency of Strangford, where we have a fishing sector, there is a tradition of boat owners paying their crewmen in cash. There has been a reduction in the number of banks across the whole of the Ards peninsula. Seasonal workers are also paid in cash. I put forward to the hon. Gentleman that one size does not fit all and that there are exceptions. We need to be aware of that, as does the Minister.

[Matt Warman]

I agree. In a sense, I make the same point that I made before, which is that currently there are a large number of exceptions and it would actually be in the interests of the many seasonal, low-paid and often zero-hours contract workers in my constituency to be paid digitally, because they would be less at risk of crime and the businesses that they work for would have less of the handling costs associated with cash. We are already at the point where the declining ATM network that those people rely on is struggling to make a viable business case to those who use it with such diminishing enthusiasm.

Unconditional University Offers

Debate between Jim Shannon and Matt Warman

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered unconditional university offers.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon, for what I hope will be a debate that is both pithy and genuinely important.

I remember being at school when I first heard about unconditional offers. I thought that perhaps some Oxbridge college, then the usual issuer of such things, would be so obviously struck by my talents that an unconditional offer would be a possibility. The prospect of an unconditional offer gave me hope of relief from the pressures of the exams that dominated my life then and that sometimes dominate young people’s lives now. So I hope that hon. Members will not interpret this speech as an attack on unconditional offers per se.

By the way, I pause briefly to add that in so far as Oxbridge was struck by my obvious talents, it was only to suggest that I attend a different university, but perhaps taking my teenage self down a peg or two was the best thing that Oxbridge could have done.

Back then in 1999, and indeed up until last year, the typical student who was made an unconditional offer was still predicted three As—by the way, I was not predicted three As—although Oxbridge had abolished unconditional offers earlier. UCAS has reported that 3,000 unconditional offers were made in 2013, and that in 2017 the figure was 50,000. The Department for Education and the Select Committee on Education are therefore right to look at the overall picture, which has seen a quintupling of such applications, according to UCAS, from less than 1% of all offers in the past to more than 5% today. In my own constituency nearly 30% of all applicants received at least one unconditional offer, and those applicants were predicted grades ranging from BBC up to ABB.

This growth in unconditional offers comes not from universities that dominate the top of the league tables but from elsewhere; nor does it come in the subjects for which university entrance is the most hotly contested. Less than 0.1% of all medicine and dentistry students received unconditional offers, compared with nearly 10% of all mass communications and documentations degrees. As a former journalist myself, I would not dare to demean a media studies degree, but given that at one time there were more people studying the media at university than there were actually working in all of it, it is right to ask why universities are seeking to fill their courses in this new way, and whether it is for financial reasons.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this matter forward for debate; I spoke to him before the debate, telling him that I would seek to make an intervention. Does he agree that the fact that over 15 times more unconditional offers as in the past have been made to university students in the UK indicates a mindset among universities of focusing on ensuring that they reach their capacity of “bums on seats” rather than on a student’s ability to take a course? Does he agree that some children will go with a course that is less suited to them than other courses as they will know it is in the bag, as it were, and that they will therefore miss out on courses that could have been better for them as an individual?

[Matt Warman]

I agree absolutely with the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, that contrasts sharply with what Universities UK has said in response to the Education Committee:

“Unconditional offers account for a very small proportion of all offers made by universities. It is simply not in the interests of universities to take students without the potential to succeed at university.”

There has clearly been a huge growth in the number of unconditional offers, for some of the reasons that the hon. Gentleman has just mentioned.

Schools have expressed concerns about students across the spectrum of abilities not performing to their full potential in exams, because they are safe in the knowledge that they have already secured a place at university regardless of their grades. Although that can be a welcome safety net for some students, we must balance it with the impacts that it can have on schools and how it affects their exam results overall, for which they are held accountable and against which, of course, they have their own performance measured. This is not a new problem but it has now spread far more widely, as I said earlier.

In my constituency, anecdotal evidence has been cited of students giving up college courses after receiving an unconditional offer, which of course may result in their struggling at university if they have missed fundamental information that they would otherwise have been taught. If we let this development go unchecked, we are letting our young people down at a time when we should be supporting them in preparing for their next step in education. Of course all universities should be able to make unconditional offers, but in doing so they should surely exercise a duty of care to the interests of the prospective student at the same time.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s views in a moment on what is a complex matter. Some universities, for instance, have reportedly been inducing students to come to them by giving unconditional offers, so long as they are ranked as the student’s first choice. In the competitive landscape that a large number of universities find themselves in, such a tactic could be seen as potentially damaging to students, when other incentives would more typically involve vouchers or computers.

The risk is that a student might end up with a degree from one university when they might have got into another university that is ranked more highly, and that they might end up with worse results in their school exams because they did not need good grades to get to university. It is a vicious circle if things go wrong, and it applies to all subjects rather than simply being about the promotion of the most academic subjects.

I will give an example from my constituency. Already this year, 23 students at Boston Grammar School have received an unconditional offer from at least one university. That is more than a third of the students from the school who have applied to universities for admission through UCAS. If there is a demotivational effect, there is a risk that it will reflect badly both on the school and on the students themselves in later life.

The headmaster of Boston Grammar School, John McHenry, who has helped me to put together this speech, tells me that the school has even seen comments suggesting that universities would “appreciate” it if students completed their studies. He says:

“In other words, it actually won’t make any difference at all if they don’t finish their A-level courses. It’s very difficult to understand how it is possible for universities to permit students onto degree courses without passing examinations, when schools themselves have strict admission criteria relating to A-level courses. How would a ‘free for all’ at A level impact on GCSE results nationally?”

If people drop out of school courses prior to university, or prior to doing anything else, it will compromise both their ability to complete a degree and their CV for the rest of their life. This is a serious issue.

The risks of having the wrong unconditional offers system are obvious: universities struggle to attract the best students for a course, which can lead to those with lower exam results being accepted, but those students then end up struggling further, which in turn holds those children back when they become adults. It compromises the long-term quality of that university course, and schools, too, are punished for declining results. The ramifications of getting this matter wrong are extensive.

Universities are rightly independent of Government, but they are also regulated and subsidised by taxpayers. In this area, as in others, a totally free market may not serve the wider interest. As The Times Educational Supplement has highlighted, some universities have explored making so-called “contextual offers”, whereby lower grades are required of members of certain demographics. Although that seems like part of the solution, that sort of positive discrimination should very much be handled with care. Likewise, courses such as music and art may rightly rely on a portfolio of work rather than purely relying on A-level grades. However, those two things do not explain the situation that we are in.

This debate is ultimately about pupils; it is not about universities or schools, but about the pupils who are going through the system potentially damaging their CVs and job prospects for the rest of their lives. I end by quoting Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders:

“Universities need to understand that making unconditional offers to students on the basis of predicted grades is not in the best interests of these young people. It can lead to students being less focused on their A-levels because they feel their university place is in the bag. They then attain a lower grade than they are capable of achieving and this can later become a significant problem for them if a prospective future employer takes A-level grades into account in their selection process. We urge universities not to make unconditional offers on the basis of predicted grades, and advise students against choosing a course on the basis of an unconditional offer and to ensure they find the university and course that best suits them.”

Today I echo that call, and I hope that the Minister will consider reviewing the effect of unconditional offers on the overall education ecosystem.