Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. I shall look at it carefully and write to him about it.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

In Dewsbury, 50 out of 50 schools will lose funding and not one will gain—the second highest number of schools facing cuts in any constituency. Thornhill academy, which many will remember from “Educating Yorkshire”, is set to lose more than half a million pounds, which equates to nearly £700 per pupil. What can the Minister say to local parents who believed her promise that funding would be protected?

[Justine Greening]

We have protected the core schools budget, which will have risen by 2019-20 from £40 billion a year to £42 billion a year. All schools will benefit from that. The point of the fair funding is that we can no longer accept a country in which different children have different amounts of funding going into their education just because of where they are growing up.

Workplace Dress Codes (High Heels)

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for the powerful way in which she introduced the debate on behalf not only of the Petitions Committee, but of the more than 150,000 people who signed the petition. I also pay tribute to the incredible lady—Nicola Thorp—who started it.

Nicola’s actions on that day in December 2015, when she was given the choice—I use the word “choice” with the loosest possible meaning—either to return to work with a pair of high heels or to leave work and forfeit a day’s pay, has the potential to change the experiences of women in the workplace. She acted not just for herself, but, as we can see from the subsequent inquiry by the Petitions Committee and the Women and Equalities Committee, for thousands of women up and down our country.

Given that 150,000 people signed the petition and the more than 700 responses to the inquiry’s web forum, it is clear that Nicola’s experience was not an isolated incident. The inquiry took evidence on the medical effects of the prolonged wearing of high heels, which the College of Podiatry describes as “disabling”. As we heard from a number of hon. Members this afternoon, that includes severe pain, knee, hip and spine problems and stress fractures. It places older women or perhaps those with disabilities—already marginalised groups—at a particular disadvantage and impacts on women’s performance at work.

As reported by many of the respondents to the inquiry, women often find such dress codes humiliating, degrading and demeaning, designed not to guarantee a professional image of the employer but to sexualise women employees. Evidence in the Committee’s report highlights just that, with one respondent saying:

“For me personally, it was a bit dehumanising and humiliating to be made specifically to wear items of uniform that sexualised my appearance or enhanced my sexuality—no aspect of the men’s uniform was designed to enhance their male sexuality.”

Such dress codes are based on the objectification and sexualisation of female employees. They hinge on the requirement for someone else in the workplace to appraise the physical appearance of those staff members. Gender-based dress codes create working environments where women are vulnerable to sexual harassment, not only from their employer, but from customers and clients. Furthermore, any such level of objectification, clearly based on a particular understanding of beauty and gender stereotypes, may have negative implications for women who do not conform to them. As the inquiry heard, there may be homophobic or racist connotations for women employees. In common with the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) but unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), I own a plethora of high-heeled shoes—perhaps more than some would consider necessary—but I choose when I want to wear them, and that is becoming increasingly rare these days, as my age increases.

These stereotypes do not just impact on women currently in employment; they are pernicious, feeding down to the standards that young girls and women believe are expected of them. According to Girlguiding’s “Girls’ Attitudes Survey”, 36% of girls aged seven to 10 say that people make them think that the most important thing about them is how they look, while 47% of girls aged 11 to 21 say that how they look holds them back most of the time. Tellingly, 86% of seven to 10-year-old girls think that girls and boys have the same chance of being successful in their future jobs, but that falls to just 35% when asking 17 to 21-year-olds. Gender-based dress codes are a cause and a consequence of a nasty and corrosive sexism that conveys that women are little more than dolls to be dressed or objects to be presented. The codes feed portrayals of women that make girls believe that their most valuable asset is not what they say or do, or how hard they work or apply themselves, but how they look. I am rarely lost for words, as I am sure many of my hon. Friends here would agree, but having heard about the mandatory make-up requirements in some workplaces, I am at a loss. We cannot overestimate the implications for young girls’ physical and mental health, self-worth and aspirations.

The inquiry made a number of recommendations. In particular, the Select Committee on Women and Equalities and the Petitions Committee focused on women’s ability to challenge such dress codes and made recommendations on the role of tribunals. Unsurprisingly, the sectors recognised as having the most discriminatory dress codes are travel and tourism services and the retail and hospitality industry, which are known for low-paid and insecure working environments in which women are significantly over-represented. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North, many women are deterred from applying for certain jobs by such dress codes.

Those deep and corrosive structural barriers are at the core of women’s economic inequality and allow some companies, as evidenced in the Committees’ report, to treat women poorly in the knowledge that they do not have access to recourse. How does the Minister plan to tackle sectors that rely on insecure working practices, and how will she better support employees in those sectors to access recourse?

According to the TUC, since the introduction of employment tribunal fees of up to £1,200, the number of people taking a claim against their employer has dropped by 9,000 a month, which has direct implications for women. Between January and March 2014, just 1,222 sex discrimination claims were made to an employment tribunal, compared with 6,017 in the same quarter in 2013. That represents a huge fall of 80%. On 31 January 2017, the Government published their review of employment tribunal fees, admitting that the fall in claims has been significantly greater than was estimated when fees were first introduced.

As the inquiry shows, sometimes the only way that women can enforce their rights at work is through employment tribunals. How on earth can the Government claim to show any commitment to tackling sexist and discriminatory working practices when they have effectively priced women out of their own employment rights? The situation is compounded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s failure to bring test cases in relation to working practices, which comes as no surprise given that the Government have cut its budget to shreds. How will the Government ensure that the EHRC has the necessary budget and resources that it needs to bring test cases to uphold anti-discrimination laws?

Nicola Thorp’s actions and her subsequent petition are a lesson to us all about the importance of hearing directly about women’s experiences. It may never even occur to many in this place that women in the workplace can and regularly do have a markedly different experience from men. Expectations placed on women in the workplace, whether they are written down in a dress code or hinted by a manager, or stare out of an advertisement board or a newspaper, shape the way that women are treated in the workplace. The consequences of those expectations, the humiliation and even, sometimes, the physical pain can and do change how women interact with their work and the world around them.

Ahead of International Women’s Day on Wednesday, every Member of this House should do our utmost to hear directly from women and understand what they experience. When we do hear from women, it is not enough just to recognise their experiences of sexism and discrimination; we must act to tackle it.

Fathers in the Family

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) on securing this interesting debate.

We know that families come in many shapes and sizes. Regardless of the gender of the parent, children need a safe, loving and stable environment in which to thrive and develop into healthy and happy adults. We also know that many fathers wish to spend significantly more time with their children than they are currently able to, in order to create that loving environment. However, many fathers find themselves unable to avoid working long hours or are subject to an inflexible working environment that prevents them from sharing parenting duties more equally.

Many of the underlying causes of those issues are inextricably linked to the same deep and corrosive structural barriers that hold women back in the workplace and contribute to a persistent gender pay gap of 18.9%, which, at the current rate of progress, could take 60 years to close. Occupational segregation, for example, sees women stuck in low-paid and undervalued sectors of the economy. Women make up more than 60% of those earning less than the living wage set by the Living Wage Foundation. Meanwhile, men continue to dominate the best-paid positions. Women make up 67% of the management workforce in entry-level roles, but only 43% of senior managers and 29% of directors. Those factors, taken together, often give families little choice as to whose wage they rely on.

Women continue to play a greater role in caring for children and sick or elderly relatives. According to Office for National Statistics analysis of time use data, women put in more than double their proportion of unpaid work in cooking, childcare and housework. As a result, more women—42%, compared with 11% of men— work part time, and those jobs are typically lower paid, with fewer opportunities for progression. The issue therefore becomes cyclical.

The impact of women being stuck in low-paid or non-paid caring roles has implications for fathers in the workplace too. Research undertaken by the TUC last year shows that as many as two in five new fathers are ineligible for shared parental leave, as their partners are not in paid work or they fail to meet the qualifying conditions. That prevents fathers from spending time with their newborn children. Will the Minister tell us what steps she is taking to ensure that all new fathers who want to take shared parental leave are able to?

Another solution to enable greater flexibility for parents is to provide high-quality, universal, affordable childcare, as Labour has promised to do. We believe that childcare can play a vital role in promoting gender equality, particularly by making it easier for parents to balance the competing demands of work and family life. The Government’s promise of 30 hours of free childcare a week for three and four-year-old children of working parents is looking more and more likely to collapse as each day passes. Research by the Family and Childcare Trust shows that providers and local authorities feel that the 30 hours requirement will mean either that they are forced to reduce the total number of places on offer or that they will simply no longer remain financially viable.

The Government have also admitted that the majority of children who are eligible for the current universal 15 hours of childcare per week will not be eligible for the expanded entitlement, leaving hundreds of thousands of children from working families—particularly those with parents on low or insecure incomes—shut out of the 30-hour-a-week offer. Will the Minister tell us what the Government are going to do to ensure that providers and local authorities can afford to provide 30 hours of free childcare? Does she have plans to expand the current entitlement?

Finally, the Women and Equalities Committee report on the gender pay gap recommends increasing paternity rights, particularly those around leave, to ensure that men can spend more time with a new child. Increased paternity rights for men, on top of existing maternity rights, would make both men and women’s lives better. We know that fathers want to play an active role in their children’s lives and families want to spend more time together with a new baby, which is why Labour would increase both paternity leave and paternity pay.

One of the most pervasive underlying causes of the imbalance between men’s and women’s roles in the family is workplace discrimination. Government research with the Equality and Human Rights Commission estimates that 54,000 women a year are being forced out of their jobs due to maternity discrimination. Does the Minister agree that extending paternity leave and consequently increasing workplace flexibility would be one way of addressing that appalling discrimination? Does she also agree that women suffering maternity discrimination must be able to uphold their rights, yet—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. Will the hon. Lady finish her sentence and then conclude?

[Paula Sherriff]

Okay, sure. If we are to support men in taking a greater role in the family unit and, as a consequence, tackle the barriers facing women, we need to support men and women in having a real and meaningful choice when it comes to accessing well-paid and family-friendly employment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

As of the 2016 autumn statement, 86% of net savings to the Treasury through tax and benefit measures come from women. The Treasury continues to fail to provide any impact assessment of its fiscal policies or to send a Minister to the Women and Equalities Committee to answer questions. Will the Minister therefore commit to ensuring that women do not suffer the same abysmal impact from the spring Budget?

[Justine Greening]

I have just set out that the female employment rate is at a record high, which is good news and we want it to progress. Indeed, it is the third highest female employment rate in the whole G7.

Statutory Sex and Relationships Education

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) for securing this important and timely debate. I know that the Government and the Opposition share the common goal of ensuring that our children can approach the world around them with the skills and resilience they need to thrive. Children need to understand what healthy, meaningful friendships look and feel like. They need to know that it is important to respect themselves and others and to be kind and thoughtful about other people’s feelings. Our common goal is underpinned by a desire not only to see children thrive, but to see them having the knowledge to contextualise some of the more harmful things they see in the world. They need to know explicitly that men and women are equal, to understand body autonomy and integrity and to know that pinching, groping or any form of sexual harassment is never okay.

Children need to be taught that if someone touches them without their permission, they can and should tell someone, and that no one—child or adult—should ever make them feel scared, frightened or exploited. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) made representations on safe spaces, and I am confident that all Members in the Chamber would agree with her.

The Sex Education Forum survey of 2,000 young people found that more than half of them did not recognise the signs of grooming for sexual exploitation. We heard some powerful testimony from my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) this afternoon, and I applaud all his efforts on sexual exploitation in his constituency and across the country. More than four in 10 of those surveyed had not learned about healthy or abusive relationships. Half of the young people surveyed did not learn how to get help if they had been abused.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North suggested, children have to be taught in an age-appropriate and sensitive way how to build and maintain healthy friendships and relationships. The fact is that the lack of statutory sex and relationships education in primary schools and high schools is leaving our children vulnerable.

The Minister may claim today that many children are receiving good-quality SRE, but I challenge her ability to make that claim. We heard this afternoon that four in five teachers are not adequately trained to provide SRE. SRE is introduced at key stage 3, when a child is 11 years old, and is only statutory in state-maintained schools. At the time of the school census in January 2016, only 35% of high schools were still state-maintained. Furthermore, the only compulsory element of SRE that those schools must teach and a child must be present at is the biology of sex, which is provided as part of the science national curriculum.

The guidance that schools, whether state-maintained or academy, rely on to teach the non-compulsory elements of SRE is 17 years out of date. It was written well before the advent of social media and universal access to the internet. Ofsted has found that SRE required improvement in more than a third of schools, with primary pupils ill-prepared for the physical and emotional changes of puberty. It found that secondary education placed too much emphasis on the mechanics of reproduction. I was struck by the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) about conversations between young people that exposed their level of vulnerability.

A British Humanist Association report looking at how PSHE and SRE are inspected in English schools was published this month. It found that SRE was mentioned by inspectors in less than 1% of the 2,000 Ofsted reports it analysed. Many schools may be providing good-quality SRE, but we need certainty that every school, regardless of their governance and how they are funded, is giving children the knowledge and confidence they need to thrive. I know that the Government recognise those problems. Ministers have been honest with the House that SRE requires considerable improvement, and I welcome their desire to ensure that that is done well, rather than being rushed.

I hope, however, that the Minister will recognise that the Government are running out of time to amend the Children and Social Work Bill. Can she reconfirm, as she said at last Monday’s Adjournment debate, that the Minister of State for Vulnerable Children and Families will definitely bring measures on SRE forward as part of the Bill? I want her to know that if those amendments pave the way for good-quality, age-appropriate, statutory SRE, the Opposition will be minded to support those amendments and seek consensus across the House. Can she tell us more about the Government’s plans to ensure that all children, not just those who attend a state-maintained high school, have access to high-quality, age-appropriate SRE? I hope she can understand why Members from all parts of the House are so passionate about the issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

We have commissioned research revealing that as of the autumn statement 86% of net savings to the Treasury since 2010 through tax and benefit measures had come from women—an increase on the last autumn statement, when the figure was 81%. When will the Minister deem this issue serious enough to warrant action from the Treasury—when the figure reaches 88%, 90%, 100%? And when will she agree to listen to the EHRC and the UN, among others, and publish a cumulative gender impact analysis of the Government’s policies?

[Justine Greening]

One of the best things we can do to help women financially is to make sure we have a strong economy, and that is precisely what we have done, hence the record employment levels for women, which are good news. The hon. Lady’s question missed out our raising of the personal allowance, which has disproportionately helped lift women out of tax altogether.

International Men’s Day

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the SNP spokeswoman in this important debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), a fellow Yorkshire MP, on securing this debate in the main Chamber this year. As we have heard, International Men’s Day falls on 19 November, which is Saturday, and one of the themes this year is the high suicide rate among men. The Opposition welcome the opportunity to discuss seriously that issue and all other matters relating to the health and wellbeing of men and boys. We also recognise the opportunity that International Men’s Day presents to examine the societal pressures facing young men, particularly around body image and traditional ideas about masculinity, which can add a burden of expectation to young men and limit the psychological and physical horizons of both men and women.

I will first address the theme of International Men’s Day this year—namely, the high suicide rate among men—and then I will move on to address International Men’s Day in general. Simply put, the rate of suicide among men in this country is far too high. The rate of male suicide is more than three times the rate of female suicide. There are 16.8 male deaths per 100,000, compared with 5.2 female deaths per 100,000. Although it is true that suicide is the most common cause of death in men under the age of 45, the Office for National Statistics found that the highest rate of suicide actually occurs in men between the ages of 45 and 59, at 23.9 deaths per 100,000 according to 2014 figures. This is clearly a complex issue that can affect men of any age.

I am conscious that I may cover similar ground to last year’s debate in Westminster Hall, when male suicide was specified in the motion. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) for her words as the then shadow Minister for mental health. In particular, she emphasised that “suicide is not inevitable.” By paying due attention to the societal and medical factors that can contribute to the increased risk of suicide and by ensuring that proper care is available when such factors arise, we can do much better. Unfortunately, we often fall short. Although we have made great inroads into understanding the various facets of the wider problem—the difficulties young men face with body image, the negative effects of unemployment on mental health, the greater propensity of men to abuse alcohol and drugs and the scale of the suicide epidemic in our prisons—we all too often fail to respond to such situations adequately in the areas of education, work and criminal justice.

Additionally, as my hon. Friend also mentioned in last year’s debate, we now understand that men tend to use more lethal methods in attempting suicide, so early and effective intervention in mental health is crucial. Sadly, the help that people need is often simply not there at the time they need it. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) recently spoke very movingly in the House about the tragedy of losing his nephew to suicide after being told that he would have to wait for up to six months to access a talking therapy. It is a pain recognised by all too many families across this country.

We have found that accident and emergency departments continue to face unprecedented pressures, and we hear that many are now also facing closure. That is felt very acutely in my constituency. A&E is often the place where people find themselves when seeking treatment for a mental health crisis. Waiting times in excess of four hours, longer journeys to the nearest A&E department and a reported lack of mental health nurses all serve to present further barriers to people finding the help they need during a mental health crisis, with sadly predictable consequences.

I welcome the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher), who referred to the “It Takes Balls to Talk” initiative in Coventry. I was fortunate to visit it recently with the Health Committee to hear about some of the fantastic work it is doing. It is true that such factors affect anybody suffering from difficulties with mental health, but the fact that the suicide rate is so much higher among men makes it all the more pressing for men’s health that these issues are tackled—and tackled soon.

I now turn to the issue of International Men’s Day in general. Labour Members welcome the day as an opportunity to highlight and have a serious discussion about the issues facing the wellbeing of men and boys. There are many challenges, such as the continuing battle against health conditions, such as testicular and prostate cancer, where it is recognised that there remains a reticence among some men about visiting a doctor to catch problems early. It is very timely that we should hold this debate in November—or Movember. There are also challenges about the educational attainment of boys in schools and the lack of men teaching, particularly in primary schools, as well as about the recognition of domestic violence towards men, as several hon. Members have said.

We also want to highlight the societal pressures involving body image, gender roles, and sex and relationships. Labour is committed to compulsory, age-appropriate sex and relationships education to promote gender equality, mutual respect and healthy relationships from an early age. This is also about ensuring that young men and women are educated in an atmosphere of mutual respect that broadens their horizons and does not pigeonhole them from the start of life. Although this would be of benefit to both young men and women, it should be noted that such pigeonholing is one of the many gender disparities that still predominantly affect women.

The fact that there are currently more male MPs in the House in this Parliament than the number of female MPs who have ever been elected illustrates that there is still such a long way to go. With regard to respect and healthy relationships, the fact that an average of two women in this country are killed each week by a violent partner or former partner illustrates once again that there is still much further to go.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that we are doing men a disservice if we do not address our shortcomings during this debate, given that men still perpetrate about 80% of all domestic violence cases? As we approach the international day for the elimination of violence against women, will she join me in calling on all male MPs to take the White Ribbon pledge

“never to commit, condone, or remain silent about men’s violence against women in all its forms”?

[Paula Sherriff]

I am happy to join the hon. Gentleman in that pledge. The White Ribbon campaign does some absolutely wonderful work, including in many schools. I am proud to support that initiative.

The continued existence of the gender pay gap, which we recognised in this place only last week, stands as a shameful testament to the inequalities still faced by women, as does the horrendous abuse I received on Twitter and by email for even daring to mention it. The Library tells us that a gender pay gap exists across all sectors of full-time work, some 46 years after the Equal Pay Act 1970.

These are not just issues for women. Organisations such as the White Ribbon campaign and the United Nations HeForShe campaign have capably demonstrated how men not only can but often actively want to play their part in fighting for the safety and equality of women. Indeed, the founder of the latter, Elizabeth Nyamayaro, has said that the campaign started from the mistaken premise that men might not be interested in gender equality, only to later find that the question was merely one of extent. Those positive programmes demonstrate that feminism and equality are not matters of interest to women only.

Although I have congratulated the hon. Member for Shipley on securing the debate, I do not think it would be unreasonable to suggest that he has made something of a name for himself in vociferously standing against feminism. He has gained notoriety in that regard, including by speaking this summer at an event organised by the Justice for Men and Boys party, which garnered media attention. I find that regrettable, as that organisation is sadly—I shall put this charitably—on the less constructive side of the argument.

The most cursory look at that organisation’s website brings a whole new meaning to the word “patronising”. It celebrates articles such as “13 reasons women lie about being raped”, and currently harbours awards including “Lying Feminist of the Month”, “Whiny Feminist of the Month”, “Gormless Feminist of the Month” and “Toxic Feminist of the Month”. As several of my hon. Friends appear to have been added to those lists for simply standing at this Dispatch Box doing what I am doing today, I dare say that I may well be at risk of ending up on one of them myself. Suffice it to say that I am not afraid. The nature of the organisation’s discourse is little better than that of the Twitter trolls who constantly confront female Members just for daring to speak up. I find the hon. Gentleman’s association with that organisation most regrettable.

I mention that not to detract from the issues raised today, but to highlight the fact that this event does not exist in a vacuum. Thanks to such rhetoric, there is a charged and poisonous atmosphere surrounding these issues, and I fear that many people will see International Men’s Day not as standing alongside International Women’s Day but as standing in opposition to it. We must send a message from this House that that is a false dichotomy that creates division where none need exist.

Many hon. Members have said this before me, but it is important to emphasise that equality is not a zero-sum game. The rise of feminism does not mean that men have been in some way denigrated or disfranchised. I hope that we all recognise that work remains to be done for both men and women, but that an improvement in the lot of one does not inherently detract from the rights of the other. In short, we should have no truck with those who would use this event to further divide us. I cannot say it better than the International Men’s Day website itself, which lists as two of its objectives:

“To improve gender relations and promote gender equality… To create a safer, better world; where people can be safe and grow to reach their full potential.”

In those objectives, it has our full support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

1. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of availability of broadband to businesses in Yorkshire and the Humber.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

3. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of availability of broadband to businesses in the north-east.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade (Sajid Javid)]

I recently announced a joint review by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport of business broadband to ensure that businesses are able to access the affordable, high-speed broadband that they need and deserve. More than 250,000 homes and businesses in Yorkshire and the Humber, and more than 100,000 in the north-east, have superfast broadband available for the first time thanks to the Government’s investment programme.

[Paula Sherriff]

I thank the Secretary of State for his response. If the Department is on track to meet its targets, why does Ofcom analysis predict that by 2017, when 95% of all UK premises will have superfast broadband, around 18% of small and medium-sized enterprises, including many in my constituency, will not? Why are so many businesses being left behind, and does the Secretary of State accept that his plans show a lack of ambition?

[Sajid Javid]

No, I do not. I hope that the hon. Lady will recognise that superfast broadband coverage throughout the UK has increased from 45% of the country in 2010 to almost 90% now, and that we are fully on target to reach 95% by 2017. It is important that we keep looking at new ways to extend coverage through fixed wireless and mobile, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

The academies policy was started under the Labour party. We have adopted it and taken it forward, and it is providing a transformative education for young people in this country.

On breakfast clubs, £26 million will go towards developing and running breakfast clubs in up to 1,600 schools over three years, so that children can receive a healthy breakfast and start school ready to learn. The money promised for the longer school day, sport and breakfast clubs underlines this Government’s commitment to happy, healthy students who will be well placed to become the active citizens of tomorrow, contributing more to our economy and relying less on the welfare system.

We want to be absolutely certain that the investment in education promised by the Chancellor yesterday is felt up and down the country. Our new “achieving excellence areas”, supporting, among other regions, the northern powerhouse, will do exactly that. The Budget has given £70 million of new funding for the education powerhouse to add to the Department’s existing commitment to prioritise its programmes in the areas that most need support, and to deliver a comprehensive package to target an initial series of education cold spots where educational performance is chronically poor, including in coastal and rural areas. The investment will help to transform educational outcomes and boost aspiration in areas that have lagged behind for too long.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

On the northern powerhouse, a recent written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) shows that 100% of the Treasury’s senior civil servants are based in Whitehall and that 60% of them are men. Apparently, the Chancellor really does think that the man on Whitehall knows best—he had a lot of men on Whitehall making decisions for this Budget. Is that why they have failed to come up with a solution to the tampon tax?

[Nicky Morgan]

I had the pleasure of working in the Treasury with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the last Parliament, and hon. Members could not find anybody who is more supportive of promoting women and of women’s causes. On the tampon tax, we hope very much that we will make progress with the EU on the VAT rate. I know that the hon. Lady is new to Parliament—she joined last year—but the last Labour Government, including female Ministers at the Treasury, had 13 years to tackle the issue. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has put aside money and there is a fantastic list in the back of the Red Book of the charities and organisations that will benefit from it. We can all agree that it would be better not to have VAT levied on sanitary products, but we support those organisations.

I have talked about support for the northern powerhouse. The review of northern schools will be carried out by Sir Nick Weller, executive principal of the eight Dixons Academies in Bradford.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Sherriff Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

15. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of coverage and quality of broadband provision for SMEs.

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I will carry on from where I left off, and explain that broadband for business is going well, and we anticipate that about 80% of businesses will have access to it by the end of 2017. We have passed our 90% target for broadband for the UK as a whole.

[Paula Sherriff]

I thank the Minister for his response, but my constituent in Upper Denby is struggling to run a business with broadband speeds of no more than 1.8 megabits. He is not due to get superfast broadband until July 2017 at the earliest. Broadband in 2016 is a necessity, not a luxury. Will the Minister make a commitment to escalate the superfast broadband programme, so that businesses in my constituency can operate on a level playing field with their competitors?

[Mr Vaizey]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point and I am pleased that her constituency will achieve levels of 96% broadband coverage. The point she makes, which I would like to emphasise to the Opposition spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), is why we have brought forward Labour’s target by two years. We have achieved by the end of 2015 what Labour planned to achieve by the end of 2017.