Equal Pay

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) on securing this important debate. It is important because we are coming to the end of this Parliament, and who knows what will happen after the election? It is also important because, irrespective of what people think, there is a fundamental principle that those who do the same job should be paid the same amount. It is well documented and accepted that, on the whole, women in the job market do worse than men in terms of pay.

I want to place on record my thanks to the Dagenham machinists who took action over equal pay, leading to the 1970 Act. However, 40 years later, women are still being paid less than men, which means they effectively stop earning, relative to men, on 4 November in any year, which is why that is equal pay day. On average, a woman earns £5,000 less than a man, whether they are in a part-time or full-time job.

There are many reasons for that. One is the motherhood penalty—the impact of having children—which affects women’s careers and earnings. There is also the fact that many women were employed in public sector jobs and are now having to go into the private sector, where the pay gap is often big and where no one knows what somebody may be earning. Since 2008, almost 1 million women have moved to low-paid jobs, zero-hours contracts and temporary jobs. Where women have become self-employed, the pay gap with men is 40%. Women are also still the primary carers for their children, elderly parents and other relatives, and we know how much pressure the growth in the elderly population is putting on the family and particularly women.

The good news is that more women are in upper management in different industries, but research from the Chartered Management Institute last year found that female managers aged 40 or above took home 35% less on average than their male counterparts. There is also a difference in bonuses. The average female director gets £41,956, but the average male director gets £53,010.

Some of what I am saying is in the public arena, but many people are still surprised by it. As has been alluded to, some young women probably think they will be paid equally with someone else because they will be doing a similar job, but they will find that the reality is very different. There is also still gender segregation, in that there are jobs that women do not tend to do. There are not many opportunities for women in those areas, whereas there are for men, who can earn quite a decent income.

I do not want to repeat everything that has been said, but my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury put forward some practical steps Governments can take to deal with these issues, and those should be taken on board. In that respect, I was disappointed earlier in this Parliament when the Government changed the rules on employment tribunals, effectively making them even harder to access and inevitably imposing a financial penalty on people. The mind just boggles.

As a barrister, I did not practise much in employment law, but I did a lot of voluntary work, and I went to employment tribunal appeals on behalf of claimants—many were women, some were disabled and some were from the ethnic minorities. It is not an easy thing for people to go to the tribunal system, as the Government suggested when they made their changes. Someone who is dismissed does not simply say, “Right, the first thing we are going to do is go to a tribunal, because that’s the way to deal with this.” The tribunal system was the last resort for many people. Although many people were discriminated against and unfairly dismissed, only a tiny percentage ever made it to an employment tribunal. At that point, however, there were at least judges and others who could independently evaluate the case.

The current financial penalties did not exist then. Putting such restrictions in place means that people can now rarely go to a tribunal. Constituents have come to me in my constituency about work-related issues. They want to go to an industrial tribunal about the way they have been treated, but they are unable to, because they are blocked from doing so. The changes the Government have brought in are punishing people. At least previously people had recourse to a tribunal, to which they could get access without too much difficulty. Now that is not possible, so will the Minister reconsider the tribunal issue and a return to the previous system? It worked fine, and was not being misused. Before a hearing, there would always be a case management hearing in which the tribunal judge would sit with the parties for discussion of the evidence, to learn what the contentious issues were. The tribunal would concentrate on the narrow issues that were the subject of dispute, and not spend time unnecessarily on issues that everyone agreed about.

I am sorry to say that the present Government’s ideology and rhetoric are anti-employee and anti-trade union. They comment all the time in Parliament on the fact that some Labour MPs have union funding, and make it sound as if it is really bad. Guess what? The unions are made up of working people who choose to give the union their subscription. If the union donates money to a political party, that is because the Labour party is the one that has always pushed for equal pay and workers’ rights and campaigned on discrimination. It created tribunals as useful bodies for people whose rights were being taken away. Now the majority of people cannot get access to a tribunal. There is an ideological dislike of the working person, and we should get rid of that mentality. There is a lot of bullying, intimidation and discrimination in the workplace. Women—and other groups as well—are suffering discrimination. That is not good enough. I ask for the question of tribunals to be reconsidered.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) argued for pay to be published. That is important—it is only right and fair. We believe in transparency and think that everyone should know what is going on. We believe in fairness; but where is the fairness in not telling someone what the person next to them earns, especially if they do the same job? The civil service and public sector are open about pay and grading, and what salary goes with what grade. What is wrong with the private sector doing the same? What does it have to hide? It hides the information because that allows it to discriminate without anyone being able to tell. It allows managers to pick favourites and to discriminate in secret, knowing that no one will jump on them for that. If we believe in an equal, fair and transparent society, that should be one of the first things we should deal with. The Government have been asked to do it, and have not.

Primary legislation would not even be needed, because regulations to require pay to be published can already be passed under section 78 of the Equality Act 2010, before the next election. It is not difficult, and it is important, because it would help women and would discourage employers from the practices in question. If they knew that what they were doing would be in the public domain, they would stop doing it. It would be a concrete step, and not a very complicated one, to help women to argue for fair pay. It would effectively stop private employers discriminating against women and getting away with it. It is not too much to ask for; it is a simple thing in a fair and equal society, and I ask the Minister to consider it.

Teaching Quality

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

In 1997, when the Labour party came to power, one of its key mantras was “education, education, education”. In the years to 2010, the Labour party spent an enormous amount of money investing in education: on schools, textbooks and pay to raise teachers’ morale. The educational qualifications and standards in our schools improved tremendously. That is not the end of the story, however, and there is still more to be done. This debate on the training of teachers should be seen in the context of the continuous need to improve the education of our children.

The Secretary of State started his speech by going through a literal interpretation of the Opposition motion. When I trained as a lawyer, we were told that judges have three approaches to interpreting legislation: the literal interpretation, which the Secretary of State was alluding to; the golden principle, where legislation is applied in a liberal way; and the mischief rule, which asks, “What is the mischief that the law intends to deal with?” The mischief we want to deal with in this debate is that we have teachers in our schools who are not qualified properly.

I accept fully that there are some teachers without qualifications who are brilliant. I also accept that there are people with qualifications who may not be as good, or even competent. That does not mean, however, that we should not continue to strive for what I call the gold standard, which is providing training to our teachers. A young teacher, or someone who has just qualified or graduated, may be excellent in their subject matter and have a first class honours degree, but the reality is that in most of our junior and secondary schools they will be faced with classes of 25 to 30 children, perhaps with various levels of learning. To set their classes, to deal with the issue of how to control the classroom, to identify which child may need extra help, and to look at pastoral care and whether a child is being neglected at home—those are all part and parcel of a teacher’s work. If teachers are not qualified and have not received training on these issues, how will they be able to identify them? How will they automatically be aware of what to do? That is where the importance of having some kind of training—we could have a debate on how long training should last—is surely crucial. I am therefore surprised that Government Members, in particular, are deriding the idea that teachers should be trained.

Members might think this is a bizarre example, but we would not let people operate on us if they were not fully qualified. A person might say, “Look, I’ve been in hospital for 10 years and guess what? I’ve done all sorts of things. I didn’t pass my exam, but, because I know what I’m talking about, allow me to operate on you.” We would not accept that, so why are we willing to make that compromise with our children’s education? We accept that what we are trying to achieve will not stop the expert, the talented musician or the singer coming in and giving children lessons, but our provisions concern day-to-day teaching in a classroom, where the teacher will be there for a long time working with the children. The qualification needs to be good.

Members talked ad nauseam about private schools not having that many qualified teachers, or that they can do without them. One has to understand that private schools have a different standing. Most of the kids come from middle class, well-educated families who look after them at home. Those children are going to do very well most of the time in any event, so comparing private sector schools with state schools is wrong.

Safeguarding Children

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

First, I thank the Labour Front-Bench team and the Leader of the Opposition for choosing this subject for an Opposition day debate. I agree with everything the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), has said and with his recommendations. I also welcome the Minister’s comments.

I shall focus on one particular type of abuse: the sexual abuse and exploitation of children and young persons. We all know that happens, but many people do not appreciate how often it happens, the numerous ways in which it happens and how many victims there are throughout the country. There are thousands of victims. That is not difficult for people like me to realise, because before entering Parliament I was a barrister practising the criminal law. I prosecuted and defended people, and I represented parents whose children were being taken into local authority care. Therefore, I agree with much of what the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) said about what happens in care cases and, sometimes, the attitude of Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service workers, those appointed by the courts and all the establishment involved. There are always conflicts and sometimes local authorities do not put the best interests of the children first. They get too bogged down in rules and procedures.

I was pleased to hear yesterday’s evidence to the Home Affairs Committee given by Sue Berelowitz, the Deputy Children’s Commissioner. She has conducted a two-year inquiry into the grooming and abuse of children. One of the first questions she was asked was about the Rochdale case. She was asked whether such cases were a particular issue for a particular community. Her answer was no, it was a question of a pattern of abuse. She then went on to explain that there are different patterns of abuse by different groups of people across the country. She mainly talked about men abusing young women, but there is also the issue of abuse of young boys, which we in society hardly ever talk about. That type of abuse is hardly ever weighed in the scales when we compare different types of abuse.

Such points are important to make in the context of the Rochdale case. We do not want people thinking, “It’s just one little issue involving one community, so we can forget about it.” Such cases have nothing to do with race or particular communities. The key point is the types of people who are vulnerable in any given circumstance. It is a question of who is available. If Asian or Afro-Caribbean girls had been available in Rochdale, they would have been just as likely to be abused. Sue Berelowitz also said:

“There isn’t a town, village or hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited.”

She added:

“We should start from the assumption that children are being sexually exploited right the way across the country”,

including in

“urban, rural and metropolitan areas”.

Sue Berelowitz gave an example of something that is happening in London. She said that there are parts of London where girls as young as 11 are expected to perform oral sex on a line-up of boys for up to two hours. She said that is was

“common for girls to be lured via internet chatrooms to meet a friend, only to be met by a group of boys and gang-raped in the park.”

She said that another group would then take part in the rape of those children. She said:

“I wish I could say to you that such things are uncommon but I’m afraid that they are quite common.”

She went on to say that

“what is being done is so terrible that people need to lay aside their denial”,

or that there was a risk of victims being disbelieved. She said:

“Victims number in the thousands not the hundreds.”

She went on to talk about the role played by the internet in the exploitation of children and abuse of young people.

Yesterday, Peter Davies, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said in the Select Committee on Home Affairs that children are accessing the web at a far younger age. He said that he would score the public sector only five out of 10 on its ability to protect children from abuse. He claimed that, on average, one child in 20 was a victim of sexual abuse. From my personal knowledge of the cases with which I dealt for many years, that is a far more realistic statistic than people may think, as the problem of sexual abuse is rife.

We have discussed internet grooming, paedophiles going on the internet, street grooming and the trafficking of victims, although they tend to be adults, but we do not discuss sexual abuse in the home. People do not realise the extent of that type of abuse or that young boys are often victims of sexual abuse. Boys being boys, they do not come out and speak out about it and often do not want to discuss their emotions, either because they do not want to be accused of being cowards or of being weak. They may be ashamed or embarrassed. As a society, we talk about female victims, and do not often talk about male victims. I recently had a conversation with my chief superintendant at Bolton police station. I said, “Have the police done anything to educate or talk to chief officers throughout the country to urge them to look at the question of how to reach out to young male victims, talk to them and encourage them so that they know that it is okay for them to talk about their abuse?”

We have heard about some cases of abuse, and I have prosecuted people who have abused young boys, but there is a much bigger picture, so I urge the Minister—I am sure that there is joined-up working between different Departments—to see whether the police and other agencies can be asked to make a positive effort to engage with young males, ascertain their problems and let them know that they are recognised as victims and that they are just as vulnerable and need as much protection as young girls.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

A prominent issue in the news and media over the past few weeks, perhaps because of the number of cases that have come to court, is children’s access to pornography. That seems to have been going on for a period of time. Does the hon. Lady think that it is time for the Government to take action to prevent that access and provide encouragement for parents?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree, and I hope that the Minister has heard that. School teachers, head teachers, social services and the police and everyone else needs to be aware that this happens, and that it is a lot more common than we think.

I shall conclude with a case of sexual abuse in which the victim did not realise that what they were doing was wrong. Many years ago in Feltham a case of incest by a father on his daughter came to light, and it did so only when the father was working on his car in the front garden and the daughter, who was about 13, came out and said, “Do you want a quickie?” A neighbour who was entering his house at the time heard the comment and contacted social services, and as a result all the agencies got involved and the whole truth came out about how the girl had been violated by her father for many years, but she did not know that what had been happening was wrong and so was able to talk about it publicly. That shows the extent of the abuse that is taking place, so I really ask that much more attention is paid to the sexual abuse of children across all groups.

Free School Meals (Colleges)

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) on securing this timely and necessary debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), who put her finger on it when she said that this is a raw deal. She then spelt out clearly and succinctly why that is the case and why it is not acceptable. It is a long-standing injustice and an issue that I have raised continually since I first came to the House two years ago.

From my 30 years’ experience of working with post-16-year-old students and four years as principal of John Leggott college in Scunthorpe, I know the direct impact that not having access to a college meal in the daytime has on concentration, attendance, retention, achievement and, inevitably, that young person’s progression to other things.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) described the case of John, who said that because he did not have access to a free meal—he met the criteria, but he chose to go to a college rather than a school—he skipped lunch from time to time. That will impact directly on his achievement. John is being disadvantaged by the system and that should not be the case.

If the eligibility of students who meet the criteria for free school meals depends on the type of institution that they attend, that is not only morally wrong but potentially piles disadvantage on top of disadvantage. To be fair, however, I know that the Minister and the Secretary of State for Education realise that the policy is indefensible because of their answers to questions in the House.

On 11 October 2010, I raised this issue, and the Minister—whom I am pleased to see in the Chamber today—stated:

“I take on board the hon. Gentleman’s comments. I share his view. We have committed to maintaining spending on free school meals this year. Further announcements will be made after the spending review.”—[Official Report, 11 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 14.]

There was clearly a little bit of hope that the anomaly was to be addressed.

The spending review came and went, and I raised the issue again. This time the Secretary of State answered my question:

“That is a fair point—”

I think he was busking at that point—

“As the hon. Gentleman will know, many FE colleges simply do not have the facilities to be able to provide free school meals; they do not have the cafeterias or kitchens in place.”—[Official Report, 28 March 2011; Vol. 526, c. 59.]

The Secretary of State was not having one of his better days, because a parliamentary question to the Minister revealed that fewer schools than colleges have catering facilities, yet they continue to serve free school meals and get round that problem. In my consultation with the Association of Colleges, it demonstrated through a survey of its members that that problem of facilities could be easily overcome.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend raises a point about colleges not having the facilities to be able to cook. Does he agree that numerous young people are affected by the situation under discussion? In my constituency, 1,300 young people attend Bolton sixth-form college and 1,272 attend another college in Bolton. They would benefit from free school meals if they were at a school. We are talking about 3,000 pupils being affected.

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She makes the point very well. Both the Minister and the Secretary of State know that the situation is not right. That is why, when the Secretary of State was in a corner, he produced an answer that was not up to his usual standard. On examination, it falls apart.

My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) was the last person to obtain a response from the Secretary of State. He raised the issue in October 2011. The answer had slightly changed by then. That is why I am going through these statements—to see the train of thought in the Department on this issue. At that point, the Secretary of State said:

“I am familiar with that anomaly; it is a situation we inherited from the previous Government. We are seeking to ensure that funding is equalised between colleges and school sixth forms.”—[Official Report, 17 October 2011; Vol. 533, c. 622.]

By that point, it had become an anomaly; the reason for it was that it was there in the past. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, who did a mea culpa at the start of his speech. However, there are reasons why it is more necessary now than ever to deal with the anomaly. It is not acceptable. Students are being disadvantaged.

There are three reasons why the landscape has changed and why dealing with the anomaly is even more urgent. The first is the disappearance of education maintenance allowance. In all my years in education, I have never seen an initiative that has transformed to a greater extent the lives of individual students from disadvantaged backgrounds than education maintenance allowance. It had a direct impact on attendance, retention, achievement and progression. I know that from personal experience and from the analysis done by many organisations, including the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the AOC. However, the Government, in their wisdom, have chosen to take education maintenance allowance away and replace it with a much less effective bursary system, although I do welcome the bursary system. That change has exposed the disadvantage of not being able to access free meals even more than before. The existence of education maintenance allowance masked that disadvantage during the past 10 years.

The second reason the landscape has changed and there is now greater urgency is the raising of the participation age, which I was reminded of during the contribution from the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). With the raising of the participation age, all students will now progress on beyond 16. Therefore, it is even more urgent that the eligibility for free meals be equalised, because some of the students, or probably most of the students, who would not have progressed beyond 16 in the past will be the very students who should be eligible for free meals.

I come now to the third reason why the landscape is changing. The hon. Member for Gosport talked about the fragmented provision that we now have in the landscape. We have academies, free schools and university technical colleges. Students who go to those institutions can access free school meals. If a new post-16 free school or post-16 academy is set up, it can offer free school meals, but a 16-to-19 sixth-form college or further education college cannot. If I were still a principal of a sixth-form college, perhaps I would have a conversation with my governing body about dissolving as a sixth-form college and re-emerging as a post-16 free school or post-16 academy. Why would that not be a route that I might take? It would enable me to access better resources and provide a more level playing field for the young people of the area that I served.

Those are the three reasons why it is more urgent now to deal with this anomaly; there was still an injustice when my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough was Secretary of State. The three reasons are the disappearance of education maintenance allowance, the forthcoming raising of the participation age and the change in provision—the complete fragmentation—in the landscape of post-16 education.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge and the hon. Member for Gosport reminded us that the most disadvantaged young people are those most likely to attend the post-16 colleges that we are discussing. They are also the ones who are most likely to travel further, so they have greater travel costs. They do not have access to free meals, and there is no education maintenance allowance; there is a reduced bursary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I was not here at the beginning of the debate, because the Select Committee on Justice sat at 9.15. I want to mention two things.

I was for 10 years a governor of a college of further education, so I have some understanding of some of the issues and challenges faced by the students and young people attending them. I am pleased that my constituency has both Bolton college and Bolton sixth-form college, so there are a high number of students there. As I said earlier, 1,300 young people in the college come from disadvantaged backgrounds and would benefit from free meals, and in the sixth-form college there are 1,272.

The situation in my constituency is similar to that in the constituency of the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales); many 16 to 18-year-olds go to a sixth-form college to complete their A-levels or further education. Not many schools cater for that. There are 300,000 people living in the Bolton unitary council area. The geographical area encompasses about 7 or 8 miles. Many students must travel at least 6 or 7 miles daily to attend college, often for vocational courses. Now they must additionally pay the cost of travel, and of course there is no money for free lunches. In many areas, many young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are suffering. I urge the Minister and the Government to think about the fact that £38 million to provide free meals for 102,000 students is not a lot of money in the scheme of things. Surely that is an amount that they could find to spend on young people.

The value and necessity of the nutrition from a good meal has already been spoken of. It is fundamental for young people. I urge the Minister to reconsider. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) for giving me the chance to speak, as I have cut into his time. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), and congratulate him on obtaining the debate.

Financial Education

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan]

I have sympathy with the Minister over the difficulty created by having more and more subjects shoved and squashed into the curriculum. Education Ministers of all parties will know that it is a difficult task as they come under pressure to include all sorts of subjects in the curriculum. My point is that we need to be absolutely clear what we are talking about. If the Government accept the report, they will have to go a lot further than simply including some practical questions in GCSE maths papers. What my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) said is absolutely correct.

There are examples of good practice out there. I shall not go into them in too much detail, but some schools around the country could link up with local credit unions. This has not been mentioned much in the debate, but it is a great way to encourage responsible saving in community-based organisations and to teach young people about the responsible use of money and about saving.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend touches on the matter of teaching. Does he agree that, as statistics from the Graduate Teaching Training Registry obtained by The Times Educational Supplement show, from November 2011 overall applications for training courses for secondary maths teaching fell by more than a quarter? Bearing in mind that the teaching of personal financial education is going to require an element of teaching maths, does he agree that the Government should encourage more teachers to apply to teach the subject?

[Kevin Brennan]

We have heard about those worrying statistics in the course of our deliberations, but my hon. Friend is absolutely correct to emphasise their importance and the need for urgent action by the Government.

We need to get to a point at which all children realise that by saving now they can be prepared for the future, but that is only possible if they get the right sort of financial education. In particular, we should not let children from neighbourhoods of lower socio-economic class suffer because their schools do not offer good financial education. The hon. Member for North Swindon quite correctly said that with the huge increases in tuition fees that young people going to university are facing, there is even more need to give serious thought to what will happen when our children go to university and have to deal with the debts they will incur as a result. In fact, Martin Lewis himself said that

“in the 20 years since student loans came in, we’ve educated our youth into debt when they go to university, but never about debt.”

It is extremely important that we do that.

Careers Service (Young People)

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

That is the point, is it not? This well-connected Cabinet think that everyone’s lives are like their own and that everyone can just call on a friend, uncle or whoever in a law firm or in the City. Sure, they will open a door—ring them up and they will give the advice. They live in a world, and constituencies sometimes, where that advice is readily available through informal family networks. They probably do not see the need for careers advisers. They have used them themselves, but do not see the need for them. However, there are many young people in the constituencies that we represent who cannot draw on those family networks and connections, who do not have role models to whom they can go and who perhaps have never had family members in the professions. They are the ones who need help to enter these closed worlds run often by a self-perpetuating elite.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend getting a bit sick and tired of Government Members talking about money issues, given that they will be wasting £3 billion on an unnecessary reorganisation of the NHS and £100 million on unnecessary unelected police commissioners? If they can find money for that, why can they not find a few hundred million pounds for these services?

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend puts her question very well. The Government have got their priorities completely and utterly wrong. If I were a young person watching these proceedings tonight, I would be asking why since the coalition Government came to power they had singled out young people for this barrage of cuts. Do they think that young people are an easy touch? I do not know, but that is what I would be asking if I were them. I would also be asking what an elected police commissioner was going to do to improve life in the community. Very little, I would suggest. I return to the point that I was making earlier. If Government Members do not think that an impersonal, remote service is good enough for their children, they should not accept such a service for anyone else’s children in their constituency.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Prisk]

A number of benefits are being put forward for home building and for construction as a whole. The key issue with the housing market is whether the demand is there. That is the challenge: we will do our bit, but the market will need to operate as well.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

18. What assessment he has made of the potential effects on requirements for support from his Department by citizens advice bureaux of planned reductions in the provision of legal aid.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Edward Davey)]

My Department does not provide core funding for individual citizens advice bureaux; it provides it only for the national umbrella bodies of which they are all members. However, we are aware of the challenges facing bureaux from funding cuts at both the national and local level, including from the proposals on legal aid funding, and we are working closely with colleagues in the Ministry of Justice and other Departments across government that have an interest in the citizens advice service.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

As the Minister will be aware, citizens advice bureaux are suffering pressures not just from cuts to the legal aid budget but across Departments that are cutting services. How many citizens advice bureaux does he think will be cut as a result of the spending review?

[Mr Davey]

As I said in my initial response, funding for local citizens advice bureaux is up to local authorities. The Department for Communities and Local Government has made it clear that the voluntary sector, including citizens advice bureaux, should not be hit disproportionately. I hope the hon. Lady will welcome the fact that the national bodies Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland have had their funding for next year maintained at current levels. I hope she will also welcome the announcement this weekend by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that we will supply £27 million of funding for face-to-face debt advice next year.

Education Maintenance Allowance

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend makes a sensible point, with which I would not disagree, but it is also about what size of pot is available to provide that targeted supply. I have no problem with targeted support—so long as the pot is big enough.

I was mentioning some of the advantages of EMA. It has certainly raised participation and it has also raised attendance. I do not believe the figure of 90%. “Dead-weight” is an unfortunate word to use. We are saying not in any way that young people are the dead-weight, but that there might be some dead-weight in the system.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Andrew Percy]

I will give way one last time.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I am grateful. The hon. Gentleman said that he did not accept that there has been a 90% take-up rate. In my constituency, 934 young people at Bolton sixth-form college receive EMA—75% of the college intake, which is the third largest in the country—while 1,188 people at Bolton community college are taking up EMA. For those young people and those colleges even to function, the continuation of EMA is vital.

Youth Service

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to say just a few words in this important debate, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) for securing it.

I am ashamed to admit that I have been involved in the youth service for nearly 40 years, since I was a teenager, particularly in detached youth work, which is, for me, one of the most important areas of youth work in urban Britain and many other places, too. I want to say a few words and join other hon. Members in pleading for the Government to ensure that they understand the importance of Government and local authority support for the youth service.

I have always believed that there ought to be a statutory youth service. That is my party’s policy, it is still my belief, and I hope that before long that can be the position. It has always been a Cinderella service, although it is the bit of support for young people that is needed to complement parental and family support, and school and educational support. Other role models who are not authority figures can often be far more influential in ensuring that young people have the development, security and safety they need.

I welcome the Education Committee’s inquiry. The Government are looking forward to introducing comprehensive proposals in the new year. I welcome that. The Minister has often been well received since taking on his job. I thank him for that. I am keen for him to be bold and ambitious, both in his Department and across Government, because this is not only the responsibility of the Department for Education.

The national citizen service is a good idea, but as colleagues have said it is a time-limited, specific activity for some people at some time. It will grow slowly. The reality of the youth service is that it can be found by and is accessible to everybody in every community. That is the difference. The youth service is there now. We have to ensure that we do not lose any of its validity or accessibility.

May I make a special plea to ensure that the funding for people to be qualified and trained as youth workers is increased, not decreased? Some of the best, most talented people, who may not have a great academic background, come through the youth service as volunteers, then realise that it is their vocation. They have just the sort of skills that are needed. Often, they are women or people from black and minority ethnic communities. They are really good role models who have been where the youngsters are now. They understand the score, because they have been in the front line and have come through. We need to ensure that they are given the educational support to go on and do practice-based qualifications.

I have said that my engagement has mainly been with detached youth work, but that is not to underestimate club-based or specialist youth work. The benefit that the hon. Member for Bolton West mentioned in being out on the street, engaging with youngsters where they are, not expecting them to come to where the service is, is fundamentally important. If people are to gain the confidence of young people, they do not say, “Come and do it my way”; they say, “We’re going to come alongside you and understand what you want.”

We know that local government will have a hard time, as will central Government, because the settlement is difficult. But local government does not have to find all its savings by cutting grants to the voluntary sector and does not have to cut equally across the board. I plead with every council, no matter who runs it, to make sure that they do not think that the implication of a severe spending cut means cutting the voluntary sector rather than reducing the in-house services. Often, the latter needs to be done, because money for the voluntary sector can multiply in terms of its benefits in the community.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hughes]

I will not because I am conscious that other hon. Members want to speak.

I am keen to ensure that evening and weekend work is supported. One of the problems with a lot of traditional youth services is that they were there—fantastically—on Monday to Thursday evenings, but not on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays. That is exactly when young people need places to go to.

A good example of a youth service was a place I went to in south Wales a few years ago. The kids wanted somewhere to hang around safely. They were given support locally in the valleys and they were able to build a shelter. It was a very simple shelter, but they built it and it was their place. It was a sort of glorified bus shelter, but it meant they had somewhere they could go, supported by individuals. Often, simple things that cost small amounts of money can transform people’s self worth and allow them to have a place they can call their own and build on.

Lastly, the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) pointed out that there are often many unused buildings. In difficult financial circumstances there is an imperative for organisations to work together complementarily, to ensure that facilities are shared and that people do not just do their own thing. That is often a danger in the statutory youth sector if there are schools that do not stay open after school hours or youth clubs that open only in the evenings. Local authorities need to lead on that, and my plea is for the Minister to say to every council, “You lead with the voluntary and faith groups. Do the work on the ground.”

The Minister must also ensure that we have funding for youth workers whom we need to do their job, and that we do not lose them; we need them now more than ever. We must not lose key services, which are often the glue that keeps communities together as well as keeping young people and their communities safe.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

When I was selected as the parliamentary candidate for my constituency, the editor of the Manchester Evening News described me as a dyed-in-the-wool socialist. He was being complimentary, and I took it as a compliment. That is my starting point.

I believe in education that is free for everyone. I do not believe in selection criteria. I do not believe in a system that says, “You can come in, but someone else can’t.” I do not believe in a system that says, “If you have a certain level of education or qualification, such as particular skills in maths or English, you can come to our school, but otherwise—sorry, we don’t want you.” I believe that all schools should take kids of all abilities, because that is the only way to bring about real levelling and equality in society.

People here sometimes talk of the golden age of grammar schools, and reminisce about how brilliant those schools were. Let me give an example of someone who would have been completely lost if the grammar school system had been all that we had. In Watford, where I grew up, we had some very good comprehensive schools thanks to a Labour Government. Only one grammar school was left. If selection criteria had been applied, I would have been shunted off to one of the old-fashioned sink schools where no one had a chance to go to university, and pupils were expected to leave school at 15 or 16 and work as a shop assistant or in a factory. There were no real expectations of them. That did not happen to me, however. I went to a comprehensive school, I took my A-levels, went to university and qualified as a barrister. I can honestly say that if we had not had comprehensive schools I would have been thrown on the scrapheap, notwithstanding all those golden reminiscences about grammar schools.

Let us get real. Why should we have selection at all? Given that all these schools are state schools, paid for by the taxpayers—you, me and everyone else—why should they be able to act in such a way? People should be able to send their children to schools that are as near as possible to their homes, with good equipment, good teachers and good resources, and they should all be good schools. Members may think that that is utopia, but it may be something we can work towards. Many schools have improved since Labour came to office in 1997. The Labour Government put real money into helping schools. They enabled existing schools to be refurbished and new schools to be built, and provided schools with classroom assistants and extra teachers.

A Conservative Member said that our record of educational achievement had worsened. That is not true. According to all the statistics throughout the country, more people now leave school with five GCSEs, and higher grades than in 1997. That is a record of which a former Labour Government can be proud, and I find it annoying when Members seem to forget the real educational advances that were made under that Government.

When my party introduced academies, I was one of those who was not very happy about it, as I preferred all schools to be looked after by the state and the local education authority. I was convinced by that move, however, when it became clear that the less well-performing schools were going to have the chance to get some extra funding so they could improve their educational level. For that reason alone, I was willing to support that academies measure. I want to make it clear, however, that my Labour Government spent a lot of money on education.

This Academies Bill is ideologically driven. The best-performing schools will not even have to bother to do anything; they can just go through the process and get academy status. We are told that we do not have enough money to build schools. Schools in my constituency that were going to be refurbished and rebuilt have had those plans cancelled because, they are told, there is no money for them, even though those cancellations will cost my council about £9 million, yet most of the schools that will become academies will have to go through a process that will cost them money.

We are trying to save money in that way, yet at the same time we are saying, “No, it’s fine if you want to become exclusive schools and exclude people because you want to maintain your so-called high standards; we are not interested in that.” Therefore, those schools have the freedom to do that. That is not fair, and I think all Members on both sides of the House should be concerned about this elitist attitude—the attitude that says, “We must have these excellent schools which only a few excellent people can attend.”

Let me give an example to explain why we need mixed-ability schools. A junior school in Kilburn was considered to be not so well performing, but then a lot of middle-class professional people started sending their children to that school, and years down the road it was found that the performance of the school had gone up. That is what happens such when parents become involved in ordinary schools—in what might be considered sink schools or less well-performing schools. When parents from different backgrounds are involved in schools, standards rise even though there are mixed-ability children.

The issue of standards is what this debate should always be about. We all talk about wanting to look after our children, yet all we hear about is exclusivity; all we hear is, “We want better schools to get better.” There is no mention in the Bill that there should perhaps be some kind of admissions criteria that allow, let us say, 50% of children in these schools to come from ordinary schools—those that are not performing so well. The Bill does not say that, and everybody knows that when we have a selective system the brightest children get taken on and that cycle continues.

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a passionate speech, as did the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who spoke very personally, and the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). There are no doubts about the passion and the validity of the emotion in their speeches. It is important that I make the point that I myself went to a state school. I did allude to that. When I was in primary school, I was in a remedial class because the assumption was that I could not speak English, but the important point I want to make is—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I call Yasmin Qureshi.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman says that I was talking about selection. If the teachers are teaching well and the pupils are responding well, children of all abilities can be taught in one school. There will obviously be some children who do very well academically, while others may not do quite so well. However, children who are perhaps academically poor initially will have a chance to catch up. Because they are in a good school with children of mixed abilities, they will have a chance to get better.

[Bill Esterson]

There is a lot of evidence to show that areas that still have selection actually have poorer standards and results than those with a completely comprehensive system. I wonder whether that makes the point that my hon. Friend is trying to make.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. Yes, that is what I am saying, and I have seen it across the country.

Perhaps such a view is unfashionable in this day and age, when everything is about selection and performance, but we are forgetting the ordinary children from ordinary families. Do they not have the right to be with “the very bright child” in a school that provides excellent educational facilities? Why cannot the poor child from Farnworth or from the Newbury estate in my constituency go to a school attended by children from Chorley New road, a posh part of the constituency? We need everybody to be together. Children from less well-off backgrounds, whose home lives might make it difficult for them to perform well academically, need to be in schools where they can get help and where everyone’s standards are raised. I know that this is an old-fashioned way of thinking—or perhaps it is not, but it is not the conventional thinking now. I find it surprising that everybody is sleepwalking into and justifying this system of selection.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady understand that the coalition Government are not proposing to expand selection, as the Bill makes clear? I have three excellent selective schools in my constituency—the hon. Lady is now not listening to me. Does she propose that these schools be disbanded and all the fantastic opportunities that are there for those children be lost?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Clause 6(4) of the Bill states:

“For this purpose a school is a ‘selective school’ if its admission arrangements make provision for selection of pupils by ability, and…its admission arrangements are permitted to do so by section 100 of SSFA 1998”.

What is that? It is selection.

[Julian Smith]

If the hon. Lady looks at the clause in more detail, she will see that there is no chance of expanding selection. The point is that there are some good selective schools, which are being allowed to continue, but the Government are not expanding selection.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The Bill enables the very good school to fast-track into becoming an academy, and it does not say that there has to be proper consultation with the local authority or with the people in the community who use the school. If it is not a question of the very good schools wanting to become more selective, why would they want to go for an academy system? We are told that the Government are not putting any further money into the academies—

[Mr Raab]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady has had an opportunity to read clause 5, which makes clear the consultation provisions that she is, I think, hoping for.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The Bill does not say, however, that 50% of the children coming into such a school must consist of children of all abilities. We will still have academies and schools selecting according to ability, and my point is that we should not.

It might be a controversial idea and an unpalatable one to many people in the House, but it is not that strange: why should children from all backgrounds not go to the same school? Why can we not have mixed-ability classes? The record across the country shows that schools containing children with a mix of ability and with different social backgrounds do better, and that schools that are not performing so well start to do better in these circumstances because everyone is working for things together. Instead everybody wants to create these “excellent” schools, which have “pushy parents”—I am sure that my saying that will be held against me—who obviously want the best for their children. That is fine and I understand that they want the best for their children, but why does everybody forget about the other—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I call Robert Buckland.

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[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

As a Welsh Member, I beg the House’s indulgence in contributing to this debate. I have three children, and they, like all children in Wales, will be insulated from some of the more malign effects of this Bill by virtue of our rather more progressive coalition.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

We’ll move to Wales.

[Owen Smith]

That might be a good idea.

I wanted to speak tonight because the Bill is such an important piece of legislation. It is one of the real key, signature pieces of legislation from this rather less progressive coalition Government at Westminster, and I feel that all Members, wherever they hail from, should address these issues.

It has been interesting to watch Government Members throughout today’s debate, because on the faces of some there has been surprise at the volume of opposition from Labour Members and at the passion that we have brought to the debate. That is because we feel that there are fundamental issues at hand, including not just the way in which the Bill is being railroaded through with unseemly haste, but its content, and I shall address two levels of that concern.

First, we are concerned about the legislation’s immediate and practical impact. Our abiding concern is about the type of autonomy, the free-for-all, for academy schools, which will be cut free—“liberated”, I gather, is the phrase du jour from Government Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

I cannot but agree, wholeheartedly.

I have already touched on our second, perhaps more profound concern, which is about the longer-term philosophical underpinnings of the Bill. We see similarities between what is being proposed in respect of education and in the health White Paper, and what we will no doubt see in respect of the welfare reforms later this year. In dread phrases throughout the Bill and that White Paper, there are hints of what is proposed. There is a clear indication that the proposal for the concept of free schools is warmed-over privatisation.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the free academy idea came from Sweden, where it has been found to lead to inequality and the dumbing down of children’s qualifications? That was said by the Swedish equivalent of the head of Ofsted two months ago.