Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

Our flexible labour market is one of the many reasons that foreign investors are keen to invest in the UK and we can always pursue that important agenda further. The latest independent assessment shows that the UK was the most successful country in Europe in attracting inward investment.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to reduce the burden of regulation on businesses.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)]

We have significantly reduced the burden of regulation on business. The one-in, two-out rule has cut the annual cost of domestic regulation by £1.2 billion so far, and the red tape challenge has identified over 3,000 regulations to be scrapped or improved. To ensure that all future Governments remain committed to reducing burdens, the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill published yesterday requires Governments to publish a target for removing regulatory burdens in each Parliament and to report against it.

[Andrew Rosindell]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his excellent reply. Does he agree that for business and enterprise to flourish, particularly in constituencies such as mine that have many small and medium-sized enterprises, we must stop the strangling of business by regulation from the European Union, and that means that the Prime Minister is doing absolutely the right thing in trying to reform Europe so that business can flourish in this country?

[Michael Fallon]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I can tell him that of the 30 specific reforms requested by the business taskforce I chaired last year, nine have already been delivered, two further directives were withdrawn last month, and since the transposition rules were tightened three years ago there has been only one example of a European directive being gold-plated, which was the consumer credit directive that banned excessive payment surcharges.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to be taken seriously, he must pay close attention to the facts. The facts are these: I have been zealous in ensuring that we apply a tighter and more rigorous inspection framework to all schools—free schools, academies and maintained schools—and in so doing I appointed Sir Michael Wilshaw and I appointed Sally Morgan. I have been the person who has been leading change in our schools. I have been the person who has been insistent that we hold our education system to the highest standards. I am the person now demanding once again that the hon. Gentleman withdraw his earlier statement when he put words into the mouth of Sir Michael Wilshaw that he did not utter. If he does not, we will draw the appropriate conclusion, as the New Statesman already has, which is that his policies are both “timid” and “incoherent”.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

T3. I recently visited Havering college in my constituency and Barking and Dagenham college just outside it. The Secretary of State will be pleased to know that we have excellent standards there, but one thing that is lacking is the importance of teaching our young people about the British constitution, our history, political affairs and so on. What do the Government intend to do to ensure greater awareness of those subjects among young people?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

From September, the new history curriculum will ensure that children understand the history of these islands as well as a coherent chronological narrative. In citizenship, they will learn about the United Kingdom’s constitution, about the precious liberties enjoyed by citizens of our country and about their role as citizens and how they can participate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I am delighted to explain the priority school building programme. Unlike its predecessor programme, it prioritises those schools in the worst need, and I am proud that it is doing so, in contrast to the previous scheme, Building Schools for the Future, which did not do so. On the issue of primary places, I caution the hon. Gentleman not to lecture this Government when his Government ignored the warnings of the Office for National Statistics and eliminated 200,000 primary school places.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to ensure that all pupils gain a chronological understanding of British history.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

We believe that all pupils should be taught about the events that have shaped the history of these islands, and their understanding of that history is best developed when it is taught within a robust chronological framework. That is why we have published proposals for a new curriculum. Consultation on the draft closed on 16 April and we hope to publish a final version in the autumn.

[Andrew Rosindell]

The country will thank the Secretary of State for at last restoring British history to our schools, but will he also ensure that our pupils are taught about the proud history of our Commonwealth, the former British empire, and also the British territories?

[Michael Gove]

On the eve of St George’s day, my hon. Friend makes an important point, and it is the case that the new draft national history curriculum explains how Britain has interacted with the rest of the world, from Wolfe’s victory over Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham, which ensured that Canada could remain British, to the influence of Britain on India. It is also the case that the period right up to the 20th century and the process of decolonisation that brought Jinnah, Nehru, Kenyatta and Nkrumah to power is in the national curriculum in detail that did not exist before.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The red tape challenge is designed precisely to look at areas where regulation is excessive and inappropriate. On health and safety, however, construction sites are notoriously dangerous and we need to maintain basic standards.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

9. What steps he plans to take to protect and support the work of the British Antarctic Survey following his decision not to merge that body with the National Oceanography Centre.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

I saw the important work of our scientists when I visited the Falklands and the Antarctic last February. The Natural Environment Research Council has committed to maintain funding of the British Antarctic Survey at £42 million a year for the rest of this spending period. The NERC should, in future, have a discrete funding line for the Antarctic from within the ring-fenced science budget, subject to future spending reviews, to ensure that there is a visible UK commitment to Antarctic science and our presence in the region. It is a fitting tribute that the southern part of the British Antarctic Territory has been renamed Queen Elizabeth Land in honour of Her Majesty the Queen at the end of a glorious jubilee year.

[Andrew Rosindell]

The whole House and the entire nation will be delighted at the Government’s announcement that part of the British Antarctic Territory will be named after Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in this diamond jubilee year. The House is also delighted that the British Antarctic Survey has been rescued from the previous proposals. Is it possible for the British Antarctic Survey to work more closely with the Falkland Islands? Does the Minister recognise the importance of having British sovereign territories in that region of the world to conduct scientific research and endeavour?

[Mr Willetts]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s work on behalf of the Falklands and the British presence in the Antarctic. There is already practical co-operation. I have seen for myself the support that the Falklands Islands provides to the British Antarctic Survey. While I was in the Falklands, I met the director of the newly created South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute in his office at Stanley cottage. Although the NERC cannot legally fund the institute, we are offering non-financial assistance by giving advice, hosting visits and facilitating partnerships with British universities.

Education Performance

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Elizabeth Truss]

When I speak to economics academics at university, it is interesting that they often say that they would rather that people did mathematics than economics as a precursor to the subject. There is a question about what level we are studying subjects at, and that is particularly true of law. One thing that economics—

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the hon. Lady that she should make brief interventions rather than a second speech.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend was perhaps going on to say that we should never forget mathematics as one of the core subjects.

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[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that in Australia, after someone has been in a job for 10 or so years, they are entitled to a year or six months off? I think that that is true in most walks of life. It is certainly true in most professions, including teaching. The state provides for that by taking a section of salary to ensure that the person is paid throughout the period. The benefits to a teacher are that they have a break and an opportunity to go elsewhere, perhaps into industry or whatever, and they come back refreshed. It also means that everybody is in a position to act up in another position to gain experience of being a head teacher or head of department, which is fantastically valuable.

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the hon. Lady that interventions should be brief. She is not on my list to speak. I would have considered putting her on my list if she had asked me to do so, but a long speech should not be dressed up as an intervention.

[Tessa Munt]

Forgive me.

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

You are forgiven.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I am aware of the system my hon. Friend mentions, and she is right that it is along those lines, but it is about more than that.

When an individual recognises that they have entered a role that they cannot fulfil properly, they are trapped. If we adopted a system that allowed them to move back to their original role or transfer to a similar one, without losing their skills in the profession, it would create a system that could allow more movement in senior management, which would ensure that we got the right people in leadership positions more quickly. As we accept, good leadership leads to good schools and we want to ensure that the right people are in the right roles.

Secondly, we must remember that education is about the students, not about the school, and we have touched upon that. Performance tables and comparisons among schools with similar backgrounds can be useful and help to drive improvement in performance, but we must not forget that at the heart of it lies the student. We all want to create a system that maximises the full potential of each and every student, makes the most of their talents and helps them to find their true vocation and motivation. For some, that may be a rigorous academic university or higher education experience, but for others it will be high-quality vocational work, other employment or apprenticeships. We must find some way of judging whether schools are making the most of the potential they are given. Although competition can drive up standards, it is not the be-all and end-all. We must remind schools that it is not about being better than the school down the road, but about being better at making the most of the potential of the people in their care and delivering on it.

We must accept that the potential that pupils come through our education system with each year will vary. It is highly unrealistic to expect a good school to deliver year-on-year improvements in exam results. Surely we must accept that different cohorts—year groups—have different potential and therefore different outcomes. If we do not and we end up in the trap of expecting exam results to be higher and higher every year, people, rightly, will begin to lose faith in the system because it does not reflect real-world experience.

We are not saying that students are any brighter now than they were 10 or 20 years ago. Although there have been improvements in how we deliver education, it is unrealistic to expect that to go on and on. If a school consistently achieves good results, one or two poor performances do not necessarily mean that it is failing. I ask that we expand how we compare and judge schools in a way that looks at every pupil and their performance and experience in the school. We could use the contextual value added measure more often, and educate the public about its potential value to create greater understanding in society, so that parents and pupils can better understand what a particular school can deliver.

Thirdly, a good experience across the whole education system is important. I am fortunate in my constituency to have six secondary schools all of which are performing or about to perform very well under excellent leadership—vigorous, dynamic and energetic. The one concern that is repeatedly expressed to me is that when schools receive their year 7 pupils, it takes time to prepare them for the rest of their school career in secondary education. They have to bring them up to speed, which can sometimes last well into the second year of secondary school education. That is not unique to my patch. There are reasons for it, including issues about communication between primary and secondary school, but we must put greater emphasis on the importance of primary education so that we attract the best teachers into the early years.

I suspect that when a teacher is training and looking at where they want to place themselves within the education system, those with more rigorously challenging academic degrees will look to teach in secondary schools. We need to bring some of that excellence into the whole of our education system. There are many excellent teachers and heads in our primary system, but that does not mean that we cannot do more. I would like to think that we can make primary education as attractive as secondary.

We also need to encourage more collaboration among primary schools. Many primary, infant and junior schools are quite small, and we need to encourage them to work more closely with their secondary schools and other schools in the system, to see if the intimacy and familiarity that they enjoy as a small school can be maintained while benefiting from the ability to share resources, staff and perhaps even head teachers. The recruitment and retention of good head teachers is particularly a problem for small schools. I would like to think that we can find a way to encourage local education authorities and schools to work more closely across the whole education system to see if we can deliver a better experience for all students.

Education is one of the most important gifts we can give our children. A good education that suits an individual’s strengths and talents will help them to make the most of a life full of opportunities. It falls to all of us to ensure that we do what we can to help schools to deliver that improving educational performance. We must recognise the vital role that they play in the future prosperity and success not only of our country, but of our children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

May I suggest that Members try to restrict their remarks to something in the region of 10 minutes? If that happens, there is a chance that everyone can be called and have a chance to contribute to the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That question was beautifully written, almost as though it had been carved in marble by a master mason. The truth is that no one on that side of the House can afford to clamber on to their high horse when it comes to school buildings. It was that side of the House that inherited a golden economic legacy and squandered it. It was that side of the House that betrayed a generation of young people by giving us a record deficit and a record debt. It was that side of the House that presided over a schools building programme that was reckless, profligate and inefficient. It was that side of the House that put political convenience and partisanship ahead of our young people. Frankly, even though the hon. Gentleman was not in the last Parliament, every time he comes to that Dispatch Box to talk about the state of our education system or school buildings, there is only one word we need to hear from him, and that word is sorry.

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)]

9. What plans he has for the future of history teaching in schools; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

We believe that the teaching of British history is vital, and that is why we are reviewing the national curriculum in England. We will consider whether history should be a compulsory subject in the curriculum at each key stage, and if so, how the programmes of study should be revised.

[Andrew Rosindell]

Is the Minister aware that Ofsted has found a lack of chronological understanding of British history among many pupils? Will he tell us what the Government are doing to ensure that every child across the United Kingdom has a full understanding of the good and great traditions that have made our country what it is today?

[Mr Hayes]

There is no more robust or redoubtable advocate for our island story and the teaching of history than my hon. Friend. He is right that Ofsted has highlighted considerable weaknesses in how history is taught, and I can reassure him that, through the measures I have described, the Government will restore history to the heart of the school curriculum so that children learn that unless we can map the past we will not navigate the present or chart our way to the future.

Youth Service

Andrew Rosindell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Tim Loughton)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Rosindell. This is the worst kind of debate to which to respond. I have been left with 11 minutes to take on board the excellent contributions of seven Back Benchers in this worthwhile and informed debate. It has not been quite as well attended as the debate on high-speed rail, but this matter is of great importance to everybody who is present and to people in our constituencies.

I will discard most of my speech and respond to the points that have been raised by hon. Members. At the end, I will respond to the points made by the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling). She provided some questions to the Department at 21 minutes past midnight last night. Unfortunately, I was not at my desk and have not had time to go into them in detail. [Interruption.] I was at my desk at 21 minutes past 11 last night, but not at 21 minutes past 12. I am happy to provide the hon. Lady with more detail and to have a meeting with her to take up the more substantive issues.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate and recognise her great experience in this area as a former youth worker, a former president of the Community and Youth Workers Union and a committed campaigner for young people. I believe that services for young people are vital. I have had the pleasure of visiting the fantastic Bolton Lads and Girls Club, which has been mentioned no fewer than three times. The Prime Minister has been there at least twice and the Prime Minister’s wife has visited it. It is in the constituency neighbouring the hon. Lady’s. Recently, I was delighted to join a group of business leaders in Blackburn who are working with the founders of that club to establish a series of similar facilities across the north-west of England, which is tremendously exciting. The commitment shown to young people by the OnSide project and by local people and businesses in Bolton is second to none, so the hon. Lady can speak from great experience.

I will set out briefly the principles of the Government’s approach to youth services before responding to specific questions. We want to promote a culture of being positive about young people in this country, which engages with the media, central and local government and people of all generations. Intergenerational trust has taken a knock in recent years, and has been exacerbated by negative stories about young people and mixed messages from the previous Government. The good projects supported by the previous Government sat uneasily with the negative messages given by the respect agenda, antisocial behaviour orders, curfew orders and the proliferation of those ghastly Mosquito devices.

We want to promote the involvement of young people in decision making at the top table on matters that affect them, not just on specific youth budget issues. That is not tokenism. As money is tight, we are freeing local authorities to decide what money should be spent on in the light of local priorities. We have ended ring-fencing to give greater autonomy to local authorities. We want to introduce an early intervention grant to help disadvantaged young people get on track for success, using proven effective practices. That is the best use of public funds. The hon. Lady rightly catalogued the cost of failure in this area.

Yesterday, I visited Nottingham, the early intervention city, to see a series of projects that are being led by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who I am delighted to say is undertaking an early intervention review for the Government. That is where the hon. Lady has her roots as a youth worker. As many hon. Members have said, early intervention is key. It is important not just in the early years, but in identifying teenagers who are at risk of indulging in dangerous behaviour, before they get on a slippery slope.

We also want to promote new partnerships and sources of finance with the private sector and voluntary bodies. We want to enable voluntary bodies to challenge the monopoly provision of youth services departments. The big society bank is a particularly interesting way in which huge amounts of money might be leveraged into innovative and exciting youth projects.

I have talked to a huge number of people who are passionate about achieving excellent services for young people and I will be talking to young people, youth services representatives, businesses and the media over the coming months to develop our thinking. I have set up a youth forum of key players in the youth sector, which will meet again in two weeks. That is an important source of information, as are the various panels of young people that I have set up to inform the Government about how best to shape policy.

Young people contribute a massive amount to their communities, but the press they get is out of keeping with that and unduly negative. Antisocial behaviour must be tackled firmly, but one of my first responsibilities is to celebrate young people’s achievements, and to promote a culture in the country and in the media of doing so. I am sure that all hon. Members present will want to contribute to that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) made the strong point that prevention is better than waiting for the cure, hence our emphasis on early intervention through the early intervention grant. How that money is spent is important. We should not just throw money at projects. Their success should be determined not by the number of participants, but by whether they provide a life-changing experience for the young person, by the value added and by the quality of the experience. There has been too much concentration on how many people have participated, regardless of the outcomes.

My hon. Friend rightly said that the big society is not a political convenience, but something that has been going on in parts of the country beneath the radar for many years. We want to raise it on to the radar and to encourage more people to participate in it. The Opposition spokesman fell into the trap of lazy journalists. Occasionally, it is useful to let detail get in the way of a good headline. If he reads my speech at the Edith Kahn memorial lecture, he will see that the 17 pages subsequent to the initial setting out of the problems are rather good and set out what the big society is all about. I recommend that he reads it in full; it is available on the Department for Education website. It sounds as though Mike Stephens is something of a one-man big society in his own right.

The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) went on about the bleak days of the 1980s. She clearly got her headline because she has now legged it elsewhere. She mentioned Armley Juniors, which has set up a youth facility in a local post office—one of the few things to come from the previous Government’s wholesale closure of the post office network.

The Government’s policy is not about cuts, but about new and smarter ways of doing things. Just yesterday, we launched the voluntary and community sector grant scheme, which encourages youth services organisations to come forward with their good ideas to get funding from the Department for Education. There is a new £110 million education endowment fund that will allow schools, charities, local authorities, academy sponsors and other groups to bid for funding to boost the attainment of disadvantaged pupils. There is about £470 million to help fund key programmes, including the training of community organisers, the creation of a new neighbourhood grant programme and so on. We should look beyond the headlines.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) is right that we should use existing facilities in a smarter way. We want to use children’s centres more out of hours and at weekends for youth activities. We should make more use of schools and sports facilities that are lying idle for much of the time. In my constituency, I set up a midnight football project that runs from 10 o’clock to midnight on Saturdays at a leisure centre after it has closed. That is when it is not being used and when the problems happen.

I will come on to the points made by the hon. Member for Bolton West, but because I have so little time I think that we will have to have a meeting. She asked about collecting information on youth services and auditing them. The Government collect annual figures on local authority expenditure on youth work through what have become known as section 52 returns. We are reviewing all data requirements on local authorities, but we have no plans to discontinue the collection of that information. I hope that that answer is helpful.

It is important that youth services are scrutinised by local young people. Youth mayors—there is one in Worthing—youth cabinets and UK Youth Parliament members should scrutinise the quality of youth services. They should use their voice to challenge local authorities and the Government. I spend a lot of time with them.

The hon. Lady mentioned West Sussex and I am aware of the pressures on local authority budgets. In fact, West Sussex county council has changed the way in which it does things and the cuts will not be of the level that she mentioned.

I look forward to visiting the project tomorrow with the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). The national citizen service is not compensation for youth services. The funding will not come out of the Department for Education’s funding for youth services, but will be completely separate. However, it does bring lessons for new ways of doing things that can be applied to the youth sector—it is about inspiring young people. We are not discussing just a short summer camp, but an experience of a lifetime at the transition to adulthood that will engage and re-engage young people in their communities on an ongoing and lasting basis. Let us not confuse it with a glorified summer camp.

There are many more questions, but I am running out of time in which to answer them. I would be delighted to meet the hon. Member for Bolton West.

[Andrew Rosindell (in the Chair)]

Order. We must move on to the next debate.