Start-up Loans
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Matthew Hancock
I can do better than that. In collaboration with the Welsh Government, the roll-out of start-up loans in Wales commenced on 15 October, and I would encourage anybody in Wales to get involved.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I commend the Minister for all the help he has given to small businesses since he took up his post. I am particularly pleased that he has recognised the diversity of groups wanting to start businesses. With regard to the over-50s in particular, how will he get information out—not to the banks, but to local authorities, local enterprise partnerships and other places in which people who are not used to computers will look for such help?
Matthew Hancock
The Business is Great website is an important part of that. I commend my hon. Friend’s work in supporting small businesses, in pushing for improvements for them and in getting out personally to demonstrate what is available. There is a broad communications campaign about the scheme—yes, online, but also offline—and I take every opportunity to tell people what is available.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Michael Gove
It is absolutely the case that the principals of academies are tightly bound by a set of rules about how governing bodies or boards of trustees should operate. If there are specific cases about which the hon. Gentleman is concerned but which, for understandable reasons, he does not wish to raise on the Floor of the House, perhaps we can meet to discuss what is giving him concern.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
T8. Does the Minister agree that making financial education a formal part of the national curriculum should ensure not only that every child leaves school with a basic understanding of personal finance but that those who seek to start their own businesses are better equipped with the skills that they need to succeed?
Elizabeth Truss
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. We have improved financial education in maths through the better study of interest rates, loans and mortgages. We have also included the subject in citizenship classes and, furthermore, we are participating in the PISA —the programme for international student assessment— comparison between different countries on financial literacy. We can therefore compare the capabilities of our 15-year-olds with those in other countries.
Children and Families Bill
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I welcome many of the changes in part 1 of the Bill to streamline the adoption process and the provisions in parts 6, 7 and 8 to introduce new employment rights for women and men who have young children.
As one of the first people to argue in this place for a Children’s Commissioner for Wales, I support the commissioner’s response that his remit should be extended to include some reserved matters so that he can better represent the children of Wales. I hope that that provision can be looked at in due course.
My remarks will focus on part 2 and the impact that the changes that it introduces could have on family justice. I declare an interest because I practised in family law for more than 35 years and draw some of my opinions from my experience in the courts, as does the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), who, although not of my vintage, practised in the same area of law and on the same circuit.
I sit on the Justice Committee, which undertook some of the pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill. Regarding the public law clauses of the Bill, the Committee was supportive of the Government’s intention to reduce delay in care and supervision proceedings. We applauded the example set by some local authorities and courts in cutting timetables. We have heard about the Norgrove report, which recognised the terrible delays of 61 weeks in care centres and 48 weeks in family proceedings courts. Such delays can obviously cause unnecessary strain and distress for the most vulnerable children.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
Like the right hon. Gentleman, my background is in law, although not in family law. I know from my surgeries that my constituents will welcome the simplification and shortening of the process. However, does he share my concern that we must ensure that the judiciary have the right training and perhaps more training so that when we have the shortened hearings, the right results ensue?
Mr Llwyd
Mr Justice Ryder, who is in overall charge of this area, gave evidence to the Justice Committee not long ago and the hon. Lady should rest assured that he is on the case. There has been progress of late in that area, but I am sure that there will be greater progress. I thank her for that intervention.
In evidence to the Justice Committee’s inquiry, Barnardo’s stated:
“Two months of delay in making decisions in the best interest of a child equates to 1% of childhood that cannot be restored.”
Thus, the principle of introducing a 26-week time limit is obviously to be welcomed. However, as the Family Law Bar Association noted in its evidence, the practical consequences of the provision might result in further delay in the courts, because cases will still be likely to take longer than 26 weeks to complete and so will be repeatedly referred back to the court for extensions. The evidence of the NSPCC drew attention to the importance of granting adequate time to work with families in cases where intervention projects are utilised, such as in the family drug and alcohol court in London, without the extra burden of having to apply for extensions.
The Committee recommended that the draft provision should be amended to allow judges some leniency to identify cases that are likely to take longer than 26 weeks and to exempt them from the 26-week time limit. That may well reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and expensive extension hearings. I urge the Minister to think further about that, as I am sure he will.
The Justice Committee was concerned about the provisions on child arrangements orders in clause 12 and recommended a number of alterations. It is important to remember that the UK has had equality of parental responsibility since 1989. That principle was introduced to reduce conflict in courts over contact arrangements and to remove the perception that there are winners and losers in such disputes. The Committee was unconvinced that merely changing the wording from “contact order” and “residence order” to “child arrangements order” would eliminate the perception that there are winners and losers in the family courts.
The Committee was also concerned that the changed wording would cause confusion in foreign jurisdictions and recommended that the Government reconsider the practical difficulty in interpreting the clause in the context of international law. The concept of “rights of custody” is well established in The Hague and in EU legislation. There is justifiable concern that the introduction of CAOs could cause confusion about the nature of parental responsibility, unless the orders specify that the person with whom the child is to live has rights of custody.
My greatest concern and that of the Committee relates to clause 11. We heard a debate about this matter earlier and the Minister became animated when we came to it. The explanation of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) comforted me. The Government accepted the Committee’s recommendation that the title of the provision should be changed from “shared parenting” to “parental involvement”. However, the Government did not accept that the term “involvement” should be defined in the Bill to remove any implication that involvement equates to a parent’s right to a set amount of time with a child.
In their response to the Committee’s report on the Bill, the Government stated:
“Whilst it is not a specific policy intention to change the outcome of court decisions in particular cases, we anticipate that the amendment will encourage parents to adopt less adversarial and entrenched positions in relation to the care of their child.”
I hope that that is right, but evidence suggests that, to the contrary, the change might prompt people to assume that they have rights and could lead to courts undermining the paramountcy of the welfare of the child, inferring instead that equal access to both parents will have a beneficial impact on all children. As Gingerbread pointed out in its briefing on the Shared Parenting Orders Bill, which failed to be passed during the last Session, there would be problems with
“any form of legal presumption that assumes a particular outcome—that is, a parenting arrangement of near equal or equal time—before the consideration of a child’s best interests”.
Life-saving Skills in Schools
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House believes every child should leave school knowing how to save a life.
First, a big thank you is due to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) and the Backbench Business Committee, because without them this important issue would not have been given air time. This matter has concerned a number of Members for many years, and I pay tribute to those who have fought on this issue, including my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), and the hon. Members for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) and for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell). It is something about which Members across the House feel strongly and passionately.
What do I mean by emergency life-saving skills? For most of us that includes some of the basic things that can be done for an individual before professional trained help arrives. It usually includes putting people into the recovery position and enabling them to lie down and feel safe; helping people who are at risk of choking or have severe bleeding injuries; and, perhaps the most well known, CPR—cardiopulmonary resuscitation—when somebody’s heart has stopped and they are not breathing.
Why has this issue been raised in connection with our schools and schoolchildren? Most of us are passionate about the fact that if anything in life is truly important, it is life itself and how to save it. That being the case, the more widely spread life-saving skills are, the better off we will be as a community and society. If we start with schoolchildren we build a pyramid, and slowly but surely we begin to inculcate those skills into society.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
The hon. Lady is introducing this debate very well indeed. When I was at school I did full St John Ambulance training that involved three or four days on a course and was extensive. Training does not have to be like that, however; it can be quick, effective, short and clear instruction that could result in saving many lives. Children are often at home in the kitchen near their parents and would be able to save a life if they had clear instruction.
Anne Marie Morris
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It takes two hours—that is all—to teach CPR. Indeed, if CPR is applied, a person is three times more likely to survive. It is well worth while. A third of all deaths in the UK result from cardiovascular disease and there are about 124,000 heart attacks each year. Heart attacks are perhaps the most common situation in which people need life-saving skills.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate. Does she agree that great work has been done by the charity SADS—Sudden Arhythmic Death Syndrome—UK? In my constituency, Robert and Maggie Underwood have already secured 14 defibrillators for our schools and campaigned tirelessly for that charity.
Anne Marie Morris
My hon. Friend gives me added ammunition and I am delighted to hear what has happened in her community. That is absolutely first rate.
Although we talk mainly about heart attacks, there are more cases of cardiac arrest generally but we are not necessarily as aware of them. A person can suffer an arrest if they lose an excessive amount of blood, suffer a lack of oxygen, become very hot or very cold, or have a blood clot on the lung. It could happen to anybody. It does not have to be someone who suffers from heart disease or is elderly; it could happen to any of us here.
As was alluded to earlier, 60,000 cardiac arrests happen outside hospitals—two thirds in the home and one third in public. In the public arena there is often a witness, and in half those cases somebody who would be able to do something if they were properly trained. Irreversible brain damage to an individual who is not helped can take place in very few minutes. Every minute counts and there is a 10% reduction in someone’s chances of survival for every minute that passes. That must be put in context with the time the ambulance takes to arrive. The target at the moment is eight minutes, and 75% of ambulances make that. If we do our maths, however, we can see that it does not leave long to get professionals to the site.
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is not just about heart attacks? Unbelievably, a four-year-old in my constituency who is a carer for her mother undertook training with the local ambulance crew. She was able to put her mother in the recovery position and managed to save her life. That was at four years old.
Anne Marie Morris
That is a wonderful example of what can be done. There is often a sense that this issue applies only to older children, but younger children can also learn valuable skills.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does she agree that if we educate pupils, they in turn can educate their parents? A school in Cheshire teaches emergency life support, and I understand that a parent of one of its pupils was able to administer the appropriate action when confronted with someone choking in a restaurant.
Anne Marie Morris
That is an excellent example and I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution.
If we look across the world, the UK does not find itself in a happy, comparable position in terms of the teaching of ELS and survival rates. Our survival rate following a cardiac arrest is pretty poor and quite variable—it depends on where someone is in the country. The survival rate for those who suffer an arrest is between 2% and 12% after they leave hospital. The British Heart Foundation estimates that 75% of people are untrained. That means that only 25% of the population have some training and the number of people in our community who are able to help is very small.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
My hon. Friend is generous in giving way. Speaking to the British Heart Foundation today, I discovered that only 13% of children leave school with some sort of training in CPR. Although I have reservations about making such training compulsory in schools, does she agree that making CPR courses available to children and encouraging their use in schools is key?
Anne Marie Morris
It is key that courses are available and recommended, but I will come to compulsion later. My hon. Friend is right that the number of children who have access to training is relatively small, but all credit to the British Heart Foundation, which started its Heartstart programme in 1996. We now have courses in life-saving skills in 400 of our secondary schools. The problem is that it has taken 16 years to cover only 10% of secondary schools, so it will take an awfully long time to get to 100%.
The position in Europe is much better. Eighty per cent. of residents of Scandinavia and Germany have first aid skills because they learned them in schools and elsewhere. The survival rate from a shockable cardiac arrest in Norway is 52%, whereas our survival rate is between 2% and 12%. Compulsory training is common in Europe—Norway, Denmark and France are good examples. Across the pond, 36 US states have legislation requiring the training. The cardiac arrest survival rate in Seattle is twice what the survival rate is in the UK, and 50% of the population is trained.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
Does the hon. Lady agree that there is a lack of understanding in this country that young people suffer cardiac arrest? We need to do more, because it is not just an older persons’ illness.
Anne Marie Morris
The hon. Gentleman makes an appropriate point. He is right. There is an additional benefit—on top of the volume of people who will end up trained—because cardiac arrest happens to young people as well.
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
The hon. Lady is extremely generous in giving way, and I congratulate her on securing this debate. She mentioned a number of countries and US states where training is compulsory. Compulsory training could give us much greater chances of survival. I hope she will tell us she is in favour of mandatory training.
Anne Marie Morris
The right hon. Lady makes an appropriate and fair point. As they say in business, what gets measured gets done. We have training in this country, but it is not measured. There is no record of how much CPR is included. ELS is included in personal, social, health and economic education, but it is not consistent. We consequently do not get the results that other countries get.
Why do we raise the issue of life-saving skills now? We are doing so in part because we have the evidence, some of which I have just shared with the House, but there is also clear public support. In response to the British Heart Foundation survey in February 2011, 86% of teachers said ELS should be included in the curriculum, and 78% of children said they wanted to be taught it. The evidence is that they enjoy it, and that it gives them a broader sense of self-worth and value within the community. Seventy per cent. of parents believe it should be taught. This will not be an uphill battle, because everybody wants it.
There was a moment when ELS became front and foremost in everyone’s thinking—when Fabrice Muamba tragically collapsed on the football pitch in March. But for an individual with ELS skills coming on to the pitch, he may not have survived as well as he has. That led to the Love Heart campaign in The Sun—well done to The Sun; that was a great campaign that attracted a lot of support. Ultimately, a petition of 130,000 signatures was delivered, asking for us to ensure that we have ELS training in schools. Support in the charitable and third sectors is huge. The British Heart Foundation, the British Medical Association, Cardiac Risk in the Young, St John Ambulance and the Red Cross support it—I could go on, but I am conscious that time is not on my side.
As hon. Members have said, there are some great examples of the community providing training voluntarily. Dawlish community college in my constituency does one whole day on emergency life-saving skills for year 10s. A recent Ofsted report found the school to be good, and outstanding for leadership and management. Does that not show?
What is the way forward? The first option is to continue with the status quo, but as we have seen, results are patchy. ELS is included in PHSE, but it is not mandatory or delivered consistently. CPR is often not included. My view is that we will not achieve what we need to achieve as a society with the status quo.
The second option is making ELS a mandatory piece of the PHSE curriculum. Under the current review, although PHSE will not be mandatory, the Minister has said that bits of it will be identified and made so. ELS could be included in the science or physical education curriculums. The Minister could also consider including it as a compulsory element in teacher training, so at least our teachers will have the training. She could also think about including it as a necessary part of the National Citizen Service programme.
The second option has been debated on many occasions, and the objections to it have been very much the same each time. Let me briefly rehearse them and say why they no longer stand ground. The first argument is that the curriculum is too full and teachers need choice. I agree that the curriculum is too full and that we need to ensure that the core subjects are taught well, but I also agree with choice. It is appropriate to consider what is included in PHSE. When the matter was last debated, even my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who was then the answering Minister, could see the priority of ELS. He was lobbied to include knitting in PHSE, but agreed that knitting simply does not have the same value as ELS. It is perfectly possible both to include it and to retain flexibility in the curriculum. As I have said, it is only a two-hour course. On choice, we could say to schools, “It is compulsory, though you have the choice of including it in PHSE, science or PE, but it must be measured by Ofsted.” That would give flexibility.
The second argument usually advanced against the proposal is cost and resource. The British Heart Foundation has estimated that it will cost £2,200 a year per school, but that is not a huge amount of money. The charitable sector, trainee doctors and general practitioners can get involved in teaching on a voluntary basis. They will do it for free, and the cascade principle says that if we teach the teachers, they will teach others and so on. I suspect that the number of people wanting to get involved and to help for free would make this a relatively inexpensive activity.
We must set that against the cost to the public purse. If an increasing number of people have brain damage when they need not have it and are kept on life support machines in hospitals, or if there is an increasing number of people who survive but who must be supported at home, the bill goes up. A day in hospital costs £400 or £500. As hon. Members know, disability living allowance can be £131 a week. That adds up to a sizeable bill. It is not just about money—there is also a cost to the family and society. As a nation, we believe in prevention rather than cure. The question, therefore, is not whether we can afford to do this, but whether we can afford not to.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this important issue to the Floor of the House. I was contacted by a constituent whose brother-in-law had a huge heart attack at the age of 46 while at work. If a colleague of his had not had CPR skills to keep him alive until the ambulance arrived, he would have passed away. Does that not emphasise how important it is to give our young people those skills for the whole of their lives to help to save other people’s lives?
Anne Marie Morris
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and leads me to the third and final objection I suspect will be raised, which is the problem of physically damaging somebody’s health through CPR by, for example, breaking a rib. No one has ever been sued for helping somebody in those circumstances. When a person has a cardiac arrest, they are almost clinically dead—only the brain is still going. So someone helping a person who has had a cardiac arrest cannot do any more physical damage because the person is pretty much dead, and no one has been sued; indeed, I do not believe that people in this country would support such legal action. In exchange for training, these young people have a huge opportunity.
In conclusion, the case has been made for emergency life-saving skills to be taught in schools consistently, to ensure it happens in all schools. It is the right thing to do for society and for the economy. It is not just a decision for the Secretary of State for Education. For all the reasons I have mentioned, the Minister should work with the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the Cabinet Office. This is a broad issue. Not making it mandatory is the triumph of hope over experience.
Anne Marie Morris
I will be brief. We have had an excellent debate. Given the restricted time available, I shall not name them all, but hon. Members’ contributions have been first class across the board. I have learned a lot; some wonderful personal insights have been shared.
The message I take from the all the contributions, however, is that it is the mood of the House—despite what the Minister has said—that this issue needs to be made compulsory. What gets measured gets done. If we think that we can achieve this without some element of compulsion, I am afraid that is little more than hope. It is not borne out by 10 years’ experience of trying, trying and trying again.
I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. The Minister has the message, and I hope she will take it away and discuss what can be done across the ministerial portfolio.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House believes every child should leave school knowing how to save a life.
School Governors
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Neil Carmichael
As I have already quoted Lord Hill’s view of governance and as the Education Act 2011 included reference to governance and talked about governors and the membership of governing bodies, that is on the agenda. I am simply saying that we need to think more about it now, but it has not been ignored. That is the key point. The context is the changing role of schools in terms of autonomy and accountability with implications for local authorities.
The next thing we should talk about is the role of Ofsted, which has a significant responsibility to check what governors are up to with regard to the performance of schools. The sad fact is that the chief inspector of schools, Michael Wilshaw, has said that 40% of governing bodies are satisfactory or inadequate. Therefore, 60% are doing a good job, but too many are not doing a good-enough job and some are doing a fairly poor job. We cannot have that because it is inconsistent with our objective of ensuring that all schools are good schools and, as part of that process, that governing bodies play their part.
That brings me to the question of local authorities when schools start to fail. Are they acting quickly enough and do they take bold enough decisions? For example, do they introduce an interim executive board when necessary, or do they wait until it is too late? There is evidence that they do the latter. We need to test that out and be bold enough and courageous enough to admit it. I am pleased that the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) is nodding in agreement.
There is no defying the facts, which are that on occasion local authorities do not act swiftly enough. Interim executive boards are quite useful tools. The interesting thing is that when they are introduced they are swift at dealing with some of the problems that they encounter, largely because they have focused skills and are not stakeholder-oriented. They focus on how to make a school better. In my experience, putting in place interim executive boards has produced encouraging results. The kind of governing body that we should consider for all schools in the future should be more like an interim executive board and less like the kind of boards that we sometimes have, which are too big, too cumbersome and too focused on stakeholder situations.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
The concept of a temporary executive board underlines the question of what exactly should be the role of the head teacher—we need clarity on this—which I had always thought to be executive, and the governing body, which I had always thought to be non-executive. In a sense, if we are talking about establishing an executive body, we must question whether the non-executive piece has done the right job. However, I am not sure whether we can equate the work of an executive temporary body with that of the governing body. I am interested to hear about the clarity that we will need between executive and non-executive bodies.
Neil Carmichael
That is an interesting question, but what I am trying to sketch out is the nature of the board itself. A board of 20 members and stakeholders, which effectively salutes the status quo and wants the status quo to be maintained, is a different thing from a smaller, more flexible and more responsive board that is charged with the task of improving the school. That is the distinction that I am trying to draw out, and we should have that in mind when we think about future governing bodies.
Neil Carmichael
I thank my hon. Friend for that very astute question, and the answer is an emphatic yes. I believe that smaller schools in rural areas would benefit from one good governing body running two or three schools, and we should also look at vertical models, by which I mean secondary schools with feeder schools and not just primary schools. To some extent, it is horses for courses, but we must put this idea on the agenda as a direction of travel to ensure that we get better governance for schools, including those that he mentioned.
Anne Marie Morris
I assume that in all this discussion my hon. Friend still recognises that there is a real value in the governors’ relationship with and understanding of the school. The point, probably, is to look at all the players and ensure that they all play their part appropriately, because it would be unfortunate if the governance structure became so dislocated that it became a form of Ofsted. I do not think that is what even my hon. Friend wishes to see.
Neil Carmichael
Absolutely, my hon. Friend is right. It is not wise to say that we will go in completely the opposite direction. There is a balance to be struck, which is that where there are neighbouring schools with common interests and common issues that would benefit from a federal or partnership model of governance, that model would be good and should be welcomed. However, where there is a school that clearly does not fit that description, that type of model would not work. It is up to governing bodies to think that matter through. I am simply saying that the federal or partnership model of governance is one that we should promote where it is useful and relevant.
The second aspect of structure that I want to talk about is size, which my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire touched on. In many cases, a governing body of 20 or more governors is simply unnecessary. Actually, such a body quite often ends up with just a core number of governors playing the decisive role, and once one of that core number goes the rest are bereft of the necessary skill and expertise, and the governing body can fall apart. That relates to the recruitment problem. As we have heard, about 30,000 governor posts are still vacant, so it would be wise to consider relaxing the rules on the size of governing bodies and having fewer, but more focused and more skills-orientated, governors on a governing body.
I have already talked about the importance of governors challenging head teachers. It is absolutely right that head teachers should be challenged, but they should be challenged constructively. However, it is also really important that we have governing bodies that govern strategically, focusing on the long-term interests of the school and its pupils. It is necessary to think in terms of formulating a governing body that genuinely has that capacity to be strategic—to think about the school plan and what it can do to push forward the aims and objectives of that plan, and any other plan that is appropriate. Those are three areas of structure that need to be considered.
School Funding
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. There is a very strong representation from the south-west here today, including the Chair, and we welcome that.
School funding is an issue that has bedevilled the country, particularly for those of us who represent underfunded areas. In many ways, the problem of school funding reminds me irresistibly of the late 19th-century question of Schleswig-Holstein, about which Lord Palmerston says:
“Only three people…have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it.”
Although I would not suggest for a moment that the Minister responsible for schools and the Secretary of State for Education are the only two people who really know about school funding, it is fair to say that I certainly got lost early on in the quagmire of the local authority central spend equivalent grant—or LACSEG, which sounds very similar to some medicine that I once took for Barrett’s oesophagus.
None the less, the issue is clear to us all. There are many schools across the country, including all those in my constituency, whose pupils effectively lose out significantly in terms of the amount of money spent on them per year relative to pupils in the large metropolitan areas. In fact, there are some 2.5 million pupils in the F40 areas, which are the poorest-funded local authorities in England. Therefore, on average, £5,000 less per child is spent on children’s education in my county of Gloucestershire and other counties represented here today.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is exacerbated by the rural nature of constituencies in the south-west? Certainly, in Devon, that makes the problem of underfunding even more acute.
Richard Graham
My hon. Friend makes a very good point and speaks powerfully for children in rural areas. Of course, there can also be a problem for those in urban areas within a rural county. In my case, one of the reasons why some of us in Gloucester feel so passionately about the issue is that we are a relatively poor city and a relatively rich county. I am sure that other hon. Members have similar situations, and I am happy to take interventions from them on that point.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
7. What steps his Department is taking to support micro-businesses.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)
The Government have already acted to make it easier to start and grow micro-businesses. Action has included cutting corporation tax rates, extending relief from business rates, and introducing a moratorium from regulation for all micro-businesses.
Anne Marie Morris
The Minister is conducting a review of disruptive business models as part of the red tape challenge. Has he considered introducing a new limited liability scheme for sole traders, similar to the limited liability partnership? I believe that such a scheme operates in France, and it would be fantastic to see one like it operating here.
Mr Prisk
I know that my hon. Friend is a real champion of micro-businesses. The Government have focused on practical measures that help the micro-businesses’ bottom line, but, as she knows, I am happy to consider the legal issues with her and her all-party parliamentary group.
Self-Employment
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I will be brief, given the number of hon. Members who want to speak. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills, which reported last August, said that we are at an all-time high; we have 4.1 million people in self-employment at the moment. That report was particularly interesting because it examined what drives the increase in self-employment, and it does not depend on the economy, as we might have thought. It is principally driven by looser regulation, access to finance and Government policy that specifically drives unemployed people into self-employment. The 1980s was a particularly fine example of that.
[Mr Gary Streeter in the Chair]
Let me deal with each of the three elements. With regard to Government policy, the new enterprise allowance has been a great step forwards; I endorse it entirely. The Government now need to consider whether, having extended it from young people to the whole working population, they should take away the requirement for a person to have been on jobseeker’s allowance for six months as a precursor to being eligible to receive it. Many people see unemployment as a bit of a stigma. They may want to come into employment after having brought up children or for many other reasons.
Equally, the Work programme is excellent. I am working with the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who is responsible for employment, to consider the extent to which the Work programme is enabling and encouraging individuals to become self-employed rather than going into employment.
I come now to the two other issues raised by the commission’s report. On regulation, the Government have clearly taken a very good first step by exempting micro-businesses from regulation for three years. However, I urge them to exert all their energies on getting the European Union to exempt micro-entities—that is a new definition for the very smallest businesses—from new regulation. I gather that that is being discussed, but I urge the Government to push it forward as a priority.
The Government’s red tape challenge has been extraordinarily useful and powerful. It has explored 12 different areas of red tape—12 sectors—and five more are to come. The Government have said that they will report on that three months after the closure of the consultation. I look forward to those results. I urge the Government to examine in particular those regulations that disproportionately disbenefit the self-employed and the very smallest businesses. The EU has recognised the need to simplify regulation for the very smallest businesses. I ask the Government to work hard at insisting that the EU has its own red tape challenge. It has examined simplification, but it has not considered root-and-branch removal, which is crucial.
Finance is the third issue. Points have been made clearly and well about the challenge faced by the self-employed and the small business in trying to access finance. Tributes have been paid to Business Link. A new portal, Business in You, sets out a number of schemes that are available. There are 851 of them. My advice to Government would be that it is a great idea, but some guidance is needed because it is quite difficult for a self-employed individual to work out which of those is particularly beneficial.
The real challenge is ensuring that a very small business can find information about the opportunities available. It is the case that 28% of micro-businesses are not online, so we need to make the information available in libraries and to encourage the chambers of commerce and the local enterprise partnerships to play a role in disseminating that information. Without that, we will not secure the change that we need.
There was mention of the Government schemes to support access to debt, equity and guarantees. Most of those schemes are aimed at the whole remit of the SME community, which takes us up to 250 employees. The banks, who are usually the people delivering the schemes, will go for the easy wins because they are in business to make money, and the easy wins are the bigger businesses with good business plans and a good track record. The Government need to ring-fence—perhaps they will do this with their credit-easing proposals—a pot specifically for the self-employed, recognising that they are looking for smaller pots of money and do not have well developed business plans.
Perhaps the best initiative has been the growth of the community development finance initiative. The Fredericks Foundation should be recognised for the work that it has done to provide loans to those businesses that cannot find money anywhere also. I also pay tribute to the Government for considering making credit unions able to lend to small businesses, rather than just making loans to individual people. In addition, the Virgin Media pioneers proposal to enable those wanting to set up a business to be given financing at the same rate as applies to a student loan is definitely to be welcomed.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), who initiated the debate. He is absolutely right to say that culture change is the key. In the November report of the all-party parliamentary group for micro-businesses—I have to declare an interest here because I chair that group—the research that was supported by the London Business School, Lancaster university, Imperial and Manchester Metropolitan indicated that we needed an education change, not just at university level but at primary and secondary level. We need to consider how to inculcate the idea that setting up a business is a good, valuable and genuine alternative.
I am delighted with the Government’s support for the National Association of College and University Entrepreneurship, which has put in £500,000 to support the establishment of entrepreneur groups in universities across the country. It has succeeded in establishing groups in about three quarters of the universities across the country. It is now looking at colleges.
Finally, we need to enable the self-employed who are setting up small businesses to have bottom-up mentoring support. Although there is a Government scheme to create 40,000 mentors, a scheme that will require the banks to mentor those who get refused loans and the “mentors me” website, which is great, it is still not enough and we need to consider bottom-up volunteering, and, as has been suggested by the Virgin Group, we need local chambers of commerce and others to take some responsibility as well.
I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply. I hope that I have not taken up too much time and I welcome the changed agenda that this debate heralds.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady and know that she has recently completed a report on some of the barriers to young women taking advantage of the opportunities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. A new UTC is opening in Sheffield and I hope to be able to work with her to ensure that it generates enthusiasm among boys and girls in Sheffield and across South Yorkshire for the superb education it will offer.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
The Secretary of State will perhaps be aware of recent correspondence I sent to his ministerial team about the possibility of opening a UTC in Newton Abbot. Has he had an opportunity to consider the proposal, which would transform our local economy, and would one of his team be prepared to meet me to discuss it?
Michael Gove
One of my team will be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend—I imagine my colleagues will be fighting to see her. Plymouth is already benefitting from a new UTC, but there is no reason why other equally beautiful parts of Devon should not also benefit.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anne Marie Morris Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making the case for that primary school. Sadly, the state of the school estate that we inherited from the previous Government was such that many schools, particularly primary schools, require investment. We will consider every case sympathetically, and I hope that I or a member of my ministerial team will have an opportunity to talk to her to see what we can do to help in that particular case.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
3. What proposals he has to improve the quality of teaching of children with special educational needs.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)
Our Green Paper on special educational needs and disability set out proposals to improve initial teacher training and continuing professional development so that leaders and teachers in schools and colleges are well equipped and confident to identify and overcome a range of barriers to learning and to intervene early when problems arise.
We will encourage schools to share expertise and learn from best practice and ensure sharp accountability for pupils’ outcomes.
Anne Marie Morris
Will the Minister look at how we can help young people with special educational needs make the transition into work, given that they are more than twice as likely as their peers to be not in education, employment or training?
Sarah Teather
Transition is at the heart of what we are trying to achieve with the Green Paper, and the reason for setting out an education, health and care plan from nought to 25. The focus is much more on outcomes, specifically to try to deal with transition, so that we start planning for independent life at a much earlier stage. The Green Paper sets out the direction of travel, and we hope to get input from across Government. I encourage people with a specific interest in the subject to respond to the Green Paper and give us their views on whether it meets young people’s needs and whether we should do more.