Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

I pay tribute to the work of Anne Glover, who has been a force for enormous good in Brussels. I am concerned at these reports and it is my view and that of the Government, which I think the hon. Gentleman shares, that it is important to have strong and robust scientific advice at the heart of European policy making. That has been provided in the past and I very much hope that it will be provided in the future.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

T5. Every day in my constituency, 200 eastern European men assemble outside the local B&Q superstore on Honeypot lane. They tout their services aggressively for casual labour to people visiting the superstore, take money in cash and have no deductions for tax or national insurance for the work they do. What steps can be taken to ensure that people are employed properly and that the necessary deductions are made to support state aid?

[Jo Swinson]

Clearly, we are concerned about such scenarios, where people not only evade taxation law but do not have proper employment rights. I will happily look into the specific case that my hon. Friend raises and see how we can ensure that the rules are properly enforced.

School Places (London Borough of Harrow)

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, as we debate a very pressing need for new school places in the London borough of Harrow. The Minister and I have had previously a debate in this Chamber about providing new school places on a specific site, but I want this afternoon to debate the principal issue of the need across the borough for new places. They are urgently needed, as I will outline.

The key point is that although Harrow is unique, it is not unique in requiring new school places. The birth rate across the country has increased dramatically in the past 10 years and therefore the demand for primary school places right across the country has increased. In the 10 years between the last two sets of census figures, the birth rate increased by some 688,000, so places are required across the country. Even with existing capacity, by next September there will be a further need for 256,000 new school places across the country. The vast majority of those are of course primary places, of which 37% are in London, so London has the principal problem. However, the situation in Harrow is even worse if that is possible. The population rise in Harrow has been 15.6%, compared with the national increase of 7.9%. That is just for the general population. Our increase has been double the national increase. Harrow is also ranked 23rd out of 326 local authorities in the country for density of population.

Right now, nearly half of all the youngest pupils in Harrow are being taught in overcrowded classes. That is more than anywhere else in England. It is clearly a disgrace that that is the position, and we need to put it right urgently. Across the borough, there are some 107 reception classes with only one teacher that are larger than the Government limit of 30 children per class. That is the largest number for any local education authority in England and it affects 3,332 pupils in Harrow. That, to me, is something that stands out and needs to be addressed straight away.

That is the current position. There is also a problem in relation to the roll and the increase expected next year. We will need places for an additional 1,639 pupils in reception, but if no action is taken, by 2022 we will need an additional—this is across the education sphere—4,555 pupil places. The position is quite stark in Harrow because of the population growth. Of course, I have been talking just about primary places, but as the primary bulge progresses, so those children will go on to require secondary education as well. At the moment in secondary schools, there are 100 oversized classes, affecting 3,108 children at key stage 2. That is not the worst figure in England, but it is still extremely high and it will get worse.

In terms of responding to the demand, there have been agreements for funding, which I will outline in a minute—I am referring to the additional funding for additional classes, which are taking place right now—but they only put a sticking plaster over the extent of the problem. I think at this point it is worth remembering what happened under the previous Government. The Labour Government, despite the fact that our population was increasing and the number of births was increasing, cut the number of primary places across the country by 200,000, and they cut the funding for extra school places by one quarter. They made no attempt to control immigration, and the fact of live births plus immigration exacerbates the position in boroughs such as Harrow, where large numbers of immigrant communities come to live. They are very welcome. They work—they work hard—and they expect to have school places for their children when they are there.

The other issue that I think is important in this process is that in 2012, when the coalition Government were looking at the expansion programme for primary and secondary places, the Labour administration running Harrow council were so incompetent that they could not even get a bid in for additional school places for Harrow, so in the past two years the problem has got progressively worse. Fortunately, we now have, from last year, a boost of nearly 3,000 places across 15 Harrow schools, including seven in my constituency alone. That is welcome news, but once again it only starts to deal with the particular problems.

Some of the schools have received funding, and that is very welcome, and additional funds have gone in to top up the number of places—some £20 million in Harrow over the three years of the plan. The Minister will be aware of Avanti House school. That will provide an additional 1,600 places from reception through to sixth form once it is in place. We look forward to planning permission being granted for that Hindu free school in the borough. We have a proposal, which I believe Ministers or least officials are considering this week—I do not expect this Minister to give any view on it—for a new bilingual primary school in Harrow, which will be a free school. The interview takes place this week, and I wish the school every success. It will be fundamentally supported by the London diocese and will have a Christian ethos, but will not be limited to Christian admissions. That will help to answer the problem, but of course it does not deal with the problem overall.

Finally, we have the Whitefriars school expansion, which will be a unique arrangement. That multi-academy trust was formed last year. It brings together two primary schools, but—blessed by the council—it will now expand to ensure that we have a secondary school together with those two primary schools. However, that brings a problem. The new 750-place secondary school, with 150 places in the sixth form, will be a new state-of-the-art building in an excellent area. It will be sited in Wealdstone, which is the most densely populated ward of any area of Harrow. It has more than double the density of population compared with the rest of Harrow. The problem relates to the fact that the local schools forum has been allocated money for the start-up process. This is a unique case. It is the only academy where we are expanding from being primary to include secondary. Including secondary has start-up costs, and the start-up costs will relate to specialist teachers as it starts to take pupils in. The funding gap between what it has been allocated and what it requires is £800,000 in the first year of expansion, reducing to £400,000 in the second year, and to £200,000 in year 3. The only way in which currently that can be funded is by taking money away from other schools and other expansion programmes.

As I have outlined, the problem is that in Harrow the range of increases suggests that the increase in population will continue and that we will need an additional 20 reception forms on top of the current planned phase 1 and phase 2 permanent places that are funded at the moment. There is an enormous need for the expansion, right up to the 2022 period. We will then need secondary school places, and so it will continue.

The real problem for the London borough of Harrow is that at the moment we are expanding existing schools and that process has reached capacity. There is no real room for adding an extra year on to an existing site, so the council will have to look for new sites in the borough to meet the ever-increasing need. That increases the cost and the difficulty, because building new schools takes a lot longer than expanding existing ones. Thanks to the rapidly developing crisis, in my view caused by the Labour Government and exacerbated under a Labour-run council in 2012, we have this extended problem, which at the moment is being marginally addressed. Not a week goes by without someone coming to me in my surgery and saying that they cannot get a place for their child in a school, and asking what I will do about it. It is a serious problem.

I end with a plea on behalf of the Whitefriars school expansion. The school was given undertakings by the Education Funding Agency that it would get the additional funding, but the EFA subsequently changed the rules and the school was told that it could not have the funding and would have to apply to the local schools forum. The schools forum essentially told the school, “We are very sorry, but you cannot have the money unless we take it from someone else.” We are talking about £1.4 million, which is a significant sum of money on revenue. At the moment, there is no problem on capital, but there is clearly a problem on revenue.

I invite the Minister to visit and see the development of the project at first hand, to hear about the excellent work that is going into improving schools in extremely challenging conditions and to take a view on what can be offered to assist the Heathland schools development, in particular. I invite him to meet me, members of the council and possibly my other colleagues in Harrow to see what can be done to meet the enormous demand, which is increasing year by year. Although we are taking steps jointly, we have a serious problem that will only get worse unless we take prompt action to put it right.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries, for what I think is the first time. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing the debate and setting out so clearly his concerns about the situation in his constituency. I know that he has been a champion of schools in his constituency and has worked hard to make sure that problems relating to basic need are dealt with.

I believe that this is the first debate since the change in responsibilities within the Government, so I would like to take the opportunity, if you will allow me, Ms Dorries, to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). He was an outstanding Secretary of State for Education under the coalition Government, and he focused a great deal on the need to improve standards of education and to narrow the gap between young people from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds. He will be much missed in the Department for Education, and we wish him good luck in his new and considerable responsibilities.

I would also like to pay tribute and send best wishes to my hon. Friends the Members for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) and for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), who have also gone on to important roles in government. I welcome back to the Department the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), who was an outstanding Schools Minister in the early years of the Government.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East for giving me the opportunity to set out some of the crucial work that the Government are doing to deliver new school places across the country and in his constituency. I also want to respond to the points that he raised. During this Parliament, the coalition Government will have invested more than £5 billion to create much-needed school places, which is a considerable increase on the amount allocated under the previous Government. As a result, last year there were more than 250,000 more places in English schools than at the election in 2010, when the coalition Government were formed.

That extra investment is necessary, as my hon. Friend has explained. The number of pupils in English schools is rising, and is set to continue to rise well into the next Parliament, first in the primary sector and then on into the secondary sector. The London borough of Harrow anticipates a 26% rise in primary pupil numbers between 2009-10 and 2015-16. London authorities face a particular challenge given the scale of population growth in our capital city and in the south-east, the mobile population, the challenges of finding suitable sites for new schools and expansions, and the high costs of building in our capital city. From 2011 to 2015, London has been allocated £1.6 billion of funding from the Department, which is more than a third of all the money available in England for new school places.

Ensuring that every child can attend a good or outstanding school in their local area is at the heart of the Government’s comprehensive programme of reform of the school system, and it is a key requirement of every parent across the country. To achieve our aims, we have announced an additional £2.35 billion to support local authorities in planning and creating the new school places that will be needed beyond the end of the Parliament, from 2015 to 2017. That is, of course, on top of the £5 billion that I mentioned for 2011 to 2015.

Funding for school places is allocated to support local authorities in their statutory duty to ensure that there are sufficient school places where they are needed, and local authorities have responsibility for determining how that funding should be invested in the schools across their area, and whether they should expand any of the schools in the area, including academies, free schools and voluntary aided schools, or establish new schools. To make it easier for local authorities to carry out their duties, we have extended the basic need allocations to cover a three-year time horizon, rather than local authorities having to plan a year at a time. That gives them more certainty and allows them to plan strategically for the additional places that they may need.

We have listened to representations about the particular challenges faced by London authorities, including Harrow. The methodology used to allocate funding for 2015 to 2017 has taken into account, for the first time, the higher cost of building in our capital city. There is a special uplift for London authorities, which London Councils has welcomed. We are targeting funding more effectively, based on local needs, using data that we have collected from local authorities about the size of schools and forecast pupil projections. We have also taken account of some of the specific pressures in local authority areas, rather than looking at those areas as a whole and possibly missing pockets of local need.

Along with other authorities, Harrow faces challenges because of increasing pupil numbers, as my hon. Friend clearly set out. As I have said, Harrow anticipates a 26% rise in primary pupil numbers between 2009-10 and 2015-16. Under the previous Government, between 2007 and 2011, some £11.1 million of basic need funding was allocated to Harrow. The coalition Government have allocated £57.5 million in basic need funding to Harrow over this Parliament—including through the targeted basic need fund, which I think my hon. Friend mentioned—and we have announced a further £12.5 million for basic need between 2015 and 2017. That will amount to almost £70 million of basic need funding for Harrow during this Parliament.

Although I fully accept my hon. Friend’s suggestion that the previous Government were rather slow to identify the trends in pressure on primary school places, I hope that he will accept that the coalition Government have really stepped up efforts to address the problem and put much more money into areas such as his constituency. The Department wants to continue to roll forward the basic need allocation for an additional year each year to allow local authorities to plan over a longer time horizon. If we can do so and collect the data from local authorities on time, we expect to make another allocation at the end of the year or the beginning of next year.

[Bob Blackman]

On the potential allocation of additional funding, will the Minister clarify whether a bidding process will be involved, or whether the allocation will be based on existing data that have been provided? If there will be a bidding process, what is the cut-off time by which the local authority must apply, so that there are no excuses about being unaware of the need when the money is allocated? I hope that Harrow will get its fair share of money.

[Mr Laws]

It is not a bidding round on this occasion. We will take a similar approach to the one we took last year. We will ask local authorities to supply us with their school capacity data, which show trends in pupil and population figures in their local area. We will look at the pressures across the entire country and at the costs of school building in different parts of the country, as we did last year, and we will review the assumptions we make in our planning process. Based on the pressures that we identify, which we will carefully reconcile with councils, we will make an allocation of moneys to councils across the country, but we do not require councils to bid on this occasion.

The money allocated during this Parliament includes the £34 million from the targeted basic need programme to expand the 15 existing schools. Those projects will create more than 2,800 new places and will be complete by 2015. The targeted basic need programme means that more places will be available at popular and high-quality local schools, which is part of the criteria. Successful expansion bids had to demonstrate a strong need to provide more places that would help to address high levels of over-subscription. Additionally, the places had to be in good or outstanding schools, based on Ofsted ratings.

As my hon. Friend mentioned, one of those schools was the Whitefriars community school, which received £15.9 million through the targeted basic need programme. That money will create an additional 210 primary places and 825 secondary places. I carefully note what he said about start-up costs for the project. Officials have been in touch with the school to support it through the conversion process, and they explained to the school that any start-up or growth funding costs would need to be met by the school or the local authority, which we would expect to manage and resolve those issues locally. That is the usual procedure for all these arrangements, and I look forward to hearing about the school’s progress.

My hon. Friend set out his concerns on that issue, and if he is not satisfied with my answers, or if he feels that inconsistent information has been given, I would be willing to meet him and people from his local area. Before he considers whether that is necessary, I undertake to write to him after this debate to set out clearly my understanding of the issue in detail.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the Minister for giving way once again. My understanding is that the school, as a multi-academy trust that is expanding to provide secondary places, is a unique case that was not considered by the Department in that round. Equally, and most importantly, when the board of governors embarked on the mission to expand, one set of rules was in place, which was that funding for start-up costs would be provided directly by the EFA. It appears that the rules changed during the process to require the funding to be from within the schools forum allocation, which the board of governors regards as a potential breach of trust—that is how I would frame it—in the sense that it was told one thing and the rules changed as the process went along. I do not expect a response now, but I would appreciate it if the Minister considered that when he writes to me.

[Mr Laws]

I have carefully noted what my hon. Friend says. Of course, I cannot make any commitments today on which I might not be able to deliver, but I will look into the details. I will write to him after the debate to set out clearly the Department’s view. If he is not satisfied with that response, he should communicate with me or come to see me. I would be happy to discuss the matter with him.

Harrow council has assured us that it has good plans in place to ensure that all children in the borough will have a school place for this September, and that it has plans to secure sufficient school places in the long term. Given the pressures across the country, we are obviously looking closely at the delivery in each part of the country, and we will keep those things closely under review, particularly in areas where there are pressures.

The Department is also rebuilding the four schools in Harrow that are most in need of repair through the Priority School Building programme. Those projects represent an investment of some £39 million in Harrow schools. A number of the projects will include an expansion of the school’s capacity, thereby increasing the number of children who can learn in a safe environment. We have also announced a second round of Priority School Building programme bids. The deadline for applications is next Monday, and we will announce the bids that have been successful later in the year.

The London borough of Harrow has two open free schools. Free schools are making a major contribution to delivering basic need, and they are delivering good quality in areas where they are needed. Seven in 10 open mainstream free schools have been set up in areas where additional school places are needed. Those free schools are in addition to the £5 billion provided for basic need, and the Government have funded 174 new free schools, thereby massively increasing resource in areas where it is needed. Some 24,000 pupils are currently attending free schools, and all open and planned free schools will eventually provide 175,000 new places overall.

I thank my hon. Friend for the support he has consistently given to Avanti House school and for his tireless work in supporting the search for a suitable site for the school. I am delighted that the Whitchurch playing fields site is suitable for the permanent secondary site. The school only opened in 2012, but it is already proving popular with local parents. When it reaches capacity in 2018, the school will provide 1,680 much-needed local school places. The local authority supports the school, and its sister school, Krishna Avanti, is also popular—so much so that it is doubling in size to provide places to meet demand.

I also thank my hon. Friend for supporting the application for the Harrow bilingual primary school. I am sure he understands—he indicated that he did—that I cannot comment on applications that are under consideration until the assessment process is finished, but in the Department we have carefully noted his support for the project. The Department hopes to be able to announce the successful applications by the end of September 2014. If the group is successful, the Department will of course write to let him know.

In addition to the investment of basic need funding in Harrow, Krishna Avanti primary has been awarded more than £700,000 through the academies capital maintenance fund to expand by 270 places. I understand, however, that there have not been any applications from Harrow schools in the current round of applications to the ACMF. The fund can help academies to expand, and I suggest that Harrow academies may want to explore that option in future.

Although Harrow is fractionally below the London average on the wider issue of first-choice preferences, the vast majority of parents, despite the pressures that my hon. Friend carefully set out, have been offered a place at a preferred school—the figures are 94.6% for primary and 94.7% for secondary. We should not be complacent about that, however, as we know that a number of parents were not offered their top preference school, and we know about the demand pressures in the system. That is why we are working at pace to reform the supply of places at good schools through a rapid expansion of the academies programme, and by creating the additional free schools that I mentioned.

I am glad to have been given this opportunity to update the House on our progress in delivering sufficient school places across the country, and particularly in Harrow. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work in his part of London. I will write to him about the specific issue that he raised with me.

Question put and agreed to.

Whitchurch Playing Fields

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Westminster Hall

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I wish to raise an issue regarding Whitchurch playing fields—which are, as I will describe, unique—and general issues for the Department for Education in the longer run.

The Whitchurch playing fields are very much a beloved local resource in my constituency, being 25 acres of grass land, enclosed by Abercorn road, Old Church lane, Wemborough road and the aptly named Marsh lane in Stanmore. They are a wide open space, with trails for dog walkers and a pavilion, which has been subject to vandalism, graffiti and severe fire damage over recent years.

The fields are used by 35 local schools for sports purposes, including Whitchurch First school, which is on the site itself. They are also used by youth groups, community organisations, religious groups and football clubs on a regular but, unfortunately, informal basis at present.

Just to give some background, the site was originally called the Carreras sports field and was owned by the Carreras cigarette factory as a place for employees to exercise and for general use. It was subject to a compulsory purchase order by what was then Middlesex county council in 1960, to be used specifically as school playing fields. The usage of the playing fields has a long precedent, and that is why residents and local groups are fighting extremely hard to protect them.

It is important to state up front that the issue is not about maintaining a green space for sentimental reasons; this is not nimbyism—far from it. Campaigners are open to appropriate suggestions about the future of the site, but they are wary of shady deals behind closed doors that prevent local groups, particularly local schools, from using the fields as they have done for decades.

The Conservative administration in Harrow between 2006 and 2010 looked at the possibility of using a group of sports clubs or a consortium to run the playing fields, but dropped the idea, owing to a number of concerns raised by residents. In 2010, Harrow council fell under Labour control and then, after an acrimonious split, independent Labour control. That was when all the trouble began.

The Labour-run council decided to progress a private consortium, known as the Whitchurch consortium, made up of Blake Hall Club, Runwood Homes and Cavendish Rowe, which stepped in with proposals to spend millions on rehabilitating the pavilion and building a sports and leisure complex on the site, which they said could be used by local schools. Everything was promised, including the earth and the kitchen sink. We were to expect improvements to the playing fields’ surface; a new sports pavilion with changing rooms and showers; a café and a bar; as well as numerous football and cricket pitches. The nearest school, Whitchurch First, was duped into offering support for the proposal, lured in by the brand-new sports facilities and a clean-up of the dangerous pavilion structure that adjoins the car park on its part of the site.

However, the Labour-run council completely failed in its duty to look past any of the smoke and mirrors and made some very questionable arrangements. For a start, the lease was given at a peppercorn rent, which, after a long battle was fought under freedom of information laws, turned out to be zero—absolutely nothing. Effectively, Harrow council was giving away those 25 acres of communal land to a private consortium for free.

The original bidding process was short lived and resulted in only two bids, one of which was later withdrawn. Even worse, the lease term for the development was changed to 99 years, with no stipulations given to ensure that the site would be used entirely for sports for the benefit of local schools and people.

The numbers do not add up. There is no way the consortium could use their investment in the site as it currently stands. It can be no coincidence that the head of the consortium is a private property developer. The fields are a large site with immense value for housing. Given the 99-year lease, how long after the sports facilities are built will it be before the site is earmarked for residential or business development to get a return on the investment? Beyond those concerns, residents also fear that the bar would be open all hours of the day and night, and that the sports centre would be used for large-scale events, with consequent traffic and noise.

I wrote to the auditor last year about the conduct of Harrow council in its dealings with the consortium. In its reply, the auditor reminded the council that it had to make

“all decisions about this land on a lawful and proper basis and after taking appropriate advice.”

In particular, the council’s attention was drawn to the advisability of

“carrying out a valuation prior to any disposal of the land, and to the need to ensure their tender processes are fair and transparent.”

The profiles of the people leading the consortium are somewhat questionable. One member, Mr Ramesh Nadarajah, is director of two Lancaster Gate-based firms: Cavendish Rowe and Cavendish Investments. Cavendish Rowe is an estate agent, with specific interest in the W2 London postcode. It describes itself as

“prime central London property specialists dealing in investments, sales and acquisitions”,

and says that it is

“fluent in understanding the value of each specific area. Our unique knowledge of London allows us to make fast decisions and act quickly on opportunities offered to us.”

Another of the groups involved in the consortium is Runwood Homes, a residential care service provider with no link to the Harrow area. The company has courted controversy, with some of its homes failing to meet adequate standards of care for service users while delivering seven-figure dividends to director George Sanders and his family. In 2009, Mr Sanders was involved in a case with Castle Point borough council, regarding his close friendship with a member of the council, Bill Sharp, and subsequent improper influence of planning officers by Councillor Sharp when dealing with an application made in 2007 by Runwood Homes plc, which resulted in Councillor Sharp’s suspension from the council.

The final company in the consortium, Blake Hall Club, is now referred to as Wanstead Sports Club LLP. The club was fined in 2012 for breach of its licence conditions, failing to prevent excessive noise and antisocial behaviour. The local licensing sub-committee in that area was critical of the club in a further report as recently as last year.

I am yet to be made aware of any connection linking that sports club, or any of the developers, with Whitchurch playing fields, let alone the wider Harrow area. That hardly suggests a group of stakeholders with a clear commitment to community ventures in Harrow.

Whitchurch residents discovered only by chance that the playing fields had been signed over to development, without even the slightest attempt at consultation, in 2011. Local residents Melanie and Stephen Lewis put in an application to have the site recognised as a village green, which I supported; even if it failed, it would delay things enough for the proposals by the consortium to receive far greater scrutiny. As it happens, the village green bid was rejected by Harrow council’s licensing committee at the end of last year, leaving the fate of the fields open for debate once again.

The deal that was struck was a bad one for local schools and community groups, which have always used the fields on an as-need basis, and there has yet to be an issue. The consortium proposed to allow only 1,000 hours’ use a year, 9 am to 5 pm weekdays in term time, with no word on whether that would be collectively or per school. The changing rooms would be made available free of charge only to a small number of schools in the local area—Stanburn and Whitchurch—and only community schools, so any academies would not be allowed access. Indeed, if those schools applied to become academies, they would be barred as well. All other local schools would have to pay for use—half price up to 200 hours a year but full price after that. Again, academy status would render them all ineligible for discounts.

Community groups would also be hard done by. Stanmore Baptist church, which adjoins the site, would have to cancel all but one event a year, and Age UK Harrow restricted to a mere 100 hours a year before having to pay its way.

It is true that something has to be done on the site. Some 60,000 square metres of the fields are on a flood plain—hence the name of the road, Marsh lane. The site provides necessary drainage—estimated as equivalent to 28 Olympic swimming pools—and any overdevelopment could damage existing properties in the surrounding area. The pavilion is a material consideration as well, as it will cost money to remove or save. The playing fields need more maintenance than they are currently receiving, so some strategy would be welcome.

I believe that the answer is now in evidence. The Avanti Schools Trust has identified the playing fields as a potential site for the desperately needed Avanti House secondary school. The existing Avanti House school is the only state-funded Hindu school in the country, offering all-through education, with both primary and secondary provision. The primary school, operating under the name Krishna Avanti primary school, is based on Camrose avenue in Edgware, on a site developed by the Conservative administration of the council.

The school, however, has had several difficulties during its formative years. The secondary school has struggled to settle at a permanent site. Having been transferred from the Teachers’ Centre in Harrow, it is now in Stanmore on the site of a former private school, which cannot be expanded any further. The fields are less than two miles from that main school site, so they are perfectly placed for the school’s expansion to accommodate 1,260 students at full capacity. That is a popular solution, which I praise the current Conservative administration for identifying and pursuing. Local residents back the idea as a means to provide more school places locally, which are desperately needed in the area.

If allowed, that alternative development would preserve the use of the fields for school sports for many years to come, not only for the immediate schools, but for all local schools, and it would provide an alternative green space. Currently, the schools have to face an over-strict booking system and the prospect of paying through the nose to use fields that should be free by right.

Other areas have used funding from a private consortium to create sports complexes for use by schools, but this is a unique position. Nowhere else in the country has the sheer number of schools needing to use an open space like this. There is simply no way that a booking system will be able to accommodate them all. It is a fundamental reality that provision for school sports locally would be harmed by the consortium’s proposals, and there is no way around that.

Crucially, when the application for village green status was being considered, papers were discovered that listed the site as school playing fields and therefore protected them from any redevelopment. The Department for Education’s permission is therefore required for any proposal that would have an impact on school sports locally.

I have secured this debate because it is vital that the playing fields are preserved for the use of all the schools that need them. I also believe that the site should be put into the hands of the Avanti Schools Trust, on the condition that the majority of the fields continue to be used, as they are now, for local sports, schools and local communities.

The Minister’s Department has begun a feasibility study into whether the Avanti House secondary school solution is a genuine prospect. If accepted, that would lead to a planning application being submitted soon and a school on the site by 2016. The Avanti Schools Trust is already a strong presence in our area, which has a very significant Hindu community, and it has proved itself trustworthy as a developer and as an excellent provider of quality education.

By contrast, the Whitchurch consortium is now threatening to sue the council if it does not get its way with the site. It claims loss of income and the cost of work carried out, which is ridiculous, given the peppercorn rent that it obtained in the original deal. Frankly, it has no interest whatever in doing what is best for our community. All it wants to do is make a profit, and it will threaten and bully as much as it can to get its end product. Is it any wonder that local residents are concerned?

The Minister was kind enough to attend a meeting with local councillors and campaigners at the end of last year and to elaborate on what would happen with the site. I fully understand that matters related to planning permission, noise pollution and so on do not come into the role of the Department for Education or that of the School Playing Fields Advisory Panel, but there is a duty to ensure that proper consultation takes place before the council can agree to any development on land that has been classified as having school playing fields status. It is very clear that no consultation took place in relation to the consortium’s plans in this case, which should render its application invalid. I call on the Minister to ensure that it is proven that any development would enhance school sports provision locally.

I understand that it is a matter of oversight, and it is not for the Minister to block applications based on local opinion, history, or on other things—even on what I think about the issue. It is about securing the future of the playing fields for their intended purpose. I believe the objections I have raised must cause concern to the Department for Education.

I shall end with a few questions for the Minister, which I hope he will answer in his speech. The feasibility study is currently being carried out for the Department and is likely to lead to the use of only a portion of the site by the Avanti Schools Trust. Will the Minister take steps to ensure protection from further attempts by private groups to land grab the rest of it, given the site’s status as school playing fields? Will the Minister confirm that the Department has not received any other applications to change the status of the fields—from school playing fields to private playing fields or for them to be used in any other ways that I described—from private consortiums, developers or any other interested parties?

Will the Minister offer any advice in relation to the issue of the playing fields being on a flood plain? Will the Department or the Avanti Schools Trust bear any responsibility for its drainage, particularly given the educational status and strategic nature of the site?

Finally, if the consortium were to gain control over any part of the playing fields, what protection can be given for use by schools that have opted for academy status? As I have demonstrated, the plans that the consortium currently envisages distinctly disadvantage those schools from using the land. Thank you for your forbearance in listening to me, Mr Streeter, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

School Funding

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

We will now have the consultation on the measures announced today. We will listen to the feedback we get from parents, teachers and others, and we will then make a final decision about the settlement for 2015-16. Given the importance of stability, we do not think it right to fix plans for years beyond 2015-16 until we know the education budgets for those years. It is for the country to decide at the next election whether it wants to return parties that are committed to ongoing funding reform.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

In the London borough of Harrow, 12 primary schools will add an extra class to each year group this September, and a further three primary schools will do the same the following September, which amounts to 3,000 extra school places. One problem is the lag between the pupils being allocated and the funding following them. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that there will be no attempt to reduce the amount of pupil funding in those schools, and that the funding will increase in line with his statement?

[Mr Laws]

We are certainly trying to ensure that in areas such as my hon. Friend’s we put in extra money to support the expansion of school places that is taking place. As he knows, we have now had the biggest increase in the primary population since the end of the second world war, and we are making sure that we put all funding, including capital funding, into the system to support that increase.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

There are often bonus levels that are extreme, but it is important to recall that at the peak of the financial crisis when the Labour party was in charge, there was a bonus pool of well over £12 billion. That has now shrunk to a tiny fraction of that, and at least one bank to which the hon. Gentleman referred—Lloyds—is making a significant improvement in the supply of small business lending.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to reduce the amount of EU regulation which affects businesses.

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

The Government continue to press the European Union to reduce burdens on business. We are focused on delivering the business taskforce’s report, their 30 specific recommendations for reforming EU law, and the “compete” principles that should apply to all new EU legislation. We have already achieved good progress on seven of the 30 recommendations, and we are seeing growing recognition of the “compete” principles among major European business organisations and in the European Parliament.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Businesses in my constituency complain not only about EU regulations, but about the fact that other countries do not play by the same regulations, and that when our civil servants implement regulations, they gold-plate them. What action is my right hon. Friend taking to remove that gold-plating and ensure that we do the minimum possible to abide by the rules?

[Michael Fallon]

I think there was too much gold-plating in the past, and we have reviewed all 132 directives implemented in the past two and a half years since we tightened the rules on transposition. Of those 132, there is only one example of a directive being gold-plated. That is the consumer rights directive where we took the decision to better protect consumer interests in the use of premium lines.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

As everybody acknowledges, business investment has been badly hit since the financial crisis, but with the economy rapidly recovering, I think we all expect—and the surveys suggest—that there will be a movement forward in terms of business investment, once capacity has been fully utilised.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

T5. The number of students coming from India has dropped by 25% since the new restrictions were introduced, which means we have fallen below the United States as destination of choice. What is my right hon. Friend doing to ensure that we attract the brightest and the best to our universities for the best education in the world?

Curriculum and Exam Reform

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Last, but certainly not least, Bob Blackman.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is clearly crucial that young people gain key skills at the earliest possible stage, particularly in mathematics. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that under the new curriculum, children will learn their 12 times table at the age of nine, rather than learning the 10 times table by the age of 11? Does that not demonstrate the huge shift that is going on to improve standards?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. There is a higher level of ambition at every stage in the national curriculum and a decisive shift towards 21st-century subjects, so that mathematics is more rigorous and the computing science curriculum is more attuned to the demands of today. Critically, that curriculum will not only prepare people to be the programmers of the future, but help to keep children safe online by ensuring that e-safety is at the heart of how children are taught in primary school.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely accept the hon. Lady’s point that Conservative-controlled Trafford is a superb local authority, and we can see the many schools that have flourished under its care over the years. As a strong local authority, not only has it welcomed the growth and expansion of outstanding schools—such as Urmston grammar, led by Mike Spinks, in her constituency —but it recognises that schools sometimes have a responsibility beyond their borders to help others to improve. In Northamptonshire we would not have schools improving had it not been for the actions of David Ross and other outside sponsors. Similarly, I know that there are schools in the north-west that wish to extend their wings, not least Altrincham girls grammar in Trafford, helping schools in deprived east Manchester.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

20. Three of the schools in my constituency have become academies, but there are still some laggards. What can my right hon. Friend do to encourage the rest of the schools to offer the same opportunity enjoyed by the young people in those academies?

[Michael Gove]

I think that the best thing I can do is join my hon. Friend in visiting those schools in person, so that we can have a charm offensive to persuade them to become academies. He will provide the charm—and I will complement him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

I congratulate Newham council on its leadership, and I congratulate all those involved in music education, who have been supported in London by the Mayor through the scheme that he has introduced to ensure that more children have access to instrumental tuition.

Darren Henley’s report on music education was greeted as probably the best report on the subject that had been written, and enacted by any Government, since the dawn of time. I am grateful that there is such widespread recognition of our commitment to school music.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

T9. Some 18,000 young people and teachers have had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz thanks to the wonderful work of the Holocaust Education Trust. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should commend those who are organising events across the country to commemorate the awful evil of the holocaust, and that it is important that all young people learn the lessons from the past so that it is not repeated in the future?

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely agree, and at a time when we are seeing the effects of prejudice and anti-Semitism on the rise—all of us will have been watching news programmes over the weekend horrified at the re-emergence of murderous prejudice in north Africa and the middle east—we will all affirm the vital importance of the work that the Holocaust Education Trust continues to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

The explosion of apprenticeship places is indeed welcome, but small businesses in particular have difficulty taking on apprentices. What is my hon. Friend doing to help small businesses to take them on?

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend is right: Britain’s small businesses are the backbone of our economy and of our communities. In the light of that, we are reducing the bureaucracy associated with apprenticeships and, excitingly, we are giving a special apprenticeship bonus of £1,500 to every small business that takes on a young apprentice.

School Funding Reform

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I visited almost all the local authorities in the F40 area—very possibly because they contain a number of Conservative-Liberal Democrat marginals. For a variety of reasons, I want to ensure that I am fair to all local authorities, which is why we will prioritise funding on the basis of need.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

The London borough of Harrow was at the absolute bottom of the queue for BSF funding, because all the secondary schools are outstanding despite being in very poor buildings. At the same time, there is a basic need case estimated for 16 forms of entry at primary school within the next four years, which is the equivalent of two additional secondary schools. How quickly can we start to see some finance flowing to get the places for the children who need them now?

[Michael Gove]

I hope that the finance will be flowing in this financial year. That is the intention. I appreciate that Harrow, like a number of local authorities in London, including Tower Hamlets, Barking and Dagenham, has specific problems. We need to look at them all in the round in order to ensure fair funding for all.