Al-Madinah Free School

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), will publish information showing the progress made across the country in last year’s exam results—progress that, thanks to our reforms and to Ofqual, we can be assured is real progress and not simply inflated progress.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

What is actually happening for the children at this school to make sure that we look after them?

EU-US Trade and Investment Agreement

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Yes, of course. I was just about to move on to scrutiny, which came up in many Members’ contributions and is important. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) about the uncertainty of forecasts and numbers, but I will give the Committee the analysis. The Committee will play an important part in scrutinising the negotiations. Of course, as many Members have said, the negotiations will be led by the Commission, so we must ensure that we do not get in the way of positive developments of substance by publishing things that the Commission would not want us to publish, but within those constraints we will ensure that we engage with the Committee, and indeed with Members on both sides. I think that it would be positive to have debates such as this one as the process goes forward.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Matthew Hancock]

Of course.

Pupil Premium

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point—that youngsters with English as an additional language often face challenges, particularly when they go into school. As he will know, however, they often make extremely rapid progress, performing above the level of young people who have English as their first language. We will take the opportunity provided by the review of the national funding formula to make sure that we get proper support for young people with English as an additional language so that schools have the right amount of money for the right amount of time to help these children to perform well.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

What advice would the Minister give to head teachers about parents, albeit a small percentage of them, who simply do not encourage their children to perform academically? What can be done about that?

[Mr Laws]

What is very encouraging—the head teacher of the primary school that the Deputy Prime Minister and I visited this morning spoke to us about it—is that many schools nowadays are not simply sitting back and waiting for parents to engage and shrugging their shoulders when they do not. Many of the best schools in the most deprived communities are going out to engage with reluctant parents and they often have considerable success in persuading those parents that education is important for their young children’s future. This can be a way of engaging parents who might not have had good educational experiences themselves, potentially enriching their own lives by contact with the school. I would encourage head teachers and teachers with parents of the type that my hon. Friend describes to visit some of the schools that are doing this work very well, as I think they could learn a tremendous amount from them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I respect teaching assistants. I am also very interested in what Reform has to say, but above all I obey what the Treasury tells me.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give me his assessment of how well the new Harris academy in Beckenham has been doing since its foundation?

[Michael Gove]

The Harris academy in Beckenham, like all Harris academies, is performing significantly better than its predecessor school. May I place on the record my gratitude for the visionary leadership shown by Lord Harris of Peckham, Sir Dan Moynihan and those Members of Parliament from Mitcham and Morden to Beckenham who have championed Harris academies, often in the teeth of opposition from the National Union of Teachers, the NASUWT and other unions that have acted as the enemies of promise?

Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

I do not think that that is an accurate representation of my view. I came into the post just a couple of months ago and I am looking at the issue very seriously. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has written to the industry and it is appropriate to proceed on an evidence base. Once we receive the written responses, discussions will be required with the industry and, as I have said, we will return to the House with further information on what has been presented to us.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Will the Minister outline how she, as the Government’s representative, might help independent freehold houses generate business and, in particular, line up with independent mini-breweries?

History Teaching

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Chris Skidmore]

I was going to get on to another figure. In 159 schools, not a single pupil is being entered for history GCSE, which includes academies and comprehensives—it is roughly balanced between the two. We must have an honest debate about the curriculum. The national curriculum in the 1990s intended to make history compulsory to 16, and we should be looking to do that in academies, comprehensives and all other schools.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Is it my hon. Friend’s intention to make sure that every student studies history until GCSE level? If students are taking GCSEs, which presumably most of them are, they will therefore take history at GCSE, which is something that I totally support.

[Chris Skidmore]

I want history to be compulsory in some form to 16. I will come on to the important issue of the qualification later. Just as maths, English and science are compulsory in all schools, so too should history. Education is about not simply providing skills, knowledge and requirements for jobs, professions and universities—or whatever route or career a pupil may decide to take—but creating a canon of knowledge. I want every pupil to leave school not only with the basics but with an understanding of the basic principles of our constitution and history. They should have a rounded education and history plays a vital role in that.

Girls (Educational Development)

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

For 14 years before becoming an MP, I was a primary schoolteacher. I ended up as deputy head of the primary school that I went to when I was three—Billy Backwater, perhaps, and some might say that I have swapped one set of bells and playground humour for another. While I was a teacher, I taught eight, nine and 10-year-olds. The young girls had confidence, dynamism and enthusiasm—I could see it in their body language, their movement, their facial expressions and how they interacted with boys, teachers and each other. Something happens around the age of 13 or 14 that turns girls from dynamic people to not-so-dynamic ones who adopt the role of second-class people in school.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) on securing this debate on a subject that is rarely debated. The briefing pack from the House of Commons Library concentrates on jobs and not on the essence of the debate, which, as you have said, Mrs Main, is girls’ confidence.

The hon. Member for Wirral West mentioned many research documents and books. I draw hon. Members’ attention to Mary Pipher’s book “Reviving Ophelia”. Ophelia, as hon. Members will know, determined her own value by how she was perceived by her father and Hamlet, and ended up dying, drowned in a beautiful dress that made her look ever so pretty but dragged her down and kept her underwater, surrounded by flowers.

At the crucial age of 13 and 14, in early adolescence and puberty, the battle for self is won or lost. Much is made of qualifications such as GCSEs and A-levels, but only 18% of a person’s success, measured over a lifetime, is down to qualifications. We focus attention and funnel billions of pounds of funding into education, but is that the wisest use of our public funds? Are there other ways we could try? Could we divert some of it into confidence-building measures such as mentors and role models?

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

If what the hon. Gentleman says about early puberty and age 13 and 14 is correct, should we not concentrate all our efforts on that age group? If we have to take resources away, we should take them and concentrate them on that age group, in order to give them the confidence to shoot through and go on to do GCSEs, A-levels and so on.

[Chris Ruane]

I agree that it is a crucial age, but as another hon. Member mentioned in an intervention, the most crucial age is probably nought to three, when children are dressed up in pink or blue and told to be active or passive. For me, though the thrust of this debate is that 13 and 14 are a critical age.

Other factors that determine success are emotional intelligence and confidence. Luck, as everyone within this room will know, provides a great deal, as do social connections and networks. Some people are well connected—I would say that most of us here are—but in places such as the constituency of the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), a seaside constituency like my own, social networks and networking opportunities for jobs, placements and internships are minimal.

During the period when girls are aged 13 to 14, smartness is seen as a liability. There is pressure to be popular rather than honest with themselves, and young girls are taught to be feminine rather than a whole person, as that might be slightly unfeminine—“She’s a bit tomboyish. She’s a bit too big for her boots. Get down.” Many young girls spend more time on make-up than on developing value systems. We could do a lot to teach young girls to develop their own value systems.

I mentioned the education budget, but there are also consequences for the health budget. Mental illness among children is running at 25%, and obesity in young children at 29%. We are following the American model, although we are 10 years behind, so we have a lot worse to look forward to. Binge drinking is on the rise, and smoking has decreased in virtually every sector of society save for one group: 15-year-old white working-class girls. What is going on? Why is that group the worst affected? Incidences of bulimia, anorexia nervosa, loneliness and self-harm are on the increase and need to be tackled. Not only do they have an economic consequence, they have a human consequence. Girls’ complicated lives are often reduced to one thing by the media: weight. “If you’re thin, you’re okay. If you’re not, you’re not okay.”

Mary Pipher’s book outlines some practical tools, one of which involves centring oneself on a regular basis. We are all on the hedonic treadmill. As MPs, we get up at 6 or 7 o’clock in the morning and get home at 11 o’clock at night; often, we find little time for our spouses, parents and children. We are not alone; other people out there are in the same position. We pass on those values to our children, and they do not have time to reflect. Reflection and centring are key, especially for young girls, but perhaps for all of us here.

Mary Pipher says that a distinction should be made between thinking and feeling. Girls should not just follow their emotions; they should slow down and think. Is that feeling intelligent? They should check with reality. Girls need to develop personal value systems, which she describes as a north star, by asking, “Who am I? What is important to me?” and holding it up so that when advertisers try to throw them this way or that, they say, “No, I’m going that way. I’m following my star.”

Mary Pipher says that we should take time for the important decisions in life. Teenage pregnancy has been mentioned. Deciding who their first boyfriend will be is a big step for girls, as is how that relationship unfolds. Who are their friends? Are they the right friends and not just the popular ones? Do they have the right values that fit with a girl’s own personal values? Mary Pipher also says that young girls, like all of us, should try to manage pain. Pain can be a good thing if we handle it right: if we feel under threat and get on top of that threat, we become stronger people; if we fold under it, we become weaker. It is a dangerous game. Pain is all around, and to overcome that pain, proper support is needed, as is time to talk with family, friends, trusted mentors and role models. Organisation of a young person’s life is also important. We should help them manage their busy schedules and be there when they need help.

Other hon. Members mentioned providing the right activities, although it sounds a bit old-fashioned, a bit big society and a bit like the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr Cameron)—perish the thought. The right activities, such as exercise, reading, hobbies and meditation are all old-fashioned but good stuff, as opposed to the wrong activities, which are thrown at kids in every advert. We witness something like 1,400 adverts a day. They are full of promotions of drinking, eating and overeating, sex, drugs and smoking. The advertising industry is a multi-billion-pound industry that tells us to consume, consume, consume and not to bear in mind its effect on individuals and families.

Developing the right activities is important. As was mentioned, we need to recognise, record and celebrate successes, whether in sports or other activities. That becomes a virtuous circle, as a girl gains confidence in one activity such as singing or dancing and becomes a bigger person for it. Again, it is big society-ish, but we need to develop altruism and volunteering to get away from the self-absorption forced on us by the media, and to use skills such as humour and to develop a thick skin against our peers when they say, “Your values are wrong and ours are right.”

In his book “Affluenza”, Oliver James calculates the amount spent on advertising in America to be 2% of GDP. In the UK, it is 1.5%, and it is 1% in mainland Europe. The purpose of advertisers is to sow discontent and make people think that their life is not quite right, but that it would be right if they had this or that. Some of us can say, “No, I don’t want that,” but young girls are especially vulnerable to advertising and that state of permanent dissatisfaction. Advertising comes through the TV, the radio and, increasingly, through the internet. It comes especially through girls’ magazines, which have been described as the work of the devil. Considering the values that they communicate to young girls, should such magazines be regulated? I know that we are not in favour of press censorship, but let us at least have an assessment of the harm that they are doing to young women.

[Chris Ruane]

With respect, Mrs Main, every single point I have made is about confidence. This is about someone creating their own value system rather than having the media’s values rammed down their throat, and it is about developing as a person with individual confidence. Another way people can combat such pressure and develop confidence is to check the messages that enter their ears and eyes daily. Hon. Members may laugh at the concept of media studies, but when we became a literate society 600 years ago, literacy flourished and people studied it. Now we are in the age of the moving image, but we do not study the moving image. It is pooh-poohed, because the owners of the media do not want us to understand it or to appreciate the control that they have over our lives.

[Bob Stewart]

I stand as a father of four daughters, grossly over-confident—

[Chris Ruane]

You or the daughters?

[Bob Stewart]

I am overawed by them. The hon. Gentleman mentioned literacy. I also have two sons, and I have found that the daughters spend so much time reading compared with the boys. That is absolutely fabulous, and we should use it somehow to develop confidence among our children.

[Chris Ruane]

They obviously have a very good father.

[Bob Stewart]

They have a very good mother.

[Chris Ruane]

In conclusion—I realise that others want to speak—there is a number of positive actions I hope the Minister will take. Much of the research that was done for Mary Pipher is American, and although there is a direct correlation with this country, we need British research to find out what is going on in our society. We must not leave such research on dusty shelves, but use it to create practical activities in the classroom and in the home for young women. We need a curriculum that includes properly structured confidence building, which is measured over time to ensure continual improvement. Dare I say it, we may even need regulation. I know that the Government are loth to regulate, but we need an assessment of the damage advertising causes to specific groups, especially young, vulnerable women and children, and if regulation is needed, we should implement it.

Education Bill

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Mr Hayes]

On the point of ugly ubiquity, I happily give way to my hon. Friend.

[Bob Stewart]

In my constituency we have Bromley college, and I have been speaking to people there. Will these changes allow Bromley college to control more properly the fees that it has to charge? At the moment, it is affiliated to Greenwich university and is being forced to charge fees that it does not want to charge, which is very much against the spirit of what we are trying to do. Can it have the freedom to seek other partnerships in the way that we have been discussing—for ordinary degrees, for example? There must be some way in which colleges, which we all want to charge the minimum fees, can actually charge those minimum fees rather than be forced to raise them.

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend is the very antithesis of both ugliness and ubiquity; indeed, he is known for his integrity and truthfulness. As Keats understood, and Shaftesbury in the other place later, truth and beauty are intrinsically linked, and so my hon. Friend’s truthfulness has an aesthetic all of its own. On the specific point that he raises, the way in which colleges have, over time, been dictated to and controlled from the centre has largely been about funding mechanisms. Colleges have danced to a tune set around funding. He is absolutely right to say that greater freedom means being more flexible about funding. It means allowing colleges to devise the kind of offer that is right for their locality in the kinds of partnerships that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) described, and funding needs to reflect that.

We are on a journey, and not all of it can be done overnight. When I came into the job, I was able to put in place a number of important changes that stripped away some of the central control. Since that time, we have done more, and these amendments go a step further. But this is not the end of the journey. The destination we seek is what I began to describe a moment ago—a more eclectic, more responsive and more dynamic system. I am not, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, one to overstate my virtues, but I would go so far as to say that what we are doing in further education is a model of public service reform: a deregulated system that is free to respond to local circumstances; dynamic and innovative; flexible and, in my judgment, imaginative—I make no apology for using that word—about exactly what it does and how it does it; and uses funding to feed that kind of new beginning. As I said, though, I do not want to overstate the case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

Another bit of good news when we saw the figures from the statistical release was the substantial growth in manufacturing and engineering apprenticeships; the number of starts was 47,000, which was an increase of 20% on the 2009-10 figure. So we had very strong growth in the very apprenticeships that my hon. Friend rightly identifies as crucial to our future prospects. Interestingly, the figures clearly show that there is growth across the system. Again rather counter-intuitively from the perspective of the critics, there has been growth in sectors where employment more generally has either slowed or declined. So apprenticeships seem to be bucking the trend in areas such as manufacturing and engineering. Even in construction, where there has been a very sharp decline in employment, apprenticeship numbers have held up. That suggests that businesses are investing in training and in their future, and that apprenticeships are succeeding. This is a flagship policy, devised in opposition and delivered in government.

[Bob Stewart]

Has the Minister considered—I am sure that he has—the thought that a great number of high-quality individuals have had considerable technical training in the armed forces? Could they come in at level 2, with this possibly leading on to level 3? Is that part of the system he envisages?

[Mr Hayes]

This weekend, I was looking at a submission that suggested that we might ask the National Apprenticeship Service to look specifically at people who have left the armed forces. I am particularly concerned about those who have left the armed forces with a disability. One of the challenges that the previous Government faced and that we face too is in ensuring that the apprenticeship system is accessible to as many people as possible, and I do not think we do well enough by disabled potential apprentices. I asked, at the very early stages of my distinguished ministerial career, for the NAS to examine that area closely, but I want it to re-examine it. I particularly want the NAS to examine what we can do for disabled ex-servicemen.

[Bob Stewart]

rose—

[Mr Hayes]

I happily give way to my hon. Friend, who is a great expert on these things.

[Bob Stewart]

I hope that the Minister will forgive me, because he has almost made the point I was going to make, which is that we could involve disabled ex-servicemen as part of this system. That would be a superb way of helping them to get into decent employment in civilian life.

[Mr Hayes]

I am glad that I anticipated my hon. Friend’s point. Foresight is not essential for a Minister, but it is a great advantage, particularly when it can be displayed on the Floor of the House of Commons.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) mentioned growth and others have talked about progression, so in dealing with the remark made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby about happiness, I wish to draw his attention to Yeats. I know that the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), the shadow Minister sitting next to him, is a fan of Yeats. Lord Layard did such good work on this particular amendment, so I shall cite the following from Yeats:

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.”

When apprenticeships are growing, I am particularly happy because it is testament to the success of our policies.

School Funding Reform

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That plug has been registered, and I hope that it will appear in the South London Press and other newspapers that circulate in Croydon.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My constituency has one or two of the primary schools that are now in urgent need of repair. How long will it take before the doomsday survey of the fabric of our schools is completed and the funds are therefore available?

[Michael Gove]

We are prioritising that survey and we hope that it can take place within a year, but that need not mean that schools have to wait. They can make clear their specific needs and we will look at the evidence, judging school against school so that those most in need are prioritised.

Careers Advice (Schools)

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

I am delighted that this important matter is being debated in the Chamber today. However, as it is an important and complex matter, I would very much like this to be the start of a discussion on careers advice for all ages, so that we can create a much greater awareness of the issue as a whole.

It is because of the scope of the topic of today’s debate that I shall focus on careers advice for those at school and the importance of specialist careers professionals as a separate practice and distinct occupation, pushing the sector towards professionalism under a unified body and voice. At the outset I welcome the Government’s plans for an all-age careers service, but it is important that all Members can discuss the matter before any further steps are taken. I therefore welcome the time that we have been given in the Chamber this evening.

It is an apt time to examine careers advice for the young given that the latest figures for those not in employment, education or training are at an all-time high. At the end of the third quarter in 2010, the figure for those aged between 16 and 24 in England was 1.026 million. Of those, 160,000 are in the north-west—the highest figure of any of the UK regions. Of particular concern to me is the fact that, in Wirral, 16.8% of those aged between 16 and 19 are not in education, training or work.

Added to that is the ever more sophisticated array of choices of job, training, education and routes to work. It requires the accompanying sophistication of knowledge and know-how to enable students, at the right juncture in their lives, to choose the right subject so as to follow the right education path, preferred course or apprenticeship training, or fill out the right job application form. It is not only providing up-to-date information that will allow every student the best opportunity to pursue subjects and interests that best suit their talents and aspirations, but ensuring that young people and their parents are well informed about the potential of the decisions and the positive ways in which they can influence their future working lives.

All young people, of all backgrounds, abilities, interests and ambitions need good careers education information, advice and guidance so that they can achieve their best and fulfil their potential. However, that is currently not happening with sufficient consistency for every child throughout the country. That has led to comments such as those by the Local Government Association, which said that careers advice was found to be “not useful” by

“the majority of young people”.

The Institute of Career Guidance said that the provision of careers services in England was “patchy and inconsistent”. Although the National Foundation for Educational Research recognised that Connexions was making a significant contribution, it was for a small number of people in a very specific situation. Again according to the LGA, the majority of young people were

“more likely to ask their parents, teachers and youth workers”

for careers advice than to seek formal careers services.

If those points are added together, we have a lot of young children who are not getting the service that they require. I therefore agreed wholeheartedly with the Secretary of State for Education when he said at the annual conference of the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services in June:

“We are clearly, as a nation, still wasting talent on a scale that is scandalous. It is a moral failure, an affront against social justice which we have to put right”.

The question for all hon. Members is how we are going to put that situation right. How will we find a system that works for all children of all abilities from all backgrounds? How will we provide a flexible system with underpinning standards and requirements? Today, I will make a few suggestions, welcome others, and await the Minister’s replies.

I want to make it clear at this point that, when I pass comment on the failings of the current system, I am in no way passing comment on the thousands of careers staff, educational welfare or youth service staff, who work tirelessly throughout the year, dedicated to their chosen profession. The debate tonight is a constructive overview of careers advice; it is not a question of the staff, but a look at the current system, asking how best that focus should be directed, as well as how best the staff, resources, infrastructure and intelligence already in place can be used to achieve what is best for our youth today. There is also a key question about the transition from the current to the proposed system which I would like the Minister to address.

A quick look at the history of careers advice might provide a useful insight. From April 1974 to April 1994, local education authorities had a statutory duty to provide a careers service under sections 8 to 10 of the Employment and Training Act 1973. The purpose of the service had been mainly to provide guidance and counselling to young people in full-time education in order to help them make the best of their abilities when selecting a career. It had also helped adults requiring information on retraining and in promoting schemes directed at unemployed young people.

In 1990, the Conservative Government undertook a review of services to consider the effectiveness of existing organisational arrangements, with the aim of recommending the most relevant system for delivering careers information, advice and guidance for young people. The review led to proposals to introduce legislation that would facilitate a mix of provisions, including direct management by training and enterprise councils, joint TEC-local education authority provision and a local service contracted out to the private sector. That amended the 1973 Act and transferred the responsibility for the careers service from LEAs to the Secretary of State.

Under the previous Government, in 2001, Connexions was implemented and the careers service subsumed completely within the new Connexions structure. Subsequently, in line with the social inclusion agenda, the emphasis for careers advice was shifted away from universal schools provision to those not in education, employment or training. However, in July 2009, Alan Milburn published a report commissioned by the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) into social mobility that was highly critical of the previous Government’s provision of career services, in which he judged Connexions an expensive failure.

Similarly, the Sutton Trust, the education charity, found that only 55% of pupils had a formal career action plan meeting with a careers adviser or a teacher—down from 85% in 1997. Recognising that the Connexions service was not working, in October 2009 Labour published “Quality, Choice and Aspiration: a strategy for young people’s information”. Criticism focused on the fact that poor or non-existent career advice had allowed many people to take A-levels inappropriate to the university degrees to which they aspired or to choose degrees unsuitable to their ideal career. Some were encouraged to go to universities when advanced apprenticeships would have been better or had gone for unsuitable short-term jobs from Jobcentre Plus. The National Council for Educational Excellence noted that

“state school teachers are often ill-equipped to offer adequate advice to students”,

leading to unjustified divisions of provision between different types of school.

Such criticisms of a system would lead me to believe that the advice being given was too little, too late, to too few, and of a varying quality. One of the questions being raised tonight is whether we need to start tackling careers at a much earlier age to discover where a child’s passions lie. We do not need anything prescriptive or pre-suggestive when a child is young; we need initially to allow a child to go on a natural discovery of his or her favourite subjects, and then to build on that love of a subject to explore career options constructively, asking, “Where would that subject lead?” We are talking about the application of education and appreciating the building blocks of school, work, employment and, most of all, life fulfilment.

In my mind, that falls in line with the recent report from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which stated that science, technology, engineering and maths—STEM subjects—are not being highlighted until later in the educational process, by which time students may have bypassed those career options. It added that there is evidence that

“engaging with young people before they reach secondary school has the potential to create more positive attitudes towards STEM”.

Potentially, therefore, we are missing out on a section of children who might have gone into a science career. Inadvertently, we have closed a career path to a swathe of children who may well have gone on to excel in and relish such a career. Most importantly, that affects the individual, but the wider picture is that it affects society as a whole.

As chair of the all-party group on the chemical industry, I am repeatedly told the same story, which is that we are losing valuable talent—so much so that reports are coming to me that we are losing and have lost generations of young technicians and engineers. Not only that, but the industry is crying out for posts to be filled. That equates to career opportunities and jobs that are not being taken. Those are employment gaps that we could easily be filling now, especially at a time of high youth unemployment. There have been so many wasted opportunities. The Institute for Manufacturing and Professor Allport, who is the head of particle physics at Liverpool university, co-ordinating projects at both Daresbury science and innovation campus and CERN in Geneva, confirm that point.

I hasten to add that I cannot believe that the current situation is unique to STEM subjects. It must span across a range of subject areas, the message being: if we can engage young people and children in future career options and get them interested from an early age, they can connect with a broad range of choices of which they might not otherwise be aware. If they have a particular interest, they can tailor their education to that interest. Young people often miss out on important opportunities because they do not take up the correct subjects and are not adequately informed early enough about the choices that they need to make for their careers.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

rose—

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

I do not believe that that is what is happening. Not only have I read out quotations from other people, but when the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath commissioned a report into the matter, he said that the project in question had been expensive and had not worked. I also specifically said that I was not looking at the staff individually, because so many of them are well qualified, believe in the job passionately and are completely dedicated. The focus of this evening’s debate is where things are going wrong. Where do we need to focus our future direction so as to capture people with the infrastructure and the systems that are already in place, so that we do not lose anything, but instead take things forward?

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my hon. Friend for letting me get off the second bus. Does she agree that the focus in recent years has been far too much on pushing young people down the academic route, towards university? Many of the vocational ways of getting full-time work, including apprenticeships, have simply not been helped—I will not say “overlooked”—by the system. I want pupils in Beckenham, along with those in every other constituency, to be given more opportunity—a broader scope; a full range of options—so that they can choose the route that best suits them and their skills.

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend makes a key point, which I was going to touch on a little later. Did the requirements on schools perhaps produce some distortion, pushing children down a university route that might not benefit them all? That is why I am asking for far more sophisticated careers advice, so that each child gets the career outlet that is best for them, and not necessarily one that produces extra positive statistics for the school concerned. It is always about the child and how that child moves forward.

What sort of advice are we talking about, and who will provide it? In his review of higher education, Lord Browne stated that careers guidance should be

“delivered by certified professionals who are well informed, benefit from continued training and professional development and whose status in schools is respected and valued.”

However, in times of austerity, with ever-decreasing schools budgets, we need to ensure that we are able to make such a commitment. We need high-quality guidance for all children that can help young people make the right choices.

Added to that, a survey of young people from workless families found that 70% struggled to find work, that 25% felt that their parents did not have the knowledge to help them find employment and that 49% said that they did not have the role models to look up to or respect. That implies the need to bring such role models into schools to meet young people. In fact, the Deloitte Education and Employers Taskforce found a “substantial” divide between what young people wanted from their careers advice experience in school and what they actually got, including levels of involvement with employers. The findings showed that 95% of young people agreed that they would like employers to be more involved in providing advice and guidance about careers and jobs.

We therefore need to look at the interface between schools, other organisations and the professional careers bodies. I concur with the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, Christine Blower, who said that the conclusion she drew from the Ofsted report on careers advice was that

“Not every teacher should be expert in careers advice, but… young people should know who to turn to when they need guidance on future learning or on employment. Careers education in secondary schools should not be an also ran. Schools should have the resources to employ staff who can give dedicated and knowledgeable advice.”

I would add that careers advice requires a co-ordinated interface of individuals and bodies working together, which requires standardisation as well as flexibility, aided by the creation of accredited professional organisations bringing real business examples into the schools.

My points for the Minister are these. We have to look at the new proposals, particularly the fact that schools will have a legal duty to secure independent and impartial careers advice for their students. Schools will be free to decide how best to support young people to make good career choices. It might be perceived that that could lead to a gulf in the provision of careers advice among schools, councils and areas. I would like to think that that will not happen, but I would like some clarification. Some children could be getting better advice than others, so we need to ensure that that does not happen. We need to ensure that what we have said about universal specialist training happens.