Young People (Employment and Training)

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Sheerman]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was talking about that rather obscure way of describing it—a well formulated dual education system. It is right to say that, too often, our education system is predicated on the expectation that children will go to school, go through the primary and junior years, go into secondary education at 11, take their GCSEs at 16 and be successful, and go through to the sixth form and get the qualifications to go into higher education. That does not apply to the majority of young people in our country yet. The majority of our young people do not actually do that, yet if people listened to most of the chattering classes, they would expect that that was the case.

The rest of the young people in our country have a much less certain future, only because we—all parties and all Governments—have tinkered with and changed the alternative. We have not changed the route through to higher education that dramatically, although there has been some change in nuance and there are some changes going through now. However, the fact is that we have been frantically trying to find ways in which to engage young people in meaningful further education, whether that be in colleges, by which I mean FE colleges, or whether it be through young people going into apprenticeships, going directly into employment—employment with training or, sadly, without training—or, of course, going into the hands of private trainers. There has been a range of opportunities.

The private training sector is very underestimated. I know the private training world very well. Unlike most parts of the education system, there are brilliant private sector educators and trainers, and there are some average ones and some not quite so good, but the market in private training is such that if someone does not perform, they are more likely to go out of business or see their business shrink quite dramatically than if they are running a college. That is the truth of the matter.

There is a cold wind coming through the education system and particularly in relation to the area that we are talking about today—the employability of young people and their getting the right skills for employability. That suggests that increasingly we must have greater transparency in the outcomes of the alternatives and accountability for what is delivered, whether it is the private sector through the Work programme, Jobcentre Plus and anything that it contributes, or what colleges do.

We all have to be very conscious of the last annual report of the chief inspector of schools. I was surprised that there was such a critical evaluation of the quality of FE in our country, which I felt, as a former Chairman of the Select Committee, was a slumbering giant. I was recently on the Skills Commission, looking at specialism in further education. Where further education is good, it is really good. We need only look at Newham and Hackney. We need only look at the brilliant experience in Cornwall. A fantastic-quality education is being delivered off six sites. People there know absolutely what the labour market is like and are engaging absolutely with small and medium-sized enterprises, not just the easy big ones, and delivering relevant skills training.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for the incredible work that he has always done in wanting to improve the life chances of our young people. Does he agree that there has been a tendency in recent years for the FE sector almost to compete for the low-hanging fruit, rather than seeking ways in which it can engage those who are not in education, employment or training by offering innovative and inspiring courses?

[Mr Sheerman]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. There is no doubt that the blemish on the record of our country, under several Governments, has been the inability to deliver high-quality education and training to about 25%—it is sometimes as high as 30%—of the population. They are a lost generation in many ways.

How do we have a system that allows so many children to underperform in primary school? We can predict by the time they are 10 that a significant percentage will never get the GCSEs to take them into a fulfilling career. By then, all the odds are stacked against them. What have we done wrong in primary school education? It is the new frontier. More people will look at the quality of primary education outcomes over the next few years, especially given the enormous pressure on places due to the boom in population growth. There will be a crisis in primary education. I am looking at the Minister, because he must know that.

We are not talking about primary education today, but when one goes into schools, and I still go into many schools over the year, every head says that they can predict NEETdom—the likelihood of a child becoming not in education, employment or training—very early, as the child emerges out of pre-school and into the early years of primary education. That is how challenging the problem is.

I am not sure, Sir Roger, how much time we have left for the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to set out what the Government are doing to tackle NEETs in the context of raising the participation age. I am particularly pleased to hear from the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). He has experience and a long-held passion. He was Chairman of the Select Committee on Education and Skills in the previous Parliament and clearly has a huge amount to say. It is important and valuable for young Ministers such as me to listen to what he has to say. I strongly agree that there is cross-party consensus on tackling youth unemployment, which rose too much in the good years and, although it is still far too high, is thankfully now falling.

The only point of partisan contention was the rather disappointing part about information, advice and guidance. The new duty on schools to provide independent and impartial advice, the age range for which has since been extended, came into force only in September and is now in place. It did not replace a system. The Connexions system was widely regarded as a failure. It is incumbent on us all to ensure that the information, advice and guidance duty on schools is in place. Misrepresenting it, as the hon. Gentleman did—for party political reasons, he said—is unhelpful, because this is an area with broad party political support.

I shall take the opportunity to answer the series of questions the hon. Gentleman raised. I will try to get through as many of them as possible, but I am happy to answer them all in more detail if I cannot get through them in the seven or eight minutes I have left. The debate about the future of 16-to-18 education takes place in the context of raising the participation age, which was set out in legislation in 2008 under the previous Government and which we are taking forward. Since 2009, participation in education and work-based learning has risen from 78.8% to 82.2%. It is going in the right direction, but we must ensure that the tools are in place to make it go further. I shall touch on six areas where we are taking action to achieve that aim.

The hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned apprenticeships and their value and importance. Doug Richard’s recent review of apprenticeships puts employers in a central role, setting standards, overseeing testing and becoming more demanding purchasers of training. We can all sign up to and agree with that. He wants a shift from what he saw as a box-ticking assessment to having clear standards towards the end of an apprenticeship, accompanied by a more open and innovative training market, with greater freedoms in how people are trained and greater emphasis on the outcome. I am very attracted to that model, which builds on some of the principles being tested through the employer ownership pilot. We will respond formally to the Richard review in the spring, and we will consult employers, educators, providers and apprentices, but we welcome the review’s direction of travel.

We know that, as apprenticeships become more rigorous, many young people are highly motivated by the prospect of work, but need support to get into it. I strongly endorse the hon. Gentleman’s support for work experience. The statistic that four episodes of work experience lead to a 10 times greater chance of getting a job was new to me; I am interested in the analysis behind that and want to know more about it.

The idea behind having a high-quality apprenticeship programme is that, as employers often tell me, young people lack the right skills and attitudes to succeed in the application process. When they have to compete against adults for jobs, they risk being passed over because they do not have such skills. Traineeships will support a significant number of young people into apprenticeships. We are consulting very broadly on their design, but our aim is for them to be available for young people from September 2013. They will offer a combination of extended work placements, work skills and English and maths, together with other flexible training and support to suit individual needs.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I completely endorse everything that the Minister says about building links between business and students, which will give students much more experience of the real world. I wonder whether, like me, he was very impressed by the “We made it” school exhibition earlier today? It has encouraged young school kids—often from year 9 upwards—to get involved in innovation and invention to build the entrepreneurs, engineers and inventors of tomorrow. We should encourage more such projects.

[Matthew Hancock]

I am extremely excited by that project and many similar ones that are springing up. Part of the duty on schools to give information, advice and guidance to that age group is to encourage inspirational people to get into schools to show what they can do with their life, and to motivate pupils by bringing a plethora of opportunities and those from different industries face to face with them, so that they can understand what is available.

A-level Reform

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Many creative subjects are also facilitating subjects—I would argue that both maths and English are creative subjects—but we are thinking about the other subjects as well, and engaging in further discussions with universities and other organisations about them.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on her strong and passionate delivery of a statement which I think will be broadly welcomed by students, universities and employers. Does she agree that allowing students to take the same exam three or even four times creates a distorted picture of their abilities which does not actually serve anyone?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I entirely agree. Our proposals have already been strongly supported by businesses as well as universities. The Institute of Directors has been very supportive, and, indeed, expressed its support this morning.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but as Minister responsible for vocational education I do not know why he is so dismissive of department stores. Retail provides many opportunities for young people to learn the skills that they need to be successful in the world of employment. Last week we had the opportunity to discuss qualifications at 16 and the importance of vocational education. I was delighted then that those on the Opposition Front Bench endorsed every recommendation in the Wolf report, and I am delighted also that we have an opportunity now to carry through those recommendations.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

My local education business partnership does fantastic work linking local businesses with schools and giving pupils a bit more understanding of the world of work and the workplace. What are the Government doing to help to promote such social enterprises?

[Michael Gove]

I am absolutely delighted that business, not only in my hon. Friend’s constituency but elsewhere, is playing an increasingly positive role in supporting work experience in schools and promoting an understanding of the world of work among the next generation. In particular, I have been delighted to be able to work with Business in the Community, an outstanding organisation supported and established by the Prince of Wales, that has done much to ensure that business plays its part in encouraging our young people to aspire to achieve more.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are giving head teachers the power over how they train up teachers and how to ensure that we have the best quality teachers in the classroom.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to raise standards in mathematics in schools.

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

We treat maths as a very high priority and are working to attract the best graduates into mathematics teaching through bursaries of up to £20,000. From 2014, we will remove calculators from primary tests to ensure that pupils master the basics, and we are reforming the national curriculum to focus on core arithmetic, which is key to so much future success in employment.

[Caroline Dinenage]

With that in mind, what steps is my hon. Friend taking to ensure that children have a good basic grasp of mental arithmetic before they are able to rely on calculators?

[Elizabeth Truss]

At present, the evidence suggests that 10-year-olds in England are more likely to use calculators than those in virtually any other country in the world, and we are 28th in the world league tables for maths. It is important that children understand and are fluent in multiplication, division, addition and subtraction before they use calculators. That is why we are removing calculators from the primary tests, in line with high-performing countries such as Hong Kong and jurisdictions such as Massachusetts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

The Connexions service was roundly criticised for doing none of that. Connexions, over which the last Government presided, failed according to Ofsted, the Skills Commission inquiry into information, the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions, and the Edge survey. We will do better, because we understand that good-quality advice and guidance help people to change their lives by changing their life chances. Of course this is a challenge; it is a catharsis leading from failure to success.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

Given the number of young people who are still not in education, employment or training, does the Minister agree that it is vital for young people to be made aware, throughout the education process, of the apprenticeships and the vocational and other opportunities that are available to them?

[Mr Hayes]

As I have said in the House before, for too long we convinced ourselves that the only means of gaining prowess came through academic accomplishment. Like William Morris and John Ruskin, I believe that technical tastes and talents deserve their place in the sun, and the careers service will highlight that so that people with such aspirations can achieve their full potential.

Free School Meals (Colleges)

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Mr Davies, and I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) for the opportunity to take part in this important debate. As he rightly notes, it seeks to end an anomaly that penalises some of the most disadvantaged teenagers in our education system, including those in my constituency of Gosport who are committed to furthering their education and their opportunities in life at our great local sixth-form colleges.

St Vincent college provides a diverse education for more than 1,000 16 to 18-year-olds. It has been recognised by Ofsted as the heart of the local community, and it continues to offer a range of practical and innovative courses—such as last year’s successful marine skills course—that seek to attract those not in education, employment or training. As hon. Members may be aware, it also produced this year’s BBC “Apprentice” winner, Ricky Martin—of which it is very proud.

Despite the importance of this local college, however, its students are being served a raw deal because as a number of colleagues have pointed out, they are denied the privilege afforded to their counterparts in school sixth forms throughout the area—the simple right to a free lunch for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I believe that state of affairs persists as an anomaly and not as a deliberate policy. It makes no sense for new academies, university technical colleges and free schools to offer free lunches while pupils at sixth-form colleges are excluded, and such an anomaly needs to be addressed. As the principal of one of my local colleges highlighted, the lack of a good, nutritious lunch can harm concentration, undermine achievement and deter participation among the most disadvantaged students.

The anomaly also flies in the face of the Government’s wider record on education, which reflects the Department for Education’s absolute commitment to improving school provision, widening access, and prolonging participation in education and training. That record speaks for itself, with colleges that have been freed from bureaucracy, more than 1,776 academies open across England, and a 63% increase in apprenticeships in just one year.

I acknowledge the argument put forward by Ministers that sixth-form colleges often operate a more flexible timetable than comparable institutions, yet often that is precisely the reason why they need more support. The Association of Colleges estimates that three times as many students at college would qualify for a free lunch as in a school sixth form. Through their flexibility and diversity of subject provision, sixth-form colleges are clearly succeeding in attracting those from more disadvantaged backgrounds, and it is ludicrous that they are denied the resources to support those students.

Ultimately, it is not necessary to prove that offering free school meals to the most disadvantaged students is fair and right; that has already been established. There is no need to argue about whether a good, nutritious meal helps students in their studies because we already know that is the case. We need only to resolve why those fair and reasonable conclusions are applied to academies, free schools and school sixth forms, but not to colleges. The Government have made a firm commitment to improving educational opportunities for all young people. Addressing the anomaly of free school meals would be a small but crucial step towards delivering that commitment.

Apprenticeships

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this incredibly important debate. I have learned an enormous amount from just sitting and listening to the contributions. It is a huge tribute to the Government’s commitment to apprenticeships that in just 12 months we have witnessed an incredible increase of more than 50% in the number of apprenticeships across the country. As the Minister said, however, it is not just about the increase in numbers but about the quality and standard of apprenticeships. The greatest growth has been achieved in level 3 apprenticeships, which means that more young people than ever are gaining the equivalent of A-levels in their chosen field. That is very important in my constituency, which has a proud maritime and naval heritage and a great tradition of engineering skills.

It is always heartbreaking to see young people who, when the academic door is closed on them at quite an early age, are uninspired by the work choices available to them. At best they have unskilled work, and at worst a life not in education, employment or training. I would like to think that the apprenticeships that are on offer could raise their aspirations.

Such apprenticeships are right on our doorstep, because key employers such as EDF and Network Rail are helping to reinvigorate the national skills base through a major apprenticeship training centre run by Babcock at HMS Sultan in my constituency. At any one time, up to 400 young adults are carrying out apprenticeships there for vital engineering and technology jobs. The dedication and passion of the apprentices are immense, as they know that they are gaining high-level skills for significant and tangible job opportunities. Such apprenticeship programmes open up opportunities for all.

Remarkably, last year women made up the majority of apprenticeship starters for the first time. The story of one female apprentice, Alannah at HMS Sultan, is one example that illustrates what has happened. After just a few months at the centre she was described as an exceptional apprentice with a highly promising career ahead of her. With her apprenticeship at Southern Water offering experience in a broad range of engineering roles, it is clear why she finds her training so rewarding.

We must not pretend that the Government have achieved all they can for potential apprentices, including female apprentices. Alannah admits that she still experiences some prejudice in the male-dominated world of engineering, and more vitally recalls that she received no support or advice whatever at school about pursuing that route. The reality that her case illustrates is that many schools are simply not doing enough to promote apprenticeships. We must ensure that they are recognised and endorsed as a viable and exciting opportunity for young people. What better way of doing that than to get young apprentices into schools to talk about their experiences? Alannah says that she has been going to speak to kids in schools, and I ask the Minister whether more apprentices could be encouraged into schools. They are the best advert for what they are achieving.

The training offered at HMS Sultan totally belies the traditional and limited image that many young people and their teachers have of apprenticeships. Contrary to what Opposition Members have said today, apprentices there serve between 12 and 24 months of their three years’ training on site at HMS Collingwood, where they gain skills, tangible job opportunities and the joy of living away from home without the burden of university debts.

To build further on the successes of the past year, we must ensure that our schools and young people do not hold the damaging misconception that apprenticeships are second best. The breadth and diversity of the opportunities at HMS Sultan could put some university courses to shame, with the apprentices taking on fully functioning professional roles early on in their training.

There is also evidence throughout my constituency of how apprenticeships can build the resources of a community. At the new maritime skills centre, there are plans for an extensive apprenticeship programme, with talks currently ongoing with a company about the provision of apprentices for offshore wind farms. The potential for the students to gain high-level employment, and for employers to guarantee that their workers have the skills that they need, is immense. That is a real boost to the local economy.

Last year, Gosport saw more than 1,600 people start apprenticeships. I sincerely hope that that figure will grow and grow in the coming months and years, to the benefit of students, employers and the community. I also hope to encounter more girls like Alannah who are doing science, technology, engineering and maths-based apprenticeships throughout my constituency and getting the most from their fantastic opportunities.

Girls (Educational Development)

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

Thank you, Mrs Main, for allowing me to take part in this incredibly valuable debate.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) for the huge contribution she has made to tackling the lack of confidence among girls by securing this debate and by working over many years to bring this issue to the public consciousness. It must have taken some confidence to stand up today and speak about this issue, because confidence among young women seems for some to be a marginal issue that is worthy of comment but always plays second fiddle to the goals of academic success, sporting achievement and extra-curricular excellence in schools. I believe, however, that the most important thing we can take from today’s debate is the understanding that confidence is absolutely pivotal to a girl’s success. That confidence and self-belief, which eludes so many girls in our schools, is the foundation of their achievement throughout life.

At senior levels across the sectors women remain a rare breed. FTSE 100 boards are plagued by a chronic under-representation of women, and only one of the 12 Supreme Court judges is female. However, the commendable aim of getting more women on the boards of top companies or to the heights of the professions is entirely alien to many girls in my constituency. The worlds of business, law or science are a million miles away from where some of the young women in Gosport believe they can take their lives, because of their persistent lack of confidence and aspiration. One teacher told me quite bluntly that many girls will get pregnant because they see having a baby as the one thing they are capable of achieving. As a primary school teacher, she sees first hand that from a tragically young age girls allow themselves to be shouted down by boys in class, as they mimic the lack of confidence, attainment and ambition they see in their own mothers and other female role models.

As children grow, so does the gender gap. National statistics show that girls are more than capable of outperforming boys throughout school. I could mention as anecdotal evidence the fact that, on the school run on Monday morning, my nine-year-old son bemoaned the fact that the two most brilliant children in his class were both girls and asked at what age girls stop being better than boys at everything. Despite the statistics, however, many girls are falling behind in the most deprived areas of Gosport. A teacher told me about one girl whose ability in maths far outstretched what she was actually achieving. At a certain point the girl started to believe that doing well in maths or in science was in some way not cool or attractive.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West mentioned a survey by Girlguiding UK, which found that being a hairdresser or beautician is the top career goal for many secondary school girls. Although, God knows, I appreciate the work of beauticians and hairdressers as much as the next woman, more work is needed to ensure that careers advice and work experience opportunities highlight the hugely diverse avenues that are open to women.

[Jessica Lee (Erewash) (Con)]

I apologise for not being here earlier for the debate; I was detained in the main Chamber. Does my hon. Friend agree that we have an opportunity to advance the possibility of careers in science and engineering, and to show how attractive they can be for girls and how much opportunity there is?

[Caroline Dinenage]

That is absolutely correct. Raising aspiration for girls is about not only showing them opportunities but convincing them that those opportunities are within their reach. More than half the girls questioned eschewed science and engineering, because they believed that careers in them would be too difficult. From a very early age, our schools must convince girls of the simple truth that they are capable of achieving a great deal. One pioneering primary school in my constituency has launched a children’s university, which runs every Friday. The children’s university empowers kids as young as five to chose their own courses in subjects as diverse as microbiology, woodwork and Spanish. For a girl who has never seen a woman in her family go to university, or indeed even hold down a job, the impact is immense. The role that our schools play—through careers advice, the introduction of positive role models or innovative projects such as the children’s university—is central to raising the confidence and aspiration of girls.

Finally, we must accept that promoting confidence in young women requires a holistic approach. Other Members have said that eating disorders, mental health issues and self-harming all greatly undermine what girls can, and believe they can, achieve. We need to encourage more joined-up thinking between schools, training providers, and other youth and health services, rather than just seeing academic failings in isolation. Nurturing confidence in young women will ultimately rest on seeing the whole person; it will involve seeing the lack of ambition they experience at home, the insecurities that are re-confirmed by their peers and the emotional challenges that young girls will always endure. Only then can we ensure that young women will reach the great heights that we know they are capable of in their chosen career.

Adoption

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak. I will be brief, because I know that right hon. and hon. Members want to contribute to this debate.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) on securing this debate on an issue that is very important to a lot of people out there among the general public who are interested in becoming prospective parents. They are interested in this debate, because the hon. Lady has expressed a lot of the frustration that many of them feel when they have to go through the process of adoption.

In the research papers that we received before this debate, one figure given to us was that last year, only 60 out of 3,600 children under the age of one who are in care were adopted, and in addition the average time that the process of adoption took was two and a half years. We all know that when a child reaches the age of four, the possibility of their being adopted is very slim indeed. They may go into foster care, but it is certainly very difficult for them to be adopted.

The research papers state that one in four adopted children were forced to wait more than a year before they moved in with their new parents. I have to say that my experience as someone who has adopted—I will go into that experience more in a moment—is in relation to the prospective parents: those couples who believe that they can offer a good home to children and who have tried for many years to have a family in a natural process but have never been able to do so. They are frustrated with the legislation on adoption. We have heard about the form-filling. In the words of people who have come to me, they are frustrated with “the intrusiveness” of having to sit down with social workers. The hon. Lady mentioned the good work of social services, and I accept that point, as being a social worker is a very difficult job. However, for older prospective parents aged between 30 and 35, having to sit down and talk to a young social worker who has very little experience of life and rearing a family—their experience all comes from a textbook—and tell them why they cannot have a family is very difficult. The prospective parents have to tell the social worker all their personal details and the process is very frustrating from their point of view.

There is a balance to be struck in all of this. I understand—and I am sure that all right hon. and hon. Members realise this—that some of the things that have happened to children over the years, and even in recent months, for example, baby P, children being starved to death and all those sorts of things, are horrific. In my opinion, anyone who does that sort of thing to a child is not fit to live in society.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has raised the issues that people who want to adopt, or even foster, children are faced with. There is a myth that if someone is a smoker, or unmarried or even overweight, they will not be considered a suitable adoptive parent. Of course, many parents throughout the country face all those issues and it does not make them any better or any worse parents. We must also address the issue that people are expected to be paragons of virtue in everything that they do before they are regarded as perfect adoptive parents.

[David Simpson]

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Lady. Certainly, if being overweight had been an issue, I would not have fitted the bill. Later on this afternoon, my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) will introduce a Westminster Hall debate on the Government policy on obesity, and he has dared me to attend. [Laughter.] I will go to it.

The hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) is right. No one is perfect and it is very hard to get a role model of a parent. We all have frustrations. Even if people have children through the natural process, they experience frustrations because they do not know how those children are going to turn out, which is difficult. The hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) raised the issue of the age of prospective parents and I think that she said she is 47. May I say that she looks very well for 47? If I was a social worker, I would take her for 27, but we will not go down that road.

Returning to the serious point, it is nonsense for social services to restrict the number of prospective parents just because someone is over 40, or 45. That is absolutely scandalous. One of the prospective parents who had come to see me and who had been told that they could not adopt, was told that one reason was they were over 45, so when the child reached their teenage years the prospective father could not play football with them. That is absolute nonsense—the whole thing is crazy.

We must try to get a balance in all of this. In Northern Ireland 25 years ago, what my wife and I did was very new. We went to an agency, we went through missionaries, and we adopted our first child from India. That was 25 years ago this December. I think that we were the second set of parents in Northern Ireland to adopt a child from a foreign country. The reason was simple; it was because the waiting list to adopt a child in Northern Ireland was horrendous. It was unbelievable. We felt that we could give a child a home, and as we could not have that child from the British system, we were forced to go down another avenue.

We did that 25 years ago. We have had no problems whatsoever from a cultural or ethnic viewpoint, and we have experienced no racism in any way. My daughter is now 25 and she runs her own business. Then we adopted twins from Paraguay. At that time, the dictator in Paraguay made it very clear that he would prefer it if children died on the streets of Paraguay than be adopted by a western society. He did not have his way and we adopted the twins. Someone asked us after we did that if we were trying to start our own United Nations, but we decided to stop at just the three children because we knew that the United Nations was nothing to be proud of. We did not go down that road.

Our twins are now 22, and again that adoption has worked well; there are absolutely no issues. However, the point that I am making is that because of the system we were forced to go in that direction. The system needs to be looked at. Two and a half years is much too long for any prospective parent to wait for a child. We need to deal with that, and we must address the ageism involved in beliefs about the age a prospective parent should be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

I completely agree. There are benefits to society, but also huge benefits to the child who progresses into adulthood.

My constituents came to see me about the significant changes to adoption agencies under Labour’s 2010 equality laws, which state that the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is a fundamental principle of human rights laws and that such discrimination can be permitted only in the most compelling circumstances. I completely agree. That is the law; that is the way forward. The consequence, however, has been the closing of Catholic adoption agencies across the country. We have a huge problem, because those adoption agencies were the best at finding parents for older children—the most difficult to place with adoptive parents—and were the most successful in ensuring that those children remained in families.

People said to me, “You put the Catholic Church in a situation in which Parliament’s laws conflicted with the Church laws,” which they considered a higher law. They said, “When does tolerance become intolerance? Why were we tolerant of other people but not of the Catholic Church? When did equality for the Catholic Church become inequality?” We have seen that inequality, as all of a sudden the help that the agencies provided stopped because they were no longer given funding. Agencies that can trace their origins back to orphanages set up in Leeds in 1863 ended up closing down. Of course, we have to live within the law—of course, we must have the correct outcome—but surely that does not mean that we cannot have choice in how adoption agencies go about their work and in how they meet the needs of parents who come to them.

I looked slightly closer at the falling numbers of children being adopted. At the moment, there are 177 adoption agencies, 150 in local authorities and 27 voluntary ones, but if we go back, there were 11 more—Catholic ones that closed. That was a 5.83% decrease in the total number of agencies, but a 30% drop in the number of voluntary ones. How do we replace those valuable agencies? How do we find a selection—a choice—for people wanting to come forward, and how do we find those people? Some people come forward via the Church. This is a fundamental need for them, and they feel they are helping the Church, local communities and children. We must look very carefully at how we reach out to people who want to adopt, but for the past couple of years feel that they have been overlooked. There must be equality for everyone, but we need choice, which will ultimately provide equality for everyone and for the children who so desperately need to be adopted.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I want to reinforce my hon. Friend’s point. In my constituency of Gosport and in the wider Hampshire area, only 35 children were adopted last year. The older children are, the harder they are to place, and looked-after children have half the success rate of other kids in English and maths. We therefore need to explore every possible avenue to enable older children to be adopted, and the Catholic agencies were very successful at placing them and other harder-to-help children.

[Esther McVey]

Absolutely. The key point is, “When does tolerance become intolerance?” The Catholics who came to see me thought that that had happened. They believed that providing choice could bring about equality, but that what we had stopped was choice.

My second point, which a constituent of mine, Paula Davies, raised with me, is about the lack of awareness in the education system. She had adopted a daughter, and thought that she had unique needs arising from the adoption, which had happened later in life. She was concerned that the schools did not seem to be fully aware of the requirements of children from such backgrounds. She did not want something specific for her child; she did not want anybody taking her aside or teaching her differently. She was not looking for something different or extreme. However, she told me that two county councils, Hertfordshire and Somerset, have documents for staff who work with looked-after or adopted children in schools, and she wondered why every county council could not have those documents to hand for teachers to read, so that they could be aware of such children’s unique sensitivities and awareness.

Children adopted later in life are particularly vulnerable to rejection. They might take being told off or made to sit over there in a slightly different way, having been rejected early or later in life. It would be a simple change. The documents already exist, so I am not asking for anything with a cost implication. We are asking that they be made available to other councils, and therefore to teachers across the country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I echo my hon. Friend’s support for the fantastic dedication of prospective adopters and people who take on that great responsibility. I know of his great interest in this area. He is absolutely right. I do not want to see anything that stands in the way of people coming forward and offering themselves to give safe adoptive placements to vulnerable children. He has raised this issue with me before in an Adjournment debate. I give him an undertaking that we will see if there are any problems in this area that are undermining the system.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

10. What plans he has for the future of citizenship teaching in schools.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

We are currently reviewing the national curriculum with a view to slimming it down and focusing it on the essential knowledge that all children should acquire. Beyond that, it should be for individual schools to design a curriculum that best meets the needs of their pupils. The review is considering which subjects, beyond English, maths, science and physical education, should be part of the national curriculum in future, and we will announce our proposals early next year.

[Caroline Dinenage]

Fareport Training Organisation in Gosport has been nominated as a community champion for its amazing work in using citizenship education to help to engage post-16 students who have been disengaged with the traditional school system. Given what these classes have taught these students about their role in society and the value of democracy, does the Minister think that they would have enormous value in delivering the big society?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is right. Citizenship is an important subject, and schools have an important role to play in encouraging young people to become responsible citizens and active members of society. I welcome what she says about her school. The Government are fully committed to empowering young people to become active citizens. That is the intention behind the launch of the national citizenship service programme last year.