Birmingham Schools

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I shall certainly look at this week’s Education Select Committee report in detail. One thing explored in previous evidence sessions—I gave evidence to that inquiry—was the growth of collaboration, which we are seeing up and down the country, regardless of the type of school. When I visit schools up and down the country, whether they be converter stand-alone academies, part of a chain or still working within the local authority, and talk to heads and teachers, I see evidence of how much collaboration there has been and how much strength heads and teachers are drawing from working with other schools—locally, but thanks to modern technology, also in other parts of the country and even other parts of the world.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

If our constituents have problems with the delivery of public services, ultimately they have recourse to the ombudsman. That was true of parents who had problems with working relationships in their children’s schools until 2012, when the Government changed the policy. Now, if a parent has a problem with an academy, they can go to the Education Funding Agency, but not with a complaint about the school, only with a complaint about the operation of the complaints procedure itself. Does that not need addressing?

[Nicky Morgan]

We of course have a very strong inspection system through Ofsted. In my experience as Secretary of State for Education over the course of the past few months, parents find many ways in which to complain, whether it be through Ofsted, the EFA or directly to me as Secretary of State or via the Department for Education. There are mechanisms to enable parents to raise complaints about their children’s schools, but of course they often start with the local school itself.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the pipeline issue. It is vital that we encourage businesses and organisations to develop talented individuals. If an organisation is viewed as a pyramid, there are good numbers of men and women at the base of the pyramid, but higher up the number of women falls away, and mentoring schemes are an excellent way to address that. The Women’s Business Council is also looking at this issue, and the Government’s initiative “Think, Act, Report” encourages companies to put in place schemes to ensure that they develop the talent within their organisations and address the pipeline issue.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

18. What recent estimate he has made of the number of jobs that will be created by the regional growth fund.

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

The regional growth fund will generate over half a million gross jobs over the period 2011-2021, with 80% of the impact coming in the first five years. Some 300,000 jobs will be delivered by projects and programmes in rounds 1 and 2, and 240,000 from bids selected for round 3. In rounds 1 and 2, eight out of 10 projects and programmes have now started and 149 bidders have now signed final agreements.

[Mr Betts]

When the regional development agencies were in existence, they provided important match funding to enable European regional development fund money to be properly used. When the Communities and Local Government Committee looked at this, we suggested that a portion of the regional growth fund be earmarked to ensure that all our ERDF money could be properly spent. That suggestion was turned down. If we do not spend all the ERDF money to ensure that we create the maximum number of jobs, will it be the Minister’s responsibility or that of his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government?

[Michael Fallon]

We are certainly looking at how we can spend money better in the next seven-year framework. There has been underspend, not least because there were so many programmes. I am trying to rationalise and simplify them, working with colleagues in the three other Departments affected. The House will want to note that the regional development agency Yorkshire Forward employed 434 people and spent a large amount of public money, but did not leverage in anything like the amount of private sector money that the new regional growth fund is doing.

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[Vince Cable]

We have indeed got state-aid approval for the green investment bank. There are no plans for it to invest in the nuclear supply chain, but we have not ruled that sector out. As it happens, a working party is being assembled to develop a strategy for the nuclear supply chain, which my colleague the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), will be co-chairing, and we expect to give it substantial support.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

T6. Polestar, a major printing works in my constituency, has created hundreds of well-paid jobs through its investment in recent years. However, its bid to the regional growth fund to create hundreds more jobs has been turned down. Will the Minister look at how such firms can get good quality feedback, so that hopefully they can submit successful bids in future and create those jobs?

Services for Young People

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass]

Given the speech that you just made, I find it difficult that you are asking me to justify—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. May I say to the hon. Lady that I am not asking for anything?

[Pat Glass]

Sorry, Mr Betts. I am discussing services for young people, and EMA and its abolition are as much a part of that as services through youth centres or careers services.

There is clear evidence that the pupil premium, for all its good intentions, recycles money from schools with concentrations of the poorest children and young people and siphons off resources to richer parts of the country with fewer poor children. That is because the pupil premium has largely replaced additional education needs funding, which, although it was called different things in different local authorities, was needs-based funding for schools to support their least able and most vulnerable pupils. The AEN formula in each local authority was made up of different factors, but was legally required to include a deprivation factor. Some local authorities used the index of multiple deprivation while others used free school meals, but the basis of AEN funding was a needs-based deprivation factor.

AEN also had an accumulator effect. Schools with fewer than 15% of children on free school meals got nothing in most local authorities, on the basis that that was the norm and that need could and should be met from existing school funding. Schools with between 15% and 24% had a basic level of AEN funding, but then the level escalated massively between 25% and 35% in acknowledgment of the need for additional resources to deal with more complex issues in driving improvement. Any school where more than 35% of children received free school meals was given a huge step in funding, in recognition that those schools were dealing with complex issues needing additional capacity.

The pupil premium gives a basic amount per pupil, drawing money from schools and areas with the highest concentration of free school meals and of poorer children and giving it to wealthier areas with fewer free school meals. If anybody wants evidence of what is happening in their local authority and whether they are winners or losers when it comes to the pupil premium, I can give them a breakdown, courtesy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who has researched the matter in detail.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Technology innovation centres are proving extremely welcome in the research community because they represent a bridge between academic research and business application. The first of those—the advanced manufacturing TIC—has been launched, and I went to Rotherham at its outset. Others are being prepared, and I am sure that the one in my hon. Friend’s constituency will be carefully considered by the TSB.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

T2. On enterprise zones, do the Government agree that it is important that subsidies are not simply given to jobs and development that would have happened anyway? It is fairly easy to see how the Government could stop, and take measures to prevent, a firm from simply transferring to an enterprise zone with public money, but if a firm decides to expand into an enterprise zone, or if a new firm is created in one, how can the Government ensure that money is not simply given to a development and jobs that would have existed without the subsidy?

[Mr Prisk]

Care needs to be taken in respect of the displacement effects of this policy, and indeed any other spatial economic policy, because of the danger to which the hon. Gentleman alludes. We are working deliberately with local enterprise partnerships to minimise that danger, and looking to ensure that we understand the dynamics of the economy in those areas. That is why the whole Government are ensuring that we do not simply impose the policy from the centre, but work with enterprise partnerships.

Funding and Schools Reform

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andy Burnham]

I could go on. There are more.

Last week, I went to the Wodensborough technology college in Sandwell—a great school, battling against the odds. The Secretary of State is nodding, but he has not been to Sandwell. Since the summer, he has promised many times that he will go there, so I hope he is nodding because he will actually do so. When he was at his conference in Birmingham he was not far away. We hope he will go to Sandwell.

The college has been thrown into limbo by the 40% demand that is now being made of local authorities. After all the chaos to Building Schools for the Future that the Secretary of State caused in such authorities back in the summer, it is barely believable that he is coming back for another bite of their funding.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

Can my right hon. Friend imagine the reaction in schools in my constituency, such as Birley and Handsworth Grange? They heard the Secretary of State’s announcement before the recess and believed that their school programmes would go ahead, yet in October, only a few weeks later, they were told to find a 40% cut in schemes that had already been designed. That does not merely destroy the aspirations and hopes of young people; it is ridiculous and a complete waste of money to have a school designed to such an advanced stage and then cut the programme at the last minute. People cannot find 40% efficiency savings at the drop of a hat.

[Andy Burnham]

My hon. Friend puts it well. Let us get to the facts. Those schools were told in the summer that they were unaffected. We can work out what “unaffected” means to most people, but the effect of what the Secretary of State has done by coming back for another bite is that he is asking schools in my hon. Friend’s constituency to abandon their ambitions for their children so that the right hon. Gentleman can fulfil his ideological ambitions to give funding to whichever schools come asking for it because it ticks the box—it comes forward with the structural form of which he approves.

That is very wrong. Today, if nothing else, I want the Secretary of State to come to the Dispatch Box and honour a moral obligation, as he has just heard, to the 600 schools that he approved as unaffected. That must mean what it says. Let them get on without the requirement to make unwelcome savings. Instead, the phone calls from his officials have made them scrabble round for cuts. I heard that one school was thinking of stopping the purchase of all new furniture. Is that what the Secretary of State really wants schools to do? It is mean-spirited. I hope he will honour the commitments that he has made and let them get on and build a better future.

Higher Education

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I have indications from four hon. Members that they wish to speak. To get everyone in before the winding-up speeches, could Members take no longer than eight minutes? I have no power to impose a time limit, but consideration for colleagues will allow everyone to get in.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Betts. I am grateful for this opportunity to speak under your chairmanship on this important topic, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this important debate. If there were ever any doubt that he cared passionately about the future of higher education, and the future of children from estates such as his, mine and those of other hon. Friends here today, his speech will have proved his passion and commitment—long may it continue.

I wish to discuss what the Government’s plans will mean for many of my constituents. In a Liberal Democrat press release during the election campaign, Nick Clegg said:

“If fees rise to £7,000 a year”—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. The reference should be to the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I apologise, Mr Betts. The Deputy Prime Minister stated:

“If fees rise to £7,000 a year, as many rumours suggest they would, within five years some students will be leaving university up to £44,000 in debt. That would be a disaster.”

I have to say this, Mr Betts: this is one of the few occasions on which I agree with Nick.

Even if most universities charge the minimum of £6,000, it will still be a disaster, and if most of the more prestigious ones charge £9,000, it will be an even bigger disaster. If I were a 16 or 17-year-old working-class girl from Gateshead—not too much of a stretch of the imagination, as I once was—looking at my options for the future, a potential debt of £44,000 would make me think seriously about whether I should go to university, especially if I were the first in my family to do so. It was not a journey that I was ever able to make personally because of cost constraints, and having to go out to work to help support my mam, who was on benefits, and two younger brothers.

If I were desperate to go to university, I would probably have to go to one of my local universities to avoid the extra living expenses, rather than the best university that would accept me based on my ability and grades. That seems to be what the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills intends people from my constituency to do. I would also most likely have to take a significant amount of paid part-time work, reducing the amount of time that I could dedicate to my studies, and consequently my attainment.

Even then, when I had struggled through three years and racked up a debt of £15,000 to £20,000 for the privilege—assuming that I had received some of the grants that the Minister of State outlined—my debt would continue to grow at a rate far above that at which my earnings would be likely to grow. An interest rate of 2.2% plus RPI, which would currently be 6.8%, does not compare favourably with a typical increase in median income of 3% to 4%. By that logic, somebody finishing university this year with £20,000 of debt would see that debt grow by more than £1,300 in a year and would need to find a job paying more than £30,000 just to keep up with paying that off. Today, though, we have heard that someone earning £30,000 could be liable to pay even more interest. That will mean millions of young people never paying off their loans and quite a number of those loans—not just the odd one—probably being written off after the end of the 30-year period. The thought of being 16 or 17 and realising that I would still be paying for my education in my 50s would definitely put me off higher education.

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[Paul Blomfield]

That is a very important point on our position in relation to competitors in the OECD. We have made enormous progress in the funding of higher education over the past 13 years. We did not get to where we needed to be, but we were moving in the right direction. This Government are reversing that direction and taking us backward.

Let me return to the point about the negative message being sent out about arts, humanities and social science courses, and share with Members the views of the vice-chancellor of the university of Sheffield, Professor Keith Burnett. He is an outstanding leader of an outstanding university, and a scientist. He said:

“In the last few days I have been thinking about how I would feel if my subject – Physics – had been identified as fundamentally unimportant to the UK, or at least unworthy of its investment, in the way that many of our colleagues’ subjects have been. I would be gutted….When I see what richness the work of our colleagues…has brought us…Sir Ian Kershaw’s books on Hitler…shed a unique light on how fascism emerged…offered insights and judgement which can’t be ignored. Mike Braddick’s new book on the Civil War…helps us understand how we came to be who we are as a nation…Focusing on a period when fundamental questions were being debated…casts new light on the transition of Britain’s passage from one era to another…One of our most powerful resources as a country, and as a University, is our cultural insight, our deep questioning of our own society and ideas – perhaps we have never needed that analysis more as we consider how best to go forward. In a world of global competition and profound change, we want our children to have more than just bread to live on.”

I turn now to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) made on education maintenance allowances. Fundamentally—the Minister himself acknowledged this—participation in higher education is in many senses determined by people’s experience of the education system in their early years. We know that for many people who aspire to go to university the critical decision is at the age of 16, and that in low-income families with no history of post-16 education there is huge pressure not to be a further drain on the family’s financial resources. I have talked to constituents across Sheffield, and have been left in no doubt that education maintenance allowances have transformed life chances. Last year, almost 7,000 EMAs were awarded across the city. In the comprehensive spending review, the Chancellor talked about replacing

“education maintenance allowances with more targeted support.”—[Official Report, 20 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 964.]

I suggest that that is a deeply cynical use of language. What could be more targeted than allowances that are assessed according to family income, with the level of payments being determined according to need? The Minister cuts a rather lonely figure today, and I regret that there are not more Members of other parties interested in the debate. I hope that the Minister will address my remarks in his contribution.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, I remind Members that I will start the wind-ups at 3.40 pm.

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[Ms Abbott]

I am afraid that I did not attract the Minister’s attention. I have always been against tuition fees; I have marched through the Lobby against them. It gives me no pleasure to say that I knew it would end up like this, with Tory Ministers such as the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) ramping up fees—[Interruption.] Members will see how I cast my vote in the coming debate.

The point that I wanted to make is that in a world of markets—all of us here, even my good self, believe in markets nowadays—price is an indicator and, as I said earlier, if there is variable pricing, the indicator to students is that the higher-priced universities are not for the likes of them. Over the years, I have counselled many young people in my constituency, including ethnic minority young people, to try to encourage them to go on to higher education. They are held back not because they do not have the qualifications—their teachers bring them to me precisely because they think they are bright enough to benefit—but because their parents and they themselves are worried about leaving home, about the sorts of people that they will meet, and that the environment might be snobbish. And now that we see a gap of perhaps £6,000 or £7,000 between fees, what will those working-class students think?

I was the first in my generation of my family to go to university. I always remember my father, who was a committed and kindly parent, saying when I was in the sixth form, “Girls of your age are out of school.” He was not being cruel; all the black girls of my age that he knew were out of school. I voted against tuition fees in the first place because had someone told my father, who left school at 14 and worked all his life, that not only was I staying on into the sixth form, not only was I going on to university, but I was going to pile up upward of £40,000 debt to go to my chosen university, he would have said, “No. You leave school and you become a nurse like your mother,” not because he was cruel, but because he was looking out for my future. For someone from his kind of background, that level of debt would be more than they would earn in a year, and more than my father in his day would have earned in several years, which would have been completely unthinkable.

I agree with Government Members who said that the issues that face young people from communities such as mine when going forward into further education are not just about money. They are very complex issues, and that is why for many years I have run a programme that is designed to encourage black young children, specifically, in London to raise their achievements. We have conferences and seminars, and we give out awards. There are, of course, hundreds of ethnic minority young people doing very well in school, in spite of everything and, as I am sure my right hon. and hon. Friends will agree, this measure will hit not just people from communities such as mine, but middle England also. In some ways, the people who will be worst off are those who are just in the middle, who are not eligible for the help but cannot afford to contemplate their children going on to pile up £40,000 of debt, not when they will have to think about their pension and their jobs, and interest rates on mortgages are rising. I believe that the introduction in this way of a crude market mechanism into higher education is wrong. I believe that it shows the reality of our invisible Lib Dem colleagues’ commitment to equality and fairness. I look forward to hearing the Minister responding to my colleagues’ points today, but I look forward even more to seeing what the electorate in Southwark, in Hornsey, and in Lib Dem constituencies up and down the country, will say in response to the way in which the Lib Dems have today walked away from signed commitments not to have higher tuition fees.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thank all Members for their co-operation in ensuring that everyone who wanted to speak had a chance to do so.

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[Paul Farrelly]

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and I were veterans of the bloody battles that were fought in the Labour party over a market in higher education. The Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats agreed with us. The key achievement all those years ago was to stop the variability, which would have led to people from poorer backgrounds choosing cheaper universities.

While I am on my feet, I would like to make another point—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions are supposed to be brief.

[Paul Farrelly]

This will be very brief, Mr Betts. The price paid for a degree sends a market signal to employers that the higher the price, the more a degree is worth. Therefore, more universities will charge higher fees simply because of the signals that that will send to employers. There will be many effects that have not been researched.

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[Mr Hayes]

I cannot give way; I do not have time. I apologise. We will continue to support the arts through the subsidy for teaching in universities.

I have a couple of other points. First, the increase in support for part-time learning will do more to widen participation than any other single measure. As the right hon. Gentleman and others know, disadvantaged people are disproportionately represented among part-time learners. Raising the income threshold to £21,000 will have a profound effect—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. We must now bring the debate to a conclusion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Prisk]

The economic renewal programme, which I have had an opportunity to look at, has considerable merit, not least because it moves away from the tinkering and meddling of the last Labour Government and towards infrastructure. Broadband investment is very important and the Ministers who deal with broadband will have heard his representations. The issue is important and we want to act on it promptly.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

3. What factors he took into account in deciding to withdraw the £80 million loan facility to Sheffield Forgemasters.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The decision not to pursue the loan was taken on grounds of affordability.

[Mr Betts]

Will the Secretary of State withdraw the entirely false accusations that were levelled at Graham Honeyman, the chief executive of Sheffield Forgemasters, that he was not prepared to sell any shares in the company? The reality is that the loan facility went alongside a private finance package involving equity release. What Graham Honeyman and the workers, 65% of whom own shares in Forgemasters, did not want to do was sell the company off to an absentee owner, given that they had rescued it from an absentee owner and near-bankruptcy in 2005. Will the Secretary of State withdraw the accusations against Graham Honeyman and recognise that he has resurrected that company and that it would do even better in future if it had the loan alongside a package involving equity release?

[Vince Cable]

The Government’s decision has absolutely nothing to do with the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised. We regard Mr Honeyman and his team as having produced an excellent project. We have no criticism of him or the company. Officials in the Department are now working to try to help to achieve a private sector solution.

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is wide, and that is the end of the matter.

[Mr Betts]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Given the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, may I indicate that I would like to seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment at a further date?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has done so and that is perfectly in order.