Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between David Rutley and Edward Leigh(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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David Rutley
It is an important question. Our need to tackle climate change extends widely to the OTs. We have done significant work on the blue belt programme, and we have engaged a large number of OTs at COP28 this year so that we can help push forward their work and give greater access to this funding. It is vitally important.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between David Rutley and Edward Leigh(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
We know that moving into work—particularly full-time work—is the best way to tackle poverty. We are taking decisive action to make work pay, giving nearly 2 million families an extra £1,000 a year through our changes to the universal credit taper rate and work allowances.
Sir Edward Leigh
I represent Gainsborough South West ward, the 24th most deprived in the country. I wonder whether the Minister would like to come to Gainsborough and discuss with me how we can have pilot schemes, perhaps in the 100 most deprived wards in the country, to really tackle the problem of deprivation with a cross-Government approach that would improve universal credit and tax credits to get people into work and keep them in work, help businesses create jobs in those wards and, above all, help with housing. Is that not a good idea?
David Rutley
It is always a good idea to meet my right hon. Friend, and I will look forward to that. He is absolutely right: the best way to assist people is to help them gain the skills they need to move into work and to progress in work. In Gainsborough, the local jobcentre has worked in partnership with the local council, training providers and the owners of a local business park to recruit staff for a new hospitality venue called the Caldero Lounge through a sector-based work academy programme to help get unemployed people back into work, and there is another SWAP already in train in his constituency. I look forward to meeting him.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between David Rutley and Edward Leigh(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
Universal credit is a modern, tailored, resilient benefit responding effectively to economic conditions. It replaces six outdated and complex benefits with one, helping to simplify the benefits system and providing a safety net in times of need and, of course, making work pay.
Sir Edward Leigh
When the Centre for Social Justice originally designed the universal credit system, it was with a 55p taper, so this reform is long overdue and very welcome. The fact remains, though, that there are still record numbers of people on universal credit, 60% of whom are not working at all, yet we have record job vacancies and a labour shortage. Will the Minister tell me what more can we do? How can we get more people back into work?
David Rutley
The thing that has impressed me the most since taking on this ministerial responsibility is the sheer enthusiasm of our work coaches. I definitely recommend that my right hon. Friend’s constituents speak to the work coaches to find out what opportunities are available to them, particularly through skills and through restart, to get involved in new sectors through the sector-based work academy programme. Huge opportunities are available for people, and they need to be explored.
Out-of-school Education Settings
Debate between David Rutley and Edward Leigh(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Sir Edward Leigh
That is precisely the point, and I will come to it in a moment. Extremists will not register and will not talk about cutting off people’s heads when the Ofsted inspector is around.
Emotional harm is a vague concept. Atheists such as Richard Dawkins say it is “mental abuse” to teach children that the Bible is true. Does the Department agree? I am sure not. Do some Ofsted inspectors agree? I hope not.
The system includes a requirement to “register”, a power for Ofsted to inspect and a power to impose sanctions, including barring people from working with children and closing premises. Although the consultation process was, I believe, inadequate, the Department received thousands of responses, because people, especially Christian groups, are really worried. They are terrified because, for the first time, Ofsted will decide whether to bar someone or close down their youth work by assessing whether their teaching is
“compatible with, and does not undermine, fundamental British values.”
The Department says that prohibited activities will include:
“Undesirable teaching, for example teaching which undermines or is incompatible with fundamental British values.”
Does the Department really have a right to decide what is desirable and undesirable teaching in churches? Many groups focus on hobbies, sports, music, the outdoors —things that have no relevance whatever to British values. The truth is that those thousands of hobby groups are being forced to register only so the system looks even-handed. That is the point: the Government are terrified of not looking even-handed, and therefore they are bringing in all those other harmless groups.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on making a characteristically forthright speech that is based on common sense. Does he agree that the state has tools to address such issues in a risk-based way? We do it all the time with immigration and policing. Clearly, if there are risks, we should have a risk-based, proportionate approach based on common sense.