Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

It is fantastic news, and I am delighted that another female representative from a Merseyside constituency is accentuating the positive, because there is a lot to celebrate in state schools on both sides of the Mersey. We are supporting an emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics by paying more to high-quality graduates to teach those subjects.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

T2. There is overwhelming evidence of the negative impact of poverty on children’s educational attainment and, in turn, on their life chances and ultimately how long they can expect to live. In my constituency, nearly 6,000 children are affected. With the assessment of the Institute for Fiscal Studies that child poverty is set to increase under this Government, what is the Secretary of State’s estimate of the impact on the educational attainment of those children?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

That is precisely why we have introduced the pupil premium: £2.5 billion targeted at the most disadvantaged children. It is also why we are rolling out 15 hours of early education for all two-year-olds. To pick up the points the hon. Lady mentioned, we know that high-quality education will make a real difference to the life chances of those children.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

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

I certainly agree with that and add my tribute to that school. The early years of a child’s education, when they are learning to read and to become fluent in arithmetic, are key to their success in secondary education and beyond. I would like to pay our tribute to the work that that head teacher is doing. Government Members agree that the autonomy and independence of head teachers, and their ability to run their schools as they see fit, are key to raising standards. That is what all the evidence suggests internationally. That is the drive behind the academies programme.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

T8. As we approach Holocaust memorial day on 27 January, how is the Secretary of State ensuring that lessons from the Holocaust and other genocides, including in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, are taught in free schools, academies and other schools not bound by the national curriculum?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s point. Let me pay tribute to my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls). His decision to increase funding for the Holocaust Education Trust was one of many good things that he did, and I was honoured to be able to honour a pledge I made before the election to secure its funding. The trips that it offers to schools of all kinds help to ensure that we remember, and that that indescribable evil is never repeated. Let me take this opportunity to affirm the importance of all MPs meeting Holocaust denial and relativisation head on. Any attempt to undermine the singular historic evil of that crime is utterly wrong, and we should unite in condemning it.

Economic Growth and Employment

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)]

I will bear in mind your comments, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The problem in a debate like this is where to start. I will start with what I want to see, which is business growth. Business growth delivers job creation, which in turn delivers tax revenues and growth for individuals, the importance of which we should not underestimate at any cost. The fundamental question that we are discussing is whether Opposition and Government Members believe that the Government can be a driver for growth. I and a number of my colleagues believe that they can be.

Why is this debate so important? It is important to my constituents because people in my constituency are losing jobs, and businesses in my constituency are going bust. The industry that I have been involved in since I was 18 years of age has been decimated by the Government. In Ochil and South Perthshire, 5.6 jobseeker’s allowance claimants are going after each job. I realise that that is by no means the highest rate in the UK. The number of JSA claimants in Ochil and South Perthshire has risen by 95% since 2006. The overall number of people in employment is falling. In the last year, 93% of constituencies saw a rise in their claimant count. That has been caused by the speed and depth of the cuts, and by the private sector not being able to keep up with them, just as the Opposition said would happen.

That is why we want the Government to do more to help UK businesses. Helping business helps employment. The Government have cut capital budgets by 11%. Because their deficit reduction plan is failing, they will have to borrow more to pay for unemployment and to cover falling tax revenues. That is the backdrop that has led to this debate. The Government should listen hard to what is said by my colleagues on the Labour Benches.

As I said, I have been in the construction industry all my life. I remain involved in that business today. In the time that I have left, I will talk about what the Government can do and should be doing to help the construction industry. It is my view that the construction industry gives a measure of the economy as a whole. It is of the private sector, but it needs the public sector and the private sector to survive. If businesses want to expand, they need the construction industry to do so if they need premises, transport networks or communication infrastructure. If the construction industry is on its knees, the country is on its knees. The Government need to grasp the fact that every pound spent in the construction industry generates £2.83 in the wider economy. That point is not disputed.

The Opposition’s five-point plan would benefit the construction industry from point one through to point five. I will focus on one or two of the points in the short time that I have left. Bringing forward investment projects to get the industry working again would regenerate our infrastructure, allow future growth and give skills to individuals.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend wants to comment on the call of the International Monetary Fund for a global growth compact, which supports exactly the initiative that he is suggesting. It says that there must be infrastructure development in the west—not just this country but the whole world—to recover from this economic downturn.

[Gordon Banks]

I agree with my hon. Friend. If we do not get our infrastructure right, we will not be in the position that we want to be in when things move forward and we will be disadvantaged. I ask the Government not to look solely at big individual projects when they are trying to regenerate the economy. We need local and regional regeneration and investment in local and regional infrastructure.

Education Bill

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

This Bill fails our children and young people. In spite of what the Secretary of State claims, many of its measures are grossly unfair, and I will not support it. It is full of rhetoric promising to devolve power to families and professionals, but the reality is quite different, with many parts of the Bill actually centralising power. As we have already heard, it will make it impossible for parents to challenge decisions about admissions, as well as limiting the choice of subjects that teachers can offer their students and denying communities the opportunities that can be gained by schools working together in partnership.

From early-years provision to students aspiring to higher education, the Bill restricts educational opportunity. With one hand, it extends free entitlement for early education and child care, which I support, yet with the other it removes the need for local authorities to ensure that there is enough quality child care available in their area. The Bill proposes to allow maintained nursery schools and classes to charge for any early-years provision above the 15-hour entitlement. That, in conjunction with the early-years single funding formula that will come into force in April, will have a devastating impact on settings that currently provide free full-time places for disadvantaged children.

More than 3,500 Sure Start children’s centres were opened under Labour, offering a range of early-years, health and parental support services to more than 2.5 million children and their families. Yesterday, we heard the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) edge her way round the question of whether Sure Start children’s centres would continue to remain open and to offer every child the best start in life, or whether hundreds would close, as the survey carried out by 4Children and the Daycare Trust predicts. In my constituency, Sure Start workers are already being made redundant. It is no good saying that early-years education is important, only to take away the funding so that parents cannot access it.

The damage that will be done to early-years education by cutting the grants for Sure Start is just the start; every parent worries about getting their child into the school of their choice. Yet these proposals will make it harder, not easier, for parents to choose what is right for their child, as free schools and academies squeeze money out of the funding for schools in their area. Similarly, the proposals on admissions will mean that parents will struggle to fight for what their child needs. Clause 34 removes the requirement for local authorities to establish an admission forum.

Even if a child can get into the school that the parents want, the way in which the Secretary of State is narrowing the national curriculum will make it harder for children to achieve. He claims that he wants to consult parents and teachers on what should be taught, but by limiting the English baccalaureate he seems already to have made up his mind that it should be quite restrictive. How can I say to a young person from my constituency that it is more important for them to learn Latin than to be able to use a computer, especially when 10% of our gross domestic product is generated from the online economy? That simply does not make sense.

With the axing of Building Schools for the Future and the promise that it gave to every child, including those in my constituency, of the learning environment that they need to succeed, it is most worrying that the Bill still fails to define the capital funding that will be available for free schools and academies. The so-called academy conversions are another example of co-operation and partnership working between schools being undermined by this Government, with federated schools being able to apply to become an academy without any discussion with other schools.

My final point relates to part 8 on student finance, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) mentioned. This is like the small print of a dodgy contract: it is almost hidden, yet it proposes to remove the cap on student loan interest rates. In effect, this will allow profit to be made out of student debt. With the trebling of tuition fees, this is another example of the Government’s unfairness, kicking away the ladders of opportunity from our most disadvantaged young people.