Oral Answers to Questions
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
I can absolutely assure the hon. Gentleman that that is very much the case. It is very important that we teach children about the Britain we live in today.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I welcome the additional revenue funding for schools in Staffordshire. Will the Secretary of State outline the plans for capital funding, of which there is an urgent need in Staffordshire and in many other schools across the country?
Gavin Williamson
I always recall that when my hon. Friend and I were first elected to the House we, as constituency neighbours, campaigned very hard to get a better funding settlement for Staffordshire, but also for all schools across the country. We are working on the capital settlement, and we will be working with the Treasury to bring forward announcements in the not-too-distant future.
Higher Technical Education Reform
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I am grateful for his comments about not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The consultation and the eventual infrastructure, if I may describe it in that way, should and will fit seamlessly with the Augar review and whatever we do on HE.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
This morning, I was at General Electric’s transformer factory in Stafford. It is the only manufacturer of large-scale transformers in the UK, and clearly higher technical education and apprenticeships are vital for GE. Will my hon. Friend update the House on the situation for companies do not pay the apprenticeship levy because they are below the threshold? Those small and medium-sized enterprises are absolutely vital to our economy. Since the introduction of the levy, has there been greater uptake of apprenticeships among such companies?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. He is right to focus his concern on the non-levy paying business community. We dropped the contribution from 10% to 5% to make sure that those SMEs can feel confident in participating and in taking on apprenticeships. We continue to monitor their progress.
Timpson Review of School Exclusion
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Damian Hinds
We do want to reduce unnecessary exclusions. I noticed what the hon. Gentleman managed to do there; he presided over this responsibility at a time when the number of exclusions were higher than they are today, and he has used that to say that the number of exclusions were falling during that time. In the positive spirit in which he meant his question, yes, of course I agree that addressing the situation requires a concerted effort at all levels and in all parts of the system, with the Government, schools and, crucially, groups of schools working together locally.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Staff at PRUs do a vital job under often extremely difficult circumstances. I do not know about other constituencies, but the PRU in Stafford has for many years been housed in a completely inadequate building that is located in totally the wrong place. What can we do to ensure that staff and students at PRUs have a place that is appropriate, and that will hopefully enable students to go back to their mainstream schools as soon as possible and not be diverted?
Oral Answers to Questions
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Anne Milton
The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that it is increasingly important for young people to have those digital skills. I refer him to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s website, where he will be able to see the 400 apprenticeship standards that have been developed, many of which involve digital skills. From 2020, we are introducing the first T-levels, the first of which will be a digital T-level.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
State-funded schools in England must offer a broad and balanced curriculum, which for maintained schools includes the national curriculum. Subject to the consultation outcome, Ofsted’s new framework will place the curriculum at the heart of inspection, with an emphasis on schools providing a broad, balanced and ambitious curriculum for all pupils, together with an emphasis on the EBacc for secondary schools.
Jeremy Lefroy
I thank the Minister for that answer. Across the House this afternoon, colleagues have mentioned the importance to a broad-based curriculum of music, drama, sport, public speaking, outdoor pursuits and many other things. I am delighted to hear that Ofsted will need to look at this, but does he agree that it is vital that these activities should be offered by all schools in all areas, not just by the schools in which parents and others can provide contributions to ensure that these activities happen?
Nick Gibb
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. All the areas that he has cited are vital for children in schools. Art and music are compulsory in the national curriculum up to age 14, and the Government have provided almost £500 million between 2016 and 2018 for arts education programmes. As he pointed out, Ofsted’s proposed framework increases the emphasis on schools’ provision of a broad curriculum, and inspectors will also expect to see rich extracurricular activities for pupils.
Children’s Social Care Services: Stoke-on-Trent
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Gareth Snell
Again, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point; I agree wholeheartedly. The report makes it quite clear that there has been a marked decline in the provision of children’s protective services in Stoke-on-Trent since 2015. That coincided with the last round of local elections, in which the City Independent group took control of the local authority. If we are being honest, its record of attendance at the corporate parenting panel demonstrates its disinterest in this area. Of the 16 meetings that one councillor could attend, she attended zero, and she is responsible for the funding of children’s services across the council—eight apologies, and eight non-attendances.
We should make it clear—I will ask the Minister later on—whether there is anything that the Government think they can do to ensure that councillors that have responsibility for these very important areas, including both adults’ and children’s social care, are compelled to attend those meetings, to further their understanding of what is going on. From councillors who have been on the corporate parenting panel, where they have heard from caseworkers who feel under pressure and stretched, I know that information was available at that time to the local authority members who make these decisions, had those members chosen to attend. The fact that they chose to attend none of those meetings shows the interest they have in that service. As a Parliament, we should talk collectively about how we can reinforce to people in decision-making roles their responsibilities.
I want to touch briefly on another comment in the report, which said:
“The response to children and young people who may be at increased risk due to contact with extremist ideology is not robust”.
Stoke-on-Trent is a city in which we have had our problems with both the far right and organised Islamist terrorism, and we need to ensure that we protect our young people from both extremes. The report clearly states that young people are not being protected from extremism activity in a place where we know it is taking place. I do not understand how any local authority or councillor can stand up and defend the report in the way that Councillor Janine Bridges did by saying that things are much better under her watch than they have ever been.
The report sets out in black and white one of the starkest arrangements for protecting young people anywhere—not only in the west midlands, but in the country. I wonder whether the Minister could help me better understand at what point Government step in to start to resolve some of this directly. Frankly, I have no faith that the City Independent group that currently runs the council with Conservatives has either the political ability or the determination to resolve this, other than saying that everything is all right. That has been made quite clear in the leaflets that are being delivered around the city ahead of local elections, which say how wonderful children’s services are. It beggars belief that there is this lack of connection between what is written in black and white by the authorities that are responsible for this, and what is written by the people who have taken decisions that led to this chronic failure in the first place.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this very important debate to the House; it is vital that this issue gets debated. I understand that Stoke-on-Trent City Council is in quite close contact—particularly through the multi-agency safeguarding hub—with Staffordshire County Council and other excellent councils, such as Leeds. Has he seen a determined effort by the leadership to ensure that—even now—the deficiencies pointed out in the report are beginning to be addressed?
Gareth Snell
The hon. Gentleman points to the MASH system in Staffordshire County Council, which is one of the areas where Stoke-on-Trent City Council has made a rod for its own back. Across the border, in Staffordshire County Council—literally on the doorstep—is a system that is more robust and much better than the one that Stoke-on-Trent City Council operates. A lot of the agencies that are involved in it, including the police and some of the third-party organisations, work with both authorities, so it is not as if it was not possible to tap into that system to see how it works.
The officers that my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth) North and I have spoken to understand the severity of the report and want to fix the problem. The officer corps desperately wants to resolve it, and the social workers we know are heartbroken. They have taken it personally, because it is young people entrusted to them who have been let down. However, I have not seen any element of acceptance from some parts of the political leadership that there is a problem that needs to be resolved. They took to the airwaves on the day the report was published to dismiss it and say that it was the Government’s fault for not giving them enough money, local MPs’ fault for not shouting about it previously, and in some cases the families’ fault for having the audacity to find themselves in need of social care in the first place.
I do not have the sense that the cabinet member responsible and the leader of the council understand the gravity of the report that is in front of them. If I am being honest, I do not believe that they have any interest in resolving this problem, because this is not the sort of politics that they want to do. They are not interested in rolling up their sleeves and dealing with the difficult parts of civic life in Stoke-on-Trent. They like to do the fun, happy stuff, such as cutting ribbons in front of new car parks, filling potholes and having their pictures taken—but children’s social care is the sort of stuff that matters to people on a day-to-day basis.
Jeremy Lefroy
The hon. Gentleman and I have joint concern for the city, which is important to the whole of Staffordshire, not just its residents. I understand that an improvement board has been set up to deal with the situation. What is his understanding of its work and its effectiveness so far?
Gareth Snell
There is an improvement board, but unfortunately, given the timing of the report and the purdah period for the local election cycle, no one will tell us what is going on with it, what actions it is taking and whether it is looking to Staffordshire County Council, which I hold up as an example—it is run by a good Conservative administration, which has taken responsibility for these issues and is dealing with them. This is not about Labour and Conservative party politics. There are perfect examples around the country of good Tory councils doing this well, and examples of Labour councils doing it well. This is an example of a council doing it badly, and the leadership refuse to accept that.
Further Education Funding
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(5 years, 1 month ago)
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Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on his efforts to secure this debate.
We all know that Governments over the past 10 years or so have had to make some difficult financial decisions, but the FE sector has perhaps suffered more than others, and certainly more than is desirable. In places such as my constituency and the neighbouring town of Grimsby, which have suffered a significant decline over the past 30 or 40 years following the loss of their core industry, too many of our young people have been lacking a vision of the opportunities that lie ahead. FE colleges have done considerable work in building that vision; indeed, the principal at Franklin College in Grimsby said to me that his students
“go on to contribute to the town, region and country”.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that colleges play a vital role in the community, not just through education but through a far wider range of activities, as mine in Stafford—a member of the Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group—does?
Martin Vickers
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Colleges have given young people in the Cleethorpes area the opportunity to gain vision and ambition, and have helped to retain those young people in the local area once they have qualified, which is particularly important.
In the short time I have, I will mention some of the other points that the principals at my two colleges have drawn to my attention. They have, of course, highlighted the fact that, over the past 10 years, there has been a 30% funding cut in FE colleges. The principal at Franklin College pointed out that, to start off with, that actually helped, inasmuch as principals recognised there were economies to be made and efficiencies that could be gained.
One important point both principals have drawn to my attention is that FE students in this country get 14 or 15 hours’ tuition per week on average, compared with 26 hours in Canada, 27 in Singapore and 30 in Shanghai. We are in a competitive situation, and we need to train our young people to go out and get the qualifications that enable them to compete for jobs in what is, whether we like it or not, a global economy.
The Minister can see from the number of Members who have turned up how strongly feelings on this issue run across parties. I urge her to take these points away. We will give her our full support in her battles with the Treasury.
Instrumental Music Tuition
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) on securing this debate. He is right that music can transform lives and introduce young people to a huge range of opportunities and skills, but we have heard today how Moray Council is increasing the cost of instrumental music tuition by 85%, which risks depriving many pupils of the pleasure of learning to play a musical instrument—something that we must strive to avoid. I look forward to one day hearing my hon. Friend playing a triangle, or perhaps we could listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), who is sitting behind me and who played sessions for Whitesnake and Duran Duran in the 1980s.
In November 2011, we published the national plan for music education, which sets out our vision for music education. The vision is to enable children from all backgrounds and every part of England to have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument, to make music with others, to learn to sing, and to have the opportunity to progress to the next level of excellence. The national plan runs until 2020, and we confirmed last month that we would refresh it.
The Government are committed to ensuring that every child receives a high-quality music education. That is why music is an important part of a broad and balanced curriculum and is statutory for all pupils aged five to 14 in state maintained schools. Instrumental tuition is a key part of a music education, and that is reflected in the national curriculum. For example, at key stage 1, pupils should be taught to play tuned and untuned instruments musically and, at key stage 2, they should be taught to play and perform in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression.
Schools are responsible for delivering the music curriculum, in exactly the same way that they are responsible for delivering the curriculum in other subjects, but we recognise that they cannot do that alone. Our network of music education hubs can support schools to provide high-quality music tuition. Between 2016 and 2020, we are providing over £300 million of ring-fenced funding for music education hubs in addition to the funding that goes to schools to deliver the curriculum.
England has 120 music education hubs that were set up in 2012 to drive up the quality and consistency of music education across the country. We have given the hubs four core roles, with instrumental tuition at their heart. The four roles are to ensure that every child aged five to 18 has the opportunity to learn a musical instrument through whole-class ensemble teaching, to provide opportunities for pupils to play in ensembles and to perform from an early stage, to ensure that clear progression routes are available and affordable to all young people, and to develop a singing strategy to ensure that every pupil sings regularly and that choirs and other vocal ensembles are available in the area.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) on securing this debate. Do the hubs also cover paths to composition? I was struck this morning upon hearing the brilliant composer Sir James MacMillan, who I believe is 60 this year, talk on the radio about how important his musical education at a state school had been to the development of his career.
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend is right that composition is included in the national curriculum, and it is of course important that children learn how to read and write music so that they can actually compose music of their own.
A report by Birmingham City University published last year showed that in 2016-17, hubs worked with 89% of schools on at least one core role and helped more than 700,000 pupils learn to play a musical instrument in whole-class ensemble teaching. In 2013-14—the first year for which like-for-like figures are available—the number was just under 600,000, so that is an increase of 19%. In addition to their work with whole classes, hubs taught hundreds of thousands more children to play instruments or sing. They provided individual lessons for more than 157,000 children, lessons in small groups for more than 238,000 children and lessons in larger groups for more than 145,000 children. We have recently increased their funding by £1.3 million.
Between 2016 and 2020, we are providing almost £120 million to the music and dance scheme, to support exceptionally talented young musicians, dancers and choristers to attend specialist schools such as the Yehudi Menuhin School, Chetham’s School in Manchester and the Purcell School.
Improving Education Standards
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I think this is the first time, and it will no doubt be the last, that I have been called to speak first in a debate after the Front Benchers. It is a great honour to do so. I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister for their speeches. Both made important points. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister, who is a great example of the importance of sticking at a job through many years. I just wish that politics would allow highly capable people to do that in other posts, rather than being changed after six months just when they begin to get going. I pay tribute to him for all that he has done in his role over most of the last eight and a half years.
I also pay tribute to the teachers, teaching assistants, support staff and all who work in the schools, further education colleges and other educational institutions, including training providers, in my constituency of Stafford. They do a wonderful job day in, day out. That is often not recognised, and although I will not single out any particular schools in my constituency—some are outstanding and some are good—I want to say to all who work in all of them that they have my thanks and the support of my constituents.
I also want to thank governors, who do a very difficult job. I have been a governor of two different schools, one overseas and one in this country. I know how much work my colleagues on the governing body at the time put in week in, week out. I also join the shadow Minister in paying tribute to the Church of England, Catholic and other faith schools around the country, which provide a large percentage of the education in our country, particularly at primary but also at secondary level. Long may that continue.
I am not an expert in education in the slightest. However, I try to listen to educators, employers and others for whom education is so important. I want to start with a quotation—not quite word for word—from a major employer in the city of Birmingham who I happened to hear speaking at a meeting we held there a couple of months ago, which I was chairing. This was a major employer, employing tens of thousands of people, who said that the quality of the young people coming for interview in Birmingham, where the headquarters had recently been moved, was much higher in terms of educational standards than it had been a number of years before. They were work-ready, they wanted to do the jobs, and he was proud to be able to employ them.
That was nothing to do with those individuals; it was due to the background of improving standards in the education they had received at school and university. I do not want to say that that is due to any particular Government. Clearly there has been more than one Government in that period—a Labour, a coalition and a Conservative Government. However, I pay tribute to all those who have enabled those young people to get into a position where they can apply for and get into jobs in a well respected company and be appreciated for that by the chief executive. Let us begin on that positive note, and I am sure that that experience is replicated throughout the country.
Let me turn to the finances of schooling. The Library says that my constituency of Stafford has seen a fall in cash terms over the four years to 2017 of just under £300 per pupil. Clearly we have seen a rise for 2018-19, and I welcome the new funding formula, which I will talk about a little, but that shows the pressure that schools have been under. We were more than £400 per pupil below both the regional west midlands average and the English average for schools in 2017-18. I fully accept that there has to be a difference in funding in certain areas that have higher needs and costs, particularly in London and other conurbations. The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) talked about the gap in her constituency, as others have for theirs, including my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston). However, a more than £400 per pupil difference between Stafford and the average—not the highest, but the average—is too much. It is not acceptable that we have such a major discrepancy, which has been going on for decades, between the lowest-funded and not the highest-funded but the average across England.
That obviously comes at a time when costs are going up, and those costs are common to all schools, whether it is the cost of pensions, the cost of employer national insurance contributions or other costs. We have to remember that the vast majority of costs for schools and education institutions are payroll-related costs, which tend to be similar across the country. I credit the Government for recognising that and for their aim to have fairer funding for schools across the country, which I welcome, but it has to come at a time when overall resources are rising, because we do not want to be put in a position where Peter is robbed to pay Paul; we want to be in a position where the gap narrows on a rising tide.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
What does the hon. Gentleman think about having a hard funding formula? Does he agree there could be problems in having an entirely national hard funding formula that does not allow any discretion for local authorities with slight variations in need? It would be impossible for any Government to set a national funding formula that could truly adapt to reflect every single school in our country.
Jeremy Lefroy
The hon. Lady makes a fair point. I am a pragmatist. I accept that schools in Stafford will receive less than schools in London, Birmingham or Stoke-on-Trent, but it should not be that much less. I accept that there are variations across the country that need to be taken into account, and that we cannot have an absolute hard and fast rule, but I also recognise the problems the Government face, because 650 MPs will be claiming to have special circumstances. We need to have some rules somewhere, but we also need some flexibility. Given that we all pay tax and national insurance at the same rate, certainly in England, it seems similar to the situation with healthcare. By the way, the discrepancies in healthcare are much, much greater— my clinical commissioning group has a discrepancy of £400 per head compared with some of the highest-funded CCGs in the country, and that is on a much lower level per head than education, so the percentage discrepancy is much greater. There should not be huge discrepancies in funding for public services. There will be discrepancies, but they must be modest and moderate.
I recognise the additional pressures that teachers and schools currently face, and I want to mention areas other than finance, because it is not all about money. The pressures include, for instance, the pressure of social media both on teachers and on students and pupils in schools and colleges. Teachers are sometimes anonymously attacked through social media, and they have to put up with stuff that we in this House are perhaps used to, but that they should not have to put up with in any way, shape or form.
I am glad that some schools in my constituency have taken to banning smartphones, and I think that ban should be universal in schools. President Macron, whom the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs quoted in French earlier this morning, has a very good policy in which he proposes to ban smartphones from primary and middle schools in France. I think all schools should consider such a ban.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman might be aware that in recent weeks I have been leading an inquiry with the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) into social media and its impact on young people’s mental health. One of the things coming out of that inquiry is that many teachers have no training on how to use social media and on how young people interact with it. Parents and outside social groups also do not understand it. Does the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) agree there is a need for teacher training programmes, whether in Wales, Scotland, England or Northern Ireland, to focus on giving some sort of lessons in how trainee teachers can use social media for good, and how they can tackle some of the problems that social media causes in schools, too?
Jeremy Lefroy
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is absolutely right. Some of us here could do with training in the use of social media, because some of the things that colleagues on both sides of the House—I will not mention any names—tweet or say on social media are, frankly, outrageous and do not improve the quality of debate, but that is just my personal opinion. I would like us all to be a bit more positive. If teachers want to look for training, they should not look to the House of Commons to learn how to use social media unless we improve our own standards. I would welcome the approach he suggests, and perhaps the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills could address that in her response.
Funding for 16 to 19 education has been particularly squeezed over the past few years. My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the Chair of the Select Committee on Education, said in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer a couple of months ago:
“It cannot be right that a funding ‘dip’ exists for students between the ages of 16 and 18, only to rise again in higher education. Successive governments have failed to give further education the recognition it deserves for the role”
it plays in addressing our problem with productivity—or words to that effect. He is absolutely right.
Young people of 16 to 19 are moving into the next stage of their life, and it is vital that there is no let-up in preparing them for an incredibly challenging, demanding world. The world is full of opportunities, but people need to have the skills and the background to take up those opportunities.
Emma Hardy
I echo what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and I give him my wholehearted support. I am pleased that the Minister for Apprenticeship and Skills is now sitting on the Front Bench, because she knows how important and how desperately underfunded we feel further education to be. We had hoped for more from the recent Treasury announcement, and all I can ask is that she keep pressing the Treasury to fund our further education colleges properly.
Jeremy Lefroy
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for mentioning that. I also give credit to the Minister, because I know how much she engaged with me and other colleagues on Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group earlier this year when we had a particular problem with apprenticeships, which has been largely solved thanks to the work of the colleges and the Department. I thank her for her support.
There was a survey of sixth-form colleges in October 2017. Emails from the Government to us Back Benchers say that surveys are rarely designed to be helpful. However, in this case, even if the survey is not entirely accurate it makes some extremely important points. For instance, 50% of colleges that responded said they had dropped courses in modern foreign languages. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards for what he said about foreign languages, which are vital. I was not aware of the Mandarin programme, and I will have to see how many of my local schools, if any, have taken it up. I am a passionate supporter of the teaching of modern foreign languages, especially as we move into an interesting time in the coming years.
Thirty-four per cent. of respondents had dropped courses in STEM subjects, and 67% had reduced student support services, which are incredibly important, particularly for the 16 to 19 age group, in which people are under quite a lot of pressure, not least from social media. Seventy-seven per cent. were teaching students in larger classes, and I could go on. There were clearly pressures, and I know my right hon. Friend the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, who has responsibility for further education, will be looking hard at that survey and no doubt engaging with the sixth-form colleges and further education colleges to see how these matters can be addressed.
I feel passionately about readiness for work and soft skills, which are vital for our country’s future and our young people’s future. I have the honour of chairing the international Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and I met the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) a few months ago to ask him whether he would mind editing a book on the future of work, an area in which he has a lot of expertise. He did so, and we launched the book at the World Bank meetings in Indonesia at the beginning of last month and here in Parliament a couple of weeks ago.
The book’s examples from around the world, whether from Singapore, South Korea or Argentina, clearly show that everybody is facing this issue of the future of work. There are huge changes coming up, whether through artificial intelligence or the next generation of technology, and we have to prepare our young people not necessarily for those individual skills—skills and techniques move on—but for the ability to change and to accept the need to retrain. They need flexibility in the way they think about the future. That has to start not when people have left school, college or university, but at primary school. It does not have to start too early, but perhaps in year 6 and moving on into year 7. Many schools and colleges are trying to do that work, but they need support; they need recognition for that in the curriculum. Readiness for work is vital.
Let me mention one small step we have taken in Stafford. With some friends and colleagues, I started a schools debating competition a couple of years ago, whereby schools and colleges can come to the House of Commons to compete against each other in a friendly, competitive manner. We are very pleased with the results. One thing young people have said to me is that it gives them much greater confidence to speak in public.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I commend what my hon. Friend is saying and the work he is doing, because I am his next-door neighbour, and Stafford and Stone run together in a lot of these matters. We are both fighting hard to get the best possible standards for our constituents.
Jeremy Lefroy
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. Clearly, some of my constituents go to schools in his constituency and vice versa. I have experience of the issues faced by rural schools, including small ones, but he has much more experience of that than I do.
Emma Hardy
Let me say what a pleasure it is hearing a debate in which I agree with what a Government Member is saying—I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. I echo what he was saying about the importance of debating, and I invite him to join my all-party group on oracy. Will he again endorse the recommendations of “Bercow: Ten Years On” for improving speech and language throughout our schools?
Jeremy Lefroy
I would be happy to do so. I cannot claim I would add much to it, but perhaps I would learn a lot from it.
I am going to conclude, because I have detained the House for long enough, but I wish to make two final points. First, as has been mentioned, out-of-school activities, whether conducted by teachers or by others, are essential. We could be talking about clubs, which have been given a hard time in the past few years, but in my constituency are now largely run by churches and other voluntary organisations. We could be talking about sports clubs—we have some excellent sports clubs in my constituency. We could be talking about music and drama—I have some excellent youth theatre groups in my constituency. We could be talking about outdoor activities, which I have great passion for, having run a Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme for a number of years in London, or about young enterprise. That is just to mention a few, but they are essential. Whether they are conducted within schools or outside them, by teachers or by others who are committed to young people, we have to ensure that they are supported.
Unless young people have those opportunities—all young people, including those whose parents find it difficult to take them, and not just those whose parents want them to go—they will miss out on so much in this great country of ours. I am fortunate to live in Staffordshire, where, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) knows, we are within an hour or two of some of the most beautiful countryside on earth. Indeed, we live among some of it, let alone within an hour or two of it. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Amanda Milling) is looking at me and wants to me to mention Cannock Chase, so of course I will. It is beautiful, and a lot of outdoor activities take place there.
The final point I wish to make is a serious one about exclusions from school. There has been a sharp rise in Staffordshire and, I believe, in other parts of the country. I can understand why that happens—schools and teachers are under a lot of pressure, and if they find that young people are being disruptive for whatever reason, including pressures at home, excluding them becomes an option that, if not easy, is perhaps easier than it has been in the past. First, I do not believe it is right that schools should be put in that position, and I am not blaming the schools for it. Secondly, it is putting a great deal of pressure on pupil referral units and other places, including parents at home.
I ask the Minister to address that point. I ask her to look at the issue of exclusions nationally and ensure that when Ofsted assesses pupil referral units, it ensures that they are not judged against standards they find impossible to maintain. In Staffordshire, we have pupil referral units that are being asked to provide more and more time per pupil, and I fully agree with that, but they are being asked to do so with limited resources. That results in more antisocial behaviour. In Stafford, it has resulted in attacks on teachers, who are being put into danger. As a result, they have to take action, which means reducing the time per pupil again, then they get attacked by Ofsted by not having sufficient time per pupil. I would like the Government to look into that, because it is a very serious issue. I am not sure whether it is peculiar to Staffordshire, or whether it happens across the country—
Jeremy Lefroy
The hon. Lady makes it clear that it is happening elsewhere in the country.
I want to end on an optimistic and positive note. Again, I wish to thank all those involved in education across the country for all they do, day in, day out. They do it with great spirit and humour and sensitivity. They invest in the future of our young people, who are the future of this country.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation (Mr Sam Gyimah)
Matters relating to our university lecturers and staff and how they are paid are matters for universities, as they are autonomous institutions. As for the new pension arrangements and their potential impact on universities, there will be a consultation to which they can contribute.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend is right to point out that we made a decisive and historic move towards fairer funding by introducing the national funding formula—something avoided by previous Governments. That was backed by an extra £1.3 billion, in addition to the money allocated at the 2015 spending review. Staffordshire will gain 3.2% per pupil for its schools by 2019-20, compared with 2017-18 funding levels.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady is entirely correct in identifying the importance of early years for children’s development, social mobility and narrowing the gap, which is one reason we are putting so much more effort and money into early years and childcare, including through the extensions of eligibility for the two-year-old offer, which I think, bizarrely, she voted against last week.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Sir Patrick McLoughlin (Derbyshire Dales) (Con)
The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)
We are using radio adverts, digital advertising, social media and telemarketing—the latest phase of marketing started at the end of January and will continue until the end of this month—and of course our national apprenticeship week, with its hundreds of events throughout the country, is also spreading the message. I should also point out that a legal duty on schools to allow in technical education providers was introduced in January.
Jeremy Lefroy
My right hon. Friend knows that Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stafford, Shrewsbury and several other very good colleges that provide excellent apprenticeships have not been awarded funding under the non-levy apprenticeships scheme. She has worked hard to find a way through this, but can I ask her for an update to ensure that those colleges can continue to provide apprenticeships in vital areas such as construction and engineering; otherwise there will be a bit of an apprenticeships desert in those areas?
Anne Milton
I know that my hon. Friend is a strong supporter of colleges in his area, but, as with any procurement, some bidders were unsuccessful. We have extended contracts for existing providers by three months to give employers and apprentices stability, and the main providers on the register of apprenticeship training providers can still deliver training directly to levy payers, to non-levy payers through subcontracting and to employers receiving transfers from April.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Last week I had the honour of chairing in Westminster the second annual Stafford schools debating competition. The standard was excellent, and I pay tribute to Councillor Carolyn Trowbridge and Sam Phillips for their work in organising the competition. What is the Department doing to encourage public speaking and debate in schools across the country?
Damian Hinds
I join my hon. Friend in commending his constituents who organised this great event. It is true that public speaking, debating and other such activities are really important for developing a rounded young person—the character development that we all want to see. Members of Parliament can also play an important role in this, and many run their own events.