SEND Provision and Funding
John McDonnell Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee, on which I served many years ago, and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) for bringing forward this important debate. That so many Members are present shows the importance of SEND education to our young people.
People are disabled by barriers in society, not by difference. Children with special educational needs and their families in Leeds North West are consistently made to feel that they are the problem. The system is a complete mess. There is a huge shortage of specialist provision and enhanced mainstream provision, so children are forced into schools that do not have the expertise to manage their needs. That leads to exclusion, isolation and children being withdrawn. Support staff do not have adequate training or care, and many are paid less than those working in supermarkets.
The number of children with special educational needs and disabilities who are either excluded or waiting for a place at a school has jumped by almost a third since 2020. The severe delay in children receiving EHCPs means that families in Leeds North West have been left in the dark for months about which secondary school their child will attend. That is especially distressing for children with autism, who often struggle with routine changes and would benefit massively from knowing where they will be placed.
One of my constituents told me that it took until the end of year 6 for their child to receive an EHCP, which is far too late to secure a place for specialist provision for year 7. Only this December, in year 9, has my constituent’s son been able to secure a place in specialist provision—that is three years too late. He will never be able to get back those years of his childhood spent struggling with no support for his complex needs.
Early intervention is non-existent. In many hospitals, an initial appointment at a child development centre has a waiting list of more than 18 months, but after waiting 18 months, it is not really early intervention any more, is it? Health visitors are unable to identify children who need speech and language therapy interventions, because they only have time to visit for child protection. Although child protection is vital, we need a holistic approach for children.
Child and adolescent mental health services are on their knees. Leeds CAMHS is taking on only the most egregious cases, as it has huge waiting lists, massive underfunding and a workforce crisis. It is estimated that only one in four children who need help for mental health issues obtain access to CAMHS services.
I wish to look briefly at some positive examples of provision in Leeds. I recently visited two settings with my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). We went to a specialist Lighthouse School for young people with autism in my constituency and to the Vine, which is part of Leeds City College, in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. I had one of the most challenging and interesting question and answer sessions with a group of young people. The first question put to me was: what is the meaning of life. As I am sure all Members here know, that is not the normal question we would get when we go to school Q&A sessions.
Alex Sobel
My answer was 42, referencing Douglas Adams, which all the young people understood far better than me. They were a very bright and articulate bunch, but they were there because of the school and the additional support that it provided. Lighthouse is struggling for funding. It is a charity so, as well as the funding that it receives, it gets additional funding and support from charitable means, but that should not be how a school operates. It should be able to survive and thrive on statutory funding.
The Vine is a specialist facility for profound and multiple learning difficulties, with a very challenging cohort of young people, many of whom are non-verbal. The families we spoke to were so grateful for the provision, but we need so much more. Its facilities include a hydrotherapy pool, rebound facilities and sensory perception rooms. It is the only place in Leeds that offers such facilities, so it attracts people from miles away.
Making sure that we have suitable schools and services for these children should be a priority, but, unfortunately, due to the Government’s abandonment of funding for local authorities, Leeds City Council does not have the budget to manage and enhance these school places. This is not just a systematic let-down. To knowingly force children into school placements that we know are not right for them, or simply to accept the fact that they will not receive any education at all, is neglect, and I am afraid the neglect of vulnerable children amounts to abuse.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
All Members present have experiences of their own constituencies. I was the chair of governors of a specialist school; like the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Sir Jake Berry), I brought together local organisations and parents over time. I declare an interest: my wife, Dr Cynthia Pinto, is an educational psychologist. She chairs the British Psychological Society’s education and child psychology division, which is in conference at the moment. I will circulate a couple of pages from a briefing that has been sent to me that contains some of the discussions that are taking place at that conference.
All the experiences we are reporting in this House are very similar. We have come across some wonderful young people who have achieved so much despite the disadvantages they have had, and some incredibly dedicated staff—true professionals doing the best they can—but also a large number of tragedies related to the struggles those young people face, particularly to get the assessment and support they need. Members may remember that last September a report was released regarding the increase in the number of complaints from parents to the local government ombudsman. There was a 60% increase in the number of complaints upheld by the ombudsman from parents who were failing to get access to the services they desperately needed. As the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen said, most of those complaints were about access to the assessment to get the plan itself in place.
I do not want to repeat what has been said before, but I am afraid this does come down to money—it is about finances. As we have heard from other Members, people have failed to get access from the very earliest stages, and if my constituency is anything like others, the closure of the Sure Start centres has had an impact. The development of family hubs may be a bit of a solution, but as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) outlined at the very beginning —as always, I congratulate him on securing this debate—the gap in overall local government expenditure is huge, and it is cumulative over a number of years.
I welcome the additional money that the Government have provided in recent years, but the lack of investment has built up over a long time. The f40 group’s figures are incontestable, and that lack of investment is reported right across the country. The motion we are debating calls for a review of SEND funding; I am interested to hear from the Minister how that review will take place if the House passes the motion, because it is urgently needed.
To turn back to the issue of educational psychologists, I want to cite the Government’s own stats. The educational psychologist route into the plan is so key to ensuring that parents have confidence that there is something they can build on at least, and they use those plans effectively in their negotiations with their local authorities to get the resources they need. As the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) said, due to the lack of access to local authority educational psychologists, too many parents are having to raise the funds themselves to bring in a private educational psychologist, which of course then advantages them over others.
The figures that the Department for Education has published regarding educational psychologist recruitment state that 88% of local authorities are reporting difficulty in recruitment; 48% are citing pay as a reason; one third are reporting difficulties with the retention of educational psychologists; and 69% are not confident that they will be able to meet the demand for educational psychologist services. A staggering 96% of local authorities that report recruitment and retention issues say that those difficulties affected outcomes for children and young people requiring support. The inability to get a plan as a result of the long waiting times for educational psychologist assessments is almost the foundation stone of the current failure of the system.
I have to say that the recent pay deal has not helped at all. This year, for the first time in its history, the Association of Educational Psychologists took industrial action because it was desperate on the issue of pay. It has just had a settlement, which it has reluctantly accepted, but the argument coming back from the association is that it does not think the settlement will do anything for retention or future recruitment. That has to be looked at, and it will undoubtedly come back as an issue—not, I hope, as an issue for industrial action, but as an issue for proper negotiation.
How is the Minister going to respond to all the issues we have raised? Today we will agree that there should be a review. Unfortunately, the review that took place and the plan put forward by the Government have not worked and have not embedded confidence in the minds of others. I would therefore welcome the Minister’s view on how such a review should take place. I also say to those on my own Front Bench that this issue has to be addressed when we go into government—I hope, in the coming months—and that will require resources.
Adult and Further Education
John McDonnell Excerpts(10 months ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I thank the alliance between Wirral and Worcester for forging this debate. I must warn my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) that she is now linked up with the militant trade unionists; in the debate we had on BBC local radio stations, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) was strongly in support of the industrial action by the National Union of Journalists, so, given some of the attitudes at the moment, I just want to express some caution. I say these things but then I realise that Hansard has no irony, so I need to point out that that was irony.
These estimates debates are useful in different ways. As we have heard, they enable individual MPs to come from their constituencies and report their own experience of what is happening, and that feeds into a general understanding of what is happening in the field overall. However—I take this point from the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Sir David Evennett)—there is another role for such debates: where there is a recalcitrant Minister, they enable us to hold that Minister’s feet to the flames, and where we have a co-operative Minister, as we do here, as the right hon. Gentleman said, they give us the opportunity to strengthen that Minister’s negotiations with the Treasury.
There will be a King’s Speech in the autumn, an autumn financial statement in the normal way, and a Budget next year. If we are honest with ourselves, the reality is that that will be a pre-election Budget. The Chancellor has an element of headroom to create, if not a Budget that will create an economic boom, then one that will spend more money to attempt to create a feel-good factor before the general election. Every Government do it, so we have to recognise that. There is a real window of opportunity for us to strengthen the Minister’s hand in those negotiations with the Treasury, and to reap quite rich rewards for—in the discussion of wider economic issues—relatively small sums that could have such an impact.
We all come from our different experiences, as we have heard. I dropped out of education and was then a production worker for many years. I went to Burnley FE college and did my A-levels, and then I came down to do university degrees, including a master’s degree and so on. That gave me an understanding of what a liberating experience education is. It also changes life chances, and that is what it did for me. I have been campaigning for a number of years to establish a national education service built, like the NHS, on the principle that it should be free from cradle to grave—from the early years through to school, college, university and lifelong learning. That is my ambition. We are nowhere near that at the moment, but I think there is still potential for it. We cannot go on in the way we are at the moment. That is why I want to do everything I can to support the Minister in those negotiations with the Treasury, and to arm him with the arguments that we have heard today about the scale of investment that we need.
I do not want to run through too many stats, and I will be very brief, but the reality is—we have to admit it—that education spending is below the OECD average. We are the 19th highest spender out of the 37 OECD members. I looked at the House of Commons Library figures, as others have done. They show that education fell as a percentage of GDP in every year from 2011-12 to 2018-19. That is the longest continuous decline in investment in education that we have seen.
Outside this House today were thousands of teachers—National Education Union members—demonstrating and marching. I joined them. They were protesting about pay, but—this is why I commend them—it was also about ensuring that there is proper funding for education overall. It was a twin demand on their part: their dispute is about pay but, as importantly, it is also about ensuring that education is properly funded.
Owing to my interest in FE, naturally I want to advocate for FE. My hon. Friends the Members for Wirral West and for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) referred to the IFS figures, including the £6,800 spending per 16 to 18 student, which is lower than spending per pupil in secondary schools. I think one of my hon. Friends made the point about college and sixth form funding being only 11% or 12% greater than that of primary schools, having been two times greater in the early 1990s.
I will drill down a bit further into the figures. Total spending on adult skills—for those aged 19-plus—is set to increase by 22% between 2019-20 and 2024-25, and I welcome that, but the Minister should be saying to the Treasury, “That reverses only a fraction of past cuts.” Total spending on adult skills in 2024-25 will still be 22% below 2009-10 levels. The Treasury must listen to this argument if we are going to have—as others have said—the skilled workforce that we desperately need in a 21st century economy.
The IFS stated:
“Spending on classroom-based adult education has fallen especially sharply, and will still be 40% below 2009-10 levels even with the additional funding.”
The argument is irrefutable and I hope that the Minister does steam in, with cross-party backing for increased investment overall. As the Library briefing mentions, the IFS also stated:
“Spending on adult education is nearly two-thirds lower in real terms than in 2003-04 and about 50% lower than in 2009-10. This fall was mainly driven by the removal of public funding from some courses and”—
as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said—
“a resultant drop in learner numbers”
overall.
The Library states:
“Since 2011/12, the number of learners on classroom-based education and training has fallen by 42%”,
and “community learning”—let us think about that in a diverse community such as mine—has dropped “by 55%”. The National Audit Office report published in September 2020 detailed how
“the financial health of the college sector remains fragile”,
as we have heard today. This is not only about funding constraints; it is about uncertainty relating to the resourcing to meet future challenges.
Pay was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford. The IFS warned—exactly as he said—that below-inflation pay settlements for college staff mean that the level of pay is not a fair reward for the skills of those educators, and that that exacerbates “recruitment and retention difficulties” in colleges. The problems are everywhere—this is national. There is not a college without problems in recruiting, and that is happening because the qualified educators that we need literally cannot afford to work in the colleges, because it does not sustain them.
Mr Perkins
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the recruitment problems in further education are seen not only in all the vacancies, but in the fact that further education colleges are not even running a huge number of courses? They say, “We know that we won’t be able to find the lecturers and we can’t run this profitably, so we’re no longer going to put the course on.” There is therefore not a vacancy there, but a denial of opportunity to young students.
John McDonnell
I do not want to keep quoting the right hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford, because it becomes embarrassing after a bit, but that was exactly his point, and I think my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said this, too. Without those staff, colleges will simply withdraw the course because they cannot get the qualified staff. That relates to investment, as well as to pay. One point that has been raised with me in my discussions with educators is that this also relates to the conditions of employment and to its precarious nature. If investment is not guaranteed for those courses, we get into a situation where some staff are on temporary contracts, and that cannot be right for the sector. We are dealing with people who have spent large parts of their lives gaining the qualifications that enable them to pass on that education to others.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
Does the right hon. Member not agree that the reason that people may make other choices, including, perhaps to go back into industry, is that we have a shortage of skilled people to go into those jobs, and that employers are paying a lot more than they used to to secure these kinds of people?
John McDonnell
That is a really good point, and I think that is right: we have to pay the going rate. At the moment, the going rate is not being paid in colleges, because the colleges do not have the funding that they need to do that. We will be caught in that vicious circle unless we ensure that there is adequate, decent pay within the sector.
Apprenticeships have been mentioned. In real terms, the figures for 2021-22 show that the level of apprenticeship funding was 11% below the peak in 2009-2010.
I cannot be on my feet without mentioning university funding, I am afraid, because it is one of the things that I have been lobbied on extensively. To be frank, the state has all but withdrawn from funding university education. Government funding for university teaching is now 70% below what it was a decade ago, and if we compare our spending on tertiary education with other advanced countries, we see that we are now bottom of the league. It is shocking: we put in less public investment than every single one of the other 38 OECD countries. To cite some figures, Government spending on tertiary education in the UK is equivalent to just 0.5% of GDP. In France, that figure is 1.1%; in Germany, it is just over 1%; and in the US, it is 0.9%. The average across the G20 countries is 0.9%. We are falling behind in this key sector because of that lack of investment.
I want to make another point that has been made to me continuously: the one area of funding in UK higher education that does not seem to have dried up is the pay of university vice-chancellors. Every single vice-chancellor of a Russell Group university is paid more than the Prime Minister. In 2021-22, the vice-chancellor of Imperial College London received £714,000. That cannot be right, and it builds resentment when we have low pay and a casualised workforce elsewhere—to be frank, that differentiation is just abusive. At the moment, we are in a dispute in London regarding the low pay of security guards and other facility staff at universities, simply to get them paid a living wage. That cannot be right.
There are other issues I would raise, but I do not want to delay the House. We have had an excellent debate today about the future of our economy and the skills that we need, but to achieve those skills, we need investment in the education itself. We have heard about capital investment, and I am pleased by some of the additional investment, despite the huge backlog. However, if we are going to deliver on that aim, the key ingredient is the staff. Unless we get the investment to ensure that we recruit the appropriate staff with the right qualifications—and not just recruit them, but retain them—we will not achieve what we want to achieve in terms of developing a 21st-century economy, particularly with the challenges of artificial intelligence, new technology, and everything involved in the fourth industrial revolution.
I say to the Minister that whatever support he needs in those negotiations with the Treasury, he has got it on a cross-party basis. Let us make this one of the key issues for the autumn statement and next year’s Budget. If there is anything we can do to help him, either publicly or privately, please let us know.
Robert Halfon
I absolutely understand the reason why. There will, of course, be some worry when we change to a new system, but we have already delayed the onset under the previous Secretary of State for Education. We want to encourage people to do T-levels. They are world-beating qualifications, and those students will also be offered the chance to do a T-level transition year. As I said, new qualifications can be developed.
I want to talk about funding, because it has been raised significantly. We are allocating £3.8 billion more to further education and skills over the Parliament. We announced the final stage of the FE capital transformation programme, worth £1.5 billion. We are investing up to £584 million in skills boot camps. There is an extra £1.6 billion in 16-to-19 education. Many Members have raised the issue of VAT for colleges, and of course, that needs to be considered in the context of wider public finances. As hon. Members know, those things are decided by the Treasury. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury recently responded on this issue in a Westminster Hall debate, but the views of Members across the House will have been heard by the Treasury today.
We are offering tax-free teacher training bursaries of up to £29,000 in priority subjects to encourage more people to come into FE. There are other funds, including a Taking Teaching Further incentive payment of £6,000 for those coming from industry into FE. We are doing a lot to try to encourage more teachers, and we have spent a fair bit of money on advertising to try to encourage more FE teachers, even with the financial constraints that we have.
Robert Halfon
The hon. Member for Wirral West spoke passionately about adult education, and I want to let her know about the five pillars that I have for adult education: community learning; careers support; learning for jobs; the lifelong loan entitlement, lifelong learning; and empowering local decision making. I will briefly explain what I mean by them, but first I will answer the question from the right hon. Gentleman.
John McDonnell
Before the Minister moves on from FE, it is worth acknowledging that only a few weeks ago, the University and College Union decided that it will ballot its members in September, with the potential result being industrial action in October if there is not some realistic offer with regard to pay and working conditions. Is the Minister addressing that at the moment?
Robert Halfon
The right hon. Gentleman will know that FE colleges are autonomous on these matters, so they have to make their decisions with the UCU. However, I certainly urge members not to strike, because it causes significant damage to students and learners, many of whom have suffered enormously during covid because of the lockdown.
Let me go through the five pillars that I mentioned to the hon. Member for Wirral West. Community learning refers to the education that we provide for adults in the community. It forms part of the overall adult education budget of £1.34 billion a year. We will continue to use the skills fund provision to support learners furthest from the workplace who may need a stepping stone towards formal learning. The provision is not qualification-based and is part of what we call tailored learning. She will know that there are a significant number of courses that people can do, if they do not have those qualifications or have not done those courses already, that are completely free. That supports adults to access further learning and employment, and their wellbeing. I accept the hon. Lady’s argument that adult community learning is vital for wellbeing.
Careers support is another issue that was raised by the Select Committee Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester. I am considering the Committee’s report carefully. We are investing over £87 million in high-quality careers advice, both for adults and for young people. We have careers hubs in over 90% of secondary schools; we have the new Baker clause, which means that schools have to have encounters with apprentice organisations or technical colleges as well; and we have the National Careers Service providing advice to adults. The Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge network is also going around schools and colleges, promoting careers.
Learning for jobs is the third pillar—all of the pillars are linked. I have talked about the Multiply programme, the free courses for jobs—there are over 400 courses—and skills boot camps, in everything from engineering to heavy goods vehicles and the green economy. We also have the local skills improvement plans, which ensure that communities can advise on what skills they need in their local areas, and when we have skills deficits, we have the Unit for Future Skills to look at the national situation. We have the lifelong loan entitlement, which I have spoken about briefly. That entitlement will be very powerful and absolutely transformative, because it will allow people to have the end destination of a qualification, but to get on and off at various stations along the way by doing short courses and modules of courses.
The final pillar of adult education is empowering local decision makers: Mayors, learners and employees. As the hon. Member for Wirral West pointed out, we have devolved 60% of the adult education budget to 10 areas of the country, amounting to almost £800 million going to the mayoral authorities, but empowerment is not just about devolution to local government. The lifelong loan entitlement will devolve power to individuals, and apprenticeships devolve power to employers, allowing them to develop the skilled workforce that their businesses need. We plan to publish the mandatory FE workforce census findings later this year as experimental statistics, which will include findings on workforce sector pay—I think it was the hon. Member for Wirral West who raised that issue.
To conclude, we are investing in FE and skills in difficult circumstances. I absolutely recognise the pressure on resources, and will do everything I can to champion resources with the Treasury and elsewhere. I welcome the thoughtful cross-party debate that we have had right across the House of Commons. I have a picture of John Kennedy in my office at the Department for Education, because I am a big fan. He said that “We choose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.” Like JFK, this Government are unwilling to postpone our FE and skills reforms because they are difficult. In testing times, we know how much the benefits that they will bring to our nation’s economy and prosperity are needed. We are determined to build an apprenticeship and skills nation.
BBC Local Radio
John McDonnell Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I speak not only in my capacity as secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group, but to represent my constituents. The NUJ has circulated a briefing to all Members of Parliament who have expressed an interest in local radio. I will refer to elements of it because it sets what the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) said in context.
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. It is interesting that on this particular subject we have come together over the years on a cross-party basis to exert an influence on the BBC as best we can. Our debates in this House have exerted an influence: hon. Members who have been around for a while will remember previous debates in which we have fended off onslaughts on BBC radio.
Let me put our concerns on the record—I hope the BBC is listening. The current plans mean that most of the afternoon and evening output will be shared. Overall, BBC local staffing is expected to reduce by 48 posts. After 2 pm on weekdays, the BBC will produce 18 afternoon programmes across England. Local stations will be forced to share information. What will that do? Exactly as the right hon. Gentleman says, it will seriously diminish a service that is highly valued by listeners and plays a role for all in underpinning local democracy by holding us to account and reporting on what is happening— not just with MPs, but with local councils and local agencies.
As the right hon. Gentleman says, there is example after example of local BBC stations providing a conduit of information during crisis after crisis. From weather crises and covid to accidents and other unfortunate incidents, they provide the information people rely on. Why are they important, as against other stations? Because they are seen as a reliable source of information and they provide a vital service on which all our communities depend. The cuts mean that there will now be just 40 hours a week of guaranteed local programming.
Let me reiterate the role that constituents have told us BBC local radio does. It connects communities. It provides local news. It provides reportage of sport, entertainment and religious services. It has been the bedrock of the BBC’s role as a public service. Interestingly, it is not just us saying that, but the BBC itself. In its latest annual report, the BBC boasts about how local radio
“delivered real value by keeping people safe and informed through challenging times such as Storm Arwen, where audiences in the North East were left without power for weeks.”
The BBC itself gives examples from the pandemic, when many people were isolated in their homes. The BBC itself says “it makes a difference.” That is why we are bewildered when 5.7 million people listen to local radio and it comes under attack once again.
There is quotation after quotation from people who may not be working in the service at the moment and may therefore be more independent. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that people do not want to put their jobs at risk at this stage. The former voice of BBC Radio Suffolk’s afternoons, Lesley Dolphin—who was very well known to a lot of people—wrote this to the director-general of the BBC:
“BBC managers are proud that they have journalists on the ground in every county, but local radio is so much more than a news service—it is embedded in local communities and gives people a sense of place, a chance to celebrate heritage and art. It will be impossible to do that if programmes are shared across a wider area.”
When we debated this issue recently, early in November, there was huge cross-party support for local radio. One Member said that local stations
“provide a lifeline for news and education, mitigate against rural isolation and support people’s rural mental health.”
Another said that it was
“a great incubator for new talent”
in his area, and a third described it as
“one of the crown jewels of our public sector broadcaster.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2022; Vol. 721, c. 774-778.]
The importance of local broadcasting becomes even clearer when all of us are reporting the decline in local newspaper circulation in our areas. The BBC local radio service has stepped into that gap to an even greater extent to ensure that there is local reportage, holding us all—at every level of representative democracy—to account. Press Gazette has reported that 265 local newspaper titles have gone. The BBC says that it is pursuing a digital-first policy, chasing younger viewers, but the NUJ and others have put forward alternatives so that broadcasters can improve the whole system more effectively by working differently and using technological solutions. Unfortunately, the BBC has not engaged in that discussion constructively enough.
I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman said about staffing. All BBC local radio staff have now been told that their jobs are at risk. They have been told that the managers will “roll out” the plans, which means that some of those staff will not know their futures for up to a year. We can imagine the sense of insecurity that that creates.
During the November debate, the Media Minister, the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), said the Government were
“disappointed that the BBC is reportedly planning to make such extensive cuts to its local radio output.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2022; Vol. 721, c. 764.]
The view that we can express to the BBC is that this is a cross-party issue. It is certainly of concern to the Opposition parties, but it is also of deep concern within the Government. I will not let the Government off the hook, because I want to put on record my opposition to the freezing of the BBC licence fee, but in the context of the resources that the BBC now has, as the right hon. Gentleman said, there must be some element of prioritisation for the valuable role played by BBC local radio.
Let me quote from another broadcaster most people will recognise, Fi Glover, who has been a prominent broadcaster over the years. When she was interviewed recently on “The Media Show”, she said:
“There has never been a more important time in the dissemination of information to have a strong local news network. If you can’t tell the story of the people around you, who you know and see every day then into that void can fall really unpleasant things. Once that part of the forest has been cut down, it won't ever grow again.”
So what did she think of these plans? She said,
“it is bonkers.”
I agree with her completely. I hope that the BBC is listening, and I hope it will think again.
Let me say this on behalf the of NUJ: it stands ready to be involved in any consultations or negotiations to find an alternative way forward, which I think the majority of Members would also seek.
Oral Answers to Questions
John McDonnell Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am very happy to congratulate local businesses on what they have done. What we are seeing, which Labour predicted would never happen, is a private sector-led recovery. For every job that has been lost in the public sector, we have seen three or even four jobs created in the private sector, mostly by small businesses. We need to keep up the economic environment that is helping those businesses to take people on, invest and grow.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Q9. At the last election, many of my constituents truly believed the Prime Minister when he said“no ifs, no buts, no third runway”at Heathrow. They are now faced with the threat of a third runway and a fourth runway, with thousands losing their homes and schools being demolished. There is even the threat that we will have to dig up our dead from the local cemetery. Does he appreciate that many have lost all faith in him as a man who keeps his word?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman has a very strong view about this matter, but I simply do not accept what he says. We said that there would not be a third runway. We have stuck with that promise. We now have a report that is being done by Howard Davies, which has all-party support. The interim report is very good.
The Prime Minister
I think that people should read that report before they start shouting across the House of Commons in a completely inappropriate way. [Hon. Members: “Order.”]
Public Sector Pensions
John McDonnell Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I just want to make a couple of brief statements, and I apologise for not being present for the opening speeches, but I was actually speaking at a conference on vulnerable workers.
I just ask the Government to let the negotiators negotiate. When the civil service unions attended the schemes’ talks this week, they were told what they can and cannot discuss. They cannot discuss pension age, despite the previous assurances that Ministers have given them. All schemes have to relate to the state pension age, so, even though some schemes may be able to afford a pension age of 65 years old, the Government are refusing to allow them even to negotiate it. The unions are also told that indexation is off the agenda, and that the index has to be CPI, not earnings, as Hutton recommended, or RPI, as currently.
The schemes have to be career-average. The civil service unions are not allowed to discuss contributions, which have to increase by 3.2% so that the average contribution is 5.6%. Costs always have to be within the scheme’s limit, but in addition the only transitional protection that they can discuss is 10 years for those aged 50, plus the three to four years of tapering for those just below that age. Even if the unions find savings, they cannot use them in another way for further protection. They cannot discuss Treasury assumptions about the discount rate, actuarial reductions for early retirement or any normal pension scheme issues. They are told also that they cannot discuss the abatement rules, which enable staff to take their accrued pension and work on. They can discuss the accrual rate, but that is all predetermined by the other elements not being open for negotiation.
So, what the civil service unions are allowed to discuss in the negotiations is nothing of substance, and in reality we face further industrial action because the Government will not allow negotiations to take place. The Government take an intimidatory attitude by putting things on the agenda and, if they do not get their way, then taking them off.
I echo what other Members have said about the contempt with which negotiators have been treated. I watched the discussion between the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General and Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, when the Minister accused him of not being at meetings. I now discover that Mark Serwotka was at every meeting that the Minister was at—matched on every occasion. If the Government are not deliberately provoking this dispute, they are walking into further industrial action because of their refusal to allow negotiations to take place.
I have toured around, talking to individual unions, and I have spoken to several union executives this week, but the depth of anger does not come from general secretaries or from executives; it comes from rank-and-file trade unionists, most of whom have never taken industrial action in their lives but all of whom are dedicated to the public service that they seek to provide.
So I just appeal to the Government: start negotiating properly; allow proper discussions to take place; seek to avoid industrial action; stop the abuse—the “damp squib” provocations that the Prime Minister has made; and start telling the truth about what people are going to get, because they are going to work longer, get less and pay more. If we look at the calculations that have been made using the Government’s own calculator, we find that no one will get more unless they work for many more years, and teachers and others do not want to work until they are 68 years old just to get some form of pension income that they can live off.
I urge the Government to get back to the negotiating table and to take their restrictions off the negotiations. They are dealing with people who are dedicated to public service, who are willing to settle and who do not want to seek further industrial action. I warn the Government that if they do not negotiate properly, there will inevitably be more disruption and more industrial action—and that the Government will be to blame for it.