Education and Social Mobility

Justin Madders Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Last week, in my capacity as the chair of the all-party group on social mobility, I attended the launch of the Social Mobility Commission’s annual report. What I heard amounted to a damning indictment of the status quo: for too long, we have been too ready to accept that those from poorer backgrounds will proportionally do worse; for too long, we have allowed privilege and connections to override ability and potential; and for too long, we have deluded ourselves that economic growth translates into increased prosperity and opportunity for all. Let us invest in our children in their early years and let us have a school system that offers opportunity for all, but let us not kid ourselves that that will be enough if we continue to have a country where access to opportunity is completely closed off to huge sections of society.

The all-party group on social mobility is currently conducting an inquiry into access to the professions. Our report is due out soon. We saw many similarities between the evidence we heard and the commission’s findings. One such area was internships. Too often, internships are not just a way to get a foot in the door but the only way to open the door at all. They have become a further compulsory step into many professions, but by their very nature they exclude many. We found that too often these placements are determined by existing connections. Be it a family or a business contact, the foot in the door is often available only to those who know someone on the other side of it.

Another area where we found the evidence remarkably consistent was in terms of the aspirations our young people have. They need role models, mentors and inspirers, people from their community who have been there and done it and who can say to them, “Yes you can be whatever you want to be.” For too many, however, that is simply not on the radar.

The evidence I heard during the inquiry persuaded me that it is simply not enough for us to encourage companies to do more. We need to develop a culture in which social mobility is on a par with protected characteristics in terms of career prospects. We rightly challenge when we see minority sections of society not getting an equal opportunity, so we should do the same here. We cannot allow the situation to continue where background is likely to be the biggest factor in determining chances of success in life.

I would like the largest companies to publish data every year on how many people they have recruited from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, and, crucially, how those people have progressed within that company. We need a commonly agreed, publicly available record of how individual companies are doing. Only then will we see the big change in attitudes we need. Among advanced nations, the UK stands alongside the United States in having low social mobility. We need only to look across the Atlantic to see where ignoring these issues over successive generations leads. We should be in no doubt that we are heading the same way. I feel it when I speak to people in my constituency—the anger, the frustration, the hopelessness—who see the lack of opportunity around them and fear the same or worse for their children. Automation and artificial intelligence are going to narrow the opportunity gap still further in the coming years. We need to act now before it is too late.

Oral Answers to Questions

Justin Madders Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

I congratulate Greater Manchester on achieving a 75% increase in apprenticeships since 2010. My hon. Friend will be aware that we have devolved the apprenticeship grant for employers—an incentive payment to encourage employers who have not previously employed apprentices to do so—to Manchester so that the authority there can target it at the particular kinds of employer that it wants apprenticeship growth to come through.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

T4. As we head towards Brexit, many EU-derived regulations will no doubt come under the microscope. Some of the most important are the working time regulations, which protect vital safe working limits in the workplace. Will the Government confirm that they intend to retain all elements of the working time regulations?

[Sajid Javid]

The first thing the hon. Gentleman should know is that nothing changes right here and now. For the next few years, there will be no changes—we are members of the European Union, and all our rights and obligations will be respected. In the longer term, this country has always been committed, quite rightly, to workers’ rights. That will not change.

Term-time Holidays

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. A 10% absence rate equates to one day off a fortnight, and I do not think we should encourage that type of attendance record in our schools.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

We have heard a lot from the Minister about tackling the symptoms of the problem, but I do not believe enough is being done to tackle the cause, which is companies getting away with charging astronomical prices in holiday time and ordinary prices in term time. When will the Government do something to tackle the rip-off culture that pervades our society?

[Mr Gibb]

That issue was examined some years ago, and it was determined that it is not a case of the holiday companies ripping off their consumers. Hotels around the world and in this country simply charge higher rates during the summer months and the peak seasons than they do out of peak, which is a matter of market economics.

“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

In my statement, I set out some of the specific policies, and we will put together a package of information about them that hon. Members can circulate to relevant schools. I encourage my hon. Friend to do what others have done, which is to call together heads or chairs of governors for meetings, and to involve the regional schools commissioners, who will hold events to talk about becoming an academy and the sponsorship opportunities available if that is what such small schools want to pursue.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I am sure that the many good and outstanding schools in my constituency that are not academies will welcome this statement, but I am concerned that the Secretary of State’s dogmatic ambitions remain the same and that she still intends to force every school to academise by hook or by crook. A few weeks ago, she said that

“we are going to finish this job.”—[Official Report, 25 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 1119.]

Does she still stand by that statement, or will she finally recognise the right of good and outstanding local schools to determine their own destiny and accept that if they decide not to become an academy, that right will be respected?

National Living Wage

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Judith Cummins]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving that very good example. My right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North mentioned the glaring example of B&Q, which has asked its workers to sign a contract that reduces a number of their benefits. It is believed that the overall result will be that many will lose thousands of pounds. The company’s response has been to introduce a temporary scheme, for just two years, to protect the value of its workers’ overall packages. That is simply not good enough, particularly as it has been reported that the parent company of B&Q, Kingfisher, may pay its chief executive officer a total package of up to £3.6 million. The numbers are jaw-dropping, as is the hypocrisy. Once again, this Tory Government are presiding over the shameful exploitation of those who are least able to make ends meet, least able to make their voices heard and least able to stand up and tell the Government that what they are doing is simply unfair and unacceptable, and that it cannot go on.

The Chancellor cannot even plead ignorance and suggest that this shameful episode is an unexpected by-product of his noble and good deeds. A ministerial answer to a written question by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) on 21 March revealed that the Government were aware of the possibility that big business would choose to fund their so-called national living wage through cuts to wider remuneration packages. The Government’s view was:

“It is for individual businesses to decide exactly how to respond to the introduction of the National Living Wage, appropriate to their circumstances. But any changes to contractual pay should be discussed and agreed with workers in advance.”

The Government simply do not get it. If the choice for workers is between unemployment and agreeing to changes designed to reduce their overall contractual benefits, most, if not all, workers—especially the lowest paid in society—will sign up.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that another group of workers, namely the self-employed, are also in a difficult position? I was recently contacted by a constituent whose partner works for a courier company. Once his petrol has been paid for, he is getting paid about £260 a month for working a 50-hour week. My constituent told me that she works on the minimum wage as a pizza delivery driver, and she earns about three times as much for doing half the hours that her partner works. Does that not show that a whole group of people is being forced into an invidious position?

[Judith Cummins]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. Big business knows that the voice of the lowest paid is easily silenced, because the fear of unemployment is a powerful tool. The Government need to step up and legislate for big business to fund the so-called national living wage not through cuts to workers’ wider benefits but by, quite rightly, sacrificing a percentage of its own profits. That is not only fair but proper, given that tax on big business profits was cut in the Chancellor’s Budget. Soon, businesses will pay just 17% tax on their profits, down from 20%. I call on the Government to legislate to require big business to use the extra cash released through reduced corporation tax to fund the so-called national living wage, not to deliver larger dividends to its shareholders in the coming years, as I fear it will. The Government must step up. They must end this injustice. This simply cannot go on.

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[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this important debate and my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) on stepping in to introduce it in such an impressive manner.

Given that most of our constituents will at one time or another find themselves working for somebody else, we give far too little attention in this place to the reality of the world of work. To many, that reality involves insecurity, uncertainty and exploitation. This debate has exposed the level of exploitation that still pervades many workplaces in this country. Members have listed many examples of employers abusing their bargaining power to take away with one hand what the new minimum wage gives with the other.

I agree with Ian Hodson, president of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, whose members have seen this at first hand, that the way in which the new minimum wage has been introduced has allowed employers to force through changes to contractual entitlements. If it is the Government’s intention for the increase in the minimum wage to end the underwriting by the state of poverty wages, they surely cannot want that increase to be paid for out of the pockets of the very people the policy is intended to help.

[Richard Fuller]

On that point, the change in the living wage over five years will effectively mean a 30% increase in the labour costs for companies. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the Government did not want that to result in people losing wages, but what would he say to the employers—the small business people that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) spoke about—who have to meet that increase in costs? What is the alternative that the hon. Gentleman wants them to undertake—an increase in prices? What else would he like to see?

[Justin Madders]

The hon. Gentleman is missing the point, which is that we have a very dishonest settlement whereby the Government are saying, “You’re going to get more money in your pocket,” but again and again we are seeing employers use unscrupulous methods to take that money back. We want the Government to come up with a much more clear and transparent way of dealing with this, so that employers end up paying what the Government have decreed is the minimum that people can live on.

[Jo Stevens]

Specifically on the point about small businesses, we know that if the lowest-paid workers, who often work for small businesses, have a pay increase, they tend to spend it locally, so the local economy grows. In addition, the Government have given tax cuts to businesses, so small businesses are not being deprived of any benefit.

[Justin Madders]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We have heard examples today involving large national chains. We can all use our spending power to go elsewhere and support local businesses, which are the lifeblood of our communities.

We should not be surprised by the way this policy is panning out, because this is the way in which some employers have always operated—they see every issue that affects their business as an excuse to whittle away at the terms and conditions of their staff.

The Minister for Skills said in a written parliamentary answer, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) referred to earlier, that any changes to terms and conditions should be discussed and agreed with workers in advance. I am sure that that advice will come as a surprise to the Secretary of State for Health, given his approach to the junior doctors dispute. I am afraid that the idea that employers will wait for an agreement on these issues is fanciful and bears no relation to the reality on the ground.

Those who are represented by a trade union at least have a fighting chance, but the reality is that employers can and do change terms and conditions fairly frequently. When they do so, it is almost always to the detriment of the people they employ. Once an employer gives a notice of change, the employee has very little redress. If legal redress is an option, the introduction of employment tribunal fees has made that a most unlikely route, given the 80% drop in employment tribunal claims since fees were introduced.

My constituency of Ellesmere Port and Neston is one of the top five living wage blackspots for women working part time across the north-west, according to the TUC, with 66% earning less than the living wage. Any increase in basic pay has to be a step in the right direction for that group of workers, as long as it does not come at the expense of other elements of the pay package.

It would be a mistake to claim that simply increasing basic pay means that there is now a fair workplace settlement. We know that many ruses and mechanisms are used to stop effective workplace protection, such as bogus self-employment and zero-hours contracts. This policy could even see the development of other scams. Some unscrupulous employers might sack people just before their 25th birthday just so that they can get someone on a cheaper rate. More apprenticeships that are apprenticeships in name only might pop up because they offer the chance for an employer to pay someone a lower rate for the same job. What will be done to tackle that?

Nearly half of all minimum wage jobs are in hospitality and retail—sectors that are both major employers in my constituency. I have conducted my own research into the practices of many of the national restaurant and fast food chains, which has revealed widespread abuse that the Government do not appear to be interested in tackling. The research, which was conducted at the end of last year, showed that 90% of the 9,000 outlets surveyed did not pay the real living wage. It also highlighted the widespread practice of what is known colloquially as “shift shafting”, whereby staff are sent home at the start or in the middle of a shift if the outlet is not busy, without any pay or compensation. More than 80% of respondents to the survey admitted that they would do that. It means that people can end up out of pocket simply by going to work, through being made to wait around without pay and then being sent home without even having their travel costs reimbursed. I hear a lot about the Government wanting to get everyone into work who is able to work, but I hear no condemnation from them of the blatant exploitation of people who are trying to do the right thing, and find themselves out of pocket through the very act of going to work.

Let us make every job reward people with a wage that they can actually live on, but at the same time let us put in place a proper system of workplace protection so that a Government policy is not allowed to be undermined by unscrupulous employment practices that take away other benefits so that people end up no better off, and in some cases actually end up worse off. To achieve that, we need a fundamental change in the Government’s approach, starting with the recognition that trade unions and collective bargaining have a significant role to play in the future prosperity of our nation. We need a fundamental change not only in the Government’s attitude but in the attitude of many employers, with a move away from the bean-counting philosophy that views the worker as a disposable item ready to be replaced by a machine that does not question, expect to be paid or belong to a union. For many people, being in work means vulnerability and uncertainty about their future. How can we tolerate a situation in which people in work can routinely not know whether they will have earned enough to put food on their family’s table at the end of the day?

We should not be fooled into thinking that this policy is a panacea. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimated that even with the new minimum wage, people with children will be £700 a year worse off thanks to other changes introduced by the Government. The reality is that we are having this debate because the law and culture in this country place far too little emphasis on employment rights. Until this place resolves to do something about that, the kind of injustices that we have heard about today will continue.

Trade Union Bill

Justin Madders Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

We have heard rhetoric from Conservative Members about how the Bill will help hard-working people go about their business. Does the hon. Gentleman not therefore find it ironic that curtailing the rights of working people to organise collectively through trade unions, which is what this Bill is designed to do, will stop those people arguing for and bargaining for better working conditions?

[Chris Stephens]

Yes, I do. The Bill is designed to continue austerity—that is exactly what it is about. It is about trying to curb the largest organisation in the UK that is campaigning against austerity.

These issues of gender equality are very important, because recent trends have shown that what is on the increase is pregnant workers being dismissed and women workers coming back from maternity leave being made redundant. That is a recent phenomenon and this Parliament will need to address it. The Government have not taken any of those issues into account. As we heard earlier, 270 Conservative Members would not have been elected if those thresholds had been in place.

There is also the issue of the deadlines on ballot times. I was interested to hear the Secretary of State say that industrial action would not be curbed, but in actual fact it could be. Let us say that a large employer issued a 45-day redundancy notice. If the trade unions have to give 14 days’ notice of a ballot and 14 days’ notice to take industrial action, it will be very difficult for them to organise themselves within that timeframe, and it could well make industrial action impossible.

We oppose the changes on political funds. This is about not just party politics and attacking the Labour party, but the general campaigning that the trade unions fund as well. I am talking here about equal pay; stronger maternity leave; 50:50 gender representation; and giving money to organisations such as HOPE not hate and other anti-racist organisations, community groups, and international aid organisations such as Justice for Colombia and Medical Aid for Palestine.

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[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

I, too, draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and to my membership of Unite.

It seems to me that the Bill is an attempt to create easy headlines about the way in which the Government are clamping down on unions, playing to a rhetoric that is based not on fact but on prejudice—and boy, have we heard plenty of prejudice from the Government Benches today. It is a prejudice that is rooted in the outdated and offensive view that trade unions are the enemy within. Every one of us in this place will have constituents who are members of trade unions. They are not revolutionaries; they are not radicals; they are ordinary men and women who want to organise themselves collectively to strive for better working conditions.

I have been in this place for only a few months, but many Members with great experience have already told me about the contributions that trade unions have made in their constituencies. Today, several Members—including my hon. Friends the Members for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) and for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood)—have pointed out that Unite, in conjunction with the management at Vauxhall, enabled the Ellesmere Port plant in my constituency to stay open, thus helping to secure thousands of jobs in the local economy and throughout the country. It is clear that trade unions can play a vital role, so why are enclaves of radicalism such as the British Medical Association, the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Nursing and the Society of Authors being attacked in this way?

Many individuals do not wish their employers to know that they belong to a union, because, sadly, victimisation of trade union members is still commonplace. Surely, in a free society, trade unions should be able to guarantee to their members that this information will not be disclosed except under the most stringent conditions. The age-old entitlement of lawyers to observe client confidentiality is threatened by the Bill, which puts trade union membership on a par with the activities of criminals and terrorists. Whatever happened to privacy and confidentiality?

But the Bill is not done with offending principles of natural justice. The cumulative impact of the new proposals would mean that the certification officer was responsible for making a complaint, investigating it, reaching a decision, and setting a punishment. Most bizarrely, the Bill allows any member of a union to enforce an order from the certification officer rather than the certification officer doing so himself. That is an outrageous outsourcing of justice, enabling private individuals to enforce state orders for their own ends. There appears to be no requirement for the union member to have any particular interest in the order. It is like saying to a Tesco Clubcard member, “You can collect a fine imposed by the Office of Fair Trading.” What perceived problem is that provision intended to deal with? Is the certification officer not capable of enforcing his own orders? The Bill imposes a whole new layer of bureaucracy and burdens on trade unions. Whatever happened to the red tape challenge?

I had plenty more to say, but my time is very limited. Let me end by saying that there is absolutely nothing in the Bill that we can commend. There is nothing in it to tackle the industrial relations challenges that we face, and nothing to protect centuries-old principles of justice and confidentiality. Instead, we have been presented with a cynical and pernicious Bill that should be consigned to the dark recesses of prejudice whence it came.

Recruitment and Retention of Teachers

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

I thank Mr Speaker for granting this Adjournment debate on a critical issue that is of real and growing concern to my constituents and to people across the country, namely whether we are doing enough to recruit, train and retain the teachers who will inspire the next generation to learn and create things that our parents could not even have imagined. During this short debate, I will set out the background, touch on why the problem is of understandable concern to schools and the teaching profession, and suggest a couple of positive ways forward, which would carry the support of the profession, including head teachers, staff and their trade unions.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House will be aware that figures have demonstrated for some time that there is a problem with teacher recruitment and retention. Only today, Sir Michael Wilshaw said that the main challenge facing the education system was encouraging people to enter it. He said that one of the solutions was raising the status of teachers, and I could not agree more. I will come back to that point shortly. The Association of School and College Leaders has gone further, describing the crisis in recruitment and retention as a “perfect storm” and attributing the significant decline in postgraduate teacher training and the pool of graduates to the hike in tuition fees.

The impact is being felt in my constituency. One of my first meetings as a newly elected MP was with the head teacher of Newfield secondary school, when I was shocked to learn that after placing a national advert for a science teacher, the school had not received a single application. That matters to the pupils of Newfield, because despite the fact that it is an improving school with dedicated and brilliant staff, it took several rounds of recruitment to fill a teaching position. In a subject as important as science—part of the core subject group of science, technology, engineering and maths, which are so vital to our future—pupils in my constituency should not miss out on the continuity of teaching that is essential to success.

The problem is not peculiar to Sheffield. Vacancies in teaching have doubled during the past year, and a survey for schools weekly found that for the upcoming school year, only 83% of secondary places have been filled. Delve deeper and we find an even more troubling pattern. In the subjects that are vital to the jobs of the future—science, technology, engineering and maths, where we need more than 1 million in training just to keep up with demand—the pool of teachers is chronically under-subscribed. Figures taken from the initial teacher training census in physics and maths reveal a 33% under-subscription. For design and technology, the figure rises to a shocking 56%. One of the leading thinkers in the field, Professor John Howson, has said that the Department for Education “almost certainly” will not meet the recruitment target needed to fill places. Such targets are now being missed year in, year out.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the much vaunted School Direct programme has failed to recruit sufficient numbers of teachers in every single year since its introduction in 2011?

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[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, which is further evidence of more failed ideological experiments from the Tories.

[Justin Madders]

My hon. Friend has highlighted some disturbing issues. Has she managed to obtain from the Minister any details on the current performance of the School Direct programme?

[Louise Haigh]

The Government have provided figures on the failings of the Teach First programme, which have revealed that we are losing more recruits from Teach First than we are gaining every year. The Government’s management of the Teach First programme has produced very poor results. Even among Teach First ambassadors, over a third left teaching after two years and nearly half after five years. We are now losing more Teach First graduates from secondary education every year than are joining. The Government’s intention to expand recruitment makes little sense if it leads to an ever-higher turnover.

The problem is not that teachers are failing the system but that the system is failing them. These results are no reflection on their commitment to education but must surely be a reflection of their experience of teaching under this Government. How can we possibly hope to rebalance our economy away from its over-reliance on the City of London and the banking sector and towards manufacturing, high-tech industry, IT and engineering if we cannot even find the teachers to teach maths and science?

Skills and Growth

Justin Madders Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend is totally right. One of the cross-party achievements of the previous six or seven years is the state of English education in computing science and the move away from the drawbacks of the information communications technology world and the qualifications surrounding it. We are world leading in some of the qualifications we are now developing in computing science.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

In my constituency, we have the Vauxhall car plant, which, time and again, has risen to the challenge of global competitiveness. That has been done by the employer’s working in partnership with the trade union. Does my hon. Friend agree that partnership with trade unions is a vital part of rising to the challenge of productivity?

[Tristram Hunt]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. One of the issues with the productivity challenge is the need for management to ensure continual training on the job and not just in the initial state of the skills. Trade unions play an important role in that. We will get through the productivity puzzle by ensuring that at every stage—from education to skills to employment—we work out how we can get more from our human capital. The link between higher skills and rising productivity is well established.