Nursery Schools

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) on securing today’s debate. She has a long and commendable track record in education and the welfare of young children, within and outside the House, and I thank her for obtaining the debate. I thank the Select Committee Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), who made his case with characteristic forcefulness, and the shadow spokesperson, the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), for her arguments. I did not realise that we shared an alma mater. I notice that she is wearing the colours of Somerville college, red and black, today. However, I guess we share something even more important, in that we are both parents. When it comes to early years, we have the same objective as most parents—wanting the best start in life for our children. There is no greater responsibility or privilege.

The hon. Member for North West Durham made a point about listening, and in the spirit of willingness to listen, I will mention that the Department is planning a series of visits. We will make sure that Pen Green nursery school in Corby is on that list, and I shall go sooner rather than later. I thank her for that recommendation.

We can all agree on the importance of early education. The research about effective pre-school, primary and secondary education published by the Department for Education today shows that the effects of pre-school last to the age of 16, so it is vital to ensure that children get a good pre-school start. In that context, maintained nurseries are delivering. As we have heard several times in the debate, they are often doing that in disadvantaged areas, where such high-quality provision can make the greatest difference. I fully support those schools where they are delivering high-quality, sustainable provision responsive to parents’ needs. One example of that is Beechdale nursery school in the constituency of the hon. Member for North West Durham, with outstanding provision and additional child care beyond the free entitlement. Another is the maintained nursery schools that are part of the Bristol early-years teaching consortium, where designated teaching schools link with local primary schools and private-sector providers to share their best practice. I look forward to the continued success of those fantastic maintained nursery schools, and more like them, in the years to come.

We should always bear three things in mind in considering child care and early education. We need it to be accessible, affordable for parents and of high quality. There has been some discussion of priorities, and with that triangle the equation is not always as straightforward as it can seem. With child care, one size does not fit all. Parents are obviously concerned about their children’s learning and development, but often they also want somewhere for them to be looked after while they are at work, or when they need a break. Parents look for various solutions when they look at the child care marketplace.

Maintained nursery schools make up a very small part of early education in this country. As we have heard, there are now 414, compared with nearly 7,000 primary schools with nursery classes—6,843, to be precise—and almost 18,000 private or voluntary day nurseries and pre-schools delivering early education. We have a mixed economy for child care and early education. To respond to what the Select Committee Chair said, that should be evidence enough that the Department is not pursuing coherence at the expense of equity. We do not actually have a coherent sector at all; we have a mixed economy, with different types of provision.

[Alex Cunningham]

I congratulate the Minister on his new role. I do not want to be boring about the North Tees and Hartlepool hospitals nursery closures, but they are part of the mixed economy the Minister has talked about. Can he suggest any intervention he could make? Could his officials speak to the hospitals about advice or other help that the Government could provide that would save the specialist provision of those nurseries for disabled and other special needs children? That would enable parents to set their anxieties aside.

[Mr Gyimah]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman write to me, and I will then respond accordingly and get my officials to look into the matter.

I am conscious of the time, so I shall race quickly through my remaining points. Closures have been mentioned several times. The small number of closures that have happened are not necessarily a sign of a long-term trend or a decline in the number of maintained nursery schools. Some have merged or federated with neighbouring schools, so some of the reduction in the overall numbers from 468 10 years ago to 414 now is down to sensible restructuring based on assessment of local need. Despite that reduction, I can reassure all hon. Members that the number of pupils attending maintained nursery schools has increased over the same period, from 39,000 in 2004 to 40,000 in 2014. The hon. Member for North West Durham would describe that as static, but it is a modest increase, and it does not seem at all like a decline to me.

There is as much protection for maintained nursery schools as there is for any other school, if not more. Local authorities cannot close maintained nursery schools without following due process. In fact the current school organisation guidance, published in January 2014, states clearly that

“there is a presumption against the closure of nursery schools”.

That does not mean that a nursery school will never close. Indeed, it cannot be right to guarantee that maintained nursery schools will stay open at all costs, without ensuring that they provide sustainable, high-quality provision that meets the needs of local parents and children. Nevertheless, the case for closure should be strong. The guidance requires that

“any proposal to close should demonstrate that: plans to develop alternative provision clearly demonstrate that it will be at least as equal in terms of the quantity as the provision provided by the nursery school with no loss of expertise and specialism; and replacement provision is more accessible and more convenient for local parents”.

[Bill Esterson]

The Minister’s predecessor made it clear that her preferred route was for nurseries to open in schools, at the expense of stand-alone nursery schools in the maintained sector. Will the Minister clarify his position?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

As I said early in my speech, parents and their needs are the starting point. No one size fits all for early education and child care. We should accept that we have diverse provision and we should support those different forms of provision and ensure that, whether parents choose a childminder, a maintained nursery school or a private, voluntary or independent setting, they get the quality they expect. That has some relevance to priorities, which the hon. Member for North West Durham mentioned. There was a suggestion that somehow the Government’s priorities were biased against maintained nursery schools. In a time of austerity, we need a targeted and effective approach to the early years.

[Pat Glass]

The Minister is saying that we need a targeted approach, so will he commit to looking again at the report from the Education Committee and its recommendations for placing nursery schools at the centre of a network? Given the quality of the provisions, it seems sensible that they should sit at the centre of a network providing support and good practice for other provisions. He should commit to the Committee’s recommendations.

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. I am very aware of the Education Committee’s recommendations and I will come to some of the points in a moment. As the hon. Lady rightly said, we should not just look at what other countries do, but remember to praise the good practice in this country. There is great practice and some excellent and visionary practitioners in this country. There is a lot to be proud of.

We have universal provision for three and four-year-olds in this country so every three and four-year-old is entitled to 15 hours of child care. That is a tremendous achievement. The latest “Education at a Glance” report from PISA—the programme for international student assessment—puts us in the top 10 of OECD countries, which we can be proud of. More than 90% of three and four-year-olds in this country receive 15 hours of free child care at the moment.

On targeting, the Government have introduced the free early-years entitlement for two-year-olds, which will benefit 260,000 two-year-olds from the least advantaged families in the country who will receive 15 hours of care a week. We should be proud of that, but we must be targeted in how we use finite resources.

We have also introduced the early-years pupil premium, which is £300 a year for three and four-year-olds. I assure hon. Members that maintained nursery schools will receive the early-years pupil premium from 2015 and I hope that private voluntary independent organisations and maintained nurseries will use that to help to boost their ability to attract higher-quality staff for children in nurseries.

There is a lot to be proud of, and the Government have a plan and clear priorities for the early years. However, funding for maintained nursery schools is obviously an issue, and we fund that provision through local authorities to enable them best to make decisions for parents and children. Some 49 local authorities do not have any maintained nursery schools and 43 have only one or two. Therefore, a funded approach that treats maintained nursery schools differently would not be fair to those areas. Many areas of high deprivation have good inspection results in early-years foundation stage profile outcomes. Some make use of maintained nursery schools as part of local provision, but others are doing that with high-quality nursery classes in primary schools and private providers, not large numbers of maintained nursery schools.

Maintained nursery schools play an important role in many areas, but our approach, including that to funding, must ensure that parents retain a choice of early education provision that meets their needs and, whatever their choice, that they can be assured of high-quality provision. Maintained nursery schools are more costly than other providers, but it is for local authorities to determine funding levels. There are often good reasons for higher funding levels and many local authorities have chosen to retain them with their single funding formula, indicating that most deliver excellent value for money, but they are not the only solution.

Many primary school nurseries and private and voluntary providers offer high-quality, affordable early-years provision that is good value for money, and that provision must also be funded fairly. We must ensure the highest-quality provision across the board and our policy approach and funding decisions should reflect that.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

In their response to the Select Committee’s report, the Government noted the engagement in teaching school alliances of nursery schools and said that it was collecting and sharing best practice. Can the Minister add anything now or write to me about that and whether he thinks that involvement through teaching school alliances could help by sharing that expertise with others and whether funding could be provided to allow continuation of the high-quality services we get from nursery schools?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee makes an excellent point, and I will write to him on that specifically. He alludes to quality and we know that a large proportion of maintained nurseries deliver outstanding provision, and in areas where maintained nursery schools rightly remain part of the answer, we want local authorities to work with them to ensure they spread their expertise. We are seeing that already. Nineteen maintained nursery schools are designated teaching schools and a further 109 are members of a teaching school alliance. I will write to the Chairman of the Select Committee with the details of how that is working. In Bristol, for example, where maintained nursery schools are linked to local primary schools and private sector providers in a teaching school alliance, they can share and disseminate best practice. That is an important way to guarantee the continued success of our best, high-quality maintained nursery schools.

Qualified teaching status and early-years teachers were mentioned by the hon. Member for North West Durham. I believe, as do all hon. Members here, that there is a need to raise the status and quality of the professionals in the early-years sector. We cannot say that early years are critical to a child’s development and not do everything we can to attract the best people into the sector. There are several ways of doing that. For example, one of my first decisions as Minister was to look at the early-years educator level 3 qualification. On literacy and numeracy, staff who qualify for level 3 must have GCSE level A to C in maths and English. We phased that in for the first year and it will be on exit, but after 2015, they will have to have that on entry to start a level 3 early educator course and to qualify.

A broader issue is attracting graduates to early-years education. QTS is one way to do so, but not the only one. We cannot set pay expectations for all early-years providers. The private voluntary independent sector is significant in the early-years sector, so we must think of ways of attracting the best graduates into the sector.

[Lucy Powell]

I do not know whether the Minister has met some of this year’s cohort on the course, but many have come to me to complain that they were misled about the course because they thought that they would have the same pay and status as if they had done the other available course for full qualified teaching status. I appreciate the impact on the sector of looking at these issues, but we must be mindful of attracting people to the courses. People have the choice of becoming fully qualified teachers, early-years qualified teachers or to qualify as a new early-years graduate. They will vote with their feet and choose where they think they can get the best paid job because they all come from the same place. The Minister must think about that.

[Mr Gyimah]

The shadow Minister makes an excellent point. If people believe they were misled about a course, the first solution is to ensure that the details are communicated clearly to people when they sign up. On the broader issue of discrepancy in pay, we must look at that as it applies to the whole early-years sector, not just between primary school teachers and early-years teachers. The problem can be addressed in several ways. However, there is a more fundamental point. I was speaking to Andreas Schleicher, who presented to the Department on the PISA rankings yesterday, and raising quality is not just a question of increasing the salary; we need to ensure that we have the right sort of career progression. If we look at other countries where teachers are very motivated and excited, they have career progression built into the system as well. It is a knotty issue to get around, but it is in my in-tray and I am looking at it.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

The central ask is that having set out the aspirations so clearly, the Government need to come forward with a strategy. The Minister said that what we are discussing can be done in a number of ways and that there are knotty issues, but they need to set out a strategy for how the proposals can be implemented. At least, we can then discuss it. Will he commit to producing a strategy to bring about the true integrated nought-to-18, or nought-to-19, work force the Government say they want?

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my hon. Friend for another forceful point. As I said, it is in my in-tray. It is something that I am looking at, and at the appropriate moment, I will let him know what my thoughts are.

Ofsted assessments were also raised, I think, by the hon. Member for North West Durham. I assure her that from September 2014, Ofsted will give primary schools a separate assessment for their early-years provision.

[Pat Glass]

Ofsted will give a separate assessment for early years, but the Minister will no doubt be aware that that early-years assessment will include nursery classes, reception and year 1 and the foundation stage, and therefore will still not be a direct comparison against the nursery school, which is purely nursery years, prior to reception.

[Mr Gyimah]

There are different Ofsted inspections, depending on the type of organisation, but one thing that is not in doubt is the quality of the provision of maintained nursery schools. That is not in doubt at all.

In summary, I think that we all agree that maintained nursery schools provide excellent provision. They do a tremendous job in meeting local needs, especially in deprived areas. In a mixed economy, with maintained nursery schools, private and voluntary providers, and nursery schools in primary schools, they have a role to play. They have greater protection than other sorts of providers, and because there is a presumption against closure, the local authority has to think long and hard before embarking on closure. I shall bring my comments to an end by saying that, yes, we value them, but the starting point for this—whether we are looking at provision, quality or funding—should be parents, and when it comes to parents, there is no one size fits all. We should therefore support diversity of provision in the sector.

Candidates' Election Expenses

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

The Government have made the following instrument: The Representation of the People (Variation of Limits of Candidates’ Election Expenses) Order 2014.

The order amends the maximum amounts of candidates’ election expenses at a parliamentary general election in the United Kingdom and at local government elections in England and Wales, to take into account inflation since these amounts were last changed in 2005.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

8. What recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of work-related learning in schools.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

Work-related learning helps young people to become better prepared for employment and develop the skills that employers say are important. The new technical awards for 14 to 16-year-olds are one example of how young people can learn the practical skills needed for the workplace. Our revised statutory guidance on careers advice, effective from September, will strengthen the requirement for schools to build links with employers to give students an insight into a broad range of careers.

[Chris Evans]

I welcome the Minister to his new post. I listened to what he just said and cannot disagree with any of it. Even the CBI says that 52% of respondents to a recent survey say that schools must teach pupils about work-based skills. Therefore, can he tell the House why the Government have seen fit to abolish year 10 work experience?

[Mr Gyimah]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman says that there is not much we can disagree about. We removed the duty in order to allow schools the freedom and autonomy to decide how they provide work-related learning at key stage 4. We are focusing on high-quality and meaningful work experience post-16 so that students can acquire the skills and experience that employers demand. Following the introduction of our 16-to-19 study programme in traineeships in 2013, work experience is now an important element of post-16 education.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

19. I welcome the Minister to his new post. Does he agree that the measure introduced by the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill to ensure that we properly track students from school into work will be of great benefit in work experience and in ensuring that students get into the right jobs?

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is important not only that we ensure high standards in schools, but that pupils get the right experience as they go through the education system—both academic qualifications and employability skills—in order to get work.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State and her new Ministers to their posts. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills has found that young people who have four or more work experience activities during their education are five times less likely to fall into the category of NEET—not in education, employment or training—in later life, yet work experience placements have declined by 15% on this Government’s watch. Will the Secretary of State reverse her predecessor’s decision to abolish work experience?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady forgot to mention that we currently have the lowest ever level of NEETs, thanks to this Government’s long-term economic plan. As I said in response to the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), many education providers already have excellent links with employers, as the CBI says, and what they want to see is organisations such as the National Careers Service, Jobcentre Plus, local enterprise partnerships and education business partnerships offering support to schools. That is how we will get our young people into work.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

9. What assessment she has made of the effect on admission numbers for sixth-form colleges of funding changes since 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

15. What steps she is taking to improve the quality of child care.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

As the new Minister for child care, let me state clearly that the Government’s position is that high-quality child care has a powerful impact on children’s development and educational attainment, and is a driver of social mobility. That is why we are driving up standards through a stronger inspection framework and focusing local authority support on weaker providers, improving the skills and status of the work force and investing £50 million through a new early-years pupil premium, which will benefit 170,000 three and four-year-olds from low-income families. Finally, we are providing 20% of disadvantaged two-year-olds with access to high-quality provision, rising to 40% in September.

[Barbara Keeley]

As well as congratulating the new Education Secretary and her team on their new roles, may I say that I hope they will ensure that their Department pays the London living wage to all who work there, like some other Departments?

Early intervention grants to Salford have been cut by 50% since 2010 and, overall, Salford city council has had £100 million cut from its budgets. The situation now threatens the existence of our excellent Sure Start centres. How will those savage budget cuts contribute to the quality of child care and to the continuation of our Sure Start centres?

[Mr Gyimah]

This Government are increasing the amount of money invested in early intervention in child care to the tune of £5 billion. As I said in my previous answer, we have also introduced a new early-years pupil premium, which will help 170,000 three and four-year-olds, and we are extending the offer of free child care from 20% to 40% of the most disadvantaged two-year-olds. That is what I call supporting quality child care.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

16. What steps she is taking to improve the oversight of schools at a local level.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

T2. The Government’s own figures show that there are nearly 600 fewer children’s centres than there were at the time of the last election. According to the charity 4Children, a further 100 children’s centres are under threat of imminent closure as a result of cuts by this Government. Will the new Minister take the necessary action to halt the decline in the number of children’s centres and to remove the threat to services that are relied on by so many families and children?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

We want to see a strong network of children’s centres in place across the country, offering families access to a wide range of local, flexible services. In fact, a recent survey showed that, under this Government, a record number of parents—more than 1 million—were now using children’s centres, and that the centres were reaching more than 90% of families in need. I guess that listening to the views of families is what is important here.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

T8. I welcome the Government’s positive approach in creating a fairer funding formula for schools. That will mean that pupils in Macclesfield will be receiving a £125 cash boost. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that a fairer funding formula will continue to be a strong focus under this Government?

Education Performance

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

I join other Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) on securing this timely and important debate. I listened with great interest to a variety of different speeches.

The simple but uncomfortable truth is that, under the previous Government, the British education system let our children down, systematically and consistently. My hon. Friend referred to the UK tumbling down the PISA ranking. We have heard a lot about the related methodological issues, but that is only one of a series of powerful indicators revealing the extent of falling—or at least stagnant—standards, despite the huge amount of money that has gone in. Interestingly, the OECD explicitly criticised the persistent grade inflation at A-level, which has disguised poor outcomes and undermined students’ achievements.

Leading universities have had to offer classes in essay writing to undergraduates who lacked the ability to structure an argument properly—not only the mid-ranking universities, but Bristol, Newcastle and the London School of Economics. I heard directly from the former head of Imperial college, Sir Richard Sykes, about the problems with science and constantly having to spend six months redoing the A-level syllabus, because the standards are not what they were a decade or so ago.

This week the CBI revealed that almost half of employers have to invest in numeracy or literacy training for school and college leavers. That situation would be unacceptable at any time, but it is untenable at the beginning of a century in which Britain needs to be delivering a first-class education for young people, so that they and Britain itself can compete in an increasingly competitive and globalised economy.

I welcome the measures initiated by the Minister and the Government to reverse the trend—in particular the plans to raise the professional status and standards of teachers and the respect that we as a society offer teachers. Some of the measures were set out in the schools White Paper. It is right that we expect a lot from teachers, but it is also essential that they get the best training and that they are better protected from violence in the classroom and from spurious and malicious allegations that we know from the polling is deterring graduates from going into the profession.

One of the Government’s most important schools policies is the academies programme. I commend the Minister on the Government’s record to date: the number of academies has more than doubled in the past year, and more and more schools are embracing the opportunity to acquire greater freedom and to innovate. In my constituency, I am delighted that Rydens school in Walton is currently applying for academy status—a great school, led by a dynamic head teacher, with really committed governors. I wish it every success.

Contrary to claims in attacks by the teaching unions, academies are raising standards. The Harris Federation achieved a 10% increase in pupils getting five good GCSEs in schools last year, while ARK academies saw a 12% improvement. That is a strong base on which the Government can build. We are only a year in, however, and challenges remain, one in England certainly being the pressure on school places—in my constituency, I have seen it cause concern to many parents in Elmbridge. I would like to know a bit more about what the Government will do to address such pressures on school places and parental choices, in addition to the academies and free schools programme.

At a time of financial pressure, funding is difficult and contentious, and the allocation of existing funding becomes even more important. The whole issue of the funding formula—its transparency and objectivity—is of acute concern to parents in my constituency. It is probably the No. 1 issue raised with me at open town hall meetings; I have held six recently. The issue comes up time and again. We know that the funding formula will be addressed in the context of the NHS and local authorities, but I am interested to hear more about the process in relation to the schools budget.

What further consideration is being given to the role of profit-based schools in providing extra capacity? I appreciate that talking about this is regarded as almost taboo, but a recent study by the Adam Smith Institute revealed how well placed such schools are to boost the number of free schools, which are a flagship Government policy.

Proprietorial schools deliver excellent academic outcomes—we all know that—but an impressive one third of them do so while charging less per pupil than is spent in the state sector, exposing one of the great fallacies at the heart of the previous Government’s approach, which is that outcomes are dependent simply on resources. The proprietorial schools also erode the dogmatic argument against any consideration of the idea of vouchers—namely that they allow middle class students to opt into the upper tier of a two-tier system. That accusation cannot be levelled against schools that cost less but deliver more.

Apart from the whole issue of structures, we also need to think long and hard about what we want our school leavers to do and about what they want to do; others have referred to that issue today. The previous Government’s target of 50% of young people going to university was an arbitrary and clunky piece of social engineering, resulting in more degree courses, quite a few of dubious value to the students taking them. Furthermore, quotas miss the point. I suspect that there will be broad agreement, but standards must be improved in our state schools and not dumbed down in our universities.

Does the Minister agree that we also need a cultural shift in this country? We heard one of the leading lights at McDonald’s talk about that earlier in the week. We must certainly do something to reverse the snobbery that insists that people must go to university to be a success in life. That certainly did not apply to my parents, who were both successful without going to university.

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

I take my hon. Friend’s point about how 20 or 30 years ago not everyone needed to go to university to become a success in life. However, will he acknowledge that, for most jobs nowadays, the requirement is a 2:1 degree, even to get an application through the main gate? Unless employers agree to accept people without degrees, we have a real problem to deal with.

[Mr Raab]

My hon. Friend makes a perfectly valid point. That is why the question is not just about what the Government do, but about a much broader cultural shift. In my own profession, the legal profession, we can spend six or seven years training, but once qualified we do very little of what we were trained to do.

It seems to me that some of the high street practices could get young, aspirational, talented youngsters into the profession without the huge cost of going through the red brick university parade and on to postgraduate qualifications. There should be a way to open up the professions. They have been some of the worst culprits, and that is true not just of the legal professions. That is precisely why I welcome the Government’s commitment to increase the number of apprenticeships. When considering the UK’s skills needs, two thirds of employers believe that apprenticeships should be the priority for Government funding. From what I have heard in the House and more broadly over the past few months, I suspect that that is an area of emerging consensus among the main parties.

I am acutely conscious of time. I shall close by saying that I am optimistic that the Government’s policies will reverse the decline and stagnation in the standards of teaching and education in our country. The recipe for success is not complicated and bureaucratic. We must trust teachers and parents more, demand academic rigour, and free up schools to innovate. I wish the Minister the best of luck in those endeavours, and I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk on securing this important debate.

Education Bill

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

I support the new clause and believe that we must be radical. The Government are pushing huge sums of money at helping poorer children. I support the Bill because in my constituency the pupil premium will be worth nearly £1 million this year for poorer children. I believe that my hon. Friend is being radical enough in probing the Government to ensure that poorer children in more deprived areas have the opportunity to benefit from academy schooling.

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

I wish to speak to new clause 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), which I wholly support. It suggests that we should be able to disapply the provisions of the Bill, especially when we are trying to help very disadvantaged children. I think that all Government Members, including those who were involved in Committee, agree that that is ultimately our purpose, although we may not always agree on the means.

The arguments that my hon. Friend has put forward are right. On being radical, I think that the Government can go forward in helping poor and disadvantaged children. Currently, there are more than 1,000 failing schools across the country. Less than 35% of children get five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including in English and maths. Less than 55% of primary school children reach the expected level at key stage 2. All we can say—most Government Members agree—is that too many children are being let down.

If we are serious about reforming our education system so that it has a bright future—and most politicians talk about that in their election literature when they say that they are committed to education—we have to do it now. We have the opportunity and we must take it now. That is why I urge the Minister in my new clause 13 to consider disapplying the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations in the case of failing schools. Some might consider that an unusual new clause. I firmly believe in employment rights, for people who work in the private sector as much as for people who work in the public sector, but when a school fails, it is often because the teachers have let the children down. We should consider whether all those terms and conditions should be transferred across.

I wish to make two further points. First, we must consider the cost involved in transferring across all the terms and conditions, which can add up to about £100,000 for the local authority and the Government. Secondly, we must also consider the bureaucracy involved in doing that. Of course we have to go through a consultation process, unless that has been agreed with all the staff before the academy opens, but I think that it is important that we give the Secretary of State the power to disapply those provisions when they think it necessary to do so. That is because there is only one objective here: we want to ensure that our duty is not to the teachers who may have failed the students, but primarily to the children. This is a probing new clause, and I urge the Minister to consider it seriously.

[Mr Gibb]

I will speak first to new clause 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), and new clause 13, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), who both served, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), on the Bill Committee. I welcome the strong support for the Government’s expansion of the academies programme that lies behind both new clauses. There are now more than 650 academies, more than two thirds of which have opened since September 2010, and that is equivalent to more than two every working day. I am proud that the coalition has achieved this pace of expansion in its first year in office. I believe that it is vital to ensure that the benefits of academy status are used to address underperformance in our education system.

As my hon. Friends will know from their scrutiny in Committee, the Bill includes measures to strengthen the Secretary of State’s power to intervene in underperforming schools. We are strengthening those powers to ensure that we can take the necessary action to invite an effective academy sponsor to transform a school where children are receiving an unacceptably low standard of education and the governing body and the local authority are reluctant to intervene.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford mentioned exclusions, special educational needs and, in particular, children with autism. I welcome his support for the Green Paper on special educational needs and disability. He is right to raise those issues. I, along with officials, recently met the Special Educational Consortium to discuss the matter. I look forward to continued discussion with it on the Bill as it progresses through the House and another place. He rightly highlighted the fact that even with the Bill’s new provisions, many schools will still not be eligible for intervention, despite performing below the minimum floor standard. Ofsted’s inspection judgments in recent years have not always paid sufficient attention to the quality of teaching when identifying schools that require special measures or a notice to improve. I welcome the fact that the changes to the inspection framework proposed by Ofsted start to address that issue.

I share my hon. Friend’s concern that no excuses should be made for low standards. He may be right that the current proposals do not go far enough in allowing my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to intervene swiftly in schools that perform below the minimum floor standard. However, we need to be sure that, in any changes we make, there are appropriate safeguards in place for schools to ensure that the Secretary of State is not left open to legal challenge that might continue to frustrate the conversion process.

On new clauses 1 and 13, I sympathise with my hon. Friends’ desire to ensure that unnecessary hurdles do not get in the way of the efficient transformation of poorly performing schools. However, there is a need to ensure appropriate safeguards. We have been convinced by the weight of opinion across both Houses that appropriate local consultation should inform conversion to academy status. The ability to disapply such requirements when converting poorly performing schools, as proposed in new clause 1, is not something we are seeking. For those reasons I cannot accept the new clause.

Higher Education Policy

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Denham]

We have made it quite clear in every debate since the Browne report was published that it would be unrealistic to say that higher education budgets would be untouched by the deficit reduction that we would have had to introduce. However, we have also pointed that if, for the sake of argument, the reduction in higher education spending had been in the order of 10% to 20%, as faced by most public services, we would certainly not have been talking about tuition fees above about £3,800—and certainly not the £9,000 that this Government are implementing.

Since Parliament voted to treble tuition fees in December, Ministers have ensured through their actions that record numbers of disappointed students will be turned away from university this year, with perhaps 150,000 applicants missing out on places. More of the students across England who are studying hard for their A-levels today will be rejected than ever before, because tens of thousands are rushing to avoid the trebling of fees, and because Ministers have already cut 20,000 places for 2012 from the number that Labour had planned for 2010—and that is before any more cuts that may be in the pipeline.

On 3 November, the Minister for Universities and Science told the House:

“We… are… proposing a basic threshold of £6,000 a year, and in exceptional circumstances there would be an absolute limit of £9,000.”—[Official Report, 3 November 2010; Vol. 517, c. 924.]

That was the solemn promise on the basis of which the House was asked to treble fees. The Minister did not say, “Most universities will charge £9,000 or as near as makes no difference”; he said that £9,000 would apply “in exceptional circumstances”, and that is not going to happen. Of the universities that have made declarations, 71% have declared fees of £9,000 and 85% have declared fees of £8,000 or more.

The Minister continues to live in a world of his own. In March he was saying of arts and humanities degrees:

“Most institutions should only need to charge £6,000—or perhaps a bit more once inflation has been accounted for.”

So where are those £6,000 arts and humanities degrees in the most sought-after universities? Where, for that matter, are the £6,000 arts and humanities degrees in less sought-after universities? The truth is that the Minister and the Secretary of State have lost control of the system through their own incompetence. They have created a system in which there is every incentive for universities to charge high fees and virtually no incentive for them to charge low fees, and it is young people who will pay the price. Some will be put off university altogether, while those who go to university will face 30 years of debt repayments, with middle-income graduates paying more money and a larger proportion of their incomes than the wealthiest. They will still be paying off their student debt when their own children have started university.

The Minister is now trying to say that what matters is the average once the reduced fees for some students have been taken into account. How disingenuous can you get? When the Minister promised fees of £9,000 “in exceptional circumstances”, I do not believe that a single Member of the House thought, “Oh—that means that most universities will charge most students £9,000, or as near as makes no difference.” That is not what Members thought; they thought that he meant “in exceptional circumstances”. I do not think they thought that middle-class, middle-income students would have no choice but to pay close to £9,000 a year no matter which university they chose to go to. The Minister’s failure to admit that he got it wrong does him no credit.

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

Given that universities that charge £9,000 will have to satisfy fairly stringent access requirements, will they not be helping the very students whom the right hon. Gentleman says we should be helping?

[Mr Denham]

That argument is worthy of further examination, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will be dealing with it in due course, at—I hope—not too much length. It gets worse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Denham]

My hon. Friend has underlined a point that I have already made. Individual institutions have had to make their own choices, but this was a system in which almost every incentive for the vast majority of institutions was to raise fees, and there were almost no incentives to lower them. Given the number of professors of game theory in the universities of England, one would have thought that Ministers could have got a few together and asked them, “What will you do, in practice, if we introduce a system like this?” Every single one of them would have replied, “We will make the fees as high as we possibly can.” The Minister and the Secretary of State are just about the only people with any connection to higher education who are surprised by what has happened.

Of course, Ministers have consistently claimed that fees above £6,000 will be allowed only if tough access agreements are in place. When Cambridge university announced it wanted a fee of £9,000 per year, the Deputy Prime Minister—the man who promised no fee increases—exploded, stating:

“They can say what they like. They can’t charge £9,000 unless they’re given permission to do so. And they’re only going to be given permission to do so if they can prove that they can dramatically increase the number of people from poorer and disadvantaged backgrounds who presently aren’t going to Oxford and Cambridge.”

That sounded pretty clear, but what has Cambridge actually proposed? Its current access target under the current fees policy is to reach 60% to 63% of state school students—not, we should note, poorer or disadvantaged state school students, just any state school students including those from selective schools. What has it proposed in the new access agreement? It has proposed that the target should be not 60% to 63% of state school students, but 61% to 63% of state school students. As the Financial Times put it:

“Cambridge basically reckons it can triple student fees and placate the Government by adjusting the bottom of its target range for state school pupils by one percentage point.”

Does anybody in this House believe that Cambridge will not be allowed to charge £9,000?

The Secretary of State’s guidance to the Office for Fair Access did not request that OFFA take into account past performance on benchmarks or widening participation, nor could it legally have done so. It will be many years, at best, before OFFA can possibly judge whether the new access agreements have been complied with and made any difference to access. Will the Minister for Universities and Science tell the House today how long he expects it to be before OFFA could feasibly sanction any university for failure to comply?

It is obvious that these bungling Ministers thought OFFA had powers it simply did not have. When The Times asked Sir Martin Harris, the director of OFFA, whether Ministers had been aware of his limited powers when plans to treble the cap on fees were approved by Parliament, he replied:

“I think that the powers of OFFA became clearer as this debate went on.”

That is a tremendously polite way of saying, “They didn’t understand what they were talking about,” and he went on to say, for the avoidance of doubt:

“It is very important that everybody understands that OFFA is not a fee regulator.”

Tory peers made sure of that in 2004. In another place, they passed amendments that ensured that Labour’s fees legislation could not allow the very interference that the Tory-led Government are now threatening.

Of course, in theory OFFA can reject an access scheme, but only a stupid and incompetent vice-chancellor would run that risk. Universities just need a rational plan for school outreach work, and bursaries or fee waivers for some students; if they get that right, OFFA’s powers to limit fees to £6,000 collapse, and the university is free to charge up to £9,000. That is the second reason why £9,000 is becoming the norm, not the exception.

The cynical talk of tough access agreements is raising false hopes among students, and now the finances are unravelling. The permanent secretary at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills recently appeared in front of the Public Accounts Committee, and he was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) about the consequences of fees higher than an average of £7,500. She asked:

“You have a gap, haven’t you, that you are going to have to plug”?

The permanent secretary replied: “Yes.”

The Secretary of State has already made it absolutely clear how he will respond. He told the Higher Education Funding Council for England conference:

“Government essentially has two ways of dealing financially with collective over-pricing: either cutting the teaching grant or student numbers.”

So there will be more cuts in teaching grant, or even more cuts in student numbers beyond the cut of 20,000 from the total Labour planned for September 2010 and the number he will allow in 2012-13.

Frankly, the Government are all over the place on this. On the one hand the permanent secretary says there is a problem, and the Secretary of State says he may cut student numbers or the teaching grant. On the other, he says there is not a black hole. The House of Commons Library has published estimates of the financial shortfall at average fee levels above £7,500. Ministers say they do not recognise the Library figures, so will the Minister guarantee to the House today that the average fee will be no more than the £7,500 first promised? If he cannot guarantee that, will he tell the House what the black hole will be, and how he is going to balance the budget?

That is not the only question about finances, because the whole fiasco has been driven by the Secretary of State’s claim that he needed to sacrifice higher education to cut the budget deficit. There are increasing concerns that the policy will not save any public money. The cut in teaching grant has to be set against the massive increase in the level of student debt that has to be written off because of loans that will never be repaid. London Economics, million+ and the Higher Education Policy Institute are among the organisations that have pointed out that quite small changes in assumptions about future graduate earnings or the rate of non-repayment would wipe out any savings. Yesterday, the director of the Office for Budget Responsibility wrote to me confirming that the OBR will re-examine the Government’s assumptions once all the universities have set their fees.

As it has become increasingly clear that fees approaching £9,000 will be the norm, Ministers have constantly threatened to enact new laws to stop them. In their guidance to the Office for Fair Access, these Ministers said that

“if the sector as a whole appeared to be clustering their charges at the upper end of what is legally possible, and thereby increasing the pressure on public funds, we will have to reconsider what powers are available, including changes to legislation, to ensure there is differentiation in charges.”

They have talked of cutting all university places by 5% to 10% and then auctioning them off to the lowest bidder, including foreign-owned private universities. They have also talked of strengthening OFFA’s legal powers, but part of this disgraceful situation is that they make threats but they will not publish any details.

So I ask the Secretary of State and the Minister for Universities and Science whether, having said that they are prepared to legislate to stop universities charging high fees, they will stop hiding behind weasel words and tell us what they actually propose to do. Will there be an auction of student places? Is OFFA going to be given powers to set fees or impose quotas for students from different backgrounds? There are people on both sides of the House who would like to have the answer to that question. Does the Minister have any idea how he would get such a policy through the House of Lords, given that the Lords insisted on explicitly limiting OFFA’s powers in 2004? It really is not good enough for the Secretary of State and his Minister to keep making it up as they go along.

The Minister said that he would double the level of student loans available for study at private universities and he has made it clear that he wants more competition from private universities, but he has not set out how they will be regulated, how quality will be maintained or how the problem of fraud, which is being investigated by congressional committees in the USA, will be avoided—this involves the same companies he wants to expand their activities here. Once again, veiled threats are being made in panic as Ministers lose control of the system, but we are being given no details, no substance and no openness. It is not good enough to keep this House, future students and universities in the dark about what they plan to do.

Let me turn now to another aspect of Government policy that is becoming clear. The Secretary of State and his Minister plan to force tens of thousands of students from squeezed-middle homes to pay a levy to cut the fees of other students, often those from similar backgrounds. In a typical access scheme—hon. Members can go on websites to look at these—a student with two working parents both on £24,000 a year will pay a full £27,000 a year in fees, but that will include a £3,000 levy to cut the fees of the student from next door with one working parent on £24,000 a year. So two graduates with the same degree from the same university starting the same job will start their working life with as much as a £9,000 difference in their level of debt. How many of our constituents will think that having two hard-working parents should be a disadvantage that stays with someone for 30 years?

[Mr Gyimah]

Will the right hon. Gentleman briefly explain to us how his proposal of a graduate tax can address the challenges in higher education that he has so eloquently highlighted?

[Mr Denham]

I am flattered by the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. No system of student payment for the cost of higher education makes easy the problem of an 80% cut in teaching grant. The fundamental problem we face is that the Government have decided to make most students pay the entire cost of their higher education. The great advantage in a system of repayment of moving towards a graduate tax is that it is fairer; it ensures that what people pay is better related to what they are able to earn as a graduate. But nobody should be under any illusions: the fundamental problem we are dealing with is not the choice between a graduate tax and a fees system; it is the choice between slashing higher education teaching grant by 80% and not doing so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

First, I declare my interest as a part-time lecturer at Queen Mary, university of London. I therefore take a keen interest in universities and know slightly more about their workings than some Government Members who have contributed.

I am privileged to represent Stoke-on-Trent Central, in which Staffordshire university sits and many students from Keele university reside. In the university libraries of those great universities sits a book by Tony Travers and Andrew Adonis called “Failure in British Government: The Politics of the Poll Tax”. That wonderful text tells one how not to make Government policy from beginning to end. I am going to write to Andrew Adonis and Tony Travers to suggest a second volume on the introduction of the tuition fee fiasco that we see before us.

[Mr Gyimah]

When the hon. Gentleman speaks to Andrew Adonis, he should also discuss the graduate tax with him, which he looked at in detail and dismissed when Labour was in government, and which is now Labour policy.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Performance)

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me start by saying that, on a personal level, I know from my discussions with Ministers that they are personally committed to the growth agenda. My reason for speaking in this debate is that I feel that they have failed to get their personal priorities and commitment translated across the rest of Government policy. Current Government policy on the economy and growth is politically driven and fundamentally economically flawed. Above all—even if one does not accept those first two premises—it is totally incoherent in its application.

The Secretary of State spoke at length about the comments of the former director-general of the CBI, Richard Lambert, but he failed to mention Mr Lambert’s subsequent comments:

“But my argument this morning is that the Government has not been nearly so consistent and focussed when it comes to policies that support growth. It’s failed so far to articulate in big picture terms its vision of what the UK economy might become under its stewardship.”

He went on—this is the crux of the matter:

“And it’s taken a series of policy initiatives for political reasons, apparently careless of the damage that they might do to business and to job creation.”

We must emphasise the importance of job creation and growth in dealing with the deficit. Mr Lambert pointed out in the same speech that the deficit was partly a result of public spending last year being up by 3% from 2008, but was, above all, because tax receipts were down by 13%. One would reasonably expect, in a policy designed to eliminate the deficit, that there would be a balance of measures designed to cut public spending and get economic growth, but what we have had are measures designed simply to cut public spending and not to get economic growth.

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman says that our policies are not designed to promote economic growth, but what about our tax policy, which will make us one of the lowest-taxed countries in the G7? Will that not generate economic growth?

[Mr Bailey]

I would love to talk about tax policy such as the VAT rise that is cutting demand, particularly in the construction industry, in which 7,500 people are going to be made unemployed as a number of businesses go down. I could go on for a very long time about the Government’s tax policy. Corporation tax cuts will benefit the rich—[Hon. Members: “Oh, come on!”] They will benefit the banking community and those within it, but I want to see an increase in capital allowances, which is what the manufacturing sector wants to enable investment to take place. However, I shall move on.

Let us consider the financial implications of economic growth for tax receipts. A 1% rise in gross domestic product brings in £7.7 billion in tax receipts. Over the lifetime of a Government, a 1% increase in GDP growth would bring in something like £37.5 billion—nearly half the deficit that the Chancellor says we need to cut over this period. It is therefore the responsibility of BIS to push and push for Government priorities to ensure that the elimination of that deficit is effected largely through economic growth, but it has failed to do that. I think that was acknowledged in Mr Lambert’s comments.

The growth White Paper has been abandoned because there was not enough in it—hardly sterling support for industry and the private sector. Some of the policies we are talking about do not involve any expenditure to implement but are about the priorities of other Departments and how they impact on growth. One would reasonably expect BIS to demonstrate to other Departments how they are damaging growth. Localism is one example. We have heard a lot about the abolition of regional development agencies and their replacement with local enterprise partnerships. By abolishing RDAs, the Government stripped away a core of local business support and they put in its place LEPs, which may or may not be successful, but which have not delivered a single job so far.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Kirby]

I will not.

Business needs to be liberated, not submerged in legislation, not taxed out of existence, not immobilised by red tape. We must release the shackles and set business free.

Brand UK is strong, and it is important that we talk Britain up, not down. We must dispel any perception that the UK is a burdensome place to do business. We need to be aware of the huge competition from Asia. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Office, the Treasury and BIS have all given the highest priority to the business and skills agenda.

The coalition Government are ensuring that entrepreneurs and business owners are able to access the information and advice that they need. The Business Department is undertaking a number of reforms to Government-funded business support. The Work programme will provide personalised support for those with the greatest barriers to employment. The new enterprise allowance will help people to make the jump from unemployment to self-employment. Investment will ensure that workers have the skills that they need in a modern labour market. Young unemployed people will get much more help to access extended work experience opportunities.

[Mr Gyimah]

Does my hon. Friend agree that our skills strategy goes further than the previous Government’s in enabling people who want to reskill to gain funding to do part-time courses, and therefore get back into the workplace and get jobs?

[Simon Kirby]

I agree. Our policy is totally in keeping with the 21st century we all live in.

Let me tell the House something about my constituency of Brighton, Kemptown—somewhere that the Centre for Cities has once again singled out as performing strongly post-recession:

“Cities with strong private sector economies and limited public spending cuts, such as Brighton, will be well placed to drive the UK’s economic recovery.”

Just this week, recruitment specialists are reporting a surge in vacancies in Brighton and Hove, with firms returning to pre-recession staff levels. Amex announced last week that it is looking to expand still further in Brighton by relocating many hundreds of well paid and permanent jobs from Madrid.

Developers are still looking to invest in Brighton and Hove, and Brighton and Hove, with its Conservative-run council and its three new non-Labour MPs, is a place to do business. No wonder the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), the Leader of the Opposition, came down recently to see how it is done. Contrast that with the previous Government—the Labour party, which told us, “There is no money left.” We see in the new Government decisive action, both locally and nationally.

Disadvantaged Children

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) made an observation about the number of Members here to debate this issue compared with the number who debated the horse racing levy. The other observation that I would make is that so many Members of the new intake are here on a Thursday afternoon to debate this subject. That is so especially because most of us will have stated at some point in our political campaigns that making life better for other people was our motivation for getting into politics. We have my hon. Friends the Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for Salisbury (John Glen) to thank for getting this debate together. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire has been focused on this subject for a very long time. Before he came to this place he was involved with the Bow Group, where he examined the causes of debt, deprivation and despair. In this House, he has set up the all-party group on credit unions. So helping the disadvantaged is something that he is committed to, and I am glad that he has given us all the opportunity to speak in this debate.

What is interesting about this debate is the amount of consensus—something that we do not often get in the Chamber—as well as the fact that we are not attacking each other’s motives. We do not always get that in the Chamber. The consensus is that the early years to which the right hon. Member for Birkenhead referred in his excellent report as the “foundation years” are critical to one’s life chances. That is when boundaries are set and when cognitive functions are developed.

We need only consider the difference that the little things, such as reading to a child, can make. If I look back at my own life, it was traumatic in the early years when my parents split up when I was four or five years old. I remember my mother spending a lot of time reading to me in her very strong way. I could not get away from having an hour or two hours of reading with her every evening and, at the time, I hated every moment of it. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire said, however, if a child cannot read at school, nothing else works. It was important, and I can understand it now. Whenever I complained, she used to throw the scriptures back in my face: train a child in the way they should go and when they grow they will not depart from it. Now, at the age of 34, I can in some way understand what she was trying to achieve.

That is based on my experience and we all have our own individual experiences—some good, some bad, and some to which we are indifferent. The interesting thing about what the right hon. Member for Birkenhead has done is that he has grounded some people’s gut feeling in analytical work. I have commented on what he said about the foundation years, but he has also come up with a set of life chances indicators, all of which are important. What excited me most as I read his report was the fact that it changed the terms of the debate—moving from considering static indicators, such as poverty, to considering this as a life chances issue. The hard data and the research that back them up mean that we can now move on and come up with some decent policies. By move on, I mean that we can move away from the predominant approach of the previous Labour Government, which was the redistributive approach of all-round tax credits, to the approach that some of us on the Government Benches might have had, which is that parenting and the family are outside the responsibility of the state. In fact, if someone is responsible, they know what it means to be a parent, so what business does the state have to comment on it?

We all agree that parenting is at the core of this matter. It is the single biggest responsibility that we can take on as human beings but, interestingly enough, it is the one that nobody trains for. We train if we want to play the piano, or to learn how to speak in public. One can train for almost everything except being a parent. When training does exist, the situation has often irrevocably broken down. As the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said, state intervention happens when people have had problems with the law, by which time it is probably too late. I find it interesting that some of the comments that we have come up with suggest having an intervention earlier on in the process, before things go wrong. Why is that important? It is hard to be a parent. The knowledge that most people have comes from grandparents or their own experience, and we only have to look at the popularity of the site Mumsnet to know that it is all about shared knowledge. Those who live in an area where there is a lot of good shared knowledge can learn from it, but if they live in a part of the country without that knowledge, they are left to their own devices. People make mistakes, sometimes with the best of intentions.

Let me turn to the point I want to focus on, as I have to rush through this. Let us not be fatalistic. Some parents will struggle and some parents will do a good job, but peer pressure might mean that their children will go off the rails. Sometimes the school is where things go right or wrong, and sometimes it is the local environment. In focusing on the early years, we should not automatically consign disadvantaged or unconventional families to an at-risk group. Let us not say that people have only one life chance, as so many things happen in the course of someone’s life that can make a difference to their life chances. There is overwhelming evidence about the early years that we need to focus on, but let us not ignore the other stages in their life. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said that we should continue to invest throughout someone’s life, but that is probably where I slightly disagree with her. It is interesting to move away from seeing this issue as purely one of resources and from thinking that the problem will be addressed by investing more and more. Deep character development, which is how I would sum all this up, does not depend on wealth. One piece of information that I came across in the report of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead is that Chinese families—

[Kate Green]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Gyimah]

I need to race on—I am terribly sorry. In Chinese families there is not the same correlation between poverty and the outcomes we see in other types of family. While we focus on the early years, I would like us to reintroduce the concept of character into public discourse and to discuss how to bring up and raise children to improve their life chances. When I talk about character, I mean self-discipline and a child saying, “I am not going to watch TV now; I need to do my homework.” I mean a child showing respect to others and knowing that when they go to school and someone gets on their nerves, they should not just thump that person, but should report them to the teacher. Some academics call these considerations pro-social norms. This is something that happens at home and we should not be afraid to talk about character in our public discourse. Character is a function not of wealth but of values and we should be happy to speak about it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am aware of the importance of the automobile industry in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, where I have seen the excellent Vauxhall operation. Specifically, we are working through the Automotive Council, of which I think he is aware, and with which all the leading manufacturers in the UK are associated. One of its earliest decisions was on deepening the British supply chain, and several companies have already reported that that process is happening in a positive way.

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his answers so far on bank lending. A lot of risky start-up businesses still rely on business angels and friends and family to invest equity. What are the Government doing to plug that equity gap so that people can start up new businesses, employ people and get the economy growing?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is an authority on this; I think that he was entrepreneur of the future several years ago. We do have the growth funds that provide equity. He may also have noticed that as a result of our discussions with the banks, they have established an equity fund in order to achieve precisely the aims that he describes.

Schools White Paper

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We take child protection amazingly seriously. We are working with the Council for Internet Safety and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre to ensure that we are doing everything that is necessary to protect children from online grooming. However, I do not see how giving teachers more control over discipline can undermine the safety of all children.

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

Too often kids go to school with the wrong attitude, and spend a great deal of their time in the classroom being disruptive. What specific steps will my right hon. Friend take to restore discipline in the classroom, so that teachers can focus on teaching and enabling kids to learn rather than on managing disruptive pupils?

[Michael Gove]

We are going to change the rules on search, on the use of appropriate force and, as I have said, on detention, but, critically, we are going to ensure that children learn to read properly at primary school. The problems involving disruptive children at secondary school are often due to the fact that they have not been taught to read. When they arrive at secondary school the curriculum is too stretching, and unfortunately they act up rather than learn. That is a tragedy, and it needs to be addressed at a very early stage.