Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

Schools use various codes to report absences. In the case of any illness, chronic or otherwise, there is a specific code. Schools are not judged on the absence levels of pupils who are suffering chronic or other illnesses.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

3. What recent discussions she has had with the CBI on careers education in schools.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)]

One of my priorities is to ensure that more of our young people are leaving education with the skills to succeed in modern Britain. In October, I hosted a round-table discussion with employers and education sector representatives, including the CBI, on this important issue. We are consulting representatives to examine what further steps we can take to prepare young people for the world of work more effectively, and to ensure that businesses are engaging with schools in meaningful ways.

[Stephen Timms]

The CBI business manifesto was published last month. It highlights

“the shameful state of careers provision in English schools”.

It emphasises that girls in particular are losing out, but states that everyone is suffering as a result of what seems to be the virtual collapse of careers education. Why has the situation been allowed to get this bad, and what is the Secretary of State going to do to fix it?

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman; I was particularly struck by the paragraphs about the state of girls’ education and aspirations:

“We’re losing out on the contribution women can make because too many girls at school, college or in the workplace are writing off—or are written off from—particular jobs for no good reason…Choices should not be closed off to anyone, and the full facts about earnings and opportunities need to be available to all, especially women.”

That is why one scheme—there are many others—that this Government are supporting is the Your Life campaign, which is supported by more than 200 leading representatives from businesses, education, civil society and government to show how science and maths can lead to exciting and successful careers.

Living Wage

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I wholeheartedly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) on securing the debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee. Some would say that Parliament does not often have important debates, but with the debate on Iran and now this debate on the living wage, I cannot think of a more important day to be in Parliament. I am delighted to be here to support my hon. Friend.

I was delighted, too, to have been part of a briefing that took place with the all-party group on poverty this morning with the good people from the Living Wage Foundation and Citizens UK, who came to the House of Commons and met several hon. Members, from many different political parties, to brief them on the living wage and to hear some of their experiences. I thank Emma Kosmin and Stefan Baskerville for coming in, along with the Rev. Angus Ritchie, Mike Kelly and Nana-Ben, who is the cleaner I mentioned earlier from the Department for Transport.

This is not just a debate about the living wage but a debate about tax thresholds and tax credits, but one must start with the wonderful news that the living wage has risen again this week. I was pleased to see the Mayor of London going to Kaffeine, a coffee shop in Great Titchfield street, to celebrate and support it. The Evening Standard pictured him with a large cake, which I am not sure is quite the message we are trying to get across, but the point is that he has been an enthusiastic and vocal supporter of the living wage, and quite right too.

I am sure the Minister will make the point that it is fantastic that it is this Government—acting as a coalition, to be perfectly fair—who have raised the tax threshold, which makes a massive difference to the pennies and pounds in the pockets of people earning a living wage or a minimum wage. That is the first direct impact. Clearly, there is a legitimate and correct debate about tax credits and how one takes them forward. I will leave others to discuss that in more detail, although I did set out my views on that in fairly lengthy detail in an article for the New Statesman in July 2013.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I enjoyed reading that article, in which I think the hon. Gentleman described himself as an old-fashioned left winger. I think he would acknowledge that the advantages of an increase in the tax thresholds he describes are significantly undermined for people on the lowest incomes by the fact that tax credits are withdrawn to such a large extent.

[Guy Opperman]

I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman, who sits on the Opposition Front Bench, is taking advice and instruction from me, a humble Back Bencher in this House since only 2010, but I take his point. The Government clearly need to address how taxing the individual is dealt with to avoid the problems he identifies so eloquently. I do not think it is quite as simple as he sets out. I accept and endorse the approach of the Chancellor: I think the fundamental is the tax threshold and then how we deal with tax credits. The harsh reality, as the right hon. Gentleman will know from the article he read, is that we have the bizarre situation where the Government step in and provide tax credits to the tune of approximately £4 billion for a variety of individuals when they should be encouraging an increase in wages and taking away tax. I will, however, leave that debate for another day.

We can provide local leadership. I am proud to wear the badge of the Living Wage Foundation, and I am a living wage employer in the House of Commons. I would like the foundation to accredit MPs who pay the living wage in order to incentivise us not only to talk the talk but to walk the walk. In addition, particularly in living wage week, I would urge all Members, if they have not done so already, to visit the living wage employers in their constituencies. I have met several of mine.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) asked about small employers, particularly in rural locations, but, as is well known, the Federation of Small Businesses supports payment of the living wage on a voluntary basis. I can give some local examples. Aquila Housing, in Gateshead, and several churches in my constituency have shown the benefits, and Mike Joslin, an employer in the north-east and across the country, would eloquently set out the benefit it has brought to his relatively small business. However, my best example is the fine coffee shop Tea and Tipple, in Corbridge, which has barely three or four members of staff. When the snows fell—they fall through to May in Northumberland—his staff fought through the snow to get to work and open the coffee shop. There was clearly a sense of camaraderie, loyalty and commitment to the business that he might not have seen had he not been a living wage employer. He went the extra mile for his staff, and they went the extra mile for him.

Of course, we should be pushing the large employers too. Today, I met Mike Kelly of KPMG, and the human resources directors of companies such as Barclays. We need to ask the large employers in our cities and regions why they are not living wage employers. When KPMG did the transfer in 2005-06, it found that approximately 700 members of staff were not being paid the living wage, but when it compared the turnover of non-living wage staff with that of living wage staff, it found that the turnover dropped from 47% to 24% in one year.

In my New Statesman article, I cited the example of Costco. Craig Jelinek, its chief executive, who pays the living wage in America, said:

“We know it’s a lot more profitable in the long term to minimise employee turnover and maximise employee productivity, commitment and loyalty.”

I think he is right. Last year, when I spoke to Dominic Johnson, Barclays’ HR director, he was clear that it made sense for business.

When I go to my local Barclays in Hexham or any other branch, I am told that when cleaning staff are paid the living wage—traditionally it is the cleaning staff who slip through the net—capitalism takes over and, market forces being what they are, everyone wants to be a cleaner for Barclays, staff turnover drops through the floor, everyone feels much more valued and the offices are cleaned faster. Bizarrely, therefore, paying people more ends up costing the business less, and the quality of the product—the cleanliness of the offices—is improved.

There are, then, examples from big businesses and small businesses, and I am pleased that the public sector and the various Government Departments are leading the way. Some are quick to criticise Departments for not moving quickly enough, but it is extraordinarily difficult for some—the NHS, for example, has a vast array of subcontractors and private finance initiative contracts—to change.

But if I can move on, in the limited time we have, to allow others to speak—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

We have had a very good debate. Like others, I congratulate the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) on securing it and thank the Backbench Business Committee for enabling it to take place during this living wage week.

In 1996, together with 1,300 other people, I was at the launch in York hall, Bethnal Green of the East London Communities Organisation—TELCO—which has rightly been mentioned a number of times. That was, and is, a coalition of the kinds of groups listed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy)—faith groups, schools, trade union branches, and community groups. Five years after it was established, it took the view—we should point out that it drew on 100 years of Catholic social teaching—that a living wage was the answer to big social problems facing our community in east London. It recalled the decisive intervention of Cardinal Manning in the London dock strike in 1889. In 2001, TELCO, together with Unison, which has also been mentioned in this debate, established the family budget unit at York university, which calculated the initial level needed for the living wage to support an east London family with an acceptable standard of living—it was £6.30 at the time. In 2004, Ken Livingstone established the living wage unit at City hall and its work has been maintained, I am pleased to say, by the current Mayor.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) gave some telling examples of the impact on individuals of the adoption of the living wage. In the Living Wage Commission’s final report in June, the commission chair and Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, wrote of one young man the commissioners had met that he

“and his children could be a family again.”

I think it was that potential to support and enable family life that first attracted TELCO members in my constituency and elsewhere in east London to the idea.

As we have been reminded by the hon. Members for Hexham (Guy Opperman) and for Newark (Robert Jenrick), employers have found that paying the living wage can make good business sense, generating savings by boosting productivity and improving morale. Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce and Guy Stallard of KPMG, which has been mentioned a number of times in this debate, have served with the Archbishop of York and the TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady on the Living Wage Commission.

The problem of low pay has worsened sharply over the past few years. The value of the national minimum wage has fallen in real terms—the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) was right to remind us of that—and average annual wages have fallen by more than £1,600 in four years. The number of people paid less than the living wage has gone up, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) reminded the House, and low-paid workers, their families and communities are struggling as a result. As we have also been reminded, that also piles up costs for the Exchequer, as more people in work have to rely on the social security system to make ends meet.

Last month, the Resolution Foundation published its report “Low Pay Britain 2014”, which presents a great deal of information. It points out that

“Britain continues to stand out as having one of the highest incidences of low paid work in the OECD”.

We define low pay as less than two thirds of the median. Some 21% of full-time employees in the UK are in low-paid work, the highest proportion, jointly with Ireland, in the European Union. The figure is 18% in Germany, 10% in Italy, 9% in Switzerland and 5% in Belgium. This is a big problem and it is getting worse. We need a major change in direction and a concerted national effort to address the challenge of low pay. That is what Labour wants to deliver.

Alan Buckle, the former global deputy chair of KPMG, produced his independent report “Low Pay: The nation’s challenge” for the Labour party this May. He called for

“a national mission to tackle low pay and build an economy with fewer low skill, low paid jobs and more high skill, high paid jobs.”

He set out 10 recommendations for that national mission, including a five-year target to raise the minimum wage to a higher proportion of median earnings and looking at a higher rate for sectors that could afford it.

Since then, as we have been reminded, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has proposed that the Low Pay Commission be given the forward guidance advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) to set a target to increase the national minimum wage from 54% to 58% of median earnings by 2020. That is forecast to increase it to £8 an hour by October 2019, which will be a very important step towards the national goal of halving in-work poverty by 2025 and building an economy that works for all. Such a clear, long-term target will give businesses time to plan and adjust.

I did not agree with the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams), although, like other Members, he made a thoughtful speech. He said it would be a good idea to raise the national minimum wage to the level of the living wage, but I think we would lose a large number of jobs if we did that. However, Alan Buckle does argue for the Government to support and promote the living wage, recognising not least that the Exchequer gains when pay rises. He supports Labour proposals for the “make work pay” contracts referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) and the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), under which companies that sign up to become living wage employers would gain a first-year tax rebate of up to £1,000 for every low-paid worker who gets a rise, effectively repaying to the employer the first-year Exchequer gain in tax take from the increase as an incentive.

Buckle also suggests that all central Government Departments should become accredited living wage employers as a first step towards a requirement to paying the living wage to all staff working on Government contracts, and he tentatively suggests that firms bidding for contracts above a certain size might also be required to pay the living wage. He proposes that the Low Pay Commission be given a broader remit, for example to look at the causes and impacts of low pay, and make recommendations to the Government on how to tackle it. He advocates improving enforcement of the national minimum wage, and estimates that a quarter of a million people are still paid less than that, despite the law. He calls for the Low Pay Commission to assess annually the effectiveness of enforcement, and rightly calls for local authorities to have enforcement powers for the national minimum wage, alongside HMRC. My local authority—Newham—is among those arguing that pay below the statutory minimum is closely linked to other nuisance activity by non-compliant businesses, and that national minimum wage enforcement powers would sit well alongside other local authority powers.

The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington rightly pointed out the variety of positions taken by local authorities on this matter. Labour councils have been leading the way in supporting and promoting the living wage—28 Labour-led councils have become accredited living wage employers, paying their in-house and subcontracted staff a living wage. As we have heard, dozens more authorities are paying the living wage to their employees, or have committed to move towards doing so.

We have heard about local authorities in York and Islington organising living wage zones, where people come together to plan strategies to support local private sector employers in the area to move towards a living wage. This week, in a particularly noteworthy move, Brent council became the first council to offer discounts on business rates to firms that commit to paying their employees the living wage.

From its roots in east London, the living wage campaign has won impressive support among employees, trade unions, community groups and employers. The Living Wage Foundation—the initiative established by Citizens UK—now accredits more than 1,000 living wage employers. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington pointed out that the number of FTSE-accredited employers has risen from four to 18—a dramatic rise—and that has been a striking success. However, the Government also need to address the challenge of low pay. It is not enough for Ministers to sound sympathetic; we need a concerted national effort, with the Government, employers, local authorities and communities working together. In that way we can build an economy that works not just for a few at the top, but for all working families.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the school in his constituency, I would be happy to meet him to discuss it. We would want to remove any bureaucracy where schools are sensibly trying to draw together capital plans, but we also have the Priority School Building programme and the ongoing academies capital maintenance fund. They are satisfying the condition needs of many schools across the country.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

9. What plans she has to increase the number of apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds; and if she will make a statement.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

We are providing an additional £170 million to fund over 100,000 incentive payments of £1,500 to employers who take on a young person aged 16 to 24.

[Stephen Timms]

The official statistics show a big fall in the number of apprenticeship starts for under-19s, from over 130,000 in 2010-11 to 95,000 last year. Why has there been that fall? Why has it been allowed to happen, and how optimistic is the Minister that the measures he has just announced will turn around that very disappointing state of affairs?

[Nick Boles]

I am always optimistic, but it is easier to be optimistic when the desired result has already happened. Provisional data for 2013-14 indicate a slight increase in apprenticeships for under-19s and for 19 to 24-year-olds. We are therefore hopeful that that improvement will continue. However, there is a serious point here, which is what employers think about offering apprenticeships to people who may be as young as 16 and perhaps do not have all the emotional maturity and the employability skills that employers expect in an apprenticeship that will last at least a year and be quite demanding. That is exactly why we have created traineeships as a stepping stone to apprenticeships. It may well be in the future that for many 16-year-olds the right answer is to do a traineeship first for six months and then to move on to an apprenticeship, rather than to go straight into an apprenticeship.

Social Mobility/Child Poverty Strategy

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the opportunity to debate this very important and wide-ranging subject. I also thank the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), for sponsoring the debate and for opening it in such a powerful way. Their extensive speeches covered a great many of the major policy areas relating to social mobility.

I especially enjoyed the right hon. Lady’s speech. I enjoyed her challenges on some of the issues about which she thinks the Government should be doing more. I was interested to hear about her own family background, and her mother’s efforts to take all the opportunities that life presented. I congratulate her particularly on her success, and the success of her constituent, in helping to change some of what sounded like the rather backward-looking arrangements for the admission of postgraduates to Oxford university. I imagine that it is even more difficult to change the arrangements for admissions to Oxford university than it can sometimes be to change Government policy, so I think that that was something of a victory for her and her constituent.

The Government are committed to the principle that where people start in life should not determine where they end up, and that forms the basis of a huge amount of work that we are doing on both economic and social policy, which we have set out in the recent child poverty strategy and the social mobility strategy. It was good to hear not only the two opening speeches, but the speeches made by other Members including the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain), my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South (Simon Wright), the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and, of course, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali). They made powerful speeches which covered different aspects of the debate, and which signalled that in all parties, whatever their philosophy and whatever their ideology, there is a strong commitment to changing society in this regard, and ensuring that there is genuine opportunity for everyone regardless of background. That national consensus comes across clearly in the foreword to the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission report from the autumn of 2013, where Alan Milburn and his fellow commissioners said:

“It is part of Britain’s DNA that everyone should have a fair chance in life. Yet too often demography is destiny in our country. Being born poor often leads to a lifetime of poverty. Poor schools ease people into poor jobs. Disadvantage and advantage cascade down the generations.”

That is the challenge that we all face. The last Government faced it and we face it in this Parliament.

It is our ambition to build not only a stronger economy out of the rubble of the crash of 2008 but a fairer society, even in these challenging times. We are not only getting on with that job but making progress, as we have set out in our strategy report and as is highlighted in parts of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission report. The economy is now escaping from the worst recession in generations. We have already helped record numbers of people into work and put in place far-reaching measures to improve the educational attainment of the poorest people in society.

The right hon. Lady praised Alan Milburn and all members of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission for their work, commitment and dedication to that shared cause. I join her in thanking Alan Milburn and the commissioners for their work. She was also kind enough to praise the Government for their bravery, I think she said, in taking the novel step of setting up an independent watchdog and asking a leading former Cabinet Minister from the Labour party to chair it and to be our critical friend on those issues. That demonstrates how serious the coalition Government are about that policy agenda. We decided to take a risk in setting up a body that we fully expected would be not only a friend but a critical friend and would challenge us on our ambitions to address social injustice and create a society of real opportunity for every individual.

The Government’s child poverty strategy sets out that our approach is rigorous and evidence-based. We are focusing on sustainable solutions that will work in the long term and make our society fairer. I acknowledge that the last Government also had a strong commitment in that area. It did some important work, not least in schools policy. In the debate, we have talked about the success of London schools in the last 15 or so years. I pay tribute to former Education Secretaries and individuals such as Lord Adonis who played a large part in some of those education reforms.

It is also true that, in their strategy in this area, the last Government became very dependent on public expenditure through the benefits and tax credits system. By the end of the last Parliament, it became clear to most commentators and people in the House that the strategy of relying on ever more means-tested benefits was not sustainable in the long term, particularly in an environment where the public finances were deeply in deficit.

Therefore, we are now focusing on tackling the causes of inequality and social injustice. That is why we are putting a particular focus on some of the areas that right hon. and hon. Members have raised today: on investing in the early years, on improving the quality of our schools system, and on ensuring that people get more opportunities in work and make progress in work, rather than simply being in work on low pay. I would like to set out some of the Government’s plans in those areas and to try to respond to some of the points that right hon. and hon. Members have made.

The right hon. Lady placed a heavy emphasis on the importance of tackling disadvantage in the early years, as did a number of other Members, rightly. The Government fully share the view that, in order to address disadvantage and inequality of opportunity, we have to be able to act early on. Far too many young people start off way behind as they join our schools system. Schools then struggle to try to make good the disadvantage that has already been embedded in the early years. We have to do more in those crucial early years to prevent these gaps from opening up, so across the early years we are helping disadvantaged children to gain access to high-quality education and we are providing more help to parents who want to get back to work. Our new entitlement for the parents of the most disadvantaged 40% of two-year-olds will mean that about 260,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds will be entitled to get a Government-funded early education place from September.

Earlier this year, we also announced that from 2015-16 we will extend the pupil premium, which is having a profoundly important impact in schools, into the early years, so that we ensure that three-year-olds and four-year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds can get the best start in life. That is extra money to raise the quality of teaching and pay for more qualified teaching staff, particularly in settings with a large number of disadvantaged youngsters. We have announced the consultation on that and the level of the early years pupil premium for 2015-16, and I very much hope that the party or parties in government after the next election will continue to be committed to the early-years pupil premium and to the schools pupil premium. I hope we will significantly increase the early-years pupil premium so that it is at least as great financially—if anything, I hope it is more—as the pupil premium for primary schools, on a full-time equivalent basis. We know that investment in these areas makes the biggest impact when we invest early, which is why we decided in 2014-15 to put almost all the increase in the pupil premium into the primary setting rather than into secondary education. We are also doing other good work.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The pupil premium is based on free school meal eligibility, but we still do not know which recipients of universal credit will be entitled to free school meals for their children. We have been waiting for this decision for about three years, and I think the delay is because of a disagreement—or an inability to reach agreement—between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education. Is the Minister able to tell us when that very important policy decision will be made?

Education Funding for 18-year-olds

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green]

I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman that the impact assessment, which paints a rather puzzling picture, does not appear to support the decision that the Government have taken. It certainly attempts to paint a rosier view than the one that college principals and sixth-form college heads have painted. The Government’s somewhat thin assessment pays no attention to wider issues, such as the implications for bursary funding, and it pre-empts the outcome of the Cabinet Office review of provision for 16 to 25-year-olds.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing a debate on this very important issue. She has talked about what college principals are saying. Let me quote what the principal of Newham sixth-form college has said, describing those affected:

“These are ambitious and aspirational students who have stuck with their commitment to education. They are doing the right thing…How were they to know that the system would decide that they don’t deserve to be funded for 3 years of further education at the same rate as those students who only need 2 years?”

Is not it a very arbitrary and damaging cut that has been introduced?

[Kate Green]

It is indeed a damaging and arbitrary cut. Little attention seems to have been paid to the educational life chances of these students and why they need this additional year of full-time education at age 18.

There are also, it is fair to say, a number of flaws in the methodology used in the Government’s impact assessment. It compares 18-year-old students with all 16 to 18-year-olds, not with 16 and 17-year-olds, which means that the distinct circumstances and backgrounds of 18-year-old students and their particular needs and characteristics are obscured. It fails to do a comparison with students in school sixth forms, and so underplays the disproportionately diverse backgrounds of FE and sixth-form college students. It ignores 18-year-olds studying for between 450 and 539 hours, and it makes no mention of the disparity between the funding for five to 15-year-olds, and the funding for 16 to 18-year-olds, which the Association of Colleges has pointed out already stands at 22%.

Even so, as the hon. Member for Cornwall—I forget the exact constituency—[Interruption.] It is not all of Cornwall. As the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) pointed out, the impact assessment does acknowledge that there is a disproportionate impact on disadvantaged students. A disproportionate number of black and ethnic minority students are affected. It also recognises that the majority of students affected are undertaking vocational courses of study.

The impact assessment recognises that five out of six students affected are in FE colleges. That means in practice that the effect of the policy overall is a 5% funding cut for FE colleges, compared with a 1% cut for schools. It is likely that, in colleges, the effect will be felt not just by 18-year-old students, but by all 16 to 18-year-old students, because they are often taught together as a single group.

The impact on colleges is compounded by the lagging in their funding, which was highlighted when the Secretary of State appeared before the Select Committee on Education on 18 December 2013. That lag means that the effect of the introduction of a cut in August 2014 is that the funding received for students who have already started two-year courses will be at a rate lower than had been anticipated and budgeted for in their second year. That means that colleges are having to rethink fundamentally their budgets and business plans for next year, and their future admissions policies. I was encouraged by the fact that the Secretary of State recognised that point when it was raised with him at the meeting of the Select Committee and agreed to give it further consideration, including the possibility of delaying the cut until September 2015. I very much hope that this Minister will be able to update us today on what further thought has been given to that.

In conclusion, there are real concerns about the impact of the cut both on institutions, especially further education colleges and sixth-form colleges, and on the students they teach. The policy appears to run counter to all the Government’s ambitions to increase social mobility, to invest in vocational education, to increase the employability of young people at risk of becoming NEET, and to level the funding playing field for colleges and schools.

Of course everyone understands the scale of the challenge, given the financial settlement in the spending review 2015-16, but as has been pointed out, other spending choices could have been made. As the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), pointed out on 18 December, colleges are losing out, while free schools and academies are being funded for what he graphically described as “phantom students”, often in areas where there is already plenty of provision.

The Sixth Form Colleges Association points out that nine free schools for 16 to 19-year-olds established since 2011 will educate just 1,557 students when they have recruited fully in line with their plans—if they manage to do so—compared with an average of 1,687 students per single sixth-form college, so the investment in free schools certainly does not look like an efficient use of funds at a time when spending for this age group is under such pressure.

Against that background, the choice to cut funding for vocational training, and to cut funding that is more likely to reach students from less advantaged backgrounds—the very group that the system has repeatedly failed—seems at best ill informed and at worst simply perverse. That approach is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the life chances and prospects of the very group of young people for whom we should want to do most. I very much hope that Ministers will take a step back for further reflection and rethink their approach, given the widespread concerns, and I very much look forward to the Minister’s response to those concerns.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten that Britain has by far the largest offshore wind industry in the world, and under the guarantees that we gave yesterday it now has the incentive to expand—and will do so, both onshore through the supply chain and offshore in the wind farms.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

11. What progress he has made in setting up a business bank operating regionally and locally.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The British business bank is being established to increase the supply of capital to smaller businesses throughout the UK, resulting in increased competition in the banking sector from alternative lenders, such as peer-to-peer lenders and challenger banks. It is being established with £1 billion of new capital, with another £250 million announced on Monday for new small business programmes.

[Stephen Timms]

The Secretary of State will know that Bank of England figures show that small business lending fell by £1.5 billion over the past quarter. Can he reassure us that this new institution will be more than simply rebranding the previous schemes that have proved so unsuccessful?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

T6. Work programme providers say that their participants can hardly ever get on to an apprenticeship, and that surely cannot be right. It may partly explain why the Work programme has been so disappointing. Does the Minister agree that more should be done to open up apprenticeships to unemployed people?

[Matthew Hancock]

A huge proportion of apprenticeships are undertaken by people who were previously unemployed. Of course, every apprenticeship is a job, and in order to get a job someone needs to have an employer willing to take them on. There are many other schemes, such as the traineeships, that Work programme providers work with in order to prepare people for getting a job. Ultimately, an apprenticeship is a job and is therefore a successful outcome for a Work programme person.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I do agree. I have already heard of the work that my hon. Friend has been doing in supporting Truro and Penwith college and Cornwall college. Improving our nation’s skills is vital for our economic prospects, but learning has intrinsic value in its own right. Henry Ford said:

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young”,

so I hope that I have discovered the secret of eternal youth.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Community learning flourished under the previous Government and is at risk under this one. In warmly welcoming the new Minister to his role and congratulating him, may I ask him to look at my recent letter to his predecessor about LymeNet community learning centre in Lyme Regis, which was set up in 1999? I saw its great work on visiting the Axminster Methodist church job club over the summer. Rural areas cannot afford the loss of community learning that is now on the cards.

[Matthew Hancock]

I look forward to reading that letter, but I would say this: the budget for community learning has been protected in difficult fiscal times, and that shows the Government’s intentions in this area.

Economic Growth and Employment

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

The market is not irrational, as the Government seem to suggest. The suggestion is that if they move their direction and course by even one millimetre, even if economic circumstances justify such a change, they will be hammered by the market, but that is clearly not the case. I invite the hon. Gentleman to read the numerous articles and speeches by the former adviser to the Chancellor and the Prime Minister and former chief economist of the Cabinet Office, Mr Jonathan Portes, now director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, who makes that very point.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend recall, as I do, the Prime Minister telling the House in June of last year that employment would rise in every year of this Parliament, and did he notice in last week’s unemployment figures that employment fell by more than 100,000 in the year after that pledge was made? Is it not absolutely clear that the policy is not working and must now change?

[Mr Umunna]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. Of course, another question for the Government is why they will not listen to business organisations that have been calling for action. The CBI is calling for infrastructure spending to be brought forward, the Federation of Small Businesses is calling for a one-year national insurance break for every small firm taking on extra workers, and the Federation of Master Builders would like a targeted cut in VAT to 5% for home improvements, maintenance and repairs. Business organisations, from those representing the food and beverage sectors to those representing businesses on our high streets, which are suffering, are calling for a reversal of this year’s hike in VAT. What do all those measures have in common? They are all part of Labour’s plan for growth and jobs. As our motion stated, the Government must take action now to increase demand and growth and give immediate help to the high street—[Interruption.] The Minister of State, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk), chunters from a sedentary position. If he wishes to ignore all the various business organisations, people might put a big question mark over his judgment. It is clear that the Government need to back our plan and that they must do so now.

English for Speakers of Other Languages

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I will come on to those matters later in my contribution.

One reason I requested this debate is because a couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of meeting a group of ESOL students at the Granville Park education centre in my constituency. About 25 women sat in a classroom in Lewisham and asked me whether their individual circumstances mean that they will have to pay for their courses this September. They wanted to know why the Government are making changes to the funding of ESOL courses, how much money will be saved, and why the Government are taking away the one thing that offers them a lifeline out of poverty and the chance of a better life. They wanted to know whether the Government are pushing through the changes simply because they think that they can get away with it. The people affected by the changes, such as those women, are some of the least likely to be able to mount a campaign against them. Suffice it to say, I struggled to answer their questions.

The ESOL students I met in Lewisham come from all over the world. Some are eastern European, some African, some Asian and some from the middle east. Some have come to this country recently, and others have been here for many years. Most are not in receipt of active benefits and do not receive jobseeker’s allowance or employment support allowance. Many of those people have husbands in relatively low paid jobs, and many are in receipt of tax credits. Most have children in local schools and told me that they want to improve their English in order to get a job. Without exception, all of them told me that they want to speak better English so as to get on in life and be able to speak to their doctor, their neighbours and their children’s school teacher.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful case and I wonder whether her experience has been similar to mine. Priory Park in my constituency has written to me to say that out of 42 students in the three classes run by that centre, only one receives benefits that will qualify them for such support in the future.

[Heidi Alexander]

That has certainly been my experience in Lewisham, and research by the Association of Colleges shows that a significant number of people who study ESOL courses are in receipt of inactive benefits.

I was talking about the sorts of people whom we find in English language classes across the country. Some people in the UK may ask how it is that those who cannot speak English are living in the United Kingdom. I have some sympathy with such a sentiment, although I wonder how many Brits living abroad make little effort to learn the local language. More seriously, the circumstances that led to some people—refugees in particular—coming to this country in the first place did not mean that they could say, “Hang on a minute, let me brush up on my English language skills.” Like it or not, there are people in this country, many of whom are British citizens, who have poor language skills.

When the Prime Minister tells us how vital it is that all migrants speak the language of their new home, I agree with him. When he says that practical things can make a big difference to community cohesion, I agree with him again. When he says that the presence in neighbourhoods of significant numbers of people who cannot speak the same language as those already living in the area can cause discomfort and disjointedness, I agree with him for a third time. Why on earth, therefore, are the Prime Minster’s colleagues, including the Minister present today, making it harder for people to learn English? It is completely nonsensical. Many other countries make language training compulsory for new arrivals, but we are in the unique position of running the risk of making it harder to learn English.

The situation that I described of the ESOL class in Lewisham is replicated in towns and cities up and down the country. A recent survey carried out by the Association of Colleges found that at least 90,000 ESOL students are on inactive benefits—that is 90,000 people who currently have access to free language tuition but will not if they start their course in September. According to the survey, 74% of those people are women. The AOC’s survey also found that over half of ESOL students receive inactive benefits—income support, working tax credits or housing benefit—but that only 14% receive the so-called active benefits of jobseeker’s allowance and employment and support allowance. Did the Minister realise that when he published his skills strategy last November, and did he realise that roughly two thirds of ESOL students on inactive benefits are women? I know that he has promised an equality impact assessment of the changes to ESOL funding, as distinct from the broader assessment carried out by the skills for sustainable growth strategy, but where is it? Will he update us on when that assessment will be published?

One of the most perverse things that strikes me about the changes to the way that ESOL is funded is that we could end up in a situation where money has been allocated to colleges and other providers for courses such as ESOL, but they will not be able to use it. There is a serious risk that Government funding will just sit in bank accounts during the coming academic year because the students who should be on those courses simply will not be able to pay their half of the course fees.

The Government seem to have acknowledged that that could be a problem in the most recent guidance note published by the Skills Funding Agency. Paragraph 53 of guidance note 7 states:

“The Agency recognises that new rules on learner eligibility and fee remission mean that many colleges and training organisations will have to make significant shifts in their provision in order to earn the allocation they have received for 2011/12. Given the scale of the challenge, the Agency will consider some transitional flexibility, to support colleges and training organisations making that change.”

Paragraph 54 states:

“At the end of the year, if the Agency is satisfied that a transition plan has been successfully implemented during 2011/12, the Agency will agree a manual adjustment to the final claim, to reduce the amount of funding that would otherwise be subject to clawback.”

Will the Minister explain whether that means that colleges that cannot spend their adult education budget on ESOL courses next year because the students simply will not be coming through their doors can keep the money that they would otherwise have spent?

Building Schools for the Future

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend asks a series of questions, but I must resist the temptation that he extends to me. We all know that the scheme had to be reformed. Those who embarked on Building Schools for the Future did so for the best and most idealistic of reasons. Those who made promises immediately before the last election, which no Government could honour, must look to their own consciences.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has assured us that he will keep an open mind in receiving representations from the six authorities, including Newham. I ask him to take a close look at the cases of Plashet school and Little Ilford school, whose pupils made a DVD to show him the state of their buildings. Renewal now would avoid continuous costly patching up. Should it not be allowed to go forward?

[Michael Gove]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a good case. I have had the opportunity to visit schools in his constituency and I appreciate the challenges that teachers face there. One reason why these six local authorities brought the case was that they were among the closest to the finishing line when the line was drawn. By definition, wherever the line was drawn, those closest to it would have felt the most acute sense of injustice; also by definition, those closest to it would have been among the most needy. Wherever the line was drawn, there would have been a feeling of grievance. I understand the feeling of grievance in Newham and I take on board the points made by the right hon. Gentleman and others.