Graham Stuart
MP for Beverley and Holderness · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I hope and expect that we can move forward in the right way and get the balance right between being overly prescriptive to the banking industry and setting a clear sense of direction to make sure that no one is left behind, as so many Members have set out.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this debate.”
“Is my hon. Friend as astonished as I am that the Minister—I know she is new to her post—has come here to propose a six-month extension of the movement of costs from bills to the Exchequer and cannot tell the Committee how much money that will cost?”
“The Minister is being most generous again. I did not ask her about protecting consumers from energy price shocks; I asked about a clear, unequivocal manifesto pledge to reduce household energy bills by £300. She, like her predecessors, refuses to address it directly. It was a clear promise.”
“Banking hubs themselves came out of an industry response from the NatWest executive. Does the Minister agree that we must present the information from the Lloyd review to the banking groups, be clear about what we want, and give them the opportunity to respond and provide a solution, as they did with banking hubs, so that we can perhaps a…”
“I am pleased to say that Lloyds listened and, as of this morning, people can deposit cheques at those places. These issues being raised by Members across the House today are important. I trust that given the timing of the Richard Lloyd report, the Minister in her seat will make sure that they are be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.”
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“I am glad the hon. Lady has raised the issue of allowing nursery schools to become academies. I took a delegation of heads of nursery schools to see the Department some months ago and pressed that exact case. I hope we may hear the Minister’s thoughts on that subject. There is an opportunity to unleash places such as Pen Green and others through academy status and allow them to innovate and further expand what they do in future.”
“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?”
“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?”
“There is always a gap: if a child comes from a disadvantaged home, the likelihood is—not individually, but statistically—that there will be a gap, but it is greater in this country than in many others. We need to close it. Why do we need to close it? Obviously for educational reasons, but, as has been said, there is an economic impact. The figures, which are probably rather conservative, show that the impact of providing people with a higher-quality education is immense. In the couple of seconds I have left, I reiterate the importance of quality teachers and ensuring that they are distributed where they are most needed, and getting incentives right for them.”
“Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb)—properly returned to the Front Bench, I have to say—and his colleagues, so the proportion achieving the qualification rose from 5% to 9%. There has been an increase in quantity without a collapse in the percentage achieving a qualification. The introduction of the pupil premium and its extension to early years education are also important measures. I have less than a minute to go, so I shall put aside my notes. Although we have frequently mentioned this, it deserves to be reiterated again and again that closing the gap is not just an educational question; it is not just that it is ridiculous that some children, just because their families are poor, should end up doing badly at school. It does not have to be that way, because we know that in other countries it is not that way.”
“I had concerns about the way in which the English baccalaureate was introduced, and whether it really would benefit the most disadvantaged young people, because I thought the most telling feature of our Committee’s report on the EBacc years ago was a graph that showed that despite a big drop in the number of young people from poorer families sitting the EBacc subjects, the number passing them had not altered a great deal. The fear was that although the intentions were sound, pushing lots of children into courses that they were not going to pass would do them little good. However, the data that I have obtained from the Department show that as the proportion of free-school-meals pupils who were entered for the English baccalaureate doubled, from 9% to 18%, between 2011-12 and 2012-13, thanks to the then Minister, my hon.”
“Efforts are being made on a number of fronts to challenge that. That is why the curriculum and accountability systems have been altered. There has been encouragement of the study of the more rigorous subjects through the English baccalaureate, because those more rigorous subjects were seen as having greater value; they acted as keys to other opportunity, and if they were closed off to the children of poorer families, they would close off opportunity.”
“By comparison, the achievement gaps for children of Indian, Bangladeshi and black African ethnicities have all shrunk. The free-school-meals performance gap for Indian children closed by almost 7% between 2006 and 2013, whereas for white British children it hardly altered. Those statistics show that improvement is none the less possible, but the challenge of assisting disadvantaged white children still requires serious attention. The Government deserve credit. The Secretary of State and her predecessor have made it a mission to roll back what was termed “the soft bigotry of low expectations”. They have enabled schools to lengthen the school day. One of the strongest features of the previous Secretary of State was a stubborn refusal to accept that being born poor should mean that a child will fail at school.”
“By the age of five, their future trajectory has been established. The gap then widens to 32.2% at key stage 4. Although the proportion of white British children on free school meals achieving the key stage 4 benchmark has almost doubled over the past seven years, it is still only around half as high as the number of non-free-school-meals white British children who succeed by that measure. That disparity is far too wide. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole set out, the foundations of that learning are the ability to read and getting that right in the early years. Too many children from disadvantaged homes are being failed—allowed to progress through school without the skills that they need to secure good jobs.”
“A central finding of the Select Committee on Education’s recent report “Underachievement in Education by White Working Class Children”, published in June, was that “the attainment ‘gap’ between those children eligible for free school meals and the remainder is wider for white British…children than for” any other major ethnic group. Although, as has been said, boys perform worse than girls in any ethnicity or group, poor white children—that is probably a fairer expression than “working class”—both boys and girls have the lowest level of achievement in this country. That is something I want to highlight today. My Committee heard that the gap is visible as early as age five. For white British children, who are the lowest-performing ethnic group in early years, the attainment gap already stands at 24% by that age.”
“It is a great pleasure to take part in the debate and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for securing it and giving such a powerful and morally charged opening address. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), the former shadow Secretary of State, and I congratulate him on his speech and him and his noble Friend Baroness Morris on their efforts in Liverpool. That is just the kind of sustained focus that can enrich people’s lives and make a serious contribution to the economic success of the area. I also want to thank the Backbench Business Committee for choosing this issue for Members to discuss. As has been mentioned, white working class children fare particularly badly.”
“I think the hon. Gentleman will get an extra minute if he is lucky. May I say to him that I do not believe he does have an evidence base of any sort for these slurs against home-educating families up and down the country? Why do we not seek a point of agreement that what we should do is try to establish a better evidence base about what is happening in home schooling? If we did that, we could talk on the basis of evidence, rather than slur and anecdote.”
“We have institutionalised racism, and we now appear to have problems arising from an institutionalised fear of accusations of racism, whether in education in Birmingham or in safeguarding in Rotherham and elsewhere. What can be done to ensure that effective action is taken to ensure that children are protected, regardless of the community in which wrong is found?”
“May I, too, congratulate Peter Clarke and thank him for his work? We must ensure that we have a proportionate response. The Education Committee will be taking evidence from Peter Clarke, Ian Kershaw, head teachers and others in our inquiry. We will produce a report and make recommendations in the autumn. Will the Secretary of State delay her formal response to the recommendations in Peter Clarke’s report until the Select Committee has produced its report, which I hope will be as early in the autumn as we can manage?”
“Their contributions added value to our inquiry and confirmed our view that these young people deserve better. This report is a step towards ensuring that they get it.”
“This includes offering a safety net if life takes a turn for the worst; providing support to the age of 25, without exception; and providing the much needed peace of mind as a young person prepares for important exams, by ensuring the stability of their placement at that time. Thirdly, we stress the importance of providing options, be it staying in “other arrangements” until the age of 21, or simultaneously meeting the wish for independence and the need for continuing support through Staying Close, which is where accommodation is provided close to, for instance, a residential children’s home where a young person has developed solid relationships with trusted adults. We were deeply impressed by the young people we met, who spoke to us openly and honestly about their personal experiences.”
“In addition to these fundamental recommendations, we found that there are several other aspects of 16-plus care options in desperate need of attention, which can be split into three broad areas. First, our report focuses on the planning and preparation for a young person’s move to independence. In particular, young people need to know more and have the chance to say more, while also being given the support and encouragement to maintain the relationships that matter most to them. Secondly, our report sets out the necessary steps to ensure minimal disruption and maximum stability during a young person’s transition to adulthood and independence.”
“It may not be in the best interest of some young people, or their preference, to stay in their residential children’s home, but many who are settled and thriving would greatly benefit from the stability of staying put in the home which is their home. The DFE argues that the quality of children’s homes must improve before it will allow young people to stay beyond their 18th birthday. That argument does not bear much scrutiny. The most recent figures from Ofsted inspections at the beginning of this year show that for overall effectiveness 68% of children’s homes inspected were judged good or outstanding, and just 6% were found to be inadequate. Furthermore, forcing young people to move at the age of 18 from a home that may be judged good or better by Ofsted to unregulated and sometimes unsuitable settings makes no sense.”
“In addition, local authority children’s services should report to the Department the numbers of looked-after young people placed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation so that we have a clear picture of how much this unsuitable accommodation is being used to house these vulnerable young people. Our third key recommendation is that looked-after young people living in residential children’s homes should have the right to stay there until they are 21, just as those living in foster care now can, thanks to changes brought in by this Government. We recommend that the DFE extend Staying Put to residential children’s homes. We were not convinced by the Minister’s arguments against an extension of this policy.”
“That is why we urge the DFE to consult local authorities and establish a realistic time frame in which alternative emergency arrangements can be found, settled and established. This will require local authorities to be creative and to work together, but it is vital that the urgency of the situation is not lost. We know from the performance of some councils that it can be done and is being done, so let it be done everywhere and for all. In the meantime, the message is plain: bed and breakfasts are not suitable and should be used only in extreme, emergency situations, and even then never for more than a few days before the ban comes into force.”
“Individual regulation and inspection is the only way, we believe, to ensure suitability. The second key proposal is that the DFE must consult urgently local authorities to establish a reasonable time frame for the absolute ban on the use of bed-and-breakfast accommodation for looked-after young people. The Department says that bed and breakfasts are not suitable for this group, yet they continue to be used, sometimes for a long period. We heard shocking accounts of looked-after 16 and 17-year-olds placed in bed-and-breakfast accommodation which was not only unsuitable, but made the young people feel frightened and threatened. We recognise the negative implications of a hastily introduced outright ban.”
“These “other arrangements” are those in which 22% of looked-after 16 and 17-year-olds live, and we found that too often they are neither safe nor suitable. Efforts are made to ensure the safety and suitability of provision for children and young people in other settings—childminders, foster carers, children’s homes, schools and sixth-form colleges are each and every one of them regulated and inspected, yet “other arrangements” for some of the most vulnerable young people in this country are not. Current quality assurance relies on Ofsted tracking a sample of cases. This would not be an acceptable approach for any of the settings that I have just listed, and it should not be acceptable for the accommodation in which some of society’s most vulnerable young people are housed.”
“We visited Ipswich to see examples of “other arrangements”, as they are described in the jargon, and met local authority officers from the region and service providers as well as the Suffolk children in care council. We had nearly 40 submissions of written evidence from a wide range of witnesses and we heard all evidence from two panels of witnesses before questioning the Minister, who I am delighted to see in his place on the Front Bench. Our report makes three fundamental recommendations. First, the Department for Education must consult on a framework of individual regulatory oversight for all accommodation that falls within “other arrangements” to ensure suitability while allowing for diversity of provision.”
“This inquiry confirmed just how serious the shortcomings of 16-plus care options are. Our inquiry was launched on 22 January and set out the following terms of reference: the kinds of accommodation provided for young people aged 16 and 17 who are looked after by local authorities; the suitability, safety and regulatory nature of alternative accommodation; whether staying put should apply to those in residential children’s homes; and whether the provision of alternative accommodation should be extended to the age of 21. We wanted to make sure that our inquiry was informed by young people affected by the issues we were considering, so we held an informal seminar at the outset of the inquiry to hear the views of young people and care leavers.”
“It is a pleasure to be in the Chamber today with so many members of the Select Committee and other colleagues as we launch our report, “Into independence, not out of care: 16 plus care options”. Our report on 16-plus care options is about a group of young people that is often overlooked and a policy area that is unfashionable and forgotten. We first raised our concerns in our “Children first” report, published in October 2012. During our inquiry into residential children’s homes, the report for which was published in March, we became increasingly concerned about the quality of care and level of support provided for older adolescents as they moved towards greater independence and adulthood, often because of a misguided belief that they are more resilient than younger children.”
“I thank the shadow Minister for his question. We did not specify in the report precisely what that limit should be, but we are entirely in sympathy with that thinking. We would be more ambitious. We think 28 days is outrageously long. A stay of a week would be too long; probably five days would be acceptable. The case that was put to us is that at 11 o’clock on a Friday night—the famous 11 o’clock on a Friday night case—a place must be found for a child. Okay, but by the following Wednesday, the whole power of the local authority, which is in the position of parent, cannot find something different for the child? We found that hard to believe. We did not specify the duration because we wanted to give maximum flexibility, but a lot less than 28 days would be the collective view of my Committee.”
“When we look at how many people who have been in care end up in prison, in prostitution, or struggling with drug and alcohol dependency, that does not say a lot about the parenting that we have put in place for those young people, and we know that other countries manage to do a lot better, both educationally and in broader terms, to prepare people for adult life. What better test of a civilisation than how it looks after young people whose families may have disintegrated and failed to provide them with support? What better way to judge that civilisation than by its ability to meet the needs of those young people and make sure that those most vulnerable people get a fair crack at life and are supported all the way into adulthood, rather than too often abandoned at a young and vulnerable age?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his hard work and commitment in this area and others on the Committee. I know he would join me, as would Members across the House, in recognising the personal commitment of the Minister to make a difference in this area, and that significant improvements have been made under this Government. None the less, outcomes for young people in care in this country for far too long have been bleak, as my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) puts it.”
“Even in these tough times, we should find the resources and focus them on that group, because we will make proper improvement on every front, as the hon. Lady rightly points out.”
“I very much agree with the hon. Lady. I am pleased to see the newly promoted Financial Secretary to the Treasury on the Front Bench. Even if we were to view that group of people in the driest economic terms, we would see that investing to save by ensuring that they get the stability and support they need when they are at their most vulnerable, which is when they are young, would pay off in the long term. That would reduce the number of people in prison or calling on other services because their lives have not worked out right. I know that Treasury Ministers are always told to invest to save, but here we have a moral need to do the right thing by those young people but also, when we consider how catastrophic the outcomes are for so many of them, an overwhelming economic case.”
“Often young people are still in care when they are in the “other arrangements”, so we are still in loco parentis. The fact is that that accommodation is not inspected or regulated, and we do not think that sampling is enough. That is the one thing that, above all else, must change.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question, despite his attempt to narrow me to one recommendation. I would hate to tempt the Minister into saying that we can have only one recommendation, because the report contains a coherent set of proposals that hang together, and I know that they fit with the direction of travel on which the Government have already set out. None the less, one should always answer the question, so I would ask the Minister to look at the “other arrangements” and ensure that they are regulated. It is not just those who have left care who are in the “other arrangements”, and the number of 16 and 17-year-olds leaving care has been massively reduced under this Government, on which they should be congratulated.”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution and the passion he brings to these issues and, quite rightly, to challenging the Government and asking for more on behalf of those young people. He is absolutely right. I know that the personal testimony we heard seared his conscience, as it did mine. We heard those young people consistently and articulately describe the awful situations they found themselves in, such as bed-and-breakfast accommodation with troubled adults around them, in one case knocking on the door of a young woman who was barely 16 years old, inviting her to come to their room. She was traumatised and frightened and, supposedly, in the care of the state.”
“57) Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Danny Alexander, Mr David Gauke, Priti Patel and Andrea Leadsom, presented a Bill to make provision in relation to national insurance contributions; and for connected purposes. Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Monday 21 July, and to be printed (Bill 80) with explanatory notes (Bill 80-EN).”
“It means that having stabilised someone, they are then given the option—let us remember that they can leave at 18 if they want to; they will not be forced to stay—to remain in a place that is happy to have them, where they want to stay, where they can have stable relationships and from which they can go to college and start to build a life. It is probably the most expensive of the suggestions in our report, so I am delighted to have such a senior and influential Treasury Minister on the Front Bench to hear the arguments, because that truly would be a good investment in the future of the country and the future of young people who have been let down not only by their families, but, too often, by the state. Bill Presented National Insurance Contributions Bill Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for taking such a close and passionate interest in the subject and for his work on the Committee. He is absolutely right. As we have seen in all the work we have done on child protection and vulnerable children, it has come down again and again to the quality of relationships. That is why it is so important that relationships should be maintained and why we have made our specific recommendations on staying put and on contact with siblings. We heard testimony from young people who did not want to be forced to see their parents but who wanted to see their brothers or sisters, whom they loved and had great relationships with. That needs to be improved. Extending Staying Put to residential care homes is an expensive option, because the cost of providing a care home place is high.”
“May I return the Minister to the subject of apprenticeships? Apprenticeships need to be of a decent length, but they also need to be high quality. There have been steps forward on both, but the other vital element of a successful apprenticeship is that it should be income transformative—it should lead to a significant increase in the market value of the person doing it. Has he looked at any mechanisms that could be put in place to ensure that, however worthy in concept apprenticeships are, they are held to account for delivering true market transformation of income expectation for the people who take them, young or old?”
“As Alison Wolf reported, some of them were not worth the paper they were written on, so it was right to change that.”
“Was it the PISA—programme for international student assessment—tables, for example? One crude proxy would have to be ensuring that the educational system did not leave anyone completely behind, trapped in poverty for life and without a job. That is exactly what we had. It is so important for whoever is in government after next May that we get this right. It is a priority to work out how to improve the offer made to the hundreds of thousands of young people who take vocational courses and enter the workplace every year. As I say, if anything, they face greater complexity than those who take academic courses. The Government inherited a remarkable 3,175 equivalent qualifications on offer in schools for 14 to 16-year-olds alone.”
“It is important that we get the message right, so that the next generation has the right signals to make choices that will make the biggest difference to them. It is regrettably true that overall, youth unemployment rose by 40% under the previous Government, and it did not go down in the boom years. That challenge was not new to the Labour Government, but there was a long-standing problem. Other countries such as Austria, Germany—famously—and the Netherlands had the same social problems and challenges, but managed to have fewer people ending up in unemployment, but even in the boom years we had high numbers of people in unemployment. When I sat on the Children, Schools and Families Committee in the last Parliament, I used to challenge Ministers and ask them what counted as educational success.”
“The Education Committee will soon launch its dedicated inquiry into apprenticeships and traineeships for 16 to 19-year-olds, so this debate is of particular interest to me and the rest of the Committee. Too often, vocational courses have been the Cinderella element in our education system, and denied the limelight given to academic qualifications that are sometimes perceived as more glamorous and socially transformative. This is a timely opportunity for the House to discuss how to change that. Under the previous Government, getting as many young people as possible into university sometimes appeared to be an end in itself, regardless of whether that was necessarily a good deal for those young people, employers or wider society. I do not think that Ministers then thought of it that crudely, but that was the message that went out.”
“What an excellent list of characteristics that was, and it is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin). I welcome today’s theme, because too often we focus on the part of our education system in which there are the fewest problems—the more academic routes. We should spend more of our time on the vocational routes that the majority of the population go through, which, as hon. Members have said, are harder to navigate. Those routes need to be made more navigable, and need to be linked closely to the needs of employers and the long-term earnings potential of the people who take them, whether they are young or not.”
“Our problem as a nation has not been the way in which we have educated the academic elite; it has been the fact that we have failed to make decent provision for a decent education, whether academic or vocational, that gives people an entitlement to the riches of our civilisation and access to the jobs market. Whoever is in power after next May, I hope this House will remain focused and determined to serve the part of the population that has most often been let down historically.”
“Morrisons was criticised for some pretty short-term apprenticeships in supermarket skills that were unlikely to have been income-transformative—a point I raised earlier. I am mindful of the time, so I shall try to conclude. I hope that we will keep focusing on vocational qualifications. It is the route that most people in this country follow. It is therefore the route that this House should focus on. Notwithstanding the excellent personal experience of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the truth is that Members of all parties have little personal experience of the further education sector and associated sectors. That is all the more reason why we need to focus on them, read about them, conduct inquiries into them and make them better.”
“Returning to the question about the number of apprenticeships raised by the shadow Secretary of State, if there are fewer 16-to-18 apprenticeships, more of them are a year long or longer; a year is now the minimum length. Overall, I do not know—I hope our inquiry will find out—whether the package for 16 to 18-year-olds is better than it was, in respect of quality and long-term impact. Whatever happens, we need to keep wrestling with the question—that is why my Select Committee will look further into it—of how to get more people in the young age group on to high-quality apprenticeships, particularly in view of concerns raised about the way in which some employers were training people who were already in their employ.”
“Almost 100 university technical colleges and studio schools have been established. I hope there will be a Humber UTC in the not-too-distant future, and I know that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) is working hard, championing it. I hope there will be involvement from companies such as Able UK, Total, Centrica Storage, Tata Steel and Clugston. The Government have published a new 16-to-19 accountability framework, the headline measures of which focus on pupil progress, attainment, retention and destinations. Elsewhere, as others have commented, the apprenticeships programme has had rocket boosters put under it. It has been lengthened, and there have been improvements to quality.”
“When Professor Wolf published her review, she warned: “The staple offer for between a quarter and a third of the post-16 cohort is a diet of low-level vocational qualifications, most of which have little to no labour market value…Among 16 to 19 year olds, the Review estimates that at least 350,000 get little or no benefit from the post-16 education system.” That was a pretty terrible inheritance, with more than a third of a million people being educated at great public expense, with no benefit to themselves or the country as a whole. Both literally and metaphorically, Britain cannot afford to continue to fail young people in that way, and it is to the Minister’s credit that a considerable amount of work has been done, including the commissioning of the Wolf report.”
“I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, whose expertise and interest in this issue is of long standing and dates from long before he came to this House. He is, of course, right in what he says, but in too many cases, institutions were putting young people on courses that they may or may not have known were of limited value, but that were in fact of little or no long-term value, because it suited the interest of the institution, rather than the interest of the young people. That is why it was right to look carefully at that problem.”
“Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need many more employers to go into schools and help embed careers in the curriculum, perhaps by helping with science practicals in sixth form? There are all sorts of ways that employers can embed careers in the curriculum by getting involved in teaching.”
“The Home Secretary was right to be cautious about an overarching inquiry. Is she now convinced that an inquiry that covers multiple decades and multiple institutions, in the public sector and outside, will be sufficiently focused and effective? The last thing we want is for the inquiry to fail to draw a line for those who have suffered such horrors in their early years.”