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.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,829 lines we hold for Graham Stuart, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 74 of 117.
“We also welcome the fact that the Committee’s recommendation that the detail in an education, health and care plan should be “specified”, as opposed to “set out”, was accepted by the Government and is in the Bill. The Committee’s recommendation on mediation being advised but not made compulsory has been accepted, for which I am grateful. The Bill also shows a good level of commitment to ensuring the involvement of children and young people and their parents and carers in how provision is made for them. Explicit provision has now been made for regulations to set out how local authorities should involve young people and their parents in preparing and reviewing the local offer. The Bill now provides for more choice for young people with SEN and their parents about where they will receive their education.”
“On the positive front, we are encouraged by the Minister’s clear determination to find ways to hold the NHS to account for how well it meets the needs of children. The Bill makes provision for time scales—they apply, for example, to responding to requests for assessments of SEN, and to carrying out the assessments—to be included in regulations, including provision for aligning time scales between local authorities and health. That is to be welcomed, because it is critical, but it needs to be watched closely when implemented. The Bill will maintain many essential protections, entitlements and freedoms for parents and young people, including a specific right to request a statutory assessment.”
“No, that would be unusual. Perhaps the Minister who will sum up can tell us more about what the common framework for local offers means. Will that go some way towards our minimum standards? Will it create a formal basis to make it easier to compare provision in one area and another? It will be important to find out. We are delighted that the Government accepted the Committee’s recommendation that the code of practice should be a statutory document and be laid before Parliament, although Her Majesty’s Opposition, doing their job, will rightly press on whether that should be by negative or affirmative resolution, which I am sure will be a useful debate to have. The role of health remains unclear in the Bill, but not because Ministers are not trying their best; it touches on the issue I raised earlier about the NHS constitution.”
“It is hard to see the settlement as fair to all when there is a rural penalty, with 50% more per head going to support councils in urban areas than those in rural areas, where people on average earn less and have a higher council tax, and therefore have lower spending power. In the period up to 2020, we will need to move towards a more just settlement that genuinely reflects need, whether in the inner cities or rural areas.”
“The Labour party strongly makes the case for more expenditure on local government and opposes the reductions that the Government feel are necessary. When we look across the Labour party’s policy announcements, it appears that the only firm promise of cuts relates to the NHS, so will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that he plans to cut the NHS to make up the money to be spent on local councils?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on his work representing rural areas. Does he agree that starting from next year’s settlement we must see an unwind of the rural penalty whereby 50% more per head goes to urban areas? We must see that figure reduced to no more than 40% by 2020. It can be done without major impact on other areas, and it will bring justice and fairer outcomes for people in rural areas who have suffered too much, too long.”
“Urban areas, as defined by the Government, get 50% more per head than rural areas. Opposition Members should try telling the hon. Members for Workington (Sir Tony Cunningham), for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) or for Copeland (Mr Reed) that rural areas are all leafy and wealthy. They should come to my constituency, visit Withernsea and the areas there and see whether everyone is wealthy. They are not. We need to ensure that allocations are fair, based on need.”
“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate on the local government settlement for 2013-14. I start by paying tribute to the Minister, who has gone out of his way to make himself available to those of us who are concerned about the impact of the settlement and to listen to us. I appreciate the way in which Front Benchers have engaged with this. I will speak mostly about funding for rural areas. The Rural Services Network, which brings together not only local government in rural areas but all sorts of health bodies and others, has analysed this year’s settlement and found that, at first look—I do not want to repeat too much of the debate we had on Monday night—the effect of damping in the eventual settlement is to increase the rural penalty, which already sits at 50%.”
“The last thing I want to do is talk down the residents of north Hull or of any other part of the country, urban or otherwise, but we need to have another look at need and ensure that we, preferably with a broad consensus across the House, can have a settlement that is fair to all, even at a time of reductions in public spending, as we are seeing now.”
“The position we are in now, with a rural penalty of 50%, is indefensible. If it is defensible, will someone please stand up and make the case? Age is also a key driver of cost. In rural areas such as the one I represent, we have both an elderly population and a great number of people on low incomes. That combination needs to be addressed, as does the cost of service delivery, because it is more expensive to deliver many services, although not all, in the rural East Riding than it is to deliver them in north Hull.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who led the Back-Bench business debate on Monday. He is absolutely right. The test for the rural fair share campaign, which I chair with my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and the hon. Member for Workington, is to have an urban-based Labour MP, moderate and reasonable—quite a number are—if not exactly getting out the bunting and cheering at the prospect, then recognising the strength of the argument in favour of fairness and meeting the needs in rural areas. It is not some sort of grab. I think that it was perhaps too easy under the previous Government, with a Labour majority, to use deprivation and the cry from the big urban areas to keep skewing the funding more and more. It was both politically convenient and the deprivation provided a kind of moral veil.”
“My hon. Friend is right. The Opposition have made it absolutely clear that they wish to maintain the unfairness that impacts on the services provided to his constituents day in, day out. That is their message. Further to that, every single Opposition Member who says that they do not want this level of reduction in the overall amount spent on local government is calling for that money to come from cuts to the NHS. That is the truth. The Labour party has made it clear that it will not protect the NHS. It is only the Government who are committed to doing so and Labour Members, in every impassioned speech they make, are calling for reductions in spending on the NHS—real-terms cuts in health—so that councillors’ pensions can be protected alongside services.”
“The document defines areas as rural-80, local authorities, rural-50, significant rural, major urban local authorities, large urban and other urban. Does it say that it is impossible to classify them? It does not—it is not true. It has been done by Government and the least that Ministers owe us is to tell us how those numbers work out across those particular designations.”
“Since then, in meetings with the Minister, who, as I have said, has been most generous with his time, we have tried again and again—it is interesting to see Department officials present—to get the numbers so that we can all agree on them. I have brought along with me, especially for the Minister—I will hand it to him—the official governmental criteria of classification of councils, because Ministers have told me that they are not sure precisely how it works. Will the Minister who winds up the debate tell us what is happening to rural areas? I know this is not how money is allocated, but will the Department please do the assessment, if it has not done so already, of where the money is going to councils? The official criteria of classification were agreed across Government in 2009.”
“If we apply that across the household, we will see that the spending power in rural areas is lower. I sympathise with Labour Members on the closure of cultural centres in their areas, but my area does not have any because we do not have the money—the distribution is not fair. Fair-minded people should recognise that reality. For too long, strident, sectarian interests have been allowed to dominate the debate. I call on Ministers to do more to understand the real costs of delivery across different service areas and make sure that we have a more informed debate than the political mud-slinging of those who represent urban areas as being entirely deprived. I do not want to be guilty of that in a rural sense. The Department’s consultation in summer 2012 promised some improvement, but 75% of it was damped away.”
“Lady heard the Minister say that the percentage cut in Newcastle, which has a vastly greater budget than rural and deprived areas of the East Riding, is experiencing lower levels of reduction. To make out that it is the opposite and that this is an unparalleled assault on cities such as Newcastle misrepresents the settlement. As I have said, the costs of delivery in sparsely populated areas are often higher than those in urban areas and, overall, rural residents earn less on average than people in urban areas. Labour Members have made out that everybody in an urban area is in the most terrible, deprived state, but most people in the cities are not and lots of people who live there earn more. They have higher average earnings than those in rural areas. Council tax in rural areas, where incomes are lower, is £75 a head higher.”
“I cannot help noticing that the hon. Lady absolutely refuses to rule out cutting the NHS, because that is her party’s policy. Most parties that go into opposition split—they start to divide. The unity of Labour in its commitment to cutting the NHS is, from the point of view of party loyalty, admirable. The hon. Lady, like other Opposition Members, has made it clear that the NHS can pay so that local government will not have to be asked to be more efficient and make savings. Rural areas have long been poorly funded compared with urban areas, and they start from a significantly lower base. Talking about cash reductions in areas that receive much higher amounts of money does not give a fair and balanced picture. I agree that we should see the argument from all sides with regard not only to cash reductions, but to percentage cuts. The hon.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the rural penalty, which sees 50% more per head going to urban councils than to rural councils, cannot be justified, even by increased levels of deprivation in the urban areas? The additional cost of delivery in rural areas and of need in rural areas means that there is a demand across the country for a fairer settlement.”
“If it is not indefensible, we would like the Government, who must have done the analysis, to explain to us why it is just and reasonable for people in rural areas, many of whom are elderly and on low incomes, to be so unfairly treated.”
“As has been said, rural areas have been poorly funded for a long time compared with urban areas, despite the fact that the costs of delivery are often higher. Overall, rural residents earn less than people in urban areas, but pay council tax that is £75 per head higher. Therefore, rural people, having paid more out of a lower income base, have a level of spending power for services that is lower than that in urban areas. There is no evidential base for that fundamentally unfair situation. That is the point that I hope Ministers will take on board. There is a rural penalty that sees urban areas get 50% more per head in central Government funding than rural areas. That position is indefensible.”
“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I chair the Rural Fair Share campaign with my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) and the hon. Member for Workington (Sir Tony Cunningham). The campaign has support across the House, as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) suggested in her powerful speech, which I hope Ministers listened to closely. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland highlighted the cost of delivering services. One does not need to be a public service economist to understand that point; one just needs to look at a map. If one adds to that the fact that rural areas have older populations than urban areas—populations that are ageing quickly—and the costs of domiciliary care, one can feel the immense pressure that there is on the system in rural areas.”
“We are saying, however, that at a time of limited resources, the allocation of those resources is more, not less, important. It may be politically more difficult and challenging and take some courage, but if less resource is around, we cannot afford to punish further those who have already put up with too much. That is our message to those on the Front Benches, and I sincerely hope they will listen.”
“It is pretty minuscule and nothing like the closing of the gap that we were talking about in the summer, which even then was derisory. Ministers are right, if they are doing so, to hold their heads in shame at that situation. [ Interruption. ] Was that too harsh? I say to those on the Front Benches that Members participating in this debate come from across the House. We are looking for a fairer settlement and we hoped and expected that the Government would look at the issue on an evidential basis. We are not seeing that and it is not good enough. There will be a vote on Wednesday, and I hope that those on the Front Benches will consider carefully the speeches made this evening. All Government Members support the need for austerity and strict control of the spending envelope, and we do not argue for greater Government spending.”
“Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), who is responding to this debate—he has been most helpful in having meetings—but we struggled to get the position of the officials on the numbers that the Rural Services Network had come up with. It turned out that 500,000 people had been added to the population of London. When that information is put in, the 2 percentage point increase per head turns into a 0.2 percentage point narrowing. The good news, which I can share with the House, is that the Government’s settlement takes a 50% rural penalty and reduces it by 0.2 percentage points to 49.8%. As I understand it, that is why technically the Government can claim that there has been a narrowing of the gap.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend. I will explain the position. A year ago, a delegation went to see the Prime Minister to deal with this issue. In the summer, the Department consulted on a new way of looking at things that recognised the increased cost of sparsity in the formula. It came out with a figure that looked very promising in respect of reducing the 50% rural penalty. It then damped 75% of the gain away so that there was a 2 percentage point closing of the gap from a 50% rural penalty to one of merely 48%. When the December settlement came out, our first analysis showed that that 2 percentage point gain had been wiped out. In fact, it had been entirely reversed and we were looking at a 2 percentage point increase in the rural penalty. We met the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon.”
“This is about the allocation and getting a fair share—hence the name of the Rural Fair Share campaign. We were going to have to control public expenditure whoever was in office; this is about recognising the need to look even more carefully to ensure a fair division based on need.”
“Members on both sides of the House are concerned about the 2014-15 settlement and the position up to 2020. Can my hon. Friend assure us that Ministers will be willing to discuss next year’s settlement, and to ensure that we get the settlements right from then onwards?”
“We welcome the changes that the Government are introducing, such as a return to end of course exams in most subjects and limits on the number of re-sits, but the Government must demonstrate that the GCSE brand is so discredited that it is beyond repair. Ministers want to introduce a new qualification and a step change in standards, and to alter the way in which exams are administered, all at the same time and to a tight timetable.”
“The Education Committee was not reassured by the Secretary of State’s assertion that “coherence comes at the end of the process.” Coherence is achieved not by accident, but by design. No sensible reform of assessment can take place without clarity in regard to what is to be taught and how the qualifications will be used in the school accountability system. The Education Committee believes that the Government have yet to prove their case that GCSEs in key academic subjects should necessarily be abolished and replaced by the new English baccalaureate certificates. We also fear that they are trying to do too much too quickly. We agree with them that improvements should be made to GCSEs and to the system in which they operate, in order to restore public confidence in our exams.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of the publication of the Eighth Report of the Education Committee, From GCSEs to EBCs: The Government’s proposals for reform, HC 808. It is a pleasure to participate in this relatively new way of presenting reports to Parliament. I have in my hand a copy of the report “From GCSEs to EBCs: The Government’s proposals for reform”, which was published today. Decisions about reforming GCSEs and the way in which they are administered are some of the most important decisions that Ministers will make. Those decisions will have profound and far-reaching consequences that will affect the lives of many children for years to come, and they need to be considered carefully, as part of a coherent review of curriculum, assessment and school accountability for this stage of education.”
“Today’s west coast main line news shows how easy it is for Governments to get that wrong, and the profound and expensive consequences that can arise. Significant concerns about the Government’s proposals have been expressed by curriculum and assessment experts, including the chief regulator at Ofqual, and by employers and key figures in the arts world. The Secretary of State told us that “if a red light flashes, we will take account of it.” What we are saying to the Secretary of State today with our report is that we believe a red light is indeed flashing, and we call on the Government to take time for careful consideration, slow the pace of change and ensure that their reforms are built to last.”
“It must not be allowed to become a badge of failure. One of the Government’s stated priorities—rightly so—is to narrow the attainment gap between the richest and poorest students. We have not seen evidence to suggest that EBCs will do that any better than GCSEs already do. The Committee agrees that changes are needed to the way exams are run. We concluded in our report last year that the current system leads to downward pressure on standards. All options for reform, including franchising subjects to exam boards, have benefits and drawbacks. Our concern is that the Government need to give proper consideration to the likely unintended consequences of franchising, as well as to the complexities of the tendering process.”
“We saw last year, with GCSE English, the turbulence and disruption that can happen when changes are made to a high-stakes qualification. The Government are proposing change on a much greater scale and the risks are correspondingly higher. We are concerned that rushing through multiple fundamental changes could jeopardise the quality of the reforms and the stability of the wider exam system. The Committee has particular concerns about how well the Government’s proposals will serve lower-attaining pupils, who are often the most disadvantaged. It is unclear how raising the bar will automatically help those young people, and we call on the Government to rethink their plans for a statement of achievement, specifically for lower-attaining pupils, as it could be less useful to young people than a low-grade GCSE or alternative qualification.”
“I agree absolutely with my hon. Friend. The Government want to restore the currency of 16-year-olds’ qualifications, and restore confidence among employers and universities in the value of those qualifications. That is one of the Government’s aims and they are right to take that approach. Although I am not talking about the main, fundamental changes beneath the surface, it is interesting to note just how few people from the university sector or employers agree with the decision to abolish GCSEs in the core subjects. They worry about what that says about the other subjects left behind—I am sure that my hon. Friend will be concerned about what it says about GCSE religious education. How can it be right that those subjects are seen as second tier compared with the reformed EBCs?”
“Will the spec that the Secretary of State chooses this summer have to be fixed in place for five years? We do not really know the detail—there is an awful lot that we do not know—and it important that we get this right. I want this evangelising, driven, passionate and committed Secretary of State to be remembered as a tremendous, successful and reforming Secretary of State—there is every chance of that—but if he makes errors with the examinations that sit at the centre of our system, he will be remembered not in that way, but as having presided over something that did not work out. I do not want that to be the Secretary of State’s legacy and I certainly do not want it to be legacy of this Government, but I know that Education Ministers are champions who will want to ensure that we get this right, as will the Secretary of State himself.”
“They will thereby effectively control the curriculum, rather than schools and educators. The awarding bodies are designing the qualifications now and the timetable means that a winner will be chosen for each of the core subjects by this summer. The Secretary of State will pick a winner who will stay in place for five years. What happens at the end of that time? It brings up a lot of questions. If everybody who has expertise in assessment in English works for one board and if quite a lot of people retire because they are not prepared to move, meaning that we lose expertise, will there be genuine competition at the end of that five years? Or will we simply have created a monopoly in certain subjects for certain awarding bodies? What about flexibility during that time? What if changes need to be introduced?”
“We are not saying that the Government have necessarily got it wrong and we agree broadly with their critique of the existing situation. We also agree about the need for more rigour, for reform and for world-class qualifications at 16 to be put in place. We are questioning whether these particular reforms and the abolition of GCSEs in the core subjects need necessarily go ahead. We remain to be convinced of that argument. A major secondary issue, which is probably less likely to be picked up by the press but could prove phenomenally significant, is the move to franchising. In effect, that gives us an insight into why the timetable is so truncated. Awarding bodies have not seen the outcome of the revised curriculum and therefore do not know exactly what they are supposed to teach, but they are having to design the new qualifications now.”
“The judge in the judicial review has not yet pronounced, so I hesitate to talk too much about it, but many of the problems arose from the fact that the previous Government decided to change what was taught, how it was taught, who assessed it and how it was assessed all at once. That caused what happened in 2012 and whenever that many changes are made to a qualification, there is turbulence and volatility. That is why we saw so many schools with a history of doing well suddenly doing badly. The first EBCs will be taught in 2015 if the Government proceed according to their current timetable, so the timing will be tight. This will be a much bigger reform than that of the English GCSE last year and the risks and downsides are great.”
“The children who took the diploma will have a certificate that employers will struggle to recognise in a few years’ time, vast amounts of public money were expended and those in the education system who marched to that tune and worked so hard to bring colleges and schools together to deliver the diploma have been left high and dry. We do not want to see that happen to these reforms, which are even more fundamental to the education system. We do not want the reforms brought in by this Secretary of State to go the way of the diploma. We need only to look back to last year and the English GCSE furore.”
“Gentleman will take it well if I chide his party by pointing out what happened with the diploma. Then, we had a Secretary of State who was determined to bring about change and who rightly identified the need to improve vocational education and qualifications in this country, but the assessment and exam experts said that he was going at an unrealistic pace, suggested that he slowed down and said that there was a risk that the tremendous legacy of transforming vocational education in this country could end up withering on the vine. That is exactly what happened.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his invention and I certainly agree with his last point. Let us be clear that the Select Committee’s report says not that the Government should necessarily scrap the reforms but that they should make the case for them. They need to prove that the GCSE brand is so fundamentally broken that it cannot be reformed. It seemed to us to be difficult to see what was so intrinsic to the GCSE in the core subjects that could not be repaired with the right approach. The hon. Gentleman is also right to highlight the need for consensus. Some 650,000 children a year move through our education system and there are nearly 500,000 teachers in state schools. This is a mammoth enterprise and not something to which we can make quick changes. The repercussions will go on for a long time and I hope that the hon.”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have so far barely scratched the surface of using social media to engage people with the workings of Parliament? The Select Committees are particularly well placed to do that, and he will know that before a session with the Secretary of State for Education, the Select Committee went on Twitter with #askGove to ask people to come up with questions. We were inundated—there were more than 5,000 tweets. We sorted through them, grouped them by theme and went through them with the Secretary of State who, in typical style, was able to give rapid-fire answers and people felt they were genuinely able to engage with Parliament through the Select Committee and hold the powerful to account.”
“Whatever the current situation’s shortcomings, in my opinion, subject to what the Joint Committee finds out, it is the right one: it works for Parliament and does so in a speedy and effective way.”
“I must back my right hon. Friend and say how much I agree with him. I was one of those on the Liaison Committee who felt that very strongly. We have had people who were not keen to appear before the Education Committee, but they were told that they were expected to turn up, that it would be seen as a failure on their part not to do so and that powers could be exercised against them if they did not do so. They came. That is the test. If we move to something more legalistic, people will hire lawyers to find out exactly how many days’ delay they can use, based on precedent, so that they can put it off as long as they can and, in effect, thwart the will of Parliament, which is for them to appear.”
“They are an excellent check on the Executive, and I know that the Leader of the House and Ministers will listen to calls from the Liaison Committee to strengthen those powers going forward.”
“They build deep friendships and relationships. They help us to understand where other people are coming from. That has a civilising impact on the way in which this place works, which I hope permeates through to the way in which we make law. It makes Ministers more confident about conceding ground at times, and means we are more effective in representing the overall interests of the people who send us to this place. If it does that, a Select Committee is a very fine thing indeed. Mindful of what you have said, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will drop the rest of my remarks because we have already touched on many good points. I will simply say that Select Committees are stronger now than they were in the past and a positive influence on Parliament.”
“We do have an assertive legislature, but we can go further. In the Leader of the House, we have such a fine parliamentarian, such a tremendous Minister and a man of such self-confidence, personality and breadth of philosophy that he will not think that he can hold the line and make no concessions. He understands the need for the whole House to improve the way in which it holds the Government to account and to recognise the powerful role that Select Committees play. Select Committees not only have a role in scrutiny; they inform the character of this place. In this Chamber, we sit opposite each other and make tribal noises. I like making tribal, partisan noises as much the next man— in fact, probably rather more than most—but Select Committees bring us together and form us in teams across party lines.”
“I will try to be mindful of your suggestion, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am delighted that the Backbench Business Committee has allocated time for us to debate the report of the Liaison Committee following the 2010 Wright reforms. It is fair to say that Select Committees are stronger and have more influence on Government than ever before. This is the first Parliament in which the members of Select Committees have been voted for in secret ballots by their own parties, and in which the Chairs of Select Committees have been elected by the whole House. That has given additional independence to Select Committees. It is no wonder that there are grimaces from the faces of Government Whips, and it is right that there should be. If there are not grimaces on the faces of Government Whips, we do not have a strong and assertive enough legislature.”
“I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Department for Education on conducting pre-legislative scrutiny of the special educational needs clauses of a forthcoming Bill. It was a tight timetable, but it gave us the chance to do the job. Ministers have been very open to meetings and to following up and taking onboard the advice of the Committee. It really can work.”
“Governments tend to grow more and more grudging about ceding powers, whereas parties in opposition make free—they return to philosophical first principles and they tend to make promises. Let me push the hon. Lady on this point. What is the Labour party’s position on a few of these points? She should put it on the record. If there is ever a Labour Government in future, it may or may not be her that takes that position forward, but it would be useful to have on the record some promises that we can hold someone to account for in future.”