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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“Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), spoke from his departmental point of view, we need the Department for Education to provide that leadership, that ability to have the overview and that commitment always to seeing the child—not the criminal and not the trafficked person, but the child within—in all conditions. One issue that the Select Committee found in our investigation into child protection in England, which did not focus on this area in particular, was a tendency among many authorities, such as the UK Border Agency in some cases and the police or health workers in others, to see the condition—perhaps seeing someone in a criminal environment as a criminal or someone in an immigration environment as an immigration issue—rather than a vulnerable child.”
“We need to ensure—I hope this debate will contribute towards this—greater public awareness of the issue and a greater willingness among authorities in so many different agencies to prioritise the issue and to recognise that the prevalence of child sexual exploitation is greater than people have perhaps been willing to admit in the past, not least because they find it so repellent. I am disappointed that no representative from the Department for Education is here today, as it leads on this issue. Although the Minister of State, Home Department, the hon.”
“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) on securing it, and I pay tribute to the powerful and often authoritative speeches we have heard this afternoon from people with a real understanding, in different ways, of the issues that come into play when we examine child sexual exploitation. I suppose that, rather like the poor, child sexual exploitation will always be with us. There is no way of eradicating it entirely; there will always be the combination of power and predilection which means that children can be sexually exploited.”
“The one thing we have not touched on this afternoon, because we are all rightly focused on ensuring that we get better systems in place, is how we strike a balance so that children are not taught to view all adults and all men as a form of sexual predator until they are found to be otherwise. In my childhood, my best friend and I, wandering around, spent a lot of time with men in our community, none of whom sought to abuse or exploit us in any way. My life would have been very much less rich if that had not been possible. I think, frankly, today it is not possible, so some boys in single-parent households have little or no contact with men. That is enormously to be regretted.”
“While people who do not use it might think Childline would be seen as only for younger children, children themselves seem to be using it; but we felt that more could be done to make it possible for Childline, which has a brand that people know, to be promoted more effectively. It was said earlier that for someone in the care system, the only person it is possible to complain to is someone else who works for the local authority. Well, Childline provides a third party to go to, and the NSPCC is behind it; so the more we can promote Childline, the more likely we are to make children safe. We must do everything we possibly can to make children safer, while accepting that child sexual exploitation will go on.”
“There is a need for that issue to be recognised, and for strategies to be developed to deal with the complications involved in assisting victims and perpetrators out of that abusive situation. We agreed that the primary aim within Government must be effectiveness, but we are not convinced that the system at the moment enables vulnerable children to be treated as children first. Earlier I spoke about the way in which other agencies tend to view young people. We recommended that Childline be assisted and enabled by the Government to market its existence and services more widely, especially to older children. When we visited Childline, we were surprised to learn the number of older children who already use it.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes a powerful point. Obviously, again talking philosophically, I have no problem with that. Where we can split commissioning from provision, it is possible to create a better tension. The ability to challenge the service is increased if it is not directly provided by one’s department. My hon. Friend was right to make that point. Such is my loquacity that I have used up most of the time without covering most of the issues that I wanted to talk about. As a Committee we recognised in our report that abuse between teenagers is an overlooked issue in the child protection system. That was mentioned in today’s debate.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that the profile of children’s issues is not lowered in the Department for Education? Does he support the Select Committee on Education recommendation that, as has happened with schools, a non-executive board member with expertise in this area should be appointed to the board of the Department?”
“As my hon. Friend knows, many of my constituents live in sparsely populated rural areas, and the cost of fuel has an immense impact on their family finances, yet they realise that running the country with massive deficits puts their children’s futures at risk and means that money that could have been spent on public services is instead spent as Labour wants—on interest.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a strong speech. He has shown personal consistency, but it is reasonable for Government Members to say that many of his colleagues show anything but. If he wants this duty freeze, what does he want to do to raise the money? Can tax loopholes instantly provide the money, does he want a cut in Government spending, or is he, like most of his colleagues, in favour of ever more borrowing?”
“Tomorrow, after a year-long inquiry, the Education Committee will produce its report on child protection in England. There has understandably been a great deal of focus on the perpetrators in recent weeks, but we focused unapologetically on the victims. May I ask the Home Secretary to look at the report carefully? What is most important—even more important than bringing people to justice—is ensuring that no child suffers as children suffered in past years when, overall, the system let them down.”
“This country accounts for 2% of global carbon emissions, and that level is falling. It is, therefore, essential that we engage with countries around the world that have larger emissions. When did a Minister from the Department of Energy and Climate Change last visit China?”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point, particularly about the knock-on impact of pub closures in rural areas. The Great Newsome brewery, a small brewery in my constituency, has seen six of the pubs it supplies close in just the last two years. Evidence has shown that each pub puts £80,000 into the local community and makes the East Riding of Yorkshire a more attractive place for tourists. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and I hope that we will see a change of direction from the Government.”
“Will the Secretary of State tell the House whether the Government intend to abolish the early intervention grant, and what steps they are taking to ensure the quality of provision provided in the early years? It is not simply about providing services but about ensuring that they are of the necessary quality to make a difference, so that disadvantaged children arrive ready for school.”
“I welcome proposals to continue the teaching of maths to age 18, both for those who get a grade C GCSE and for those who do not. Are any practical changes required in the timetable of those who go into employment at the age of 16 if they are to be able to continue to do maths and possibly literacy up to the age of 18?”
“I congratulate Ministers on their painstaking work to identify barriers to growth and enterprise. Is the Minister as disappointed as I am that the Front-Bench spokesmen for the Labour party, whose policies contributed so much to our present position, have learned nothing and still oppose sensible, practical measures to get the economy going, add jobs and ensure that we get people out of the despair of unemployment and into the sunlit uplands of well-paid jobs?”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is being most generous. Does he feel that the compensation currently available is exactly right or does he think it should be increased further? He must recognise that there is a balance to be struck between looking after the interests of employees and not causing employers to avoid taking people on for fear of the costs. That balance must be struck and the hon. Gentleman obviously thinks the figure should be at the upper end. Does he want to increase the current levels?”
“I, too, welcome the Home Secretary’s statement and think that her lustre will have been burnished further in the Bone household, if I may say so in the absence of our hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). Has she made any estimate of the number of people who are currently extradited but who in future are likely to be tried in this country rather than abroad after the introduction of a forum bar, and who will decide the criteria on which the judges will make those decisions?”
“The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) said that he could not wait to get out there and debate this issue. Of course, SNP Members have waited and waited. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister and the Prime Minister on the patience and quiet diplomacy that has flushed these people out. Now they can wriggle on the franchise, they can wriggle on the question, and they can even wriggle on the date they hold it, but the Scottish people will finally have a chance to examine their arguments and put them where they belong—in the bin—when they reject this outrageous attempt to split up this country.”
“The hon. Lady is speaking fluently from the Dispatch Box, but she is doing our young people a disservice. She is scaremongering and sending them the message that they cannot afford university when the monthly payments are lower than they were before, the threshold before they start paying is higher than it ever was before and anyone who suffers illness, who is pregnant and stops working or has—”
“My hon. Friend will also know just how many small businesses there are in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It is not some rural backwater. There is a huge amount of entrepreneurial activity there, and it is increasingly reliant on access to the internet. That is why I congratulate him on securing this important debate tonight.”
“I should like to put on record that my right hon. Friends the Members for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight) and for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and I all fully support my hon. Friend in his efforts to make the case for improved broadband infrastructure in east Yorkshire.”
“I am grateful, and I am sure that he was making the point that the admirable and excellent reduction in bridge tolls, the improvement of the A164, the Beverley southern by-pass and the vast investment in infrastructure—”
“Just to nail this absolutely, can the project team decide to do that? They do not have to go through the framework, so they could, if appropriate, work with a company such as Kingston Communications.”
“I, too, welcome the new Leader of the House, who I am sure will do an excellent job. May I take him back to his old brief for a moment, and ask for a debate about the gross distortions in health care funding that we inherited from the last Government? For instance, in Dorset, which I believe has the largest elderly population in the country, £4,000 is being spent on each cancer patient, while in Tower Hamlets, which contains very few elderly people, the figure is £13,000. We have a grossly distorted inheritance from Labour. In the name of deprivation, Labour distorted health funding and cheated people of the health care that they deserve.”
“Does the Secretary of State agree that the challenges in setting the grade boundaries in the new GCSE English qualification this year highlight the need to end modular exams, restrict controlled assessment, and end the lazy devaluation of the GCSE currency that has gone on for too long?”
“The right hon. Gentleman will know that the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee said that productivity fell continuously for a decade under the previous Government. Does he regret that and recognise that radical change is required to get the productivity improvements this country desperately needs if we are to be able to afford the NHS we all want?”
“Is my right hon. Friend as confused as I am by the Labour party’s policy? The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) could not explain where public health would go; he wants to repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012, although he wants the services to be shaped as the Act says; and on funding he said in June 2010: “It is irresponsible to increase NHS spending in real terms”. That is the Labour party’s policy: it is chaotic and makes no sense. Can my right hon. Friend please tell us whether he sees more sense in it than I do?”
“Meeting that challenge, and dealing with the challenges in the NHS generally, would be all the more difficult if one believed, as the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) does, that real-terms increases in investment in the NHS are irresponsible.”
“I am experiencing a sense of déjà vu. Those of us who take an interest in these matters pleaded with the previous Government in debate after debate to take action and to make some tough decisions to ensure that we looked after our ageing population, but, time and again, they failed to take any real action. We are not building on what they did; we are having to go into the space where they failed to act.”
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does she agree that bringing Wednesdays forward to 10.30 would impinge on the sitting times of Select Committees, such as the Education Committee, which I chair? She makes a strong case in respect of Tuesdays, however.”
“I am torn on the proposals for Tuesdays, but I am quite clear that moving the sitting time forward an hour on Wednesdays would disrupt the work of Select Committees, such as the Education Committee, with very little benefit. Wednesdays work. Whatever else the House votes for, I urge it not to vote to change Wednesdays.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that reforming the other place will not solve the problems of reforming this place? This House needs to be more effective in holding the Executive to account. Making changes down the road, with who knows what outcome, is not the answer. We must reform this House and ensure that the other House serves by revising our legislation, rather than undermining the democratic supremacy of this House.”
“Following up the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), will the hon. Gentleman please answer on the issue of the guillotine? Why, when he was always against it in principle before, is he now in favour of it?”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who is being most generous in giving way. I ask her to note that the National Caravan Council, the industry body, and the British Holiday and Home Parks Association have welcomed the 5% rate. They feel that the Government did listen and that the industry can take on that burden as part of the whole national effort to tackle the vast deficit her party left behind when it left government.”
“As my hon. Friend is aware, the Government inherited the largest overspend and deficit in the developed world, so it was right for them to probe every possible area of tax revenue. It was also right for them to listen to people when representations were made and to respect parliamentary democracy. Does she agree that if the Labour party had listened to Back Benchers when it was in power, we would not have got into the mess that we are in and we would not have the vast deficit that the Government are having so valiantly to fight to reduce?”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Now that a 5% VAT rate has been introduced, does he agree that any Government, whether the coalition or a future Labour Government, would be ill-advised to return to this issue with any form of increase? The level of 5% can be accepted. People do not pay council tax on these caravans. We are talking about a compromise, but one that can last, that the industry can live with and that the political establishment should live with. Indeed, no Government should ever think of returning to the issue at any time while even someone as young as my hon. Friend is in this House.”
“I want to return to the hon. Lady’s point about the overall costs. A significant percentage of the cost of a new caravan is found in the chattels inside, which already have VAT on them. So the additional overall cost will not be higher than 5%; it will be more like 3% or 4% on the overall average retail cost of a caravan. The manufacturers are telling me that they think that that can broadly be absorbed within their business model. It will have some negative impact, but a fairly minimal one. We are certainly not talking about 10% costs, but about rather less than 5%.”
“Basically, VAT has already been paid on those chattels, so if 25% of the cost of the caravan were for the chattels, that already includes VAT, so we are looking at 5% on 75% of the overall cost of the caravan. That is why it is significantly less than 5% as an addition to the actual cost when someone goes to a park to try to buy a caravan. The additional costs as a result of this change will be significantly less than 5%—I say that clearly and categorically.”
“I am delighted that the hon. Lady has given way. I wonder whether she could bring her speech to a close, so that we might hear from someone who really does have some authority on this subject and who has so ably led the campaign to bring about this change.”
“Across the world at national level, legislators are effecting environmental change and improvement, even as intergovernmental processes stall. Further to the Deputy Prime Minister’s reply to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), will he support the GLOBE world summit of legislators process going forward, so that, from Mexico to China in the past, and other countries in the future, we can see action today, rather than words at summits?”
“The Secretary of State wants more rigorous exams that more people pass. That is an aspiration that we would all share, but it is not immediately obvious how it is to be brought about. Today, 42% of children do not get five good GCSEs including English and maths. If we make the tests more difficult, it is not immediately obvious how more people will pass them. I welcome that he is aiming higher and that we will have more rigour, but we need more detail. He is very good at explaining what is wrong with what Labour did, and I agree with every word, but he is not so good at giving us the detail of precisely what this Government plan to do.”
“I know that a consultation paper is coming, but it seems disappointing that we did not get more detail from the Secretary of State today.”
“If we were just talking about a more rigorous GCSE with a removal of the perverse incentives to dumb down over time—it has now been acknowledged that that was the case, even by Labour—I think there would almost be cross-House consensus. There is a recognition by Labour that it did not get everything right, even if Labour Members cannot quite bring themselves to say that yet; it is fair enough for the Secretary of State to tease the shadow Secretary of State for his failure to do so. It seems that the Labour party is beginning to recognise that a lot of the Secretary of State’s moves towards rigour have been correct. However, if we are to have a beefed-up GCSE, and if we are not moving towards a system that is more two-tier than what we have now, I would like to see more detail.”
“I think he has said—I hope he will intervene on me if I am incorrect—that the Daily Mail was mistaken, and that there is not going to be a return to a two-tier system. He did not, for whatever reason, try to spell this out, but it sounded as if he was talking about a more rigorous GCSE. It is progress that the Labour spokesman, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), acknowledges that there was grade inflation during his party’s time in office, and the Secretary of State makes powerful points about equivalences. The Government have certainly had my support in tackling that and in tightening up in various ways, such as by removing entirely the vocational qualifications that Alison Wolf identified as offering no real labour value to people. So what is the vision?”
“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, and to rebut allegations of fatalism thrown at me by the Secretary of State. I hope I am no more of a fatalist than he is. I have observed in many of our debates that able politicians, on both sides of the House, are brilliant at describing and critiquing the inheritance from the Labour party and at painting a picture of the kind of country we would like to be, but our job in this House is to address the third aspect and examine the route map to get from position A—not very good—to position B, or nirvana and where we want to be. Too often in our education debates in this Chamber, we spend an awful lot of time on aspects one and two, and not a lot on the third aspect. Following the Secretary of State’s speech, I am a little clearer about what his plans are.”
“However, we have looked at it in depth, and I hope I am not in contempt of Parliament if I say that the Committee came up with a unanimous recommendation and report. I hope that those on both sides of the House will wait until at least 3 July before allowing any of their opinions to solidify further. If the Secretary of State is talking about a more rigorous GCSE system—whether it is given a new name or not—which is effectively a single examination system, as we have now, that would rather destroy the entire premise of my speech, leaving me short for words.”
“Fortunately, my hon. Friend takes me to the issue I wanted to address next, which is the administration of examinations. Unfortunately, however, I am unable to comment on that now. The Education Committee has conducted a long inquiry into precisely that issue, looking at the trade-offs between a single board, competition between boards, franchising by subject and various other ways of cutting it. We have concluded our report, but because of the examination season—whoever leaked this story to the press last week was obviously less sensitive than us to the fact that children were taking exams—we decided to delay the publication of our report until 3 July. So, I am afraid that, until then, I cannot engage in that issue.”
“On the other hand, if I understood correctly what the Secretary of State said today, that was an entirely false idea and there is no plan to do such a thing at all.”
“Just last June the Secretary of State said the following about GCSEs: “So next year the floor will rise to 40 per cent and my aspiration is that by 2015 we will be able to raise it to 50 per cent. There is no reason—if we work together—that by the end of this parliament every young person in the country can’t be educated in a school where at least half of students reach this basic academic standard.” He went on to say: “A GCSE floor standard is about providing a basic minimum expectation to young people that their school will equip them for further education and employment.” That was the direction of travel then; suddenly, a year later—if we are to believe the Daily Mail —that has been scrapped.”