Clive Efford
MP for Eltham and Chislehurst · Labour · United Kingdom
“Thank you for allowing me to take part in this statement, Madam Deputy Speaker, given that I was not here at the beginning—I was carrying out my duties elsewhere in the House. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. What is she likely to do in my part of south-east London for technical and vocational places?”
“I rise to speak to amendment 97 in my name, which would remove clause 10 from the Bill. Clause 10 gives powers to the Secretary of State to vary the proportion of public and private provision of health services if they consider that to do so is in the interests of the health service.”
“Labour’s 2024 plan to make work pay set out a welcome desire to bring more essential services back into public control—something that is welcomed by health workers across the country, because so far the “biggest wave of insourcing in a generation”, as was promised, has felt more like a trickle when it comes to the NHS.”
“The explanatory notes for the Bill say that this new flexibility is necessary “where there may otherwise be a breakdown in provision of a health service.” Can we imagine a situation where the Secretary of State has concerns about a health service and that an approach to assist a local provider would be rebuffed?”
“There are ample powers to enable the Secretary of State to intervene and resolve breakdowns in the provision of a health service. On clause 10, we must balance what it adds in those situations against its potential misuse by an ideologically driven Government that are determined to privatise our NHS.”
“It was a pleasure to join my right hon. Friend at Greenwich council’s development of 435 council properties in my constituency for the launch of the social and affordable housing programme. Some 70,000 homes are planned, and that is welcome and overdue.”
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“The Bill has been more about structures than about providing support for the very people at the sharp end of doing that very job.”
“Even more importantly, local authorities have to be given the opportunity to identify areas of deprivation and of special educational need so that they can direct resources to those areas to raise standards. I said on Second Reading that as we came to power in 1997 the league tables for schools were being published. Although we have improved standards enormously across all schools, the schools are in the same positions in the league tables. That is true for my area and for areas across the country. I would have liked to have seen it stated in the Bill that we intended to identify areas of deprivation and need by setting the necessary criteria, so that we could direct the resources to them and finally, once and for all, give those kids who have not had the opportunity of having a decent education the resources needed to give them that.”
“We need a dynamic relationship with local communities, in which the local authority has a responsibility to consult with the whole school community—parents, head teachers, governors and everybody else involved in education—to develop an education plan that it can then publish and against which the performance of schools can be measured. Local parents will then have a clear framework for education in their area, against which they can measure the performance of schools and the delivery of education. The issue is providing information that parents can understand about education in their area that will allow them to make informed decisions about education.”
“There is much in the Bill that deserves to be supported and I accept the efforts that have been made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his team, and their predecessors. However, the Bill provides the opportunity for schools to break away from the school community in a locality. The danger of that is that the local authorities will lose direct control of and influence over those schools. That would mean that the local community would lose influence over those schools. I hope that my right hon. Friend, in further proceedings on the Bill, will take on board that it should not diminish the role of local authorities. The overarching strategic responsibility for developing education in an area should remain with the local authority.”
“Members will say that that is what we want to achieve, but that is light years away from the rhetoric surrounding the Bill when it was published and from some of the statements made later. I have outlined my concerns about these proposals. Unfortunately, I cannot support the Bill this evening.”
“I fully accept that and I made that point in my opening remarks. Indeed, the education action zone in my area worked because it provided extra resources and the freedom for staff and governors to direct those resources to improve standards. The White Paper said that the Government would make an announcement about that subject in the autumn, but why is it not part of the Bill? That is what I am arguing for. If a future Government did not want to invest resources in that way, they would have to explain to parents why it is no longer part of the local education plan that resources would be directed to schools in that way. That is what I wanted from the Bill. I accept that some hon.”
“Will my right hon. Friend clarify the answer he gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford)? Is he saying that trust schools will be inspected to the same standards that will apply to local authority schools? The White Paper said that a failing school would be given a year to turn itself around, but did he consider that extreme?”
“The tax credits have been a major success of this Government and have assisted in lifting hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. However, we would be remiss if we were not concerned about parents who receive overpayments and suffer some hardship in making repayments. Judging by my casework, it seems that they come up against bureaucracy. Is there any way in which we can allocate specific caseworkers to families to assist them in taking their case through to a swift conclusion? Some of the problems are caused by the length of time that people are forced to wait for the payments to be sorted out.”
“The Government's duty is to tell people that housing is a priority and that Labour will deliver for them once and for all.”
“In return, families may have to sign away their right to buy for a period or even in perpetuity so that investment in housing can be made with the confidence that it will not disappear from the public sector. We must look at such schemes. Overcrowding is fuelling antisocial behaviour and is a block to improving standards in education. Young children who are at school will not sit and watch "EastEnders" with their parents if they live in an overcrowded house and sleep in a bedroom with their younger sister or brother. They will go out on the streets with their friends. They have nowhere to do their homework. We must cut the vicious circle. Only a Labour Government will deal with the problem and people need to receive that message loud and clear.”
“People in the eastern corridor of London see beautiful houses being built in the Thames gateway and are fed up that they and their children do not have access to those houses because they are priced out. They are frustrated, and demonstrated that frustration clearly in the recent local elections. That fuels the lies of extremists such as the British National party who want to exploit the situation and people's feeling of desperation. They have done that successfully because we left the opportunity open to them and failed to address the problem of housing demand and the people who desperately need housing. We must expand the housing stock and provide the opportunity for money to be invested in houses to accommodate larger families.”
“We could consider placing a proportion of the rents under a prudential scheme, so that they finance some of the interest that must be paid. We must consider those schemes urgently. Regeneration of the Kidbrooke area in my constituency will result in 4,400 homes where there are currently just under 2,000, and about 2,000 of them will be affordable. Some will be part buy, part rent and others will be for rent through the social sector. However, it is still not too late to have a greater proportion of social housing in that development. Most of the land is in public ownership, and the financing package could be reviewed to provide more social housing for local people who desperately need it.”
“Too often, when my local authority sells a parcel of its land to the private sector and then negotiates under section 106 a proportion of the development of that land for social housing, the developer walks away with a huge profit from the sale of the rest of the site. I have spoken to housing associations that say, "We can manage those schemes from beginning to end; we can sell the properties, bring the profits back into the public sector and reinvest them in further schemes in the local area." We are frittering away our resources through the way in which we set up the finances for the development of social housing. We must tell local authorities that we want them to be more innovative, with self-financing schemes in some respects.”
“The grandparents are looking to the Labour party and saying, "We want you to build houses for our children, so that they can have the opportunities that we had to bring up our families." We have seen right to buy decimate the supply of social housing, but the sad fact is that at the other end, we have not seen any investment in the stock—to the point at which local authorities are building almost no properties at all. There is also a problem with the way in which we construct the finance for building new social housing schemes, and I believe that we can release much of the equity in new-build for reinvestment in the public sector.”
“I gave figures for my local authority whereby housing applications for 2004-05 were running at similar levels to those of 1999. The acceptance rate was more or less the same, but the figures for those waiting for housing were up by almost 60 per cent. Demand is not growing and outstripping supply—it is the supply that is wrong. The figures in my area also mask the underlying problem of those who are trapped in their family homes. Every week, my surgery is full of examples of three generations of a family who live in a house that the Labour party built. The grandchildren and the parents of those grandchildren are trapped in that home, and they are unable to move into housing in the same way as their parents were before them.”
“Often, they require a deposit that is out of the affordability range of most people in desperate housing need. I am relieved that people such as the Chancellor want to see a case made for affordable housing. I am delighted that we are starting to get some response to the debate, but I appeal to the Government to take it on board from us that the clear but unstated hatred of and lack of trust in local authorities to deliver in this vital area must stop. They are the vehicle for change, and they can deliver the social housing that will change communities and provide the opportunities that families are currently being denied. We must remove the roadblocks in the way of local authorities' delivery of that change. My hon. Friend is right when she says that supply is the issue.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) on securing a debate on this important issue. I, along with other hon. Members, particularly from London, have raised this issue on a number of occasions, with questions to the Prime Minister and in Westminster Hall debates. We have tried to highlight the issue by consistently stating that it has been overlooked on the political agenda and in debates about what should be the Government's priorities. A number of people have made the point that the Government must be clear about what they mean by affordable housing. In the past, it has been interpreted as a need for schemes to assist people to purchase houses. However, for many people in London, even with the discounts available through various Government schemes, those homes are just not affordable.”
“Will the hon. Gentleman also support a move to allow local authorities to purchase private sector properties that are left vacant for a long time? In my constituency, a number of properties have been left vacant for too long and have become derelict, but the local authority could bring them back into use.”
“Recently, I visited a primary school in my constituency, where only five parents had bothered to visit any of the secondary schools that their children might attend. We must make sure that we improve standards in such schools, and that we legislate in such a way that they get the resources that they need.”
“The Bill wants to promote diversity, and places an onus on local authorities to do that in their areas. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) said earlier, it is a question not of using the Bill to end selection in one sweep, but of challenging discrimination in our education service and removing the circumstances that cause people to opt out. However, the creation of a marketplace in our local education service requires winners and losers and, sadly, the people who will be the losers will be the same ones who have always lost in our education system. The challenge for all of us is to empower those parents so that they can ensure that their children's education improves. Who are we legislating for? Many parents do not engage in their children's education in the way that we would like them to.”
“Fiona Millar and Melissa Benn produced an alternative paper entitled "Quality and Equality for all Children", in which they proposed a bounty for children attending schools that attract those who have not achieved higher results in primary education. In support of their argument, they quoted Tim Brighouse, who suggested that there should be a flat rate for pupils, with additional sums for those who had achieved only levels 3 or 2 at primary school. Similarly, Peter Hyman wrote an article for The Guardian on 24 October, in which he suggested that resources should be targeted at schools with the most challenging pupils. We need to ensure that the system drives up standards in those schools, but the Bill does not say how resources will be targeted on those areas, with the specific aim of raising standards.”
“I resent some of the comments that have been made to me in this debate about the White Paper and the Bill, as they have suggested that I am somehow in favour of the status quo. I do not support the status quo: I accept that this Government have improved education across the board, in every school in my area. However, I am sure that those schools still occupy almost exactly the same places in the secondary education league tables as they did when those tables were first published. Much has been said about choice in regard to this Bill, but for whose benefit are we introducing that choice? Who are we empowering to make choices in the education process?”
“My right hon. Friend announced that we are to debate the Education and Inspections Bill on 15 March. No doubt we will be treated to long speeches from the Front Bench and curtailed time for Back Benchers to contribute. With that in mind, will he ensure that when we come to discuss the detail of the Bill on Report, ample time is allocated so that we can all contribute to this very important debate about the future of our education service?”
“Charlton Athletic football club has been incredibly far sighted in providing for the community, in its acknowledgement of the ideas put to it by local authorities and training providers, in how it sees its role at the heart of the community as facilitating the big change that is coming about and in the active role it is playing. The further education college is the real driver for what is happening. It set up the London Leisure College to make the most of the employment opportunities that will result from the expansion of the leisure and recreation industry in the area. If the Minister wants to see that at first hand, he will be very welcome.”
“The impact of funding issues on older further education students can only make tackling the underlying trend more problematic. I urge the Minister to take that concern on board. We are right to focus on the opportunities that further education can provide for young people, but we also need to recognise its vital role in providing opportunities for people of all ages who are trying to get the qualifications they need. If the Minister ever wanted to visit Greenwich community college or the facilities of London Leisure college at Charlton Athletic, he would learn a lot and see what can be achieved in real partnership between businesses, the local authority, training providers and the local community when people have a vision and an understanding of what the community needs.”
“The Office for National Statistics summary for December shows a huge reduction over that time for non-seasonally adjusted computerised claims by those aged over 25 years and unemployed for more than 18 months—83.8 per cent. for the UK as a whole and 81.3 per cent. for London. That has been a consistent factor in unemployment: London has resisted the Government's attempts to reduce the rate to that for the rest of the country. There is an underlying long-term unemployment problem in London, which must be considered in the context of a massive reduction. There is still a problem, however. Further education colleges are a key tool in tackling long-term unemployment and providing opportunities for people to train and make themselves more attractive to potential employers.”
“The college's income for the year to 31 July 2006 is approximately £18.5 million, of which £13.8 million, or 75 per cent., comes from the Learning and Skills Council. Of that—I am sorry to bombard hon. Members with so many figures—£8.8 million, or 63 per cent., is for adult learners. For 2006–07, adult funding is forecast to be reduced by £300,000. In real terms, adjusting for inflation and salary increases, that is the equivalent of £550,000. A reduction of that magnitude equates to a loss of 167 full-time equivalent students. The focus on 16 to 19-year-olds is to be welcomed, but there is a knock-on impact. We should consider the issues in the context of the overall improvements and increasing funding. Let me quote another statistic. There has been a transformation in the unemployment figures in the past nine years.”
“Winning the 2012 bid has only added to the success of that strategy, but—there is always a but—as other speakers have said, FE colleges nevertheless face one or two difficulties. A great deal of money is going into further education, and the changes have been possible only because of that investment. If we look back a short time, we see a completely different picture of FE—the problems were different only a few years ago. Now, the income for the college is focused on students aged 16 to 19, to the detriment of older students, which places the college in some difficulty. I want to draw the issue to the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister, because it is causing concern in FE colleges.”
“In collaboration with a number of London's leisure employers—the national governing bodies of sports and the SkillsActive sector skills council, and not just Greenwich Leisure Ltd.—it is submitting a bid to the Department for Education and Skills to become the London regional hub of a national skills academy for the sport and leisure industry. The college is one of the leading lights in its field. It has demonstrated that by anticipating the regeneration of the peninsula and the Thames Gateway. Understanding what the profile of its end-users is likely to be in terms of that regeneration, it has positioned itself to provide the training opportunities for local people that will enable them to make the most of the huge change that has occurred.”
“It trains approximately 750 people a year in those areas. The first class leisure level 1 full-time programme, jointly delivered between Greenwich community college and GLL, delivers 60 17-year-old sessional staff through three partners per year, with another 20 planned to be added in 2006–07. The first class leisure level 2 programme delivers 42 qualified 18-year-old permanent employees per year, and a further 28 will be added in 2006–07. The intensive recreation assistant academy contributes 60 new 18-plus fully qualified recreational assistants per year, and a further 180 are planned in 2006. London Leisure college is London's leading dual employer. It offers further education collaboration and also designs and delivers learning opportunities and qualifications to meet the needs of the learner and the industry alike.”
“Indeed, it has one of its own leisure facilities on the Charlton Athletic site. The college provides a wide range of training opportunities in the sports and leisure field with GLL. Across London bridge, GLL provides a range of sporting, recreational and leisure facilities. It has been invited to run facilities for local authorities as well as going into partnership with businesses in the private sector. The London Leisure college provides accredited training and statutory qualifications, including first aid certificates, the Institute of Sport and Recreation Management supervisor's certificate and pool plant operator's certificate, the Institute of Qualified Lifeguards pool supervision certificate, central YMCA qualifications for fitness instructors and the Amateur Swimming Association swimming teacher's certificates levels 1 and 2.”
“I am very proud about that, because when I was a member of Greenwich council, without getting too political about it, a certain Government were determined to close down many local authority facilities. One way that we got round some of our financial difficulties with our leisure centres was to set up an arm's-length co-operative, which became Greenwich Leisure Ltd. and is now one of the biggest leisure concerns in the country, as well as one of the most successful co-operatives. GLL works in close partnership with my FE college and employs 1,000 full-time and 2,500 casual staff. It runs 50 centres and is in 12 partnerships with local authorities and businesses. The FE college in my area is its main training provider. All the training opportunities are provided in close co-operation with Greenwich Leisure Ltd.”
“The millennium dome is now owned by Anschutz and, as we speak, a 36,000-seater stadium is being built within it, which will provide a venue for one of the major events of the 2012 Olympics. In the intervening period, major sporting events, pop concerts and a range of leisure activities will be held there. There is the potential for a casino to be built in the dome, and many hotels and leisure and recreational facilities will open up in the area. Some years ago, my FE college positioned itself to provide training in that field. It got together with Charlton Athletic football club and opened the London Leisure college, which is based in the Charlton Athletic stadium. It provides training for the whole range of leisure, tourism and recreational activities, and has also entered into partnership with Greenwich Leisure Ltd.”
“It provides training to 20 small businesses through the train2gain programme, as well as to 20 medium-sized businesses and 17 large businesses in a variety of sectors, including care, catering, engineering and construction. It has even trained classroom assistants, which takes us back to the school that provided the adult learning centre. Some parents there have improved their qualifications to the point where they are training to become classroom assistants—putting back into the local community some of what has been invested in them. The large companies that are being supported by my FE college have a range of training needs in customer services, team leading, heritage and visitor services, and business administration, but the key area where the college has been very innovative in its approach is sports and leisure.”
“In terms of raising aspiration on the whole estate, improving the opportunities for the children within the school and improving the economy—because people were making themselves more employable—I could not put a value on the relatively small sum that we put in to furnish the premises and buy the computers, but we need more of that flexibility in the further education system. As I have already said, there are enormous opportunities in my area. The development of the Thames Gateway, the Olympics, the development of the peninsula, Crossrail and the docklands light railway coming to Woolwich mean that people will have greater opportunities to seek employment, and they will need the training opportunities to make the best of that situation. My local FE college is also making a great effort to build links with local businesses.”
“First, it was the mutual support from other parents in the school and, secondly, they saw their children moving on to secondary education as an opportunity for them to seek employment. One turned round and said to me, "You lay on the training and I will do it, because I am going to get a job when my child is more independent and in secondary school." Other parents wanted to improve the education of their children. By improving their own education, they were able to pass that on and assist their children. Some felt that there were gaps in their education that they had never filled, and they were going back and filling them.”
“She managed to beg, borrow and steal some cash, but the neighbourhood renewal programme came along and provided the financial impetus to make the idea a reality. I presented the prizes at the school at the end of the year. We went through the nursery year and all the years of the primary school, but then we got to the adults. In the same presentation, we gave prizes to mums, dads and grandparents who had taken part in basic skills training or family learning, or had worked for GCSEs, as a consequence of the community college becoming involved with the local primary school to provide those education opportunities for the whole community. When I spoke to the parents afterwards, I asked what had got them involved.”
“That is why the Government's train2gain initiative is essential, as is the flexibility of FE colleges in recognising and meeting the training needs in their local community and marrying them up with the needs of local employers. I will give an example of flexibility in meeting needs at community level. I have spoken about this before in the House, but it is an excellent example of the community and further education coming together. I chaired the neighbourhood renewal programme in the south of my constituency. One of the schools had a head who was very energetic and wanted to engage with the whole community, not just the primary school pupils. Her idea was to introduce an adult learning centre in the primary school.”
“It is working extremely hard to be part of the local community and to play its part in supporting local businesses. Last week, I visited my local community college—Greenwich community college—and spoke to the principal, with this debate in mind. I want to highlight some innovative things that the college is doing for my local community and for businesses there. The key change in further education is flexibility. For too long, we have had straight corridors of education that do not necessarily join up with the needs of businesses. Those are the forms of education that we provide and the routes that we have traditionally gone down, but when students leave college and seek a job, they find that their qualifications do not match up with business needs.”
“I shall speak mainly about my local further education college, but before that I want to pay tribute to my local university. The university of Greenwich hosted a business forum in partnership with me, the local chamber of commerce and the Greenwich Enterprise Board. We had discussions with a number of local businesses about the business opportunities in our area resulting from the regeneration of the Thames Gateway, the developments on the Greenwich peninsula, the investment in our local transport infrastructure—essential for Crossrail—and, of course, the Olympics. Furthermore, we have heard recently that the tour de France may pass through our borough. There are a lot of opportunities for businesses and a lot of training needs, and the university of Greenwich was instrumental in bringing those people together.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I just could not resist the temptation. If there is about to be an announcement from the Conservative party, it is likely that we will have heard it before. It is going to be one of ours, is it not?”
“I accept that we will always want improvements in infrastructure and rolling stock, but as the right hon. Gentleman is speaking critically about the problems of transport in London, may I draw his attention to the annual London survey, which shows that 80 per cent. of London's transport users are satisfied with London's transport system, compared with previous surveys, which showed a much lower number of people who were satisfied? That shows a trend among people in London towards appreciating the improvement that have been made in our transport system, to the point where it has overtaken London's nightlife—”
“May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to an early-day motion that I am about to put down on the news today that the Department for Work and Pensions is to withdraw a £1 billion contract for the Post Office card account? Many hon. Members raised concerns on the Floor of the House during the reinvention programme for sub-post offices. The change is coming too soon on the back of the previous changes to the sub-post office network. The Department for Work and Pensions says that only one in four people uses the accounts, but I would say that as many as one in four uses them, and the number will be significantly higher in the poorest communities. The issue belongs on the Floor of the House, so I hope that the Leader of the House will take note of my early-day motion when I table it.”
“In addition to the fare increases, travellers in the Network SouthEast area who use the pre-paid Oyster card face additional penalties because of the incompatibility of the Oyster system with that of the Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation—ITSO—which does not seem very smart if it cannot accept the Oyster card. It is not an insurmountable problem, but negotiations between the Department for Transport, the train operating companies and Transport for London seem to have reached an impasse. In the meantime, a lot of Londoners are going to miss out. Can the Secretary of State assist in trying to resolve this problem?”
“The development of Woolwich is essential not only for regeneration but as a strategic hub for our part of south-east London. It makes no sense to build a six-mile railway with no station, especially when it bypasses such a major town centre as Woolwich. I urge the Select Committee to take that on board.”
“Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich pointed out that a six-mile stretch from Custom House to Abbey Wood, the cost of which will be in the hundreds of millions, will have no station, bypassing one of the most strategic transport hubs in south-east London. That makes no sense. On a cost-benefit basis alone, it must make sense to consider that development. My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead pointed out some of the historical facts about Woolwich; for example, the loss of jobs that we have suffered over the last 50 years. On figures for 2000, 25 of the top 20 per cent. most deprived wards in the country were in the London borough of Greenwich and, according to the 2004 figures, it is the 23rd most deprived local authority area.”
“I draw the attention of Select Committee members to the fact that, historically, south-east London has suffered enormously from lack of investment in its public transport infrastructure. When people talk about the London underground, they often think that it covers the whole of London. Indeed, the criticism can be levelled at the Mayor of London that he sometimes talks as though the whole of London is served by the underground, but south-east London is not. An arc around the Thames all the way to Lambeth—almost a quarter of the whole of London—is not served by the London underground. That is why it is essential that we make the most of schemes such as Crossrail. My right hon.”
“Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead said, the development of that area of the Thames Gateway and the new housing and jobs that it will generate will be affected and many more people will end up in traffic jams somewhere in my constituency as they travel to and from London. Our road network is already congested, especially at peak times, so improvements in the public transport network are essential and I am pleased that they are being considered. Crossrail will give us 40 per cent. of the additional transport capacity that we need in central London and, like others, I do not want that part of the development to fall as a result of the additional schemes that people are requesting.”
“I am grateful for this opportunity to make a contribution to the debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford) and my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (John Austin) have already outlined the issues relating to south London, and I am particularly pleased to see that under the motions on the Order Paper we are going to consider the Abbey Wood to Ebbsfleet extension. My constituency sits at the confluence of the south circular, the A102 approach road to the Blackwall tunnel, the A2 and the A20. Without those important improvements in our public transport network along the south-east of the Thames, as my hon.”
“My hon. Friend has received many representations about area cost adjustment. What is his attitude to the geographical spread of area cost adjustment in the light of those representations?”