Patrick Spencer
MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich · Independent · United Kingdom
“Member for North Cornwall; poaching; damaging heritage and historical sites; crime at logistics hubs and warehouses; and, awfully, hidden crime such as sexual exploitation and domestic violence, which have tragically become all too prevalent in rural communities.”
“It is wonderful to see you in your place, Ms McVey. I credit the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) for securing this debate. I represent a predominantly rural constituency with low crime rates.”
“Will the Minister agree to publish the formula and methodology, and launch a consultation on reforming it, so that we can move on—and away from this iniquity? Secondly, the national rural crime unit was set up by the last Government and it has made great strides, along with the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 that my hon.”
“By expanding its remit, and giving it extra funding, it could support rural police forces with intelligence on tackling problem areas. Finally, I ask the Minister what steps this Government are taking to invest in technology that will help deter and tackle rural crime? Yes, police forces do need cars and coppers. The hon.”
“As the hon. Member for North Cornwall said, the NFU estimates that the cost of rural crime increased by nearly 5% last year to £52.8 million. The situation facing rural police forces is indeed tough, so in the short time I have, I ask the Minister to comment or give a steer on this Government’s intent on the following.”
“The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point about fly-tipping as an issue of organised crime. I suppose that Opposition Members would also include casual littering in the same bracket. We see that every day in towns and villages, but also on the side of motorways.”
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“The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point about fly-tipping as an issue of organised crime. I suppose that Opposition Members would also include casual littering in the same bracket. We see that every day in towns and villages, but also on the side of motorways. Does he want to say something about that also being a real scourge of society?”
“Technology may be expensive up front, but the savings in the long term will be substantial. Rural crime is not just about farms and tractors. It has a real impact on people, lives and livelihoods, and it is too often underestimated here in Westminster.”
“By expanding its remit, and giving it extra funding, it could support rural police forces with intelligence on tackling problem areas. Finally, I ask the Minister what steps this Government are taking to invest in technology that will help deter and tackle rural crime? Yes, police forces do need cars and coppers. The hon. Member for North Cornwall mentioned earlier issues around the public faith in our police to turn up and tackle crime. Just over the recess, my next-door neighbour was broken into. Did the police turn up? No, they did not—it was deeply disappointing. We need cars and coppers, but we also need drones that can react 10 times as quickly to theft on a farm. We need AI tools and monitoring CCTV that are able to pick up potential targets and suspects.”
“Will the Minister agree to publish the formula and methodology, and launch a consultation on reforming it, so that we can move on—and away from this iniquity? Secondly, the national rural crime unit was set up by the last Government and it has made great strides, along with the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) was epic in the pursuit of. However, the NRCU has a very limited mandate. Could it not expand to tackle other forms of crime that we know proliferate in rural areas, such as fly-tipping, organised crime and rural domestic violence? At the moment, I am afraid to say that it is somewhat limited to the pursuit of crime around equipment and GPS theft, and other things that are specific to agriculture and farming.”
“As the hon. Member for North Cornwall said, the NFU estimates that the cost of rural crime increased by nearly 5% last year to £52.8 million. The situation facing rural police forces is indeed tough, so in the short time I have, I ask the Minister to comment or give a steer on this Government’s intent on the following. First, earlier this week I had the opportunity to take part in Home Office oral questions, and I raised the long-term problem of looking at the funding formula for rural constabularies. I accept that the problem is long term and that the previous Government did not do nearly enough to tackle the confusing nature of our funding formula. Rural constabularies, as I said on Monday, consistently receive less money than urban ones.”
“Member for North Cornwall; poaching; damaging heritage and historical sites; crime at logistics hubs and warehouses; and, awfully, hidden crime such as sexual exploitation and domestic violence, which have tragically become all too prevalent in rural communities. Secondly, the positive headlines ignore the fact that Suffolk constabulary has to police both a very rural countryside with a low population density over a large geographic area as well as urban crime in Ipswich. Covering very different environments and very different types of crime presents huge challenges to many rural police forces, be they in North Cornwall, Suffolk, Essex, Hampshire or anywhere else. We have already heard that the Countryside Alliance rural survey estimates that more than a third of people living in rural communities experience rural crime every year.”
“It is wonderful to see you in your place, Ms McVey. I credit the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) for securing this debate. I represent a predominantly rural constituency with low crime rates. Those low crime rates have been achieved by focusing on three things: increasing police numbers, effective police strategies and a strong local economy that has minimised the age-old problem of poverty driving crime rates. I pay tribute to my police and crime commissioner, Tim Passmore, and the hard-working people serving Suffolk constabulary. But this positive headline negates two fundamental realities. First, it does not portray the changing nature of crime across Suffolk and other rural areas, specifically the proliferation of crime in our agricultural sector and on farms; fly-tipping, which was raised by the hon.”
“We heard about the financial crisis facing football earlier, but there is also one facing Rugby Football Union. No one likes the RFU, not least because of the whopping bonuses that it hands out. Can the Secretary of State please let me know what conversations she is having internally about the crisis facing English rugby in this country?”
“For those who do not know, the hon. Lady is my constituency neighbour in Suffolk, and I think she is doing a fantastic job of highlighting the complexities faced by people such as Jacob and Tiffany—I see them in my inbox too. She has done a fantastic job of talking about the problems, and she is beginning to talk about the solutions. What does she think about universal early intervention programmes, which have been demonstrated to reduce cost at the acute end of the system in the long term? Will she join me in pushing for universal access to early language programmes in schools in Suffolk?”
“Policing in rural areas is increasingly complex, but rural constabularies receive much less funding than inner-city ones. I know the Minister will jump on this opportunity to complain about the last Government, but will she at least take a moment to commit to publishing the methodology behind the funding formula and open a conversation about fairer funding for rural police forces?”
“Essex and Suffolk Water has issued a moratorium on commercial businesses pulling water out of the ground, which it says is due to the Environment Agency. The problem is that water-intensive businesses need water to grow. Aspall in my constituency has £10 million of investment ready to go to grow its cidery. Without access to water, it cannot make that investment. If this Government are serious about going for growth, will the Minister meet me to find a solution to the moratorium so that we can move forward?”
“My constituents in Central Suffolk and North Ipswich are decent, tolerant and thoughtful people, but they are left wondering how the Prime Minister has appointed an Attorney General who is a friend and a Labour party donor as well as someone who has represented Gerry Adams, Shamima Begum and Hamas and clearly has questions to answer regarding outside earnings. Does the Solicitor General think that the AG was an appropriate appointment?”
“Let me state on the record that I have not met a single teacher who has not received some form of vexatious complaint at one point in their career. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will speak to this issue when he responds. The Bill expands the scope for potential dismissal. Dismissal processes are incredibly cumbersome and costly for schools, so will the Minister speak to what provision he will make for schools to be reimbursed for what they are going through? The Bill also expands the capacity to look back into the previous career of someone who has started up a school. Would bankruptcy, for instance, prevent someone from being considered worthy of running a school? Will the Minister therefore also speak to whether a perfectly reasonable business experience might cause the Secretary of State to intervene?”
“Does the Minister expect the number of misconduct hearings and cases brought where teachers are subject to potential dismissal to increase considerably? I am concerned that the consequences of the Bill will be huge for many schools and that they will be burdened with a huge cost. Does he expect the numbers to go up?”
“If the hon. Member takes a moment later today to listen to the Secretary of State’s interview on “The News Agents” podcast, Emily Maitlis said, “You can have a terrible teacher with qualified status, but a fantastic teacher who is not qualified…can’t you?” The Secretary of State’s response was, “Absolutely”. Does the hon. Member agree with her?”
“Can my right hon. Friend answer me this question? Which is better, an English graduate, with QTS, teaching maths in a primary or secondary school, or a maths graduate, without QTS, teaching maths in a primary or secondary school?”
“A Policy Exchange report suggested that getting all non-QTS teachers trained was going to cost in excess of £120 million—six times the budget that the Government have allocated to solving stuck schools, and six times the budget we are going to spend on getting teachers to jump over regulatory barriers. So can the Minister confirm the estimated cost of getting teachers qualified status and whether the Department will cover that cost, or will the Government just end up burdening schools with the cost of getting over this regulatory hurdle?”
“I will not bore everyone with another rendition of the credit of non-QTS teachers. I will just say that I spent Friday at Debenham high school. When I spoke to the headteacher, he sighed in frustration at suddenly having to look down the barrel and find qualified status for his language teachers. He has a Spanish teacher who works at the high school who he will now to need to train. I know we are having an argument about immigration policy in this country, but trying to stop foreign teachers coming to this country and teaching in schools in Suffolk is not how the problem will be solved. My point is about costs.”
“The hon. Gentleman has just made two completely different statements. He said, “I will send my children to a school that will deliver an outstanding education that is right for them,” while simultaneously saying, “Ah, but this is about making sure that teachers have qualified status, and my expectation that they have qualified status, whether my children get a good education or not.” Failing schools that academise are three times more likely to improve an Ofsted rating than—”
“I will keep saying this in the Committee: academies have been proven to produce better results for children who come from a low-performing or failing state school—they have been proven to do much better for children in the long term. [ Interruption. ] They have; that is what the evidence says.”
“I know she will say that the Francis review has not reported, but the Government have no statutory obligation to accept its recommendations. Will Ministers please confirm that they want to keep the national curriculum focused on knowledge and core knowledge subjects? It is clear that the intention is for all schools to teach the national curriculum. Can the Minister assure me, and thousands of teachers who want to do the best for their students, that the curriculum will be kept broad to allow them to teach as they see fit, in the best interests of their students? Again, the Government do not have to follow the guidance from the Becky Francis review. What has been proven over time is that the current framework works for academies.”
“I had a long speech prepared, but it does not include Keats, Semmelweis or Callaghan, so I will cut it short. Teachers want to be trusted to teach, to read their class and to choose what to teach, when to teach and how to teach it. My concern is that the Government are bringing all schools under the same framework and that that will allow them to fundamentally change what is taught in schools. We have all read the news about the Becky Francis review trying to broaden the curriculum, dumb it down, dilute it and move it away from a knowledge-rich focus. Will the Minister confirm the Government’s intention to retain the national curriculum’s focus on knowledge, and the attainment of knowledge, as opposed to skills?”
“There is no doubt that the cut to the winter fuel payment has hit Suffolk hard. NHS Suffolk reported that 97% of beds were occupied over the Christmas period due to a spike in cold, flu and pneumonia-like symptoms. Kesgrave community centre has set up warm rooms for impacted pensioners. The only good news is that the Suffolk Community Foundation has managed to raise £100,000 to support pensioners across our community who are impacted by the cut. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to the Suffolk Community Foundation for being there for the most vulnerable people in our society when his Government were not?”
“Has the Department conducted any analysis differentiating those students who are disadvantaged and on free school meals, or considered disadvantaged, and those who are not? The Government are applying a blanket policy across all students of primary school. The Minister makes an eloquent point that some of those children are very needy, but others are not. Has the Department conducted an analysis of the impact across different groups?”
“When I was a governor of a primary school, I found that an unintended consequence of underfunded breakfast clubs was parents accruing ludicrous amounts of debt. There are no circumstances in which the school would have turned away the child, but that does not bode well for a policy that is about supporting parents who are hard up. If parents are forced to pay for the breakfast club and accrue huge amounts of debt, we know that is very bad for their mental health and for their general wellbeing. I do not know whether the Minister has anything to say on that point, but I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree.”
“Q Family group decision making is a well-evidenced practice, yet this Bill mandates it. Do we really need a Bill to mandate it, especially considering that a lot of children come into these situations when they are at risk of neglect from their carers? Cannot the virtue and the hope of this amendment, and the idea of family group decision making, be instructed through guidance? Does it need to be mandated through a Bill? Anne Longfield: I think it does need to be mandated, because it is at the cornerstone of the different way of working. It is about intervening earlier. The majority of families in that situation are living with adversity and are not coping with adversity. The whole ambition behind this is to bring in not only parents, but families around them and others.”
“Q What about children who are at risk of neglect at the hands of the carer? Do you think family group decision making is an appropriate step that a child safeguarding team should be mandated to practise at that point? Anne Longfield: I think a mandate makes a very clear distinction in terms of a route of travel. It is well evidenced. Carol will talk about the risks to families and to children, but it is the broader family and in some cases the other support network—”
“The measures in the Bill will go some way in setting some rules around how and when social workers can move into agency social work, but I cannot guarantee that it will stop or prevent the churn in the system. The Bill outlines one tool that will help with the stability that we need in the workforce, and that ultimately leads to better outcomes for children.”
“Q I completely agree on the need for stable safeguarding teams, and they are in the better interests of children, but can you completely rule out any risk that a statutory cap on the use of agency workers will lead to people leaving the profession? Andy Smith: I cannot absolutely rule that out. We have significant churn in social work, and that is part of the challenge—that we are struggling, as a system, to recruit and retain social workers. We have lots of routes into social work, and we are doing lots to promote the role. I am a social worker. I love it, and it is brilliant, even though I have not practised for a number of years now.”
“We need the kind of recognition that I started with of where the expertise sits in the system, which is largely within schools and trusts.”
“I do not know whether there is a word-for-word record to check that, but if I was saying that I had confidence, that was not intended. I think the problem with the RISE teams, and all the rollout of the Bill’s intentions, is to do with the practical application of the Bill’s provisions later on. Of course, making sure that those teams are properly resourced and funded so that they work is a challenge. There are other issues about the context in which they work, and I think the change of context from a discussion of intervention to a discussion of support is a much more positive footing for those teams to interact with schools locally. Julie McCulloch: It is important to remember that the RISE teams are as much about triage as they are about delivering support.”
“Q I want to talk about school improvement. Paul, I think you said earlier that you were confident in the RISE teams as a policy. When we FOI-ed commitments to the RISE teams, we found that the east of England, where my constituency is, will have four people from the RISE teams. We have thousands of schools, and probably hundreds that require improvement, yet only four people. Can you qualify why you have confidence in the RISE teams to deliver a school improvement offer? Can you also speak to what more could be done in the Bill to ensure that there is a proper school improvement offer? Paul Whiteman: I am not sure that I have said that I have confidence in the RISE teams. I think I referenced the RISE teams as having a role in improving standards, in that they will come and support as well.”
“We see one of the roles of the RISE teams as identifying helpful local practice and trying to broker collaboration which, at the moment, sometimes does not happen in the way that it might. Access to multi-academy trusts could do something very well to schools that are not in their local authority.”
“Q Do you think school improvement is best delivered at the Department for Education in a big office somewhere, or in a school with people on location? Julie McCulloch: I think there is a role for both. There is a role for central co-ordination and central support. If the RISE teams deliver, that is what they could provide, but that support for schools does need to be done on the ground. That links to parallel conversations that are going on about how we might change inspection and accountability, as well as doing more to recognise the role that schools and trusts play across the system for school improvement, not just in their own individual institutions. Paul Whiteman: Just to add quickly, I do not see the RISE teams as the only participants in that school improvement.”
“Q How do you see the role of local authorities with multi-academy trusts? Are they just replacing what was already going on? Paul Whiteman: Unfortunately, local academy trusts looking outside their own boundary does not happen quite as often as we would like in terms of helping schools that are not part of their trust, unless they become formally part of it. What we need is more collaboration across all school types in local areas.”
“Ultimately we report on whether whatever decision a leader has made ultimately has the intent of making a difference so that, whatever background a child comes from, it is allowing them to succeed.”
“Then, very quickly, it is the quality of the curriculum, the ability of teachers to deliver that curriculum, and the outcomes that children receive. It is then everything else: behaviour, attendance, personal development, wellbeing. All these things form part of our inspection regime. We test and check them all. Lee Owston: In my 13 years as one of His Majesty’s inspectors, I have always observed in schools that there is a mix of colleagues who are delivering the curriculum. The absolute beauty and purpose of inspection is to get underneath, on the ground, the difference you are making to the children in front of you, whatever qualification you might have, if any. It means asking questions of the leaders about why they have decided to do what they have done in the context in which they are working.”
“Q That is an interesting point, Sir Martyn. You had the freedom to hire a teacher when you saw fit. We have just heard that the Government intend this Bill to be predominantly about setting and improving standards in our school system, but it does curtail certain freedoms for schools. Have you any thoughts on the freedoms that are being curtailed in this Bill? Also, in your experience at Ofsted, what are the components that are necessary and common when schools turn around and you see them improve? Sir Martyn Oliver : Lee and I will answer this one together. The components we see are the ones that we set out in the Ofsted framework, on which I am about to consult. The quality of leadership and governance from those running the organisations is always No. 1.”
“Q You spoke about the importance of intent and accountability in driving school improvement, yet the Bill tilts the balance back towards giving responsibility to local authorities, and ultimately to Sanctuary Buildings the role of school improvement. Does that concern you? Do you think local authorities can do the same job as a multi-academy trust in turning schools around? Sir Jon Coles: That is a very tendentious way of describing the Bill. I think you would struggle to substantiate that. To give you my perspective, whatever this Bill does, I am still going to be accountable for running the schools that we are accountable for running. They will still be in the trust. I will still be line-managing the heads. We will still be accountable for their performance. We will still be accountable for teaching and learning.”
“When the Government say how they want the accountability system to work and Ofsted says how it wants the inspection system to work, we will see whether there will be more or fewer academies, but I do not think the Bill does that one way or the other. That is why we want to see the Government’s overarching strategy for school improvement. I do not want this to be political knockabout; I want this to be about children in schools. I want this to be about how we are going to make the schools system better. That is the fundamentally important question, and it is the only question I care about—how are we going to do better for our children? I don’t want to overreach and say that I know what the Government’s policy is on that, and I don’t.”
“Q If it takes away the automatic academy order— Sir Jon Coles: I would like to see what the Government’s policy underpinning this is. What is the Government’s school improvement policy? Is it their policy to do what you have just said? I do not think the Bill does that. The question is: what is the Government’s preference? Do the Government actually want to see as many or more schools become academies? I don’t think we know that, and I don’t think the Bill says one way or the other what the answer to that is. In due course, we will see a new framework from Ofsted. In due course, I imagine the Government will say how they want the accountability system to work.”
“My view is that if you want to improve a school in difficulty quickly, it is much better to give somebody, such as an academy trust, full power over that school to improve it and to do what is necessary quickly. That must be more effective than a RISE team going in that does not have that authority over the governance of the school.”
“I think that is a huge mistake, because all our experiences are that academy conversions are sometimes very hotly politically contested and opponents are prone to go to judicial review, which can leave children in a situation of failure for months or even more than a year. By using ministerial discretion, the opponents are likely to go to judicial review on those decisions, because they will want to know on what basis that discretion is given. Then the schools that are not considered to be failing enough to become academies will be subject to the new RISE—regional improvement for standards and excellence—teams, which are being run from within the DFE.”
“Q You have sat there and given evidence on your interpretation of why you guys have been very successful in turning schools around. The Bill takes away a lot of the freedoms that you have exploited in turning schools around, and it includes a specific order that prevents schools from becoming academies, and it puts the power in the local authority’s decision on what to do with it. It is dumb. Sir Jon Coles: I don’t think it does that. What I am reacting to is that point, because it does not do that. Sir Dan Moynihan: There will be fewer academies because, by definition, if the Secretary of State is making the decision that a school that fails will not automatically become an academy, that must be because the intention is that some failing schools will not become academies. Therefore, there will be fewer than there would otherwise be.”
“I agree with Sir Dan that, when trying to turn around a very challenging school, it is much better when it is within the accountability structure of a trust as they are able to move much quicker. I am interested to see how the regional improvement for standards and excellence teams develop. They seem similar to what national leaders of education were in the past, and they did not always necessarily have the teeth to do what was needed, so I am interested to see how they develop, but for me, the significant concern is about conditions.”
“Q For what it is worth. Luke Sparkes, do you have anything to add on top of that? Luke Sparkes: I do not have a huge amount to add beyond agreeing with what colleagues have said. My most significant concern, as I have said, is about conditions for teachers. On the point about capacity within local authorities—I can only speak on the local authorities that we work with, which we try to have positive relationships with—they probably would not have the capacity to do the kind of things you said around school improvements. Trusts were set up purely for the purpose of running and improving schools, and nothing more or less than that, so we have the expertise and capacity to do that school improvement work.”
“Suffolk has a huge flooding problem. Part of the problem has been driven by overdevelopment in low-lying rural areas. In her steps to reform the planning system—as well as building more houses, which I totally accept we need to do—can the Secretary of State promise to force councils and developers to properly account for flood risk, ensure that developers are held accountable to residents when developments are badly impacted by floods, and ensure that housing targets favour homes built in dense urban areas?”
“I have heard that the Minister is the future, but all he wants to talk about is the past. The fact of the matter is that, today, borrowing costs are up, business confidence is down and growth is going nowhere. Is it not time to admit that this lefty economic experiment is not working? It is time to cut taxes and cut spending.”
“It is all very well spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, but we have to spend it on the right kit. Over the weekend I noted a story about our NATO allies being frustrated with Britain for not investing in appropriate missile defence systems. As the Secretary of State meets his 2.5% commitment, will he commit to investing in surface-to-air missiles, precision and hypersonic missile systems, DragonFire laser systems and counter-drone blocking technology to ensure that the British Army is the most advanced and able in the western world?”
“There are loads of landowners in Suffolk who want to take steps to mitigate flooding. The problem is they need a flood risk assessment permit, but FRAPs are expensive and hard to come by, so what can the Department do to make them easier to access and cheaper? That would make a real difference.”