Intergenerational Fairness — House of Commons, 2017-02-28
Topic: Education
Justin Paul Tomlinson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful for the fact that we have a fantastic Pensions Minister who will be responding to the debate and who will no doubt comment in detail on that point The broader point, as I turn to the opportunities for younger people, is that we all collectively—the Government and the Opposition—have a responsibility to recognise that we have a habit of spending more money than we get in as tax revenue. Since the second world war, I think there have been only six years where the Government of the day have spent less money than they have collected. What that really means in plain English is that we, as the generations from most of those years, wish to have more than we can afford and we would like our children, or maybe our children’s children, to pay for it. This applies to all Governments, except in those six years where, for whatever reason, the Government of the day were able to collect in more tax revenue than they spent. We have a moral duty and responsibility to future generations not always to take that easy decision I was doing a radio interview yesterday on a relatively contentious issue involving possible additional Government spending, and another MP said, "Well, if I was the Minister, I’d have taken the hit." The key point was that it was not they who would have taken the hit; it was everybody. Given that we already spend more money than we collect, what they were saying was, "I’d pass that one on to the next generation as well." We all know that. We would all like to balance the books immediately, but we also all have a long list of personal priorities we would like to spend money on—our inboxes are full of helpful requests from residents for where we could spend more money. Many of those are very important—a balance always needs to be struck—but I gently remind the House not to lose sight of the fact that if we wish to give the best opportunities to future generations, we must not saddle them with too much of our own overspending I am inherently a very positive person—I believe that if we equip people and give them the opportunity, they will seize it with both hands and make a huge success of it—so I am greatly encouraged that our Government have delivered 1.8 million more good or outstanding school places. As someone who went to a school at the bottom of the league tables, I understand the importance of equipping people with the right skills. In my constituency and across Swindon, we have had a difficult Ofsted report recently. We have fantastic teachers, headteachers and governors all trying their best in Swindon and we have secured extra funding for our schools, but we are not quite there yet We all—the Government, MPs, the council, the schools collectively, the parents—have to look at what more can be done. I am encouraged that the schools Minister recently visited two of my local schools, Nova and Swindon Academy, both of which are transforming the opportunities for their children, having come from what not so long ago were very poor ratings. Frankly, they were failing the children who were relying on them to equip them for the future, but both have transformed their ratings through strong leadership, and I am delighted that yesterday Ofsted confirmed that Nova had moved to "good" in all categories. I pay tribute to Mr Barton, the headteacher, and all his staff who have worked incredibly hard to achieve that. Schools are the fundamental building block for equipping young people in life I am also a huge fan of the National Citizen Service, a new initiative giving young adults real, tangible life skills, and every summer, without fail, I visit every stage of the three to four-week programme. It takes a random collection of young people—the activities cost about £1,500—and sends them away for a week to learn teambuilding skills. They then come back, form teams and choose a charity. They learn about that charity, organise entrepreneurial and fundraising activities, volunteer for the charity to see it at first hand, learn presentation skills, haggling, engaging and so on, and at the end, they graduate as NCS students. There is an incredible transformation in all those young adults, who arrive well educated by their schools but perhaps not quite ready for the workplace. I ran my own business for 10 years and employed a lot of young people and I am encouraged to see the huge difference in those young adults. They take the time in their summer holiday, when it is tempting to do other less-constructive things, to go and engage. In doing so, they give themselves the best opportunity when entering the workplace University numbers continue to increase, but the Government have rightly put a huge emphasis on apprenticeships. For generations, Governments and Opposition parties got into an arms race on students going to university. Every general election, we would hear, "We sent 25%.", "Well, we’d send 30%.", "We’d do a third.", "We’d do 45%.", "We’ll break 50%.". Everybody has a talent. David Beckham is not renowned for being academically gifted, but he has a gift that has earned him more money in a week than the majority of people in society will ever earn, and that was because somebody recognised his skill and allowed him to develop it We all have a talent. Every time I failed to make it on to a sports team, I wondered whether I did—perhaps that is why I am here—but everyone has a talent, and apprenticeships rightly recognise that. Workplace learning provides people with real, tangible skills and a fantastic opportunity to secure a long-term career with good career prospects. That is also vital for our growing economy, particularly where we have skills gaps In the last Parliament, we had a commitment to 2 million apprentices, which we have met, and in this Parliament we have rightly identified an even more ambitious target. It will be tough to get there, but it is right to have such challenging targets. I have spent, as I am sure have all hon. Members, a lot of time meeting the young apprentices who are doing things that I have absolutely no idea about—advanced engineering, all sorts of complex things with computers. They are on the first rung on the ladder towards their brilliant careers. They will all go on to huge success Across the economy, this Government have now delivered record employment—2.7 million more people are in work than when we came to office in 2010. That is not just in London or the south-east, as has sometimes been seen in previous strong economic performances; it is in every single region of the country. In my town of Swindon, 8,400 more people are in work, which is greater than the number who currently go on a weekly basis to see Swindon Town bravely fighting the relegation battle. Thankfully, with the victory at the weekend, we have got a bit closer to achieving the objective There are now 865,000 fewer workless households, and youth unemployment is at its lowest since 2005. In Swindon—I know that people are keen to know how well we are doing—youth unemployment is down by 69.2% since 2010, which is a fantastic achievement. The Government have rightly introduced the national living wage so that we are looking at a wage of about £9-plus by 2020. That will help 6 million of the lowest earners to have a pay rise and to share in the proceeds of the strong economic growth that we have delivered. The increases in the personal tax threshold have taken the 3.2 million lowest earners out of paying any income tax at all, and we are continuing to raise that threshold to £12,500, after which it will be index linked, making sure that the lowest earners will never return to the point of having to pay income tax again.