Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-funded Secondary Schools) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-11-20
Topic: Education
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I am not capable of conducting this in Latin, Mr Deputy Speaker—some would say I am not able to conduct it in English. I am getting sidetracked again by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), and I hope you appreciate that it is certainly not of my doing The flavour of most private Members’ Bills that come before the House is that they are backed by a worthy sentiment, but are not really fit for purpose when given any great scrutiny. I fear that we are in that situation today. What we have been offered by a number of Members is what we normally get in this place on private Members’ Bills, which is a painless panacea. Politicians will always offer a painless panacea. With this Bill, I have heard that we can save lives, save money, save time and save absolutely anything. It has been said that there are no concerns and no downsides to this Bill, which will stipulate that it is compulsory for schools to provide first aid education. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), I have spoken to the schools in my constituency, and I wish to share some of the feedback that they have given to me If this Bill is so easy for schools to implement—it is said that it will save time, save money and save lives—then there is absolutely nothing to stop them introducing first aid courses now as part of the existing curriculum. We have heard that already today, and we have heard that many schools already do that. Why on earth would we need to make compulsory something that is so wonderful and that has no downsides? Surely we can just sit back and wait for every school to implement it themselves One thing I always say is that we should trust the people who are doing things every day. They tend to be the ones who know the best about what goes on and what works. When I worked for Asda, I found that it was the checkout operators who were the best people to ask about what was going wrong or right in the store, because they saw it every day with their own eyes. I certainly believe in trusting the professionals. My father was a teacher for that matter, so I am all for trusting teachers to get on and do their job. I do not really want the Government to be sticking their nose in at every single turn, trying to lecture them every five minutes about what they should be doing when they are perfectly capable of making those decisions for themselves If we think that we have recruited the right people to be teachers, then we have absolutely nothing to fear from leaving them to get on and do their job. If we feel that we have recruited the wrong teachers and that we need to lecture them every five minutes about what they should be doing, the problem is in the recruitment process. We should not need to look over their shoulder all the time, telling them what they should and should not be doing. I fear that we have made that particular mistake with this Bill I should make something very clear now, because, doubtless, Opposition Members will try to misconstrue my remarks. First aid, as everyone has acknowledged, is a very important life skill. I encourage as many people as possible to learn that skill. I am, and remain, a supporter of first aid, and certainly do not think that it is unimportant. I do not want to prevent anybody from learning first aid if they wish to learn it. I want people to have that opportunity Every year, there are 5.5 million attendees at A&E departments, 3 million of whom have the types of accident and injury that first aid treatment could have helped. For example, there are about 2,600 open wound injuries, 2,400 bone injuries, about 40 incidents of choking and more than 290 injuries from burns. Every year, about 66,000 die from heart attacks and seizures. They are all compelling statistics that endorse the increased use of first aid within society. Indeed, those statistics seem a valuable reason to encourage more members of society to learn first aid, but they do not in themselves justify the reason why first aid should become compulsory in the school curriculum, and that is what I wish to focus on today This Bill is not starting out from here. In the previous Parliament, Julie Hilling, the former Member for Bolton West, introduced a very similar Bill as a ten-minute rule Bill, which provided amendments to the Education Act 2002. She also brought in an amendment during the Committee stage of the Education Bill to make provision for teaching emergency life support skills in the national curriculum. The response of the then Minister for Schools, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), highlighted some of the same reservations that should be drawn to this debate today. He said: "I agree that emergency life support skills can have an immensely positive impact on pupils’ families as well as schools and the wider community. It is encouraging to hear about the excellent work in schools…I am also aware of the invaluable support that organisations such as the British Heart Foundation and St John Ambulance offer individual schools or groups of schools to enrich curriculum work. I applaud them for their important work, but I do not agree that making emergency life support skills a statutory part of the curriculum is the right approach." I absolutely endorse what he said. He went on to say: "We are clear that the national curriculum should set out the essential knowledge and understanding that all children should be expected to acquire in the course of their school lives. It is for teachers to design the wider curriculum in the way that meets the needs of their pupils, taking account of the views of parents, the wider community and local circumstances."––[Official Report, Education Public Bill Committee, 5 April 2011; c. 990.] That is the nub of my argument today. It should be a schools’ prerogative to incorporate extra-curricular activities, such as first aid education, into the school calendar, and they should not be forced to substitute other lessons to fit them in. That has been confirmed more recently—