John Hayes MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  That was wonderful. A few commas, a couple of semi-colons, but a paragraph, I reckon—don’t you? I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  Please divide the remaining time by two, allowing Sir Edward a few moments to sum up the debate at the end. I call the shadow Minister.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I thank Members for their abbreviated remarks. If people keep going in that way, everyone will get in.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I will enforce a one-minute time limit.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  Order. I remind Members that they need to bob in order to be called—although, by the look of it, they do not need reminding.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I see a lot of Members are standing. I will not impose a formal time limit, but if people stick to about three minutes, everyone will get in. I discourage interventions.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I appreciate that the debate is arousing strong feelings, and I want to get everyone in. Please work with me. If Members speak for a couple of minutes each, we will get you all in.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I will delay calling the Front Benchers until 3.30 pm, so that I can get more Back Benchers in.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  I call Harpreet Uppal. A paragraph, please, Harpreet—no more.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Palestinian Rights: Government Support · Hansard source

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  The shadow Minister and the Liberal Democrat spokesman have agreed to have slightly shorter times. I will try to get two more people in for one minute each.

• 26 Feb 2025 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the former Security Minister for giving way. I put this question to him: “How can the base—which serves as an indispensable naval, air, and intelligence asset—be more secure under the sovereignty of another nation, rather than under our own?” Not my words, but the words of another former Security Minister, Lord West.

• 26 Feb 2025 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend’s point is not merely semantic, because in international law—which I know holds great sway on the Labour Benches—those who interpret our entitlements will look closely at whether we have sovereign power or only power by means of an agreement that can be torn up by Mauritius.

• 26 Feb 2025 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  What we do know about the financial deal is that it is linked to inflation. It is therefore inconceivable that Ministers will not have had that modelled. They will have a view about the likely increase in inflation and the total sum involved, and it will be astronomical, which is why they are trying to disguise it.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I welcome the commitment to skills that the Secretary of State is articulating, but will she recognise that too often the advice given to young people, particularly from schools, is to pursue an academic career—I use the word “academic” in the loosest possible sense—rather than to engage in practical learning? That means that while the shortages she describes are profound, there are also many people who are graduates in non-graduate jobs owing a lot of money and with pretty useless degrees.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Yes, of course I acknowledge that role. It is important to point out that many of the universities do great work. I would not want to disparage that work, and the hon. Lady is right to draw the House’s attention to it. The point I was really making is that, sadly, many people are driven down a pathway that is just not right for them. That is because of the underestimation of the significance of practical accomplishment, both at an intellectual level—the unwillingness to recognise that practical accomplishment is of a high order—and at a practical level in terms of the advice that people are often given and may later regret. It is not easy for a young person to know quite what path to take, and if the advice they get skews them towards one route or another, it is fairly likely that they will be ill equipped to make a considered judgment. I am simply making the argument for, at the very least, a degree of equality about the advice we give to people. This Bill is questionable in a number of respects, and in particular, as has been highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and others, in the way that it presents the future management and control of apprenticeships and the standards associated with them. It is right that employers play a key role in that process, but the Bill is silent on the role of employers. I am not an unbridled admirer of the Institute for Apprenticeships. I did not create it. In my time as Minister, and indeed as shadow Minister, the standards were guaranteed by sector skills councils. I would have gone for a sector-based approach myself. Had I stayed in office, I would probably have developed that further and emulated the German approach by establishing guilds. I began to lay some of the foundations for that as Minister, and I would have gone for such an approach rather than where we ended up. Having said that, what is critical about either that kind of sectoral approach or the apprenticeship institute being abolished by the Bill is the role of employers in ensuring that what is taught and tested meets a real economic need. We cannot detach that economic need from the structure by which we guarantee the quality of apprenticeships. So, there is the issue of quality, and again the Bill is unconvincing in that respect. My right hon. Friend drew attention to the fact that if quality is lowered, the numbers can be increased. Indeed, the Labour Government prior to 2010 introduced programme-led apprenticeships, which were taught entirely outside of the workplace. They were still called apprenticeships but were unrelated to any particular employer or sector. That is not the way forward, and any diminution of standards will further undermine the status of practical learning. I simply say to the Minister that if the Secretary of State is going to take back control—to borrow a popular phrase—it is vital that simultaneously we hear more during the passage of the legislation about how standards will be maintained, because at the moment we have few assurances to that effect. I will say a word on numbers, partly to advertise my own effectiveness in government. When I became the Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, I was able, due to the promotion of apprenticeships, to drive their number to the highest level in modern times. I became the Minister in 2010. By 2011/12, we achieved 521,000 apprenticeships. That has never been equalled since, and we are now down to about 340,000. To say a word about previous Labour Governments, I inherited 280,000 apprenticeships, and the average number of apprenticeship completions from 2000 to 2009-10 was less than 100,000 a year. As we debate these matters going forward, it is vital that the Government commit to the apprenticeship as a key determiner of their skills policy. The number of apprenticeships and their quality will allow the Government to drive up skills levels and, therefore, to meet economic need.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has been listening attentively to my speech so far.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I am immensely flattered that the hon. Gentleman has followed my career with such assiduity. He is right: I defended Unionlearn and would continue to do so. Trade unions can play a vital part in ensuring the outcomes that the Government say that they seek and that I certainly believe in. Indeed, I went on a delegation to Germany—this is a minor digression, Madam Deputy Speaker—to look at their apprenticeship system with employers and trade unions, because I know that the combination of trade unions and employers was critical to driving the skills agenda. Again, it would be useful to hear from the Government what they think about that. How will they engage with the trade unions? Because trade unions are not mentioned in the Bill at all, we are left to wonder what will happen, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire said in his excellent speech, when the Secretary of State seizes control of apprenticeships from the current structure. There are a number of other questions to be put. The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) made a very good point about SMEs. One challenge when I was a Minister, and for subsequent Ministers and this Government, was in engaging more SMEs. I am not sure that we were successful in that. I launched a review of how we might do that; it was typically by making the system regulatory and trying to review some of the paperwork. Again, as the Bill moves forward, what more will we hear about how to engage more SMEs? If we say to someone in my constituency that there are really good engineering apprenticeships in Derby, which I am told is in the same part of the country—or in the same region at least, whatever that means—we might as well be saying that there are apprenticeships on Mars, because they will not be able to get to Derby to study. We really need the spread of apprenticeship accessibility, which SME involvement provides. It is the only way of creating the reach that is necessary to engage more young people and adult learners in acquiring those skills. I have one or two further questions, with which I hope the Minister can deal. I have already spoken about employers. On the status of the new body, is it the Government’s intention, as the Secretary of State implied— but no more than that—for it to become a non-departmental body in the end, or will it always be an in-house body? Anyone who has been close to government will know the significance of those two options. It needs at the very least to be a non-departmental body if it is to have the necessary freedom and independence to respond to employer need and changing economic circumstances. The Secretary of State hinted that that might be the direction of travel, but we do need to know more when the Minister sums up.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady is making a profoundly important point that reinforces what I said earlier about careers advice and guidance. When I was skills Minister, I introduced a statutory duty on providers to make available free and independent advice. The problem is that that is often done by means of the internet. Schools will refer students to the internet, rather than bring people such as independent advisers into the school to guide them. She is right that the best solution to the problem she sets out is exactly that kind of involvement from careers advisers with students.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I will happily give way. The hon. Lady is now going to test me on my practical incompetence.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  As I say, I am not an unbridled advocate of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, which the Bill abolishes. I did not set it up during my stewardship. As I have already described, I would have preferred a different, guild-based model. Guilds would, by their nature, have been independent from Government. If we look at the German model, the guilds are sovereign, and they are closely tied, by the way, to the trade unions of the particular sectors for which they are responsible. I am simply saying to the Government, “Here is the chance to do something better.” One learns from experience and one learns from government experience, to be honest and straightforward about that. Certainly, there is the issue of standards. How will standards be determined and delivered? Will that be done by an independent body or a series of independent bodies, perhaps in different parts of the business community, or will it be done directly by the Department? What about the figures in the impact assessment, which says that there would be a reduction in the number of apprenticeships? We are already at a pretty pitifully low level. As I described earlier, the number of apprenticeship starts in 2023-34 stood at 340,000. We can do much better than that, but the Government have certainly suggested in their impact assessment that they expect that number to fall, at least in the interim. By how much do we expect it to fall—5%, 10%, or 25%? We really need to know a little more about that. The Secretary of State spoke about, as the Labour manifesto detailed, work with the Migration Advisory Committee and others. Can we hear a little more about the detail of that? Certainly, it will be required before we vote on Third Reading, because it is inconceivable that the Government would not want to be more straightforward about how those structural links will work and what role those other bodies will play in helping the Government to deliver their objectives. Practical accomplishment is something dear to my heart. William Morris—rarely quoted in this House except by me, which is a sad indictment of the modern Labour party—said: “a man at work, making something which he feels will exist because he is working at it and wills it, is exercising the energies of his mind and soul as well as of his body.” Morris understood what I know many, from their contributions to this debate, understand too: that it is time to again elevate the practical. This is, of course, about our ambitions for the economy, but it is also about the people who acquire those skills—the way their lives are changed because their life chances are changed. I started by speaking about John Ruskin and his view of these things. Ruskin said: “The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” Yes, this is about the economy, but it is also about the difference we make to individuals who, through gaining new skills, grow and develop and become proud of what they can do for themselves, their family, their community and their nation.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I appreciate what the hon. Lady is saying about that, but will she in quick order set out how that will be directed either by the Secretary of State or by Skills England? We need to know not just the detail at the point of publication, but the structural needs in advance of that, so how will that be set out? Will it be set out in guidance—statutory guidance perhaps?

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Much of this debate has been about the purpose of learning—the Secretary of State began in that spirit—and I think we can all agree that the purpose of learning is both to deliver personal fulfilment, through the acquisition of understanding and competencies, and to fulfil a social purpose by providing for economic needs. John Ruskin said: “The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.” Apprenticeships embody—indeed, they epitomise—that purpose. A trainee learns from a mentor a skill that has use in a workplace. The value of apprenticeships is why, when I was shadow Minister for universities, further education and skills, and subsequently the Minister in 2010, I set about revitalising the apprenticeships system. I knew that apprenticeships were well understood by employers, were widely recognised by the public and could be attractive to trainees. I will make a point on adult learning, provoked by the excellent contribution by the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom). It is vitally important to understand that in order to skill our workforce and provide it with the necessary competencies to meet the Government’s economic ambitions, we really do have to reskill existing workers as well as making practical and vocational education attractive to new entrants to the workplace. Simply as a matter of numbers, if we train more young people but do not retrain the existing workforce, we will never deliver the capacity needed to fill the skills gaps and deal with the skills shortages that, as has been said repeatedly, inhibit our ability to drive the economy forward. The Bill is about the management and maintenance of standards of apprenticeships. I understood why that mattered so much, which is why I set about elevating the practical, the vocational and the technical. I believe that practical, vocational and technical learning is as important as academic accomplishment. It has been a myth perpetuated by the establishment—I am inclined to say “the liberal establishment,” but I do not want to damn the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, having praised him so nicely—that the only form of prowess that counts comes through academic learning. That myth has been so pervasive that a former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, set out the extraordinary, bizarre ambition that 50% of people should go to university. The number of people who go to university should be about their tastes, talents, aptitudes and abilities. We should not set a target and then shoehorn people into a system in order to meet it; we should allow a system to reflect those aptitudes, tastes and talents. Many people’s abilities rightly lead them not to an academic education but to a practical one, yet we have underpowered and undervalued practical learning for so long in this country, and we continue to do so. Deep at the heart of that fault has been the careers service. As hon. Members have mentioned, the careers advice and guidance that people have got has guided them—even when it did not suit them—into an academic route that has ill-served them. Even though it has landed them with immense debts, it has rendered them unable to get the job that would allow them to pay off those debts readily. So it is really important that we look again at that advice and guidance. As I have mentioned, when I was the Minister I created a statutory duty on schools to offer independent advice and guidance, but I should have insisted that it was to be given face to face, with a careers adviser visiting a careers fair or holding personal interviews with students to set out the various options available. Unfortunately, teachers, who have typically been to university themselves, know that route well, and they are inclined to say to young people, “Why don’t you do what I did, and follow the route that I took?” They are often less well informed about the practical and vocational routes that would lead people to acquire the kinds of skills that, as we have all said, are vitally important. I should, at the outset of my remarks, have referred Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because I am associated with universities. Indeed, I ought also to say that my background is entirely academic. I studied at two universities, Nottingham and Cambridge, and I have taught in two as well, so I do not really have any practical skills myself, unlike my dear father, who could turn his hand to almost anything—there was nothing he could not do, practically. I have to send out for a man in the village if I want anything done. So my case is not born of any personal prejudice. Indeed, maybe it is born of a certain envy of those that can make and do things in the way that Ruskin described.

• 25 Feb 2025 · Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case for the independence of Skills England. He will know that Government Departments resist independence like most people resist disease, but his point is important because to get the kind of lateral action he describes in respect of the nuclear industry or other industries, it will be necessary for the body created to have a reach that Government Departments do not tend to have.

• 13 Feb 2025 · Infected Blood Compensation Scheme · Hansard source

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  Every Member of this House should welcome this statement, as I certainly do, as there is no greater horror imaginable than becoming chronically sick as a result of what ought to be a routine medical procedure—a blood transfusion. Will the right hon. Gentleman, following on from the previous question, ensure that these matters are dealt with promptly? Will he reflect on what the report into these matters describes as institutional failures? The National Audit Office looked at compensation for a range of scandals and concluded: “There is no central coordinated approach when government sets up new compensation schemes resulting in a relatively slow, ad-hoc approach.” The report recommended that the Cabinet Office reviews its arrangements to “allow compensation schemes to begin and operate in a more timely…and effective manner”. When the Minister returns to the House, will he reflect on that recommendation and perhaps say to the House what the Government will do in response?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I fully endorse much of what the hon. Lady has said. We as a House were slow to regulate the internet when it first emerged. The fascination with the new blinded people to the damage it could do. We have had the online harms Bill more recently and so on and so forth. The risk in this case is not that we go too far, but that we do not go far enough. It is important, based on what she just said, that we take swift, decisive and firm action to avoid the eventuality of reducing humans, as she described them, to “mere” puppets.