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House of Commons

Monday 27 October 2014

The House met at half-past Two o’clock

Prayers

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Education

The Secretary of State was asked—

Apprenticeships

1. Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD): What recent progress her Department has made on increasing the number and quality of apprenticeships. [905628]

The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles): We have already delivered over 1.9 million apprenticeships during this Parliament, and are on track to achieve our ambition of 2 million apprenticeship starts. We are working with groups of employers to develop new trailblazer standards, and last week we launched the latest set of trailblazers in sectors ranging from the nuclear industry to TV production and fashion.

Sir Andrew Stunell: Will the Minister join me in commending Stockport council and employers in Stockport on the record numbers of apprentices that have been recruited? Does he, however, recognise that there is an increasing need for pre-apprenticeship help for 16-year-olds so that they can enter apprenticeships, and will he agree to meet some of my colleges and providers about that subject?

Nick Boles: I am certainly happy to congratulate any authority that itself takes on apprentices. We all need to set an example in all parts of Government and indeed in this House, as many Members are doing. Of course I would be happy to meet my right hon. Friend. I hope that he will welcome the traineeships programme, which was introduced by this Government specifically to provide people in that age group with a stepping stone to an apprenticeship or to a job.

Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab): Despite the Minister’s opening statement, fewer than one in 10 employers in England offer apprenticeships, which must surely be improved upon. Labour will ensure that all public sector contracts worth more than £1 million require the contractor to take on apprentices. That was the subject of my private Member’s Bill, which, sadly, was blocked by Ministers. Why do Ministers not wake up, smell the coffee and realise that that is the best bang for the buck of public procurement contracts?

Nick Boles: Well, of course I am sure that the hon. Gentleman meant to congratulate the Government on our fantastic achievement in creating far more apprenticeships. They are real apprenticeships—those that involve a job and last more than 12 months—unlike the ones that his Government produced. He is right that we need many more employers, public and private, to want to create apprenticeships. The way to do that is not to force them to do so, but to make it attractive to them to do so. That is why we are introducing new incentives through the apprenticeship grant, and why we are putting employers in charge of the standard of an apprenticeship so that they know it will be useful to them and not just some bureaucratic tick box.

Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con): In my constituency of Wimbledon, we have woken up and smelt the coffee. Will the Minister join me in welcoming the Take One initiative under which Merton chamber of commerce, following on from the Government, is brokering

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relationships between apprenticeships and training providers and firms, with 150 extra people taking an apprenticeship this year as a result of that scheme?

Nick Boles: I strongly welcome that scheme and any other scheme that tries to make it easier—particularly for small employers, who sometimes face some level of risk—to take on an apprentice. There are all sorts of schemes, and I congratulate the one in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

Schools in Special Measures

2. Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con): What recent steps her Department has taken to improve schools which have been placed in special measures. [905629]

The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb): We act swiftly to tackle failure. If a local authority maintained school goes into special measures, Department for Education officials contact it within five days of being notified, and begin to work with it towards becoming a sponsored academy. Since 2010, we have opened 1,042 sponsored academies, which have nearly all resulted from this process. If an academy goes into special measures, the regional schools commissioner responds equally swiftly.

Charlie Elphicke: Is the Minister aware of the striking progress that has been made at Deal’s Castle community academy in just a few short months, thanks to strong intervention by his Department? Will a decision on sponsorship for the academy be made soon?

Mr Gibb: I know that my hon. Friend has worked tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure early resolution of the problems the school has faced since it went into special measures. We are working closely with the Castle Community Trust, and on securing a strong sponsor for the school quickly. Ofsted’s monitoring inspection on 10 September confirmed that the academy’s plans are fit for purpose, and that necessary improvements are being made.

Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab): Schools in special measures should demand the highest possible standards of their teachers, but the 2011 teaching standards do not apply to such schools if they are academies or free schools. The standards include things such as the management of behaviour. Is it not more important than ever that the standards should apply to schools when they are in special measures, whatever their governance arrangements?

Mr Gibb: I do not think that the hon. Lady is right. The teaching standards apply to all qualified teachers. If she is referring to the issue of qualified teacher status, she should be aware that the vast majority of teachers in academies are qualified teachers and so are required to abide by the teaching standards. Even for teachers who are not qualified, who might be lecturers from universities or people who have come from industry to teach physics or science, the head teacher is able to use the teaching standards in assessing them.

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Qualified Teacher Status

3. John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab): What assessment she has made of the effect of her Department’s policy on qualified teacher status on educational outcomes. [905630]

The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan): Pupils have the best chance ever of attending a good or outstanding school. That is thanks, in no small part, to the quality of the teachers in those schools. In fact, the number of teachers who do not hold degrees has fallen by almost half since 2010. Our policy is to put our trust in the professionalism of head teachers, who are best placed to recognise outstanding teaching and recruit the best possible teachers for their schools.

John Robertson: Perhaps the Secretary of State could clarify which of the eight requirements in the 2011 teaching standards should not apply to every teacher in every classroom?

Nicky Morgan: I note that, as a Scottish Member of Parliament, the hon. Gentleman is asking about English educational standards, but I am happy to answer his question. I wondered whether he might apply for the job of the Labour party’s leader in Scotland, but I see that he is here. There are fewer unqualified teachers in state-funded schools than there were in 2010. The Government trust head teachers to get in the best possible people to broaden young minds.

Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): Does the Secretary of State not agree that, up and down the land, there are some outstanding and inspiring teachers who do not hold professional qualifications? The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), for example, brags that he sometimes teaches in Stoke schools when they allow him and that he has taught a primary school about the armada, of all things. Is he really the sort of person who should not be allowed into a school?

Nicky Morgan: My hon. Friend tempts me to speculate on the shadow Secretary of State’s qualifications to teach in schools. He is absolutely right that it is for heads and teachers to decide who is best qualified to teach in their schools. In state funded schools, 96% of teachers hold qualified teacher status. The figure is 97% in maintained schools and 95% in academies.

Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab): Last week, I visited schools in Warrington, Chester and Milton Keynes. Will the Secretary of State tell the House why children in those places do not deserve to be taught by teachers who can

“Adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils”;

who can “Manage behaviour effectively”; and who can

“be aware of pupils’ capabilities…and plan teaching to build on these”?

Nicky Morgan: It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman should stick, yet again, to qualified teacher status. We all saw what happened when he tried to introduce his new policy of a Hippocratic oath for teachers, which was condemned by the “Left Foot Forward” blog as

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“patronising”. I see that he had to turn to Twitter for inspiration for his questions today. He could have asked questions about so many subjects. Instead, he talks about the 3% of teachers who are unqualified. Why does he not talk about the 97% of teachers in our schools who are qualified and who are doing a brilliant job? Why does he not talk about trusting heads and teachers to have the best possible qualified staff in their schools?

Tristram Hunt: What guff! Clearly the Secretary of State does not value those teaching skills. They are the criteria of the 2011 teaching standards that are used to determine qualified teacher status, which her Government have abandoned. Warrington, Chester and Milton Keynes have all seen rises in the number of unqualified teachers. Given that the quality of teaching is the most important determinant of success, will she confirm that the Tory party has gone soft on standards and is putting ideology above the interests of pupils?

Nicky Morgan: Well, what wishful thinking and, indeed, guff from the hon. Gentleman. If he wants to talk about the quality of teachers, he needs to look at the outcomes. This country has more good and outstanding schools than in 2010. He ought to listen to the families who want their children to be taught well. If he is so worried about unqualified teachers, what does he say to the schools in Stoke that allow him in to teach?

School Budgets (Pension Changes)

4. John Pugh (Southport) (LD): What assessment she has made of the effect of pension changes on school budgets; and if she will make a statement. [905631]

The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws): The employer contribution rates for the teachers’ pension scheme will increase by 2.3 percentage points following the recommendation to reform public sector pensions by the former Labour Minister, Lord Hutton of Furness. That will ensure that high-quality teacher pensions remain sustainable and affordable.

John Pugh: That is reassuring, but why are so many secondary heads in my constituency alarmed by the prospect of increased national insurance contributions?

Mr Laws: We have delayed the increase until September 2015 to give schools and head teachers time to plan; protected the schools budget in real terms in 2015-16; and—I know that my right hon. Friend will welcome this—allocated an extra £390 million to raise school funding in the most underfunded parts of the country. All those measures mean that the increase in pension costs is affordable.

Primary School Places

5. Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con): What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the provision of primary school places in a) Kingswood constituency and b) England. [905632]

The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws): Some 260,000 additional school places were created between May 2010 and May 2013, and we are on track to meet the extra pressures for places across the country.

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Chris Skidmore: Since May 2010 a new 420-place primary school has been approved in Kingswood, to open in September 2015, as well as another 420 primary school places in other schools. This week, a new £5.4 million primary school has been approved for Emersons Green East. Can the Minister estimate the total amount of extra funding and investment that has gone into the Kingswood constituency for primary school places in the past four years?

Mr Laws: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I congratulate him on his work to help us ensure additional places in his constituency. I confirm that under the previous Labour Government, £17 million was made available in his local authority area for basic need, and that has risen to £23 million in this Parliament. We have allocated another £9 million over the next two years, meaning that £32 million extra has been made available by this coalition Government for school places in my hon. Friend’s area.

Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab): Lib Dem councillors in Cambridge are calling this a crisis, and Tories in Surrey are saying there is a severe shortfall in places for next September. Bradford council says that it has a primary school places problem, and in nearby Leeds a secondary free school has attracted only 11 additional pupils this term. When will the Minister drop the ideological policy on primary school places that was adopted by his Tory master, and put parents and pupils first?

Mr Laws: We are putting pupils and parents first, and we are reversing a decline in primary school places. Under the last Labour Government, 200,000 primary school places were taken out of circulation, precisely at a time when the birth rate was rising. We will not follow such an irresponsible policy.

Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD): The coalition Government have rightly given their support to the proposed new West Didsbury primary school, to provide much-needed additional places. As we conclude the final consultation phase, will my right hon. Friend assure me that the Government will maintain coalition support for those vital new places, despite ideological opposition from Manchester city council?

Mr Laws: I assure my hon. Friend that we will continue the massive investment in school places right across the country, including in his area where there has been huge investment under this coalition Government—far greater than under the last Labour Government.

Technical Baccalaureate

6. Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab): What progress she has made on introducing the technical baccalaureate. [905633]

The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles): Schools and colleges started teaching the 230 new tech-level qualifications that will count towards the “tech bac” from September this year.

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Steve Rotheram: On 21 July the Minister told the House:

“I am very hopeful that about 25% of young people will take up the opportunity of a “tech bac”.—[Official Report, 21 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 1141.]

Will he update the House on enrolment figures so far, and say how far they go towards meeting the Government’s target of 320,000 young people?

Nick Boles: It is probably better to explain how the “tech bac” works. It is, like the EBacc, a group of qualifications, and we will know how many students have achieved the “tech bac”, or are studying for it, only when the 16-to-19 tables for 2016 are produced in early 2017. There will not be any figures under any Government for the number enrolled in “tech bac”—students do not enrol in it; they are measured after the event on whether they have achieved the qualifications that count towards the “tech bac”.

Steve Rotheram: What about the take-up?”

Nick Boles: The hon. Gentleman keeps asking questions from a sedentary position, but he has betrayed the fact that he completely misunderstands the policy. That is curious since the Labour party has spent a long time claiming that it was its policy in the first place. “Tech bac” is a group of qualifications. Students do not enrol in it; they discover whether they have achieved it at the end of the period.

Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con): If the “tech bac” is to be a success, it will need the full support of future employers. Will my right hon. Friend let the House know what efforts he is making to ensure that employers recognise the “tech bac”, support it, and are encouraging young people to get involved?

Nick Boles: My hon. Friend has, of course, thoroughly understood the policy, and it would make no sense if there was not intense involvement by employers in the design of those qualifications. That is what we are doing, and we want to hear from any employers about what further improvements we can make to that qualification design.

David Wright (Telford) (Lab): Is not careers advice therefore important in partnership with employers? The CBI has described the system of careers advice as being on life support. What will the Minister do to improve careers advice and ensure that people moving out of the baccalaureate can go forward and get employment?

Nick Boles: We have changed Ofsted guidance to ensure it can check whether schools are adequately fulfilling their responsibility to provide independent advice and guidance to young people. We have also changed the nature of the National Careers Service contracts to ensure that it spends 5% of its contract value on providing career advice and guidance to young people. We have therefore taken a great many steps, but we never think that the job is done—we are not remotely complacent—and we are open to other suggestions, including the hon. Gentleman’s, on how to improve the quality of advice and guidance provided to young people.

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STEM Subjects (Female Pupils)

7. Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con): What steps the Government have taken to improve participation rates of female pupils taking STEM subjects. [905634]

The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan): Both of my ministerial roles give me a personal passion about this issue. As a result of our reforms to GCSEs, this year a record proportion of pupils entered the science EBacc subjects—68.7%—and girls perform even better than boys thanks to excellent teaching, but we want to continue to make progress, which is why the Government are supporting the “Your Life” campaign, which will change young people’s perceptions of where maths and science can take them.

Stephen McPartland: I am glad that the Women’s Engineering Society is based in Stevenage. The WES and I are concerned that, although young women enjoy science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, they do not associate them with a career choice. Will the Secretary of State join me in welcoming “Sparks”, the new WES initiative designed to encourage young women to turn that interest in STEM subjects into a career choice in engineering?

Nicky Morgan: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We welcome all initiatives that aspire to get more girls into careers such as engineering. I entirely welcome the “Sparks” initiative, which the WES, based in Stevenage, has launched. Working with more than 200 partners from the UK’s best-known businesses and educators, and with the support of organisations such as WES, our “Your Life” campaign will promote STEM subjects leading to a wide range of career options.

Sir Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con): My right hon. Friend will be aware that, in the UK, we have the lowest participation rate of women in engineering of any country in the European Union. She welcomes “Sparks” and “Your Life” but, in that context, will she welcome tomorrow’s engineers week, which is next week? It aims to change perceptions of engineering, particularly among young ladies in the 11 to 14 age group?

Nicky Morgan: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am happy to add my support to the national engineers week next week. As I said at a recent event, I understand that we need 83,000 more engineers every year for the next 10 years, and they cannot all be men.

School Buildings

8. Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con): What steps her Department is taking to improve school buildings where most needed. [905635]

10. Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con): What steps her Department is taking to improve school buildings where most needed. [905638]

The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws): Investment in the school estate is one of the Government’s highest priorities. This Government will invest £5.6 billion on maintenance and improving the condition of school

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buildings between 2011 and 2015. In addition, the £2.4 billion priority school building programme is addressing 260 schools in the worst condition.

Andrew Stephenson: Parents in Pendle are delighted with three brand new primary school buildings that opened in September, but many more schools in Pendle are in need of improvement. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister and our Secretary of State be willing to visit Pendle to see the progress we have made, but also some of the challenges our schools still face?

Mr Laws: I am delighted to hear about the new school buildings opening in my hon. Friend’s constituency. The Secretary of State notes the kind invitation she has received and will try to find time to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency in the near future.

Graham Evans: What steps are being taken to support the installation of energy-efficient measures such as solar panels, similar to the ones installed at the outstanding Helsby high school in my constituency of Weaver Vale?

Mr Laws: The Government are committed to helping schools to become greener and more energy efficient. That is why we have invested £20 million so far in the Salix energy efficiency loan scheme, supporting a wide range of energy-efficiency technologies with projected energy savings in excess of £40 million.

Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op): Earlier this month, I was pleased to visit the outstanding St John Bosco college in Croxteth in my constituency to see its brand new buildings. Bosco is one of the schools that lost out when the Government cancelled Building Schools for the Future in 2010. Will the Minister join me in congratulating the school and the Labour mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, on ensuring that the rebuilding of Bosco went ahead?

Mr Laws: I am always delighted to see new school estate being built and improved. I am delighted also to say that in a few months the Government will be able to announce multi-year allocations of maintenance money across England, as well as a Priority School Building programme 2 that will be targeted at schools in the worst condition across the country.

Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab): St John’s Catholic academy in Kidsgrove is one of the schools that lost out back in 2010 when it should have had a new school building on what are currently two separate sites. When the Minister comes to announce the successful bids for phase 2 of the Priority School Building programme, will he make sure that that Kidsgrove school is included, and will he take account of the substantial subsidence on the older site and make sure that we have a school building fit for education?

Mr Laws: We have now received all the bids for the Priority School Building programme 2. We are assessing those and hope to make decisions towards the end of this year. As a consequence of the points that the hon. Lady makes, I will take a particularly close look at the school that she mentions.

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Damian Green (Ashford) (Con): Will the Minister join me in congratulating the John Wallis Church of England academy in south Ashford? Its results have been transformed since it became an academy, and this term it has been transformed physically, with new buildings giving top-class provision for both academic and vocational subjects. Will he also welcome the fact that these new buildings were provided at considerably less expense than would have been incurred under the previous Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme?

Mr Laws: My right hon. Friend is right. I am delighted to hear about the new buildings in his constituency. We are not only allocating a massive amount of money for improving the school building stock and making sure that there are extra places, but we are building new schools at a considerably reduced cost, compared with the very expensive Building Schools for the Future programme.

Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab): Balaam Wood academy in my constituency needs vital rebuilding work in order to secure its future serving one of the most deprived parts of Birmingham. It was in line for Building Schools for the Future money, but, as we know, that was scrapped. It is still waiting to hear whether it will get support under the Priority School Building programme, but if schools like that in local authorities try to use their own land and assets creatively to finance such things, they face massive bureaucracy from the Department. Why do the Department and Ministers make it so easy for free schools to get capital and so difficult for local authority schools?

Mr Laws: If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the school in his constituency, I would be happy to meet him to discuss it. We would want to remove any bureaucracy where schools are sensibly trying to draw together capital plans, but we also have the Priority School Building programme and the ongoing academies capital maintenance fund. They are satisfying the condition needs of many schools across the country.

Apprenticeships

9. Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab): What plans she has to increase the number of apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds; and if she will make a statement. [905636]

The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles): We are providing an additional £170 million to fund over 100,000 incentive payments of £1,500 to employers who take on a young person aged 16 to 24.

Stephen Timms: The official statistics show a big fall in the number of apprenticeship starts for under-19s, from over 130,000 in 2010-11 to 95,000 last year. Why has there been that fall? Why has it been allowed to happen, and how optimistic is the Minister that the measures he has just announced will turn around that very disappointing state of affairs?

Nick Boles: I am always optimistic, but it is easier to be optimistic when the desired result has already happened. Provisional data for 2013-14 indicate a slight increase in apprenticeships for under-19s and for 19 to 24-year-olds. We are therefore hopeful that that improvement will

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continue. However, there is a serious point here, which is what employers think about offering apprenticeships to people who may be as young as 16 and perhaps do not have all the emotional maturity and the employability skills that employers expect in an apprenticeship that will last at least a year and be quite demanding. That is exactly why we have created traineeships as a stepping stone to apprenticeships. It may well be in the future that for many 16-year-olds the right answer is to do a traineeship first for six months and then to move on to an apprenticeship, rather than to go straight into an apprenticeship.

Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): Unemployment is falling fast. In my constituency there is now significantly less than 1% unemployment. Employers will have to recognise that it is in their own interest to take on apprentices, because if they do not embrace apprenticeships, they will not be able to find people with the skills they need in a few years because such people simply will not be there.

Nick Boles: That is a powerful message, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for delivering it. It is a message that all of us in the House, whatever party we represent, should be taking to every business and employer in our constituencies. If they are not offering apprenticeships now, why not? What is holding them back? We want them to come forward and offer apprenticeships and traineeships for our young people.

Workplace Skills

11. David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con): What steps she is taking to equip young people with the skills they need to succeed in the workplace. [905639]

The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles): We have reformed the way in which 16-to-19 education is funded and the qualifications that count in league tables. We have also raised the quality of apprenticeships and traineeships, and enabled more students to take part in work experience. Students who do not hold at least a grade C in maths and English GCSE at age 16 are now also required to continue to study those subjects.

David Rutley: It is good to see schools such as All Hallows Catholic college making enterprise a priority in education. However, a recent study by the Chartered Management Institute pointed out that while 89% of businesses rate business experience as part of education, only 22% are prepared to provide such opportunities for young people. What steps are the Government taking to encourage more businesses to step up to the plate and provide opportunities for young people across the country?

Nick Boles: The key change that we have made is to make it easier for colleges and schools to go out and actively create those work experience opportunities. Previously, colleges and schools offering 16-to-19 education were funded on the basis of the qualifications that students were taking, and that meant that they were not being rewarded for their work in creating work experience. Now they are funded per student, and work experience is specifically allowed as one of the things for which

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they can be funded. That has meant that further education colleges are now directly incentivised to create those work experience opportunities.

Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab): Has the Minister had any specific discussions with schools about pupils with learning disabilities and how we can help them get into work more quickly?

Nick Boles: It is incredibly important that opportunities to work are not preserved for one group in society. We will be a fair and prosperous society only if we create opportunities involving all people, whether that is women in engineering or people with learning disabilities and other special needs. I visited my local college in Grantham the other week; it is working closely with local employers to create opportunities for young people with learning disabilities and other special needs to gain experience of employment. That is exactly what a great FE college will do in a community, and there are many such around the country.

22. [905651] David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con): Our new studio school in Warrington is providing a brilliant link between the school and the work force. It is supported by parents and all local employers. Will the Minister confirm that he intends to accelerate the roll-out of studio schools in Cheshire and more generally?

Nick Boles: We are happy to take proposals for new studio schools from any area and any group of people who want to set one up, as we are for free schools and new university technical colleges. We do not have a prescriptive, one-size-fits-all policy: we believe in letting a thousand flowers bloom, and studio schools are an important part of that.

Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con): Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways in which schools can prepare young people for the workplace is by bringing businesses into their buildings? With that in mind, will he join me in congratulating Nigel Dawson and the Fearns community sports college in my constituency, which is hosting my jobs fair next week, on Halloween, with 200 vacancies and 31 employers in the school grounds during the holiday?

Nick Boles: That is exactly the kind of enterprising initiative that we want all schools to undertake. It did, of course, take a particularly enterprising Member of Parliament to persuade them to do so, and I know that other schools will want to follow his lead.

Careers Advice

12. Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab): What plans she has to reform careers advice. [905640]

The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan): One of my priorities is to ensure that young people leave school prepared for the world of work and able to take advantage of the opportunities available to them. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Skills and Equalities has just said, we want to see improvements to the quality of careers advice available to young people, with

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many more schools and employers working together to provide excellent support. We have already made a number of changes in this area, including issuing revised statutory guidance to schools.

Mr Blunkett: But the Minister of State was reminded earlier this afternoon that the CBI had described careers advice and education as being on life support. That is generous in that it presumes that any support at all is being given to careers advice. Given that the National Careers Council, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and, most recently, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission have expressed genuine concern about what is happening, will the Secretary of State put in place a monitoring process and, at the very least, instruct Ofsted to give no school a mark greater than “requires improvement” if its careers education and advice is not up to scratch?

Nicky Morgan: As the right hon. Gentleman said at the end of his question, we already have a monitoring process, which is that Ofsted has a duty to look at the independent careers advice available to schools. I would not want to say that everything is all sorted out and that there are not patches across the country, but I would just point out that a recent survey carried out by CASCAiD, a careers advice company in my constituency, said that, I think, about 86% school students said they had already had access to some form of careers advice. He is right, however, to say that there is more we can do.

Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con): On Friday. alongside the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) and the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) I helped to launch the Humber careers gold standard, a new programme developed by the Humber local enterprise partnership to provide a rigorous but realistic framework to encourage the delivery of impartial, relevant and inspiring careers guidance for young people that will be rolled out across schools in the area. Will the Secretary of State encourage schools and colleges to participate in the Humber careers gold standard, and will she monitor its performance so that we can derive lessons for the nation as a whole?

Nicky Morgan: I thank the Chairman of the Education Committee. I encourage schools and colleges to take part in the Humber careers gold standard. I think my hon. Friend’s more general point is that there are already some exceptional schemes across the country and we need to harness them. We need to work with businesses, employer organisations, schools and colleges to ensure that such opportunities are available to all students right across the country.

Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab): I was pleased to join the Chair of the Select Committee at the launch of the Humber careers gold standard. Does the Secretary of State agree that regional hubs may well be part of the way forward for better quality careers information, advice and guidance, but that they need to be properly funded? Will she make a commitment to ensuring that they are properly funded?

Nicky Morgan: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that regional hubs offer an important opportunity for schools. I hope that all hubs are working in particular with local enterprise partnerships, which offer great opportunities.

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Many of them have already bid for skills projects as part of the city deals and regional growth funding granted by the Government. I shall certainly look at the funding, but I would never like to pre-empt any Treasury approvals.

Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con): Does the Secretary of State agree that evidence of effective careers advice can be seen in the increasing numbers of pupils taking STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—which is important in meeting the needs of industry? Will she join me in congratulating Rugby high school in my constituency where, in the past three years, the number of those taking maths at A-level has increased by 50%?

Nicky Morgan: I certainly congratulate all those involved at Rugby high school in encouraging our young people to take maths and to continue to study all maths and science subjects. As we have already heard, it is absolutely essential that our young people continue to study STEM subjects, because there is a real need for them among the businesses in our economy.

Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op): We are seeing the impact of the Government’s woeful record on careers in their flagship early years apprenticeship scheme. Figures I have uncovered show that, despite Ministers doubling the bursary, just 38 people applied in the first six months. The Government were aiming for 1,000. The scheme has now closed. The Government have dismantled careers services, leaving no pipeline to get the best young people into this important scheme to improve quality in the early years. What lessons does the Secretary of State draw from this appalling experience?

Nicky Morgan: I do not think that 1.8 million apprenticeships is anything to be sniffed at. In fact, the Government have created more apprentices and we are committed to creating 3 million more in the next Parliament. As for what the hon. Lady says about careers advice, we have already, as from 1 October, extended the National Careers Service. Ofsted is expecting careers guidance, but I have already said that there is more to do in terms of building partnerships between employers and schools.

Academies

14. John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab): If she will bring forward legislative proposals to allow failed academies to return to local authority control. [905642]

The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb): We have no plans to legislate to allow failed academies to return to local authority control. We take swift and decisive action to deal with any academies that are failing, which may include issuing a warning notice, terminating their funding agreement or securing a new high performing academy sponsor to take the school forward.

John Mann: So much for democracy! What if the parents want a return to local authority control for a failed academy? What if the teachers want a return to local authority control? What if it is a village primary academy and the whole village would like a return? What is wrong with that? Why can that not happen?

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Mr Speaker: That was five questions from a very experienced Member—and exceptionally cheeky chappie.

Mr Gibb: What parents want is every local school to be a good school, and that is what the academies programme is delivering. Sponsored schools that have been open for four years are showing a 5.7 percentage point improvement in their GCSE results compared with their predecessor schools, so it is a programme that is working. I am afraid that in the past too many schools were left languishing under local authority control.

Academy Sponsorship

15. Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab): What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the system of academy sponsorship; and if she will make a statement. [905643]

The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb): There are 642 approved academy sponsors, and 349 of them are good or outstanding converter academies. Results over a number of years show that established sponsors are delivering sustained improvements, helping to transform the life chances of thousands of pupils. There is a rigorous and thorough process for approving sponsors and reviewing their growth and performance, and regional schools commissioners now lead in identifying new sponsors, challenging existing sponsors and advising on appropriate sponsor matches for new academies.

Mr Campbell: The Secretary of State indicated some time ago that she was in favour of allowing Ofsted to check on academy schools. Why has she changed her mind? Or is the Chief Whip still in charge of her Department?

Mr Gibb: Of course, Ofsted does inspect academies and does have the power to inspect chains of academies, as we have seen recently with its inspections of a series of academies in the E-ACT and Academies Enterprise Trust chains. The truth is that Ofsted has the power to inspect chains of academy schools.

Free School Meals (Infants)

16. Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD): What steps she is taking to help schools deliver free school meals to all infant pupils. [905644]

The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws): Thanks to the hard work of schools, caterers and local authorities, free meals are now being offered to infants in schools across England. Some 98.5% of schools served hot meals from the beginning of September, which is a fantastic success, and by January 2015 we expect almost 100% of eligible schools to be delivering hot meals.

Dr Huppert: I thank my right hon. Friend for his answer and the policy. Having seen and tasted these meals in action in Cambridge, I can assure him that this policy is welcomed by pupils, staff and parents alike. However, an issue has been raised to do with the consequences for the pupil premium. How will he ensure

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that schools still get the pupil premium—another excellent policy—despite the fact that we are now giving free school meals?

Mr Laws: I am delighted to hear that my hon. Friend has been enjoying the free school meals in his constituency and sampling them in different establishments. He is right that pupil premium registration is extremely important, which is why we have given guidance to all schools in the country. From the pilot areas, we know it is achievable to ensure that pupil premium registration continues. In the medium term, we will explore data-sharing arrangements so that schools no longer have to deal with this burden themselves.

Mr Speaker: I am sure we are all glad that the health and nutrition of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) are assured beyond doubt.

Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con): Wylam first school is a big supporter of the free school meals programme. It has purchased the specific equipment needed, but has still not received the funding it is entitled to, given the guidance from the Department for Education. I have a meeting on this matter fairly soon with the Minister, but will he expedite it with his civil servants to ensure a resolution in weeks, not months?

Mr Laws: I shall certainly follow up that issue on behalf of my hon. Friend. I am pleased to tell him that earlier this month the Department announced it was making available almost £25 million in additional capital to schools to support this policy. This money has come from an underspend in the existing free school meals budget.

Free Schools

17. Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab): How many free schools for 16 to 18-year-olds have opened in the last four years. [905646]

The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb): A total of 14 16-to-18 free schools have opened in the last four years, including the highly innovative King’s college London mathematics school and Exeter maths school, which aim to increase the levels of mathematical attainment by the most able students to enable them to study at top-rated universities, and Chapeltown academy, a new 16-to-18 sixth form committed to high-quality academic A-levels.

Angela Smith: The academy in Chapeltown that the Minister has just referred to opened in September and has been funded for 90 places, but the numbers recruited fall significantly short of that—I understand that the figure is something like 55. Why are the Government funding institutions that are not recruiting to full capacity while cutting the funding available to 16 to 18-year-olds already in education or training in existing institutions?

Mr Gibb: The hon. Lady raised her opposition to the establishment of the Chapeltown academy in an Adjournment debate in April, when she said that

“there is no evidence whatsoever that there is demand for these additional sixth-form places.”—[Official Report, 30 April 2014; Vol. 579, c. 964.]

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In fact, 58 places have been taken up. Free schools often have smaller numbers in the first year than their maximum, but numbers tend to increase in the years ahead. To quote its website, the school wants to

“Increase aspirations to attend the world’s best universities, and boost attainment at A-Level”.

Why can the hon. Lady not support such a school, with such great ambitions for young people?

Faith Schools

18. Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con): What steps she is taking to ensure that parents wishing to send their children to faith schools can do so. [905647]

The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan): Faith schools play an important role in our education system and I firmly support them. All parents can express a preference for a place at any state-funded school, including faith schools, with a minimum of three preferences in rank order. Where a school receives more applications than it has places available, those places must be allocated in accordance with its published admission arrangements. In 2014, 86.5% of parents secured a place at their first-preference school.

Mr Evans: I welcome that response, but parents with youngsters who happen to live in Clitheroe and want to send them to a Catholic school have to pass a non-faith-based comprehensive on the way. Therefore, the local authority will not give them any assistance whatever with school transport. This is a hideous form of discrimination that ends up giving parents a huge bill at the end of the year, particularly those with two or three youngsters. What can be done to make the choice more effective without clobbering parents?

Nicky Morgan: I thank my hon. Friend for his question and I understand the points he has made. Although local authorities must have regard to parents’ wishes to have their children educated in a school based on religion or belief, there is no statutory duty to require them to provide free transport to that school; rather, they must provide free transport for pupils to attend the nearest suitable school beyond the statutory walking distance. “Suitable” in this context means providing education appropriate to age and, where relevant, any special educational needs a child may have. I understand the frustrations of many parents and will perhaps look at this again.

Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab): I was late for the start of questions because I was attending the opening day of the Sikh faith school in Leicester. May I thank the Minister for all the support that she and Lord Nash, the Minister in the other place have given to the school, and may I ask her to come and visit it as soon as possible?

Nicky Morgan: I thank the right hon. Gentleman very much indeed. In fact, news of his tour to the school had already reached me, and I am delighted to see him in his place. I look forward to visiting the school very much and I am absolutely delighted to wish it all the very best for its successful opening and its continued success in the terms ahead.

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Mr Speaker: There is probably a picture of the right hon. Gentleman on the wall of the school—as there is, in my experience, in most restaurants around the United Kingdom.

Topical Questions

T1. [905653] Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op): If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan): As this is the first topical questions session since the summer results, let me congratulate all students who achieved GCSE and A-level results this summer, as well as their hard-working teachers and their families who supported them. I would particularly like to pay tribute to those achieving phonics results—we saw 102,000 more six-year-olds achieving the reading standards this year—and also to congratulate the winners and the nominees at the excellent national teaching awards, which I attended last night.

Mr Sheerman: Sixth-form colleges in our country used to be the jewels in the crown of our educational system. Seventy-eight per cent. of them are now cutting back in special subjects in the broader curriculum, and in many of the tutorials and special things they could do for their students. Sixth-form colleges have had three major cuts in funding; they are anticipating a fourth. Why is the Secretary of State punishing our sixth-form colleges in this way?

Nicky Morgan: We certainly are not punishing sixth-form colleges, but the hon. Gentleman will know that the economic situation this Government inherited has led to some very difficult decisions. We have no plans to reduce the 16-to-19 funding rate in the academic year 2015-16, but we cannot confirm the base rate of funding until we know how many places we are going to have to fund. We will not have confirmation of student numbers until the end of January, which is why we have not yet confirmed the national funding rate for 16 to 19-year-olds.

T3. [905655] Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD): School sixth forms have a different funding formula, but they are under a lot of financial pressure. As the participation age is raised, they find themselves having to do a lot more with less. When will the Government be able to extend the protection of schools funding, which currently goes only up to age 16, to include sixth forms as well?

The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles): It is right—I think my hon. Friend would agree—to focus funding on school-aged children below 16, because that is the stage in life at which education has the most dramatic impact on the young person’s chances. That is why he is a supporter of and part of a Government who protected school funding up to the age of 16, but was unable to extend that protection to sixth forms—

Mr Speaker: Mr Steve McCabe.

Nick Boles: Thank you, Mr Speaker. You cut me off in my prime!

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Mr Speaker: I am always disappointed when I do so. I think that the “War and Peace” version should be lodged in the Library of the House for the delectation of hon. and right hon. Members in the long winter evenings that lie ahead.

Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): The Minister has decided to establish a second independent trust to provide children’s services in Slough, following the experiment in Doncaster, but what evidence is there of the success of that approach? Will he place such evidence in the Library and will he, like me, call for a rigorous independent evaluation of the experiment?

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson): The hon. Gentleman will know that the formation of the Doncaster trust was carried out over a long period with much reflection on what was the best solution for Doncaster, bearing in mind the specific issues it faced. Part of that has been making sure that the lessons we learn from Birmingham, and from Slough and other local authorities where there has been too much failure in children’s services over too many years, will form the picture of understanding of what works best. There is no “one size fits all” solution. The Hackney education trust was an extremely effective example of how standards can be raised over a 10-year period of stability. Our thinking reflects much of the result that came out of Hackney, but we have worked closely with the relevant local authorities and found the best solution for each individual local authority.

Mr Speaker: Mr McCabe.

Steve McCabe: I will just come back on that—[Laughter.]

Mr Speaker: I am not forcing the hon. Gentleman!

Steve McCabe: That is perfectly all right, Mr Speaker. Does the Minister want an independent evaluation of the experiment?

Mr Timpson: First, it is not an experiment; it is a carefully thought out approach to improving children’s services in Doncaster and Slough. A whole system of checks and balances is of course in place to ensure that those standards are rising—both through Ofsted and the evaluation of the close monitoring by the Department in the early stages. Evaluation is in place, but our principal aim is to ensure that we raise standards for children in those local authorities so that they get the care and protection they need.

T7. [905659] Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): Given the low proportion of men working in primary schools and given the Secretary of State’s joint role as Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps will my right hon. Friend take to encourage the recruitment of more male primary school teachers?

The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws): My hon. Friend is quite right to say that we need to do more to attract male teachers into primary schools. A low percentage—15%—of current primary school teachers are male. We are trying to improve our communications to attract more men to teach in primary schools. We are improving the level of bursaries and since 2010 there has, in fact, been a 10% increase in the number of male teachers in primary schools, but we need to do more.

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T2. [905654] Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab): What have the Government done to make schools more energy-efficient and to make pupils more aware of the need to cut carbon emissions? Will the Secretary of State voice her support today for the run on sun campaign of Friends of the Earth to install solar panels in schools?

Mr Laws: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in his place earlier, but one hon. Member has already asked about this and I mentioned the £20 million Salix scheme, which has led to considerable savings in energy in English schools.

Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con): There has been a 15% increase in the number of students enrolling at sixth-form colleges without a GCSE in maths, yet these post-16 education providers are excluded from the £20 million golden hellos available to attract maths teachers to further education. Given that maths skills are so crucial to young people’s futures, what is the Department doing about that?

The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb): We introduced the golden hello scheme to support the recruitment and retention of well-qualified maths teachers in the publicly funded further education sector who can teach at GCSE level and above. Sixth-form colleges are not included in the scheme, because, along with school sixth forms, they are eligible for the recruitment support and incentives offered by the National College for Teaching and Leadership, which are not available to FE colleges.

T4. [905656] Mr Nicholas Brown Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab): Some 34% of the newly qualified teachers who entered the state-funded teaching profession in 2000 had left the profession 10 years later. What does the Minister think accounts for that poor retention rate?

Nicky Morgan: I am always very unhappy to hear about good, highly qualified teachers who decide that teaching is no longer the profession for them. There are, of course, myriad reasons why people decide to leave any particular profession, but over the last four months I have been going around the country meeting teachers, and it is clear to me that the issues of work load and inspections, and some of the expectations of the Ofsted regime, are affecting teachers. That is why, last week, the Government launched the work load challenge for teachers and published the “mythbuster” with Ofsted.

Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con): During the current Parliament, Hampshire county council has invested just over £10 million in new primary school places in my constituency. They include places at The Westgate school, which is Hampshire’s first all-through school, and at the Winchester primary academy which is to be established by the University of Winchester Academy Trust on the new Barton Farm development. Will the Secretary of State hop on the train to Winchester with me and see for herself what a positive campaign for new primary places can do? I may even make her a cup of coffee in the office, which is just around the corner.

Nicky Morgan: How could I refuse an invitation like that—a cup of coffee made by my hon. Friend’s own fair hands? I should of course be delighted to visit Winchester as soon as my diary allows it.

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T5. [905657] Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab): Why, although School Direct has under-recruited, giving numbers back yet again this year, has the Secretary of State increased its allocation for 2015-16, putting secure teacher supply in jeopardy, as yet another university pulls out after losing numbers as a result of the programme?

Mr Laws: The hon. Gentleman should know that we have massively over-allocated places this year both in the higher education sector and through School Direct. The challenges that we face in some of the shortage subjects are not as a consequence of School Direct; they are reflected in higher education institutions as well.

Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD): The pupil premium is making a massive difference to many young people who risk falling behind. Young carers’ GCSE performance is, on average, the equivalent of nine grades lower than that of their peers, but many do not receive the pupil premium. Will the Minister consider the case put by the Carers Trust and Norfolk Carers Support for extending the premium to all young carers?

Mr Timpson: We do need to do more to support young carers. We changed the law recently to enable all of them to benefit from a proper assessment of their needs, so that they can be given the support that they require. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we also extended the pupil premium recently to cover children in care, children who are adopted, and, more recently, children receiving early-years education. However, I shall be happy to look at the hon. Gentleman’s proposal. I know that he works closely with the Norfolk young carers forum, and I also know that my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools will be meeting representatives of the Carers Trust in November to discuss precisely this issue.

T6. [905658] Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab): About 150,000 people die each year who might have been saved had someone only known what to do. Will the Secretary of State agree to make the teaching of emergency life support skills compulsory, so that every school leaver is a life-saver?

Nicky Morgan: Like the hon. Lady, I appreciate the importance of teaching life-saving skills. There have been calls for it to be part of the personal, social, health and economic education curriculum, and we are considering that. The difficulty is that the more I mandate, the less time is available for teaching, and the more burdened teachers become. However, I agree that this is a very important issue.

Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con): As the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for state boarding schools, I know that the Secretary of State is very supportive of such schools. Will she meet me, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James)—who has been doing a great deal of work in this regard—as a matter of urgency, so that we can discuss the ridiculous interpretation of the regulations by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator in relation to out-boarding?

Nicky Morgan: I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Stourbridge. We are aware that a small number of state-funded boarding schools and academies are charging for day places, and

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in some schools the admission arrangements are unclear. We are looking into the matter, and I am also aware of the adjudicator’s investigation.

Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab): May I add my voice to the call for all young carers to be included in the pupil premium? We have an excellent young carers’ group in Salford, but that cannot make up for the fact that the support is not there. Young carers are more vulnerable, and they do 40% less well academically than other pupils. Will the Minister commit himself to including all young carers?

Mr Timpson: I hear the hon. Lady’s call—a call I have now heard from both sides of the House. She may like to take into account the fact that about 60% of young carers will already benefit from the pupil premium through their free school meal allocation, but of course we need to make sure that all young carers get the support they need. As I have already indicated, a meeting is taking place with the relevant Minister to discuss this matter further.

Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD): Will the Minister meet me to hear about the fantastic work and the effort being made in our Bradford schools to deal with the very large numbers of children of new-arrival EU migrant families, and also to hear about the incredible strain that that is putting on the provision of places and raising of attainment in our schools?

Nicky Morgan: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I am always happy to meet hon. Members about their schools. If I cannot do it, one of the Ministers certainly will meet him to hear about those issues.

Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab): Hon. Members and local authorities across the country have expressed concern about the shortage of school places. Why, then, does the Minister think that Westminster city council had 235 empty primary school places this summer and has suffered a 16% drop in applications for primary schools since 2011?

Mr Laws: As the hon. Lady will have heard, we have allocated £5 billion in basic needs funding across this Parliament and we have fully reversed the massive decline in primary school places that took place under the last Labour Administration.

Mr Speaker: Last but not least, Mr David Burrowes.

Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): There are reports that Ofsted is demanding that a Christian school invites an imam to take collective worship and that Jewish schoolchildren have been asked intrusive questions about their views on sexuality. Does that really promote British values?

Nicky Morgan: I thank my hon. Friend. That is clearly a matter for Ofsted and it is investigating exactly what was said to the school. I think we would all agree that the fundamental British values of respect, democracy and tolerance are shared by all schools and all people of all faiths.

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European Council

3.31 pm

The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron): Yesterday British forces concluded their combat mission in Afghanistan. I know the thoughts of the whole House will be with the friends and families of every one of the 453 British soldiers who lost their lives in this long campaign. We will never forget their sacrifice for us.

When al-Qaeda attacked the twin towers in 2001, it planned that attack from Afghanistan, operating freely under the Taliban regime. Our incredible servicemen and women have driven al-Qaeda out, and they have built up and trained the Afghan forces—none of which even existed in 2001—so that the Afghans can take control of their own security. I said when I became Prime Minister that I would bring our combat troops home. Today they are coming home, and we should be incredibly proud of all that they have done to keep our country safe.

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on last week’s European Council. Before turning to the issue of our contributions to the EU, let me first update the House on three significant agreements where the UK played an important role: on Ebola, on climate change and on the situation in Ukraine.

First, on Ebola, the world is facing one of the worst public health emergencies in a generation. Playing our part in halting the rise of this terrible disease is not just meeting our moral obligations, but the single most effective way of preventing Ebola from infecting people in the United Kingdom. Britain has been making a major contribution to the international response, pledging more than £205 million and sending troops and health workers to west Africa, but Britain must also use its influence to get other countries to step up their contributions. Before the Council, I wrote to all my fellow leaders, urging that we significantly step up our collective response. At the meeting member states agreed to my proposal to more than double the EU effort by pledging over €1 billion in assistance. The Council also agreed to increase the deployment of medical and support staff in the region, and for member states to guarantee proper care for our courageous health workers.

Secondly, it is vital that Europe plays its part if we are to secure a global deal on climate change in Paris next year. One problem we have faced in the past is that instead of just setting a binding target on carbon emissions, the EU has set binding national targets on things like renewables and energy efficiency. These diktats on how each country should reach its commitments can pile up costs on our industries, consumers and families who do not want to pay more on their energy bills than they have to, and they create an unnecessary trade-off between cutting carbon emissions and promoting economic growth.

At this Council, we have chosen a different path. We have reached a landmark commitment to deliver at least 40% reductions in greenhouse gases by 2030, but we have rejected any new binding national targets for renewables or energy efficiency, giving us full flexibility over how we reduce our carbon, allowing us to do so at the lowest possible cost for businesses and consumers. This is another example of where British leadership has helped the EU to step up and meet its international obligations,

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while at the same time protecting our national interest by keeping energy bills down for businesses and Britain’s hard-working families.

The Council also discussed the situation in Ukraine and relations with Russia. We welcomed the Minsk agreement between Kiev, Moscow and the separatists, but the Council was also clear that much more must be done to implement that agreement before the EU should consider lifting any of the sanctions put in place in response to the conflict and in response to Russia’s actions. The Council welcomed the parliamentary elections that took place in Ukraine yesterday, and it made it clear it would not recognise the outcome of any elections organised by the separatists outside the framework of Ukrainian law.

Let me turn to the issue over the UK’s contributions to the EU. I want to be clear with the House how the demand for the UK to repay money has come about, and why the scale and timing of this demand is unacceptable. Mr Speaker, in an organisation like the EU, if your economy grows a little faster or a little slower, then there can be adjustments every year to the amount that you pay. In some years, the UK adjustment has been negative—as it was in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012—and in some years we contribute a little bit more. This happens every year. And when the UK is growing at 3% a year and many European economies are growing much more slowly, it would not be surprising to find Britain being asked to pay a little bit more this year. But what has never happened is for €2 billion to be demanded. This represents around 20% of our net contribution to the EU last year.

Member states collectively are being asked to pay almost four times the highest gross figure requested in recent years. It is simply not acceptable for the EU to make these kinds of demands, and to do so through a fast-tracked process lasting barely a month. €2 billion is bigger than many countries’ entire gross contributions; it cannot just be nodded through by the EU bureaucracy as some kind of technical adjustment. It is British taxpayers’ money, and it is not small change, but it is a vast sum. So this has to be examined in detail and discussed properly. That is why I interrupted the Council meeting on Friday to seek an urgent resolution to this issue. I was supported by the Prime Ministers of Italy, Holland, Malta, Greece and others, and the Council agreed that there would be an urgent discussion with Finance Ministers to resolve the issue going forwards.

The issue is not just the scale of the money being demanded, but the timetable. The Commission admits that it does not actually need this—indeed, the President of the Commission was not even aware of it on Thursday evening—so there is no pressing need for the money to be paid. There are fundamental questions over the fairness of these payments. For example, the proposal is for funds to be taken from the UK to correct historic contributions to the EU budget dating back to 2002, and to be redistributed based on the current share of gross national income to countries which only joined the EU in 2004 and 2007. But it is not just that Britain would lose out. It is also perverse that a country like Greece—at the heart of the crisis in the eurozone—is being asked to find money to pay back to countries like Germany. The revised gross national income statistics on which these adjustments are based are also not yet

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finalised. The numbers are a “provisional estimate” and the EU-wide process to quality-assure the figures will not conclude until well into 2015.

Britain will not be paying €2 billion to anyone on 1 December, and we reject this scale of payment. We will be challenging this in every way possible. We want to check how the statistics were arrived at and the methodology that was used; we will crawl through this in exhaustive detail.

The events at last week’s Council will not—to use some British understatement—have enhanced the reputation of the European Union in the United Kingdom. As the Italian Prime Minister put it, even the EU’s founding fathers would turn to Euroscepticism when faced with some of the things that you have seen here. The European Union has to change. It has to regain trust, and that starts by understanding and respecting the fact that these payments and adjustments are about the hard-earned taxes of its citizens. This is just one of the many challenges in our long campaign to reform the European Union, but it is vital we stick to the task. We have already cut the EU budget, got Britain out of the bail-out schemes, vetoed a treaty that was not in our national interest, made vital progress on cutting red tape and completing the single market, and we are leading the push for what will be the biggest bilateral trade deal in history, between the EU and the US.

None of this is easy. Progress is hard-won. It requires perseverance and hard work. We will carry on defending our national interest and fighting with all we have to reform the EU over the coming years. At the end of 2017, it will not be the Brussels bureaucracy or the politicians of any party who will decide whether we remain in the EU. If I am Prime Minister, it will be the British people who make that decision through an in/out referendum. Others who aspire to this office and who refuse to give the British people their say, should explain themselves to the House and the country, and I commend this statement to the House.

3.40 pm

Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab): I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. Let me start by echoing his words about the contribution of our armed forces in Afghanistan. All our thanks are with those who have served our country, and all our thoughts are with the families of those who lost their lives. We will continue to support the Afghan Government through political and humanitarian aid, as well as our training mission. Every one of our troops who served in Afghanistan can take pride in their mission and what they achieved, and the House and the whole country are proud of them.

I also echo the Prime Minister’s words about Ukraine and support for its Government. On climate change, I welcome the climate and energy package, paving the way for the global UN summit in Paris next year. What action will he be taking in the coming months to encourage other countries, especially China and the United States, to bring forward ambitious targets and policies in advance of that conference?

Turning to the Ebola crisis in west Africa, the whole world has been horrified by the devastating scenes. Our hearts go out to the communities that confront the threat on a daily basis. I welcome the Government’s

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efforts to help affected countries. We are proud of the work of our armed forces, our health professionals and our aid community. What effort was made at the summit to encourage other countries to do what Britain has done by sending health workers and personnel to the affected region?

Let me turn to the EU budget change. The Commission’s handling of the matter has been cack-handed and unacceptable, and it has caused consternation in several other states. The urgent priority now is for the Government to pursue all diplomatic means to get the best deal for Britain, but the Prime Minister must also explain whether the Government carried out due diligence in their handling of the matter. He says that he was made aware of the matter only on 23 October, while the Chancellor said that he had “no warning”, but that is simply not the case. The budget changes arise due to changed estimates of gross national income—GNI. The scale of the changes should not have taken anyone in government by surprise because extensive coverage was given to significant changes to our national income arising from the inclusion of the shadow economy, which is worth more than £50 billion.

Will the Prime Minister confirm that the Office for National Statistics agreed to, and has been part of, these substantial and planned changes throughout Europe for at least two years—since 2012? Will he further confirm that the ONS stated publicly in May 2014 that the changes would impact our budget contribution? It said in a press release that GNI

“is used in the calculation of a Member State’s contribution to the EU budget.”

The Treasury was clearly aware of the situation, because I have here a letter that the then Economic Secretary, the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), wrote to a parliamentary Committee on Europe not seven days ago, but seven months ago—on 11 March 2014. She said in that very interesting letter that changes to GNI would take place in time for 2014 and wrote about the “high priority” that the Government were giving to addressing them. The changes had been planned for a number of years, the ONS publicly declared that they would have an impact on our budget contribution, and Ministers knew about them and claimed that they were a “high priority”, so when the Prime Minister replies, will he really maintain that there was “no warning” and that Treasury Ministers knew nothing about the changes? Surely the Treasury must have made its own assessment of the impact on the EU budget that would follow. As a matter of basic competence, if it did not do that, why not? This matters because the Prime Minister could have done much earlier what he did at the last minute on Friday: called for a meeting of Finance Ministers and entered negotiations about the demand.

Is not the truth that this is a familiar pattern with this Prime Minister: months and months when he does not do the work, followed by last-minute pyrotechnics when it goes wrong? No one will be fooled by it. He spends all his time negotiating with his party about Europe, when what he should be doing is the basic work of getting a better deal for Britain. Once again he shows that, for all his bluster, he has been asleep at the wheel and the British people are paying the price.

The Prime Minister: Throughout all that, the right hon. Gentleman would not answer one simple question: would Labour pay the bill? That is the problem: there is

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absolutely no leadership available on the Opposition Front Bench.

[

Interruption.

]

Let me answer all his questions—

[

Interruption.

]

Mr Speaker: Order. Mr Gwynne¸ I recognise your voice very distinctly, and simply erecting a piece of paper in front of your mouth does not hide the fact that it is you. Calm yourself, man. Let us hear from the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister: It is very noisy today, Mr Speaker—a bit like a meeting of the Scottish Labour party.

Let me answer all the right hon. Gentleman’s questions. On climate change, he asked specifically what we would now do to push China and America to make bigger concessions. I think that the European Union now has the opportunity to give a real lead, because we have set out the major steps that we are prepared to take, with a reduction of at least 40% in carbon emissions.

On Ebola, the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need not only money from other European countries—we got that at the weekend—but the commitment that they will help their health staff to travel to west Africa. There is now a clearing house for medevac arrangements, negotiated by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, which I think will make a real difference.

On Afghanistan, I welcome the support that the right hon. Gentleman has given. I think that it is good that there is cross-party support for the backing that the Afghan Government should know they will get from Britain in terms of aid and paying for the Afghan national security forces.

On the budget, let me say this to the right hon. Gentleman: the point is that we cannot know how much we are liable to pay until the European Commission produces the figures for every country in Europe. That information was not available weeks ago or months ago; it was discussed at a meeting in Brussels only on Friday. That is why Labour left the country in such a mess: they do not know the difference between gross contributions and net contributions. That is the problem.

Basically, the right hon. Gentleman’s case comes down to two complaints. The first is that somehow we are giving too much money to Brussels. That is from a party that gave away the British rebate and paid an extra £2 billion a year as a matter of official Government policy. The second complaint—we heard it from the shadow Chancellor—is that somehow under this Government the Chancellor and the Prime Minister do not properly communicate with each other. I have to say that we see in front of us the authors of the most dysfunctional Government in British history. The Prime Minister in that Government did not even know what was in the Budget the day before it was brought to the House of Commons. The idea that they should lecture us on how a Government communicate must be one of the most ridiculous ever brought before the House. With the shambles in the Scottish Labour party, we learnt one thing this weekend: even his own party does not see him as a leader.

Sir Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con): People need a reason to believe that the EU is good for them, and late demands for €2 billion with six weeks to pay do

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not help, especially when the calculations include earnings from prostitution and drugs, none of which ends up in the Treasury. Is it any wonder that voters have their doubts about the merits of membership of the European Union?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend makes an important point. For those of us who want to argue that the European Union is capable of reform, this was not a good development. It is important to understand that these are provisional estimates and that EUROSTAT is still travelling to every country to work out what the numbers actually are. There are important challenges to be made. But clearly the idea of a bill being presented in that way, with so little time to pay, is not acceptable.

Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab): On migration from the European Union, may I ask the Prime Minister to name five towns which, in his view, have been swamped by it?

The Prime Minister: I would say to the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, that, to be fair to the Secretary of State for Defence, he corrected himself this morning, and I think he was absolutely right. It is right for politicians to raise concerns about immigration, but we should always choose our language carefully. He said this morning that he wished he had chosen his language in a different way, and I agree with that.

Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con): May I sympathise with the Prime Minister on being taken by surprise on a subject that everybody in the Foreign Office and the Treasury must have known was coming along for the past five months, because British officials carried out the huge revision of the British GNP? I congratulate him on now choosing the sensible points, which are how to challenge the methodology and get the size of this reviewed, and how to get rid of the nonsense that it is all to be paid in a lump sum in a fortnight. Many other countries will join him in trying to sort that out.

Did the Prime Minister raise the European arrest warrant and the 34 other desirable directives which, I trust, we are going to opt into? Does he agree with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that these opt-ins are absolutely essential for the sake of our policing and criminal justice system if we are to make sure that it is up to dealing with international crime?

The Prime Minister: Let me say to my right hon. and learned Friend that of course these changes happen every year—they are expected every year and discussed every year—but what has never happened before is a change on this scale, and no one was expecting that. As for the opt-out or opt-in on justice and human rights, it is very important to recognise that we have already achieved the biggest transfer of power from Brussels back to Britain by opting out of 100 different pieces of legislation. We now need to make sure that we keep our country safe.

Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green): A binding energy savings goal would have guaranteed €2.5 trillion in savings to consumers in the UK and across the EU, yet the UK opposed it. How can the Prime Minister pretend that this has anything to do with leadership

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when experts are claiming that it is a go-slow on efficiency? Far from being good for industry, it sends a strong signal to energy efficiency businesses to start to divest from the UK and from other European countries?

The Prime Minister: Respectfully, I disagree with the hon. Lady. We all want improvements in energy efficiency, and we are seeing them here in the United Kingdom. Having a proper market for carbon and a proper price for carbon helps that to happen. But it is not necessary to have additional binding targets for nation states as well as the target for reducing carbon emissions, because that skews the market and we end up spending more money than is otherwise necessary to get the outcome that both she and I want, which is to tackle climate change.

Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con): We continue to applaud the Prime Minister for his statement at Bloomberg that our national Parliament is the root of our democracy and for his demand for radical change in the European Union. As regards the outrageous behaviour over the £1.7 billion, but also the question of immigration, given its connection with the charter of rights and the need for treaty change, will he now agree that we should pass legislation in this House, as he himself supported on the Deregulation Bill when he was Leader of the Opposition, notwithstanding the European Communities Act 1972, so that we will then regain power over legislation in this House and over the EU?

The Prime Minister: I have followed my hon. Friend’s arguments about the “notwithstanding” clause very closely over many years. I believe that the right approach is to have a renegotiation in order to deliver the things where we want to see change. We want change in terms of getting out of ever closer union, safeguards for the single market, and action on immigration, so the right approach is to conduct that renegotiation.

Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab): May I welcome what the Prime Minister has said about the Defence Secretary’s statement, because it did cause a great deal of offence? At the summit, did the Prime Minister have a chance to discuss with President Hollande the President’s suggestion of a reception centre in Calais, which is opposed by the mayor of Calais, who will be giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee tomorrow? Does he agree that the issue is also illegal migration, and that countries such as Greece and Italy must do their bit to stop people entering illegally in that area?

The Prime Minister: I look forward to the mayor of Calais appearing in front of the right hon. Gentleman’s Select Committee. It is very important that they are having those discussions. We are working with the French at every level to make sure we do not go back to the bad old days of Sangatte, but instead improve security around Calais. That is why the NATO fence is being erected even as we speak and why those conversations continue. I look forward to seeing how the Committee gets on tomorrow.

Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD): May I endorse my right hon. Friend’s remarks about Afghanistan and those who gave their lives there? On this occasion,

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however, could we spare a thought for those who have survived, but who none the less have been subject to grievous injury?

Has my right hon. Friend noticed that the most recent Ipsos MORI poll shows that support for the United Kingdom staying in Europe has risen to a 23-year high—56% for and 36% against? Does he believe that that will be of some comfort to him not only in forging alliances in Europe in order to bring about the reform we all think is appropriate, but in helping him combat UKIP and anyone else who wants to bring Britain out unilaterally?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right in what he says about the injured who have returned from Afghanistan. Members on both sides of the House now need to make a commitment that Governments for many years to come will look after these people and make sure that we continue to funnel the LIBOR fines into defence and veterans’ charities, as we have been doing.

On the issue of European reform, the most popular and the right approach is not to accept the question of in/out today on the current terms, but to negotiate better terms and then give the British people the choice. That is the right approach.

Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab): Following on from the Prime Minister’s answer to the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), will he confirm that he will give his own Home Secretary, the police and the security services the tools they need to fight international crime and terrorism by making sure we have a vote in this place on the European arrest warrant before the end of November?

The Prime Minister: We have not changed our plans on this in any regard at all: the plans we have set out are still the plans to have that vote. What matters most of all is that we give the police and the security services the powers they need to keep our country safe.

Mr Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire) (Con): Does my right hon. Friend believe that the provisions for the UK rebate on the EU budget contribution apply to any additional demand made by the Commission? I think that they should and, therefore, that whatever the final calculation of any demand may be, up to two thirds of it should be rebated back to the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the important questions that needs to be asked and properly answered about this proposed sum of money, which, as I have said, is still an estimate, is how much of it is applicable for the rebate. Obviously, that would make a potentially significant difference to the amount.

Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab): The public do not really care about who knew what when; what they really care about is the bottom line of £1.7 billion being paid back from our taxes. Will the Prime Minister do what any Government should do: say what they mean, mean what they say and then do it? In other words, do not pay, because that is exactly what this country would like to see happen.

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The Prime Minister: As ever, the hon. Lady has hit the nail on the head: it is not the who knew what when, but the bottom line that matters. I have been very clear: we are not paying €2 billion on 1 December—[Interruption.] Let me finish. We are not paying a sum anything like that. That is very clear. As I have said, when the economy grows, we can pay a bit more, but when the economy shrinks, as it frequently did under Labour, we pay a bit less, but what is not acceptable is a €2 billion bill and we will not be paying it.

Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con): May I remind my right hon. Friend that our net contribution to the European Union is already larger than our fastest growing expenditure programme on overseas aid and we are paying that money to an organisation that has not had its accounts signed off for 19 years? Therefore, may I commend him for taking a robust stand on this matter, and will he undertake to make sure that Parliament gets a vote before we pay another penny?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we should be seeking value for money for every penny that we give. Of course, we should not forget that every year we are effectively paying about £2 billion more because Labour gave away part of the rebate. That is what happens. Labour Front Benchers make plenty of noise now, but when they were sitting on the Government Benches they betrayed Britain by giving away the money. Let us remember: why did they give away the money? They gave away the money because there was a promise of reform of the common agricultural policy, and they got absolutely nothing.

Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab): Are we seriously being asked to believe that this Government have got a Chancellor who failed to understand the calculation of drug use in the compilation of these figures, with the result that everybody in Britain is getting screwed?

The Prime Minister: Oh, dear. I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we have got: we have a Chancellor who has delivered the fastest rate of growth of any G7 country, and we have a Chancellor who has delivered the biggest fall in unemployment since records began. I would have thought that the Labour party would want to know about more people getting into work.

Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con): Does the Prime Minister agree that this country has a proud record of assisting countries in difficulties? What this Government have sent to west Africa to help with Ebola is just the latest example of that. Will he accept that such programmes can be delivered only by individual people—men and women from this country—going out there to help, and placing themselves in great danger? Young men such as Dr Oliver Johnson, who is only 28 years old, along with many other colleagues who have trained and are working in this country, have gone there. We thank the Government for sending the money, but will the Prime Minister remember them?

The Prime Minister: My hon. and learned Friend makes an incredibly important point. About 650 British health workers have volunteered to go to Sierra Leone to help in this way. They are people of huge courage,

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dedication and public service. What we must do is make sure that they have the logistical support, which is why we are sending over 750 troops and a warship equipped with helicopters. We will also establish a training centre to train over 850 local health workers every single week; that will soon be up and running. Crucially, if we want health workers to go to west Africa, we must have the medical evacuation capabilities to bring them home in the event of their becoming ill. We are putting that in place, and I believe that we are leading Europe on that issue.

Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP): May I join the Prime Minister in his remarks about the service and sacrifice of our servicemen and women in Afghanistan? That service and sacrifice must never be forgotten. May I commend him on what he is doing to try to get other countries to step up to the mark on contributions towards fighting Ebola? On the terms of the EU budget, does he accept—to coin a phrase often understood in Ulster—that sometimes it is right to say no and to mean it?

The Prime Minister: Yes. I have said no in Europe: I said no to a rise in the EU budget; I said no to an entire treaty; I said no to the European bail-out funds. People in Europe know that when I say no, I mean it.

Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con): Over the weekend, my joint listening campaign with Tom Pursglove, the excellent Conservative candidate for Corby, was out knocking on doors. One particular person who spoke to Tom said, “I’ve been a Labour voter all my life, but Dave has said no to paying £1.7 billion, Dave has said no to unrestricted immigration from the EU and he’s going to give us a referendum, so for the first time ever I’m going to vote Tory.” Does my right hon. Friend think that the rest of the country will follow that chap?

The Prime Minister: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his very hard work in Wellingborough and next door in Corby. People can see that under this Government and my prime ministership—when it comes to the European treaty, when it comes to the bail-out fund and when it comes to the budget—we have got a good deal for Britain.

Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab): If after the due diligence the eventual payment that this country is asked to make is outside the norms, will the Prime Minister give this House a vote?

The Prime Minister: I am not accepting that we should pay anything like what has been asked. I think it is very important that we make that clear. I am always happy to have votes in this House. They can happen through Opposition days, Back-Bench days or, indeed, Government days.

Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): The Prime Minister said at the start of his statement that he went asking for €1 billion to tackle Ebola and he got it, and that he went asking for a climate change agreement that had been piloted by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change with his green growth group and he got it. Does that not demonstrate that leadership from the UK can deliver results in Europe, and that we should stay in?

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The Prime Minister: I very much agree with my right hon. Friend that, on climate change and Ebola, we demonstrated that Britain can lead in Europe and get results. However, as I explained at the press conference after the European Council, those successes were rather marred by the disappointment and, frankly, the anger over the way in which the bill was presented.

Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab): The Prime Minister has always made it clear that his support for EU membership in 2017 will depend on substantial reforms, which he will have to negotiate. To do that, he will need allies. He told the House that he had the support of the Prime Ministers of Italy, Holland, Malta, Greece and other countries on the rebate. However, the Dutch Finance Minister has said that his country will pay, the Irish have said that they will pay and the Maltese have said that they will pay. If that is the kind of support the Prime Minister gets from his friends, how does he think he will achieve anything for 2017?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady is not reflecting accurately what those countries have said. They are deeply unhappy with the bills with which they have been presented. They want the estimates to be re-examined and are very worried about the payments that they might have to make.

Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con): May I, too, take my right hon. Friend back to the beginning of his statement? Nearly four years ago, I attended the funeral of Linda Norgrove, a young woman from the Isle of Lewis who gave her life supporting widows and orphans in Afghanistan. As we rightly remember the contribution of our forces over the past 13 years, can we also remember those in the NGO community, some of whom lost their lives defending the people of Afghanistan and a number of whom will stay on to keep helping the people of Afghanistan and to fulfil this nation’s commitments?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the issue of aid workers, who have put so much into rebuilding Afghanistan. I will never forget meeting Linda Norgrove’s brave parents, who were desperately sad at the loss of their child. She put a great deal into Afghanistan and came very close to being rescued and brought home. I commend my right hon. Friend for all the work that he did on such consular cases as a Foreign Office Minister.

Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP): The Prime Minister said in his statement that he would check the statistics and the methodology, and “crawl through this in exhaustive detail”. However, it is clear that the Treasury knew about the matter way back in May. Will he confirm that the Government let the rules relating to the own resources package, which covers this area, go through the European Council on 26 May “without discussion”, to quote the official press release? Why did he not go into these matters at that time? Were the Government asleep at the wheel? Did they hope that no one would notice?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. It was not until the meeting in Brussels on Friday night that the scale of the payment was clear. Until we know what every country is required to pay, we

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cannot know what we are meant to pay. Those are the facts, even if they might be inconvenient for the story that he wants to put across.

Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con): My constituents would rather see the £1.7 billion spent on them and their country than on some EU bean counter. Did the Prime Minister manage to get any detail on how the shadow economy, which we are apparently doing so well out of, was calculated? Are there any facts and figures to support that?

The Prime Minister: Complicated calculations are carried out by the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom, by EUROSTAT throughout Europe and by the independent statistics organisations of every country. That is why the figures are estimates and why they have to be checked so carefully.

Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab): Did the Prime Minister raise with his European counterparts the need for a vibrant steel industry in the United Kingdom, and the need to ensure that companies in the United Kingdom are not threatened by asset strippers who are based in Europe?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking that question because one reason for fighting for a climate change deal that focused on carbon emission reductions, rather than on other targets, was so that we could reduce carbon at the minimum cost not only to our businesses, but to households through the bills that they pay. As he knows, we are helping steel producers and other high energy users with a specific scheme that has been drawn up by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): Has the problem with such rows over the past 30 years not been that British Prime Ministers have been ambushed and have protested loudly, there have been useful headlines in the Daily Mail and The Sun, and then two months later, there have been shoddy compromises, usually on the basis that there is no alternative under the treaties? If there really is no alternative under the treaties, is not the obvious conclusion that the British people might be tempted to say that we should leave the European Union?

The Prime Minister: I am not quite as gloomy as my hon. Friend, and I think there have been occasions such as when we got out of the bail-out schemes, when we cut the European budget, and when we vetoed a treaty, where Britain taking a very firm stance has sent Europe in a different direction.

Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op): Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to recognise the important contribution to the European Union agreement of this country’s Climate Change Act 2008, which was introduced by the Leader of the Opposition and supported subsequently by this Government? Will he also take this opportunity to tell his Back Benchers that we would not have got the European Union agreement covering 28 countries if we had continued only to have national policies, and that therefore our membership of the EU is vital for our continent’s future?

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The Prime Minister: I have always supported our Climate Change Act in Britain, and when I was Leader of the Opposition, I pressed Tony Blair—who then stood at this Dispatch Box—to introduce such climate change legislation. This deal ensures that those countries that do not have climate change legislation now have to live up to the expectations we have set for ourselves. Now what we need is for Europe to take a leading role in terms of China and America, as has been pointed out.

Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con): Does the Prime Minister agree that the latest £2 billion bill from the European Union provides a good opportunity to remind the British people just how much it costs each year for this country to belong to the European Union? I reckon it is about £44 billion net in this Parliament alone. That cost is just one reason why so many millions of people want to vote to leave the European Union.

The Prime Minister: Of course, the only way that people will have that vote is by having a Conservative Government after the next election, when they will get the choice. The other point I would make is that the bill is lower because we have cut the EU budget, and taken that step that will constrain EU spending all the way out to 2020. The real debate that then has to be held is about whether the money we are putting into the European Union, and what we get out of our membership, makes it worth it. My view is that if we can reform the European Union there will be a strong case for staying in. I say that simply because I put one simple test on these things: what will make Britain stronger and more influential in the world? What will enable us to act on the things that we care about? That is the test that we should put and argue about.

Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab): The Prime Minister and the Government told the European Scrutiny Committee that they were going to have a blocking minority to stop the port services regulation by which the European Union would take over regulatory services in all the ports. That is opposed by every employer association around the ports, and by all employment organisations and trade unions. The Prime Minister failed to get that blocking minority. Is that not an example of what is happening? He does not have the confidence of other people in Europe to stand up to the European Union.

The Prime Minister: That is simply not true. What we have done in case after case is build alliances in order to get the outcomes that we need within the single market. Of course, that has been made more difficult by the fact that the Government he supported gave away veto after veto after veto, but we are effective in building minorities and getting what we need.

Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con): The Prime Minister will know that the President, Jean-Claude Juncker, has a €300 billion investment plan that European officials are now openly saying is the start of fiscal union. Will the Prime Minister assure me and British taxpayers that the UK will never become part of an EU fiscal union while he is our Prime Minister?

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The Prime Minister: I can certainly give my right hon. Friend that guarantee. In my view, the eurozone will do more things together. That is precisely why we need the treaty change, to give Britain a better place in a European Union where some members will be integrating faster. As for the €300 billion package proposed by Jean-Claude Juncker, it is not very clear at the moment how much of that is public, how much is private, how much is new, and how much will be generated by new money into the European Investment Bank. We will seek further answers on that in December.

Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab): Around the table in Brussels, did any Minister bring up in a humanitarian way the crisis of hundreds of people dying in the Mediterranean as refugees from war, famine and environmental disaster? European policies as a whole and western policies in part have contributed to this disaster. Was there any discussion of it?

The Prime Minister: We did not have a discussion at this Council on the migration pressures in the European Union, but we have done so before when I have made the point that some of the action taken in the Mediterranean has almost encouraged people to get on to completely unsafe craft and head off to sea. We need to ensure that we tackle all those problems, but our aid budget does a huge amount to try to help people stay in their countries—dealing with the sources of conflict and poverty—rather than leave and seek a new life in Europe.

Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD): Given the Government’s success in securing the EU’s 2030 carbon reduction target, will the Prime Minister say how we will build on the momentum of the agreement, which demonstrates that the world’s largest trading bloc is committed to those reductions, to get China, the US and others to sign up?

The Prime Minister: We have an opportunity to use the action Europe has taken—the 40% reductions by 2030—to argue that America and China need to take their steps to play into the Paris talks that will take place late in 2015. It is obviously difficult, because the EU cannot exactly have an agreement and hold back some of its eventual offer, but once again we have shown that we, some of the most advanced countries in the world, are prepared to put our own house in order.

Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab): I presume the Prime Minister is in favour of Britain remaining in the European arrest warrant, and that he agrees with the Home Secretary. A nod will suffice.

The Prime Minister rose—

Chris Bryant: I do not want an answer yet—I have not finished. Presuming I am right and that the Prime Minister supports Britain remaining in the European arrest warrant, and presuming that many of his Back Benchers do not support him, I have a pleasant surprise for him: he should table the measure next week before the Rochester and Strood by-election, and we will vote it through for him.

The Prime Minister: I am not sure there was a question in the end. Do I just need to do the nod, or what would the hon. Gentleman like?

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Several hon. Members rose—

Mr Speaker: What a delicious choice. I call Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con): The Prime Minister has saved the European Union from the crime of living off immoral earnings. That has made him enormously popular. Will he follow up his popularity by refusing the European arrest warrant, and most importantly by telling the Home Office that it is not befitting a great Department of State to give briefings that are not entirely accurate factually?

The Prime Minister: We need to have a proper discussion about how we keep the country safe given all the risks we face and given that we have secured a massive act of repatriating powers from Brussels to Britain in the huge amount of opt-outs in justice and home affairs, which I am sure he supports. My point on the European arrest warrant is that we have made changes to it, so we can now refuse arrest warrants in minor cases. British judges are able to consider whether extradition is proportionate and can block any arrest warrant where the incident does not amount to a crime in UK law. Those things have changed since the arrest warrant was first put before the House.

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab): As has been long predicted, the eurozone is proving to be an economic disaster, dragging down both the European economy and the world economy. It now appears that 25 eurozone banks are on the brink of failure, and the long-term future of the euro is in serious doubt. Is the Prime Minister advising his colleagues—his fellow Prime Ministers in Europe—of the advantages of a national currency?

The Prime Minister: I think my colleagues in Europe well know my views about the euro. My point—I made it at the European Council—is that we need a combination of structural reforms to improve the performance of labour markets, the benefit of which we have seen here in the UK; setting and meeting targets on reducing budget deficits; and an active monetary policy, which has been hugely helpful here and in America. The steps we have seen in Europe are welcome but, frankly, I would like to see more.

Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con): I congratulate the Prime Minister on standing up for Britain in Brussels. Did he hear Pierre Lellouche, the former Europe Minister for France, say on BBC Radio 4 yesterday that it was crazy for the European Commission to reward a failing socialist French Government for their economic failure while penalising the UK’s Conservative Government for their economic success?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes an important point. I was so surprised when I heard that statement that I got together a clear copy. Pierre Lellouche says that the unemployment rate in Britain

“has gone down to half what it is in France. The growth rate is four times what it is in France—and we go and punish the British? It’s madness.”

This is a huge outbreak of good, sound thinking across the channel.

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Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op): We have heard a great deal about what the Prime Minister will not pay in relation to the EU budget, so can he give us any indication of what he is prepared to pay? Will he confirm that the UK would face fines if anything was not paid by the appropriate date?

The Prime Minister: I was very clear in the statement that every year we have these adjustments, and they are normally modest adjustments, sometimes up a bit, sometimes down a bit. What is not acceptable is a bill for €2 billion with only a month to go.

Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con): Has not the time now come to make it clear to the EU that Britain will not even consider any form of rebate of £1.7 billion until the EU gets its shambolic accounts properly audited and signed off? Otherwise, how can we have any faith in any of the figures produced by that organisation?

The Prime Minister: Obviously, I have great sympathy with my hon. Friend on the fact that the EU accounts are not signed off every year, and further work is necessary on that front. What we need is some urgent work to get to the bottom of what these figures are meant to say, how they were drawn up and whether any errors were involved. I have been very clear about not paying on 1 December—not paying anything like the number that has been named.

Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab): As the leader of our country and on a matter of such national importance, does the Prime Minister believe that he should have been informed about the amount of the contribution when other members of his Government were informed?

The Prime Minister: The fact that a memo was drawn up in the Treasury on Tuesday and I was told on Thursday would be instantaneous, compared with a new Labour gap, and compared with Budgets being prepared by the then Chancellor for months and the Prime Minister being told sometimes just a few hours before the Budget was delivered, even after it had gone to the printers. The hon. Gentleman does not have a leg to stand on.

Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con): Does my right hon. Friend agree that significant repatriation from the EU is highly unlikely? I and, it seems, most of the country feel that common sense needs to prevail. We should go back to a trade agreement, as we originally had, and drop this whole socialist nightmare that leads to massive bills, which he is now facing.

The Prime Minister: It is worth one last effort to try to renegotiate Britain’s place inside the EU, to give the British public a proper choice between a reformed membership of the EU or leaving. That is what people want. That is what I will deliver. I think it is possible to get a deal that would make it in Britain’s interests to stay. My hon. Friend may take a different view, but let us get the deal and then trust the people.

Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op): The then Economic Secretary to the Treasury, now sitting next to the Prime Minister, sent a letter to Lord

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Boswell on 11 March this year noting the UK’s GNI reservations, the EUROSTAT verification visit to the UK in February and the fact that the Government “give high priority” to addressing these issues. If these issues were indeed a high priority, could it be that in the interim the Treasury dropped the ball, and could that be why Britain is in this situation today?

The Prime Minister: Very well read, but we have dealt with this issue already. It is only when the figures are available from all the European Union countries that it is possible to see what the net contribution for Britain will be. It is only at that point that that judgment can be made.

David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con): I congratulate the Prime Minister on being the first Prime Minister since the great Margaret Thatcher to say no to Europe. Does my right hon. Friend agree with my constituents, who have just given me a survey to say that the only way to vote for an in/out referendum on Europe is to vote Conservative in 2017?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right. Whatever view people take about whether Britain should be in the European Union or out of the European Union, there is only one way to secure that referendum.

Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab): Given that the recalculation of GNI has been known about for two years, it is a bit rich for the Prime Minister to say that he wants to understand the detail of the methodology. Should he not have been engaging with that recalculation and investigating its exact implications on behalf of the British people?

The Prime Minister: As I have explained, these calculations take place every year, but not normally on the scale that has happened this year. It was only on the Friday before the European Council meeting that the figures were available.

Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con): I commend the Prime Minister for his rejection of this ridiculous €2 billion surcharge. I assume that the success of his long-term economic plan will lead to a similar adjustment every year, so how can he ensure that that will not happen?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. If an economy outperforms other economies, that can lead to an increase in contributions. We have obviously seen an out-performance of the UK economy, which means that it was likely—as I said in my statement—we would be asked to pay a little bit more, but not €2 billion more. That is the figure that is completely unacceptable—[Interruption.]

Mr Speaker: Order. Front Benchers on both sides are in a very excitable state. They should take their cue from the Leader of the House, who is sitting in statesmanlike fashion and from the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) who—uncharacteristically, I must testify—is not shrieking.

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Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op): May I wish you, Mr Speaker, and the Prime Minister many happy returns on the 100th anniversary today of Dylan Thomas’s birth in Swansea? Will the Prime Minister support the Bill I will present today to provide for greater scrutiny by this House and the European Parliament of international trade agreements, including the transatlantic trade and investment partnership, so that such issues are not decided by eurocrats and negotiators from the US, which may lead to multinationals suing the Government for passing laws that protect citizens and workers? Should we look at it, or should it just be the eurocrats?

The Prime Minister: Let me join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Dylan Thomas and to Tom Hollander for his superb performance in the drama about the former’s life in America. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we need to scrutinise TTIP properly, but we must do so on the basis of the truth rather than scare stories. I worry that a lot of scare stories are going around about health services, food safety or investor protection clauses, and perhaps his Bill and closer scrutiny can lay some of those to rest.

Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con): We already hand over the best part of £20 billion a year to be part of an inward-facing, backward-looking protection racket, propping up inefficient European businesses and French farmers. The British public do not expect the Prime Minister to hand over a bit less money or to hand it over a bit later: they expect him to tell the European Union to stick the money where the sun does not shine. What is the worst that the European Union could do if we did that? Ask us to leave? In my dreams!

The Prime Minister: I do sometimes wish that my hon. Friend would tell us what he really thinks, instead of this shrinking violet approach. We do not necessarily agree on the future, but we do agree that there is only one way to give the British people that choice.

Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab): We have learned that of the upward revisions to GDP £4 billion is attributable to illegal drugs and £5 billion to prostitution. Is that the great fruit of the Tories’ long-term economic plan?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Lady looks at the figures, she will see that quite a big change came about because of the way in which charitable income and charities’ finances are calculated. As I have said, the figures are horrendously complicated, because some of them date back to 2002, and some are based on a fundamental reassessment of how these things should be measured. But we will get to the bottom of what the figures mean only when we look at what happens in every single EU country.

Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con): Be it in Leeds or Brussels, I am pleased to see that our Prime Minister is no push-over. Every facet of the EU budget—how it is calculated and how it is spent—is horrendously complicated, opaque and remarkably unsatisfactory. If the Prime Minister does not get what he wants by the diplomatic route, I suggest that the British people would be happy for our country to be infracted by the European Commission and behind him 100% in the court case.

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The Prime Minister: I thank my hon. Friend for his support on the issue of the EU payments. May I also thank him for what he said about the incident in Leeds? It would be nice to put on the record for once the debt I owe to the close protection team who look after me and the very good job they do. I was in a meeting in Leeds speaking to a group of city leaders and other politicians. John Prescott was in the room as I gave the speech. As I left the room I thought the moment of maximum danger had probably passed, but clearly that was not the case. [Laughter.]

Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab): The Prime Minister heralded the appointment of Lord Hill to a key economic portfolio in the Commission as evidence of his influence in Europe. Will he therefore explain to the House why the overwhelming majority of Conservative MEPs last week refused to support the nomination of Lord Hill and other commissioners, despite his attempts to persuade them otherwise?

The Prime Minister: First of all, let me agree with the first half of the hon. Gentleman’s question. It is excellent that Lord Hill has the crucial portfolio of financial stability and financial services, including much of banking union. This is exactly the sort of job that Britain should have in the European Commission to maximise our influence. That is very important. MEPs vote for a range of different reasons and I am sure some of them were bearing in mind other elements at the Commission, but I am clear that it is a great success for Britain that our commissioner has such an important job.

Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con): There has been significant speculation that the €2.1 billion surcharge is politically motivated in terms of timing if not amount. Does my right hon. Friend give that any credence? If so, does he think that legal redress could result?

The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes an important point to which I do not know the answer. Obviously, these numbers, which are estimates, were meant to be under intense discussion and scrutiny, and then have a proper announcement. Instead, they came out leaked to a newspaper on Thursday evening. I do not know who was behind that or what the intent was, but what one has to do is act on the information one has. As soon as I heard about it, I assembled the coalition of Italians, Dutch and others to make sure that this is properly looked at.

Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab): In spite of the Prime Minister’s protestations, Treasury Ministers have known about this budget contribution for months. Now that the Prime Minister has finally caught up and presumably been briefed, will he tell us what changes and concessions his Ministers have asked for?

The Prime Minister: The Whips’ handouts have been effective because lots of people have read them out, but I am afraid they are based on a fundamental misunderstanding. It was only at the meeting on Friday in Brussels that the numbers on net obligations became clear. That is the point. Until everybody’s calculations are known, what Britain would be asked to pay cannot be known.