Nurses and Midwives: Fees

Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I thank the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) for bringing forward the debate, although I do not agree with everything he said. With particular reference to the concerns he expressed on NMC registration fees, I will relay to Members and the Minister the experience of a constituent in Congleton whom I have recently had to assist.

My constituent is a registered general nurse. She qualified in 1987 and has practised as an RGN for 27 years. Sadly, the NMC recently nearly barred her from practising for a period, through no fault of her own. My constituent paid her £100 NMC re-registration fee by automatic bank transfer. The fee was debited from her account in October last year and she heard nothing more about it. She assumed that her re-registration had taken place automatically.

By chance, four months later, at the very beginning of February, my constituent was checking the NMC register regarding a colleague, and she decided to put in her own details. The system had no record for her. She contacted the NMC four times in two days, as she was very concerned. Eventually, she received a response. To her consternation, she was told that her registration had lapsed. She was informed that a form had been sent to her home, but had apparently been returned marked with “No longer resident at this address”, even though she had lived in the same house for four years and continued to receive other correspondence from the NMC throughout the period between October and February. Without contacting her or her employer, or reimbursing her money, the NMC had cut off her registration.

My constituent e-mailed me at the beginning of February, as she was extremely concerned. She said:

“I was then informed I would have to re-register”—

effectively, she had to apply for readmission—

“and could not work as I am no longer registered as a nurse and that sending the initial letters back could take up to 10 days and that I would also have to do a PREP audit which could take a 

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considerable number of weeks to process. I do not have an issue with PREP as I do keep myself updated”.

She told me that last year she not only completed the 35 hours of continuing professional development that she should have done, but that she actually did around 100 hours of CPD. We are talking about a responsible member of her profession. Her issue was

“the length of time I will not be working because of the NMC incompetency. I have never received the renewal for registration form…I have received numerous letters from different departments at the NMC during the periods of October and up until last week”.

That was when she contacted me. Of even more concern is that she was also informed that

“the company I work for could request my wages back from October as I have not been registered or that they could discipline me. This situation is not my doing. I feel the NMC must have sent letters to the wrong address…why would I not receive some and receive others...I feel totally let down by a board that I have continually adhered to since 1987 without any blot on my career as both a Nurse and Midwife and now find myself in this diabolical situation which is not my doing.”

In fact, while my constituent was rather concerned, she continued to work. She needed to work, of course, and sought to correct the NMC’s error by reapplying. She was told that she would have to make a readmission application at the increased fee of £120, which she did. It was only after a number of letters from me and e-mails and calls from my constituent that just last week the NMC confirmed her readmission. She should have had her re-registration confirmed and backdated, but what she has had is an e-mail from the NMC that states:

“I have reviewed your readmission application, and I can now confirm that your readmission process is complete. As of today you are effective on the register with an expiry date of 31 March 2016.”

My constituent has been practising under this pressure for a considerable period. She was readmitted more than a month after she realised the situation and contacted me. She is extremely concerned, and so am I. In my constituent’s experience, the registration system has clearly lacked what I consider to be basic efficiency. It has fallen short of taking a reasonable approach to her. How can the NMC see fit to increase its registration fees in just two years from £76 to £120? Before it considers another increase, it should put its own house in order in respect of its relations with its members.

Faith Schools

Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con): This debate is vital, because dedicated teachers in faith schools across the country are deeply worried. Reports of the approach 

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taken by inspectors, as described by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), in applying these schools standards and regulations has generated such concern that in my view Ministers have a duty to step in to clarify the confusion and allay teachers’ fears.

A constituent wrote to me, saying that the school and early years funding regulations

“will cause many early years providers with faith links to be excluded, or to compromise their teaching for fear of being excluded from receiving funding”.

In response, an Education Minister wrote:

“The Government…does not believe that it is appropriate to fund early years settings that teach creationism as evidence-based scientific fact… Nurseries continue to be free to tell creation stories, provided that they do not assert that these are scientifically based”.

What exactly does that mean? A nursery school teacher reading the Biblical account of creation has to say to her three-year-olds, “But children, this is not being taught as evidence-based scientific fact”. That is absolutely ridiculous. The concern is, however, that for fear of contravening the Department’s requirements, teachers are feeling pressurised into the safer option—as they see it—of not teaching the creation story or any other aspects of the Bible.

Another confusion concerns the application of the spiritual, moral, social and cultural standards. The Department states:

“It is not necessary for schools…to ‘promote’ teachings, beliefs or opinions that conflict with their own”.

It is important that the Minister confirms that at the Dispatch Box and that there is no requirement to promote other faiths. What is required is actively to promote mutual respect and tolerance of those with other faiths and beliefs. It is the freedom to follow other religions and a respect for that freedom that we should promote. It is entirely right that we should respect other people, including those with other beliefs, and to respect their right to hold those beliefs, but this is being conflated with a requirement to respect all other beliefs, which is quite a different thing altogether.

I respect Scientologists, but I do not respect Scientology. This confusion is very real. It appears in inspectors’ minds. Her Majesty’s chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, wrote of schools teaching “respect for…various faiths”, making no distinction between the believers and the beliefs. I understand that a Jewish Ofsted inspector has said that Ofsted wants to clamp down on schools that

“don’t conform to their ideology”.

Will the Minister confirm that it is not the intention that the standards should discriminate against any religion or undermine religious freedoms, because that appears to be exactly what is happening?

That brings us to yet another cause of confusion mentioned already: what exactly are British values? The Department’s consultation on British values—such a major issue—was hurried, mainly over the school summer holiday period, and inadequate. To then require the active promotion of those values by teachers is presumptuous and has contributed to the current confusion. The Church of England, in its response to the consultation on independent schools regulations, expressed concern that there had not been a sufficiently broad public consultation to inform the definition of British values 

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and remains of the view that they are inadequately expressed and that broad public debate is still required. Ministers need to act on such concerns expressed by the Church of England, which oversees almost 5,000 church schools, both primary and secondary.

Another source of confusion that has been mentioned surrounds the phrase “age-appropriate”, with reference to Ofsted inspectors’ questions. We hear of different head teachers reporting pupils variously feeling

“bullied into answering inspectors’ questions”,

distressed, “traumatised and ashamed”, and “uncomfortable and upset”. As we have heard, a girl in year 11 felt “threatened about our religion”. It is a rich irony that, if that is the case, the inspectors’ approach contravenes the very recommendation to respect people that these standards extol. Far from promoting British values, these standards seem to be undermining them.

A fundamental British value stated in the standard is “individual liberty”, yet a teacher from an Orthodox Christian school, whom I have known for more than 20 years, wrote to me to point out that

“there are issues of erosion of…freedom”

here.

Ministers need to step in and clarify what questions are and are not suitable for inspectors to ask young children, and how this issue should be approached, so that young people of different faiths can feel comfortable about living out their faiths in today’s diverse society.

Will the Minister confirm that he and his colleagues will look towards giving clear direction to Ofsted inspectors on these and other issues of concern to ensure that common sense prevails, to clarify what teachers in faith schools can expect when being inspected and to ensure that teachers’ ability to work according to their religious ethos is protected, so that the Department’s statement that

“it is not necessary for schools or individuals to ‘promote’ teachings, beliefs or opinions that conflict with their own”

is made a reality and not just rhetoric?

National Planning Policy Framework

Westminster Hall

Thursday 5 March 2015

[Mr Andrew Turner in the Chair]

BACKBENCH BUSINESS

National Planning Policy Framework

[…]

Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con): We need a planning system that puts local communities first. Local people, not developers, are the most important voice in how our towns and villages grow and develop. Government Ministers understand that now more than ever before, as I know from the many meetings that I have had with the Minister who is here today—I thank him for his patience in that regard. Indeed, I also thank his predecessor and his predecessor’s predecessor, because the issues that have been challenging my constituency regarding unsuitable planning applications have persisted for years.

Although I believe that Ministers now understand the concerns and pressures in my constituency, sadly the Planning Inspectorate does not. Too many decisions have been made that have had a negative impact on my constituents. I will give just two examples.

First, in Sandbach now we have consents for hundreds of houses on the wrong side of the town. That will mean that hundreds of families have to commute and travel through the town to get to, for example, the M6, which is on the other side of the town, and Crewe station, which is not that far away from the town. The impact on the local road network alone will be major. Secondly, in Congleton, the staff of more than one school are saying to me that because of the hundreds of properties that are being built or will be built, there is now a severe challenge for school places. Yet the appropriate forethought and foresight has not been put into the impact that the developments, once they are consented to, will have on local school places.

Those are just two of many examples I could give, so I concur with many of the concerns that my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) expressed in his excellent speech and the suggestions that he made. As the Minister is aware, I and many residents in the Congleton constituency have spent an inordinate amount of energy, time and expense opposing innumerable inappropriate planning applications. That time, energy and expense could have been better applied to far greater benefit for our local communities.

My hon. Friend is right—without a local plan in place, local people are at the mercy of developers. I would add that they are also at the mercy of the Planning Inspectorate, because developers know only too well what good chances they have on appeal. That is why on 26 January I supported a new clause that my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) tabled to the Infrastructure Bill, the aim of which was to give local communities greater control over planning by abolishing the Planning Inspectorate. After all, Ministers are Ministers and planning inspectors are officials. The Minister on that occasion—the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes)—said in response that the Government would issue new planning guidance to address the problems. He said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs:

“New guidance will be issued that is stronger and more effective, that defends the interests of local authorities and that prevents the problems he has set out.”––[Official Report,26 January 2015; Vol. 591, c. 644.]

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I hope that new guidance would prevent the kind of problems that I have just referred to. I also hope that the Minister who is here today will take the opportunity to clarify what progress has been made on the new guidance and when it will be issued. Perhaps that is something that the written ministerial statement that will be issued later today will refer to.

I said that I believe the Government now better understand that we need a planning system that puts local people first, and I want to express my thanks to Ministers and the Secretary of State for issuing an article 25 notice just two weeks ago regarding two applications for developments of well over 200 houses at a site on Padgbury lane in Congleton. I believe that fear of the costs of an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate led local council officers to recommend approval of completely inappropriate applications. I also believe that it was the article 25 notice, for which I again thank Ministers, that strengthened councillors’ hands to go against that recommendation and refuse those applications.

The sword of Damocles of the expense of an appeal should not have resulted in a completely inappropriate recommendation by planning officers. Those applications are in the wrong place and should not be allowed to go forward, but of course developers do not go away. What is happening now is exactly what hon. Members have referred to today. There are multiple applications for that site at Padgbury lane, which is why I have now had to write to the Secretary of State to ask him to recover two further appeals relating to the same site. I hope that the Secretary of State and the Housing Minister, who is here today, will take a similarly robust view when considering that request.

I also have to make a similar request for the call-in of an application for more than 100 houses in the village of Goostrey. The Minister and I have had correspondence about Goostrey before. It is adjacent to Jodrell Bank, which is now leading on the international Square Kilometre Array project and co-ordinating countries across the globe. The UK is taking a leading role in the project, and the UK Government have invested tens of millions of pounds in it. It is absolutely critical that the functioning of the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank is not affected by inappropriate housing developments nearby. Incidentally, that was why Manchester university, which oversees the work, moved its work from the centre of Manchester to Cheshire; it was to ensure that the telescope would not be interfered with by such developments. This is a national issue, and I hope that Ministers will receive my request for a call-in of the application for more than 100 houses in the small village of Goostrey and ensure that that application is roundly rejected.

It is of great concern to residents that, as I have said, they continuously have to put huge amounts of time, energy and resources, and worry, into having to deal with inappropriate applications. We need a system that properly respects the views of local people, not one that pays lip service to localism. We need a plan-led system, and I am delighted that Ministers are now encouraging neighbourhood plans; in east Cheshire alone, 14 are being brought forward. I am also delighted that those plans are increasingly being taken account of. However, I support the view of my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds: their impact needs to be strengthened, particularly where the principal council 

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has still not got its local plan in place. We need to ensure that we have such strengthened support for neighbourhood plans.

The mentor-led system that my hon. Friend talked about is an excellent suggestion. After I took leaders of Cheshire East council to meet Ministers some years ago to ask for assistance with the development of the local plan, those Ministers allocated a retired planning inspector to work with the council and help it develop its plan. Sadly, the plan that was formalised as a result of that joint working was not accepted and is now in suspension. If we are to have a mentor-led system, it must be robust and must work.

[…]

The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis):

…Some of my hon. Friends have given examples of frustrations that they have encountered in putting plans in place. It has been a pleasure to hear my hon. Friends talk about some of the issues in their areas. Cheshire East was mentioned, which I visited in a previous capacity, to attend a public meeting on planning. It was a wonderful experience, as 

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it always is when I visit the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) with her. However, I have to say that Cheshire East is an example of somewhere local people are quite right to be frustrated and irritated at the behaviour of their council and its failure to deliver a local plan.

My hon. Friend touched on the fact that Cheshire East council had the support of a retired inspector whom we sent in to work with it. I wish that the council had listened to the advice so that the plan was in a better place. I understand the frustration of residents, bearing in mind that they can look only next door to another local authority that, in the same time frame, has delivered its plan sound and finished. There is no excuse for Cheshire East’s failure thus far.

…My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton asked about guidance. In terms of time lines, any guidance we put out will be in the next few weeks, so she can have some confidence that it is relatively imminent; she was quite right.