Parliamentary Outreach Trust
Report to Committee November 2022
The Trustees and Committee for 2022-2023 are as follows:
Trustees
John Austin (Chair), Keith Best (Secretary), Sarah McCarthy-Fry (Treasurer), Dr Edmund Marshall (Vice-chair), Michael Meadowcroft (Vice-chair)
Additional Committee Members
Hilton Dawson, Huw Edwards, Nigel Griffiths, Sylvia Heal, Helen Jones, Tom Levitt, Tania Mathias, Adrian Sanders
Recent and Future Activity
We have a series of events planned for November/December with the Parliamentary Studies students at Exeter University with the following speakers: Adrian Sanders (in person) on Whips and Rebels, Sir David Hanson (online) on Codes of Conduct for MPs and Ministers, and Debra Shipley (online) on How Backbenchers can make a difference. A further, larger in-person event with Sir Vince Cable for all the Politics and International Relations students is planned. We will also be renewing our link with Westminster University in December, with Helen Jones as a guest speaker on the Blair/Brown years.
A new contact has been established with Nottingham University and, in November, Ian Lucas will be speaking about the work of Select Committees. We have also been approached by the Collyer’s 6th formCollege in Horsham where Sir Vince Cable will be talking, in November, about careers in Parliament and politics. Further sessions with other speakers are being planned.
We continue to work with the Edinburgh Political Union at Edinburgh University and sessions have been arranged for November/December with former MEP Julie Ward (in person) on the rise of the far right, Sir Hugh Bayley (in person) on UK Aid to developing countries. There is also another session planned with Sir Vince Cable on Politics and the Environment.
A session on electoral reform with Dr Edmund Marshall, which was postponed last year, was held on line on 24 October.
Currently the Trust has 50 members who have volunteered to speak to universities, colleges and schools.
Speakers4Schools
We continue to work with Speakers for Schools and during the past academic year Tom Levitt spoke in person to students at Garth Hill College in Bracknell Forest (in the week Russia invaded Ukraine); Sir Vince Cable, in person to Rivers Academy in Hounslow and Bridget Prentice spoke online to 470 Key Stage 3 students from multiple schools.
In September Dr Tania Mathias attended the launch of Speakers for Schools’ “Work Experience for All Campaign”. Their report was presented to each of the Party Conferences and was due to be published this autumn.
Tania Mathias reports:
“The campaign calls for mandatory work experience for all students in schools and colleges. At the launch, chaired by Damian Reece of Instinctif Partners, were panellists Andrew Law, Chair of Speakers for Schools; Bridget Phillipson – Shadow Secretary of State for Education and MP for Houston and Sunderland; The Rt Hon Esther McVey – MP for Tatton and social mobility champion; and Sasha Morgan – Director, Social Mobility Commission.
“The background to this campaign is that Speakers for Schools were concerned that that work experience had been present in the school curriculum until 2012 – when the Coalition government removed the statutory duty for schools – and since then the provision has not been universal. Speakers for Schools is campaigning for “high-quality work experience, regardless of networks and location.” The campaign is based on research that Speakers for Schools commissioned: research done by YouGov based on interviews with 2,000, 18 to 30 year olds, about their work experience and their current economic situation. The results show links to future work data: for example, for each additional work experience (3 or more is suggested) young people benefit from a 3.5% wage increase, equating to £1,088 per year (based on average salary of the sample); attending work experience reduces the probability of a young person becoming NEET (Not in Education Employment or Training).
“At the launch Q & A all agreed that high quality work experience is a positive but there were differing views about whether it should be mandatory, who should be responsible for it, and who should cover the costs of the organising. Bridget Phillipson MP highlighted Labour’s position that funding for this work experience could come from Labour’s policy to abolish the charitable status for private schools. Esther McVey MP cited existing good practice already happening and mentioned her own charity that she has set up with schools and businesses. Others feared that making something mandatory would make it a tick box exercise. The question of whether legislation is needed was challenged – it was pointed out that Ofsted criteria can be a powerful incentive. The Chair of Speakers for Schools highlighted that the post-COVID hybrid working culture has made it easier to have work experiences: an example was given by Sasha Morgan – a photo shoot done by a magazine was happening outside the UK and was followed virtually by work experience students who were able to do a project on the photo shoot also virtually.
“The campaign will undoubtedly encourage policy ideas about work experience and career development for current students who are likely to have several careers and need skills for some jobs that do not yet exist.”
Information about the campaign can be found online atspeakersforschools.org
John Austin, Chair
October 2022
PARLIAMENTARY OUTREACH TRUST 