Jesse Norman

I thank the Leader of the House very much for announcing the business, and I welcome all colleagues back to the House. I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in congratulating His Majesty the King not only on the Gracious Speech yesterday, but on his glorious triumph in the United States of America, in particular reminding our American cousins of the joy not of monarchy, which they know well enough from recent experience and over the years, but of a genuinely constitutional monarchy. The House will know of my obsession with building NMITE—the New Model Institute for Technology & Engineering—our new university in Hereford. I hope that colleagues across the House will join me in celebrating its second graduation ceremony last Saturday. Its flagship degree was recently accredited for chartered certification by the prestigious Institution of Engineering and Technology, making its graduates, in that sense, holders of degrees equal to those to be found at Oxbridge or Russell group universities. Its latest crop of graduates have gone on to companies including Airbus, Hitachi Energy and GKN, and there is huge interest from applicants in its new bachelor’s and master’s degrees in autonomous robotics and drone technologies, which start in September. If Members will excuse the pun, as an engineering institution, NMITE is really starting to motor. I strongly encourage any Members who might be interested and wish to know more to drop me a line, because this route to local economic growth is of great potential significance. It is fair to say that we have known quieter weeks than the couple since we last convened. What have we discovered during that period? A previously undisclosed gift of £5 million from a foreign cryptocurrency donor to the leader of Reform UK is now being investigated by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. We are reassured that it is entirely unrelated to that hon. Member’s recent interest in investing in Bitcoin. The leader of the Green party, Zack Polanski, has admitted that he failed to pay council tax, was not in fact a spokesman for the Red Cross and was never a full member of the National Council for Hypnotherapy, which I am sure will come as a great relief to women across the country. He must be an acute embarrassment to my neighbour, the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns), and we thank her for her resilience. All that news will come as a surprise to precisely no one. Lest we forget, nearly 100 Labour Members of Parliament, including four Ministers, have gone public with their opposition to the Prime Minister remaining in office. Three Cabinet Ministers have called on him to set a public timetable for his departure. Few Labour MPs, if any, believe that the Prime Minister will lead them into the next election. Mr Speaker, you will be aware, I am sure, of the famous lines: “The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled”. It may be that the Leader of the House is the last person to occupy the position of standing on the burning deck when all but he has fled. Others are fleeing, and it is astonishing that Buckingham Palace had reportedly been forced to ask whether the King’s Speech was, in fact, really going ahead. Even now, I notice the slight sparsity of Members—actually, on all sides of the House—in this earlier sitting, and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care is widely reported to be preparing a bid for the leadership of the Labour party. King Lear asks in his bewilderment: “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” So it is with the Prime Minister. He does not know and nor, it seems, does anyone around him. Amid all this Westminster madness, it falls to me to insert a nugget of something that actually affects every Member of this House in their constituencies—a matter of great local importance. The House will know that the Construction Industry Training Board is meant to be the guardian of construction skills in this country, funded by a statutory levy on the industry. Yet employer confidence is rapidly being eroded by the CITB’s recent behaviour. An Ofsted “requires improvement” judgment, the Farmer review’s call for a “fundamental reset”, poor communications with levy payers, a rarely updated website and a slow, cumbersome booking system all point in the same direction. At the same time, firms report duplication, delay and poor value for money. For some courses—forklift training, for example—the CITB route can cost more than twice as much as the non-CITB route, take considerably longer and yet lead to precisely the same qualification. Many of the courses are not optional. Small construction firms must keep up with industry standards and legal health and safety requirements. They need a system that is fast, clear and good value, not one that makes compliance harder, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises that are so crucial to our economy. Meanwhile, the levy is a tax in all but name that must be paid regardless of the services offered. The CITB has expenditures of nearly £300 million, but gives less than half of that away in grants, while its wage bill and headcount steadily rise. Will the Leader of the House ask the relevant Ministers to write to me explaining how they intend to restore employer confidence in the CITB, particularly among small construction companies, improve course access and value for money, and reform an organisation that appears to be losing its way?