Robert Halfon

Tim Durrant (TD): Your first departmental ministerial role was minister of state in the Department for Education. Can you tell us about the conversation you had with the prime minister when you were appointed?

Robert Halfon (RH): So my first time – just to start off with a slightly amusing story – I was at a wedding of one of my best friends in northern Italy and I was literally walking up the stairs of the church and the bride was right behind me and then I got a call from No.10 and [they] said, “Call the switch [the Downing Street switchboard]” and then I answered it and I got on the call to Theresa May and I said to her, “I’m very sorry, I can’t talk because I’m about to go in a church”. It was like out of a comedy. I’d been waiting for a few days wondering if I was going to be asked to do anything.

And so I did the wedding, and then there was the wedding lunch in this beautiful Italian villa. And then she rang me again, and I apologised. And she said to me, would I like to be skills minister? 

TD: So how did you approach the role? What were your sense of priorities, what did you want to achieve? 

RH: I think that’s a very good question, because if I compare myself the first time to the second time, it’s like two different people, if I’m honest with you. And the reason for that is because when you are made a minister for a department and [at] minister of state level… I knew what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t absolutely clear on my priorities. I didn’t know how the box system worked – I had some idea, because I’d been on the public administration select committee in my early years as a backbencher. But I had no idea really. And I didn’t really understand the private office and so on, so I allowed myself to be submerged in boxes – and in those days it was paper – and also in diary.

The private office when I first came in wasn’t fully staffed and the head of my private office was very overburdened. He was a lovely guy, he eventually moved and then I interviewed a new person with one of the senior managers, and they had a brilliant person who came in and it all changed. But I think at the beginning because I didn’t set out what my priorities were and because I didn’t know how the box works, I didn’t say ‘this is how I’d like my box to be done’.

Whereas when I came in the second time I was a completely different person and understood it. Because no one prepares you for it and no one gives you any advice to say ‘this is what happens when you walk in’. So I think I had to learn pretty fast on the job but it was very, very tough the first time round.

TD: A lot of people have that experience. You were minister without portfolio and deputy party chair before that, and then before that, you were PPS [parliamentary private secretary] to the chancellor, George Osborne. How did those two roles prepare you for when you took on a departmental role? 

RH: So the PPS – just to make another joke, if I may – you know, the PPS is called the bag carrier. [But] because of my legs George Osborne occasionally helped me carry my briefcase, so I said that I was the first PPS in history where the secretary of state carried my bags, not the other way round! 

But it was mainly a political role, intensely political, because George Osborne was intensely political. I did get to learn quite a fair bit about how the Treasury works and where it is in decision making, and about the roles of special advisers. But most of my time as PPS was dealing with colleagues and parliament and because George was very political I had to do all that side of it. And it was a very intense time because Ed Balls [shadow chancellor of the exchequer 2011–15] was very active – it’s quite funny, I listen to their podcast all the time – and Ed Balls was calling urgent questions, statements every day. And I had to get people in the chamber, I had to feed back to George what was going on, and I had very little time. I remember driving from Harlow to London, most of the time on Bluetooth – I should stress I programmed it to my phone, I wasn’t breaking the law! But ringing MPs, getting them to do this and to do that. And it was harder because it was 2014, 2015, so everyone knew it was an election, so the scope for government posts and everything was not as… so you had to kind of cajole and persuade. But it did teach me a lot, being the PPS.

"because of my legs George Osborne occasionally helped me carry my briefcase, so I said that I was the first PPS in history where the secretary of state carried my bags, not the other way round!"

I then was made deputy chair of the party and I was minister without portfolio, but I had to answer some Cabinet Office questions. The box load was very light, it was hardly anything. So this is why I wasn’t quite prepared when I went next because I had very little to do. I did have to answer Cabinet Office questions and I had to do write-rounds, which again I learnt about. And there were a lot of mind-numbing EU regulations to agree, because everything in those days had to be EU-compliant or whatever, and I was reading through these box notes which were mind-numbing things. It could have been anything, tractors, or whatever. So I got a little bit of an idea, but again, the role was mainly political because I was deputy chairman, I was going around the country most of the time speaking to associations and dealing with central office and all that kind of thing. 

TD: And you attended cabinet in that role – what was that like? Were you able to be part of the discussion? 

RH: Yes, yeah. Funnily enough, I sat next to Jonathan Slater, who was then subsequently the permanent secretary at the Department for Education during my first stint. Because he, I think, was doing something or other, taking the notes or something. 

But yes, I spoke in many of the meetings. I was always passionate about apprenticeships and skills, I kept making sure that was on the agenda. For example, the Queen’s speech, just to get the word ‘apprentices’ mentioned, this kind of thing. And of course it was during the referendum so it was quite an extraordinary cabinet. We roughly knew what every minister was going to do – but we travelled down to cabinet on the Saturday, from memory. And then sat in the cabinet, he [David Cameron] went round the room asking people. It was just the most extraordinary occasion, I’ll never forget it for the rest of my life. 

But you know, you had some heavyweights. You had Michael Fallon [defence secretary 2014–17], Phil[ip] Hammond [foreign secretary 2014–16], really quite serious, quite heavyweight people. I learnt a lot about cabinet at that time. 

TD: You mentioned skills and apprenticeships as one of your big passions, and that’s obviously the role you did twice. Given you knew that area, how did you decide on what your priorities were and what you wanted to achieve when you were first in the role?

RH: I’d come into apprenticeships partly because of something that happened in my constituency in 2008. I met deprived kids who were desperate to do apprenticeships and I genuinely decided that I would major on this issue – my first backbench speech was on it, I was involved with the all-party groups. I was the first ever MP to employ an apprentice – I had six of them overall.

And I learnt a lot just being a backbencher, so I knew all about apprenticeships, vocational qualifications and skills. I was asked by George Osborne what job I would like, if I was ever put in government – doesn’t mean he was going to give it to me, but he wanted to ask me – and I said either apprenticeships minister or chairman of the party. In the end I was made deputy chairman because Lord Feldman [Conservative Party chair 2010–16] didn’t want co-chairs, as it had been in the past. So I knew the subject. I think the issue the first time round was that I wasn’t clear in expressing exactly what I wanted to do. I had some idea, but I wasn’t as clear, if I look back at my old self compared to the second stint in it. 

Sachin Savur (SS): After you left government the first time round, you spent five years as chair of the Education Select Committee. How did your time as a minister shape your approach on the committee? 

RH: Hugely. I mean, the select committee changed me. I love campaigning, so when you’re a select committee chair you’re a free spirit, you don’t have to get everything cleared by SpAds [special advisers], Downing Street, the Treasury, whatever. But it prepared me hugely for what was to come. And although we did everything from special needs to skills, we did a lot with skills because everybody knew that was my area. Actually, I launched two inquiries, one into skills and one into careers, where I ended up being the minister who had to answer, to give evidence on it, on my own inquiries that I had launched! 

But it was hugely important. I matured as a person. I think it takes about 10 years to be a good MP, and I matured much more. I knew the subject, I was able to build up relationships. Select committee chairs are incredibly influential nowadays because you’re elected and I was able to build up relationships with stakeholders, I knew them all. So of course, when you go in and you know all the stakeholders and they like you or you get on with them, that makes a huge difference. So there was immense goodwill the second time that I was there.

SS: There were eight different education secretaries while you were chair of the committee. How did you find this level of turnover as chair?

RH: It didn’t really make any difference to me. It was quite a lot, but it didn’t really make any difference. I mean, Damian Hinds [education secretary 2018–19 and schools minister 2023–24], I got on very well with. I think I was quite happy to scrutinise them quite carefully. I walked a tightrope between being tough, but not alienating them completely, because you can. Especially if they’re on your own side, they then just think this guy’s a – excuse my Essex language – an ‘XXX’, right? And then they close the doors and you don’t get anything. Whereas I spoke to them all in advance about what I was going to do, and I said “I’m going to be really hardcore on this area” or whatever it is, so they knew. And it wasn’t just me grandstanding, it was doing my job as select committee chair. It didn’t really make a difference, because my job was just to scrutinise the policies.

TD: On that point about being from the same party as the government, do you think that makes a difference for the effectiveness of select committee chairs, how they approach things? 

RH: No. Well, it depends, because I think there will be some select committee chairs who want to grandstand, or they’ve fallen out with the party or whatever it is. You rely on opposition votes to get in because of the proportional representation system of electing a select committee chair, but you’re on a constant tightrope. 

So I opposed the government on free school meals during Covid, for example, and I think I was one of about one or two MPs who rebelled on it. And I opposed the government on school closures, hugely. I opposed the government on masks for kids in schools – just to be clear, I was very supportive of vaccines, but I just felt that it was very, very retrograde. And look at what happened to kids, absent children, and so on. I’d coined the word ‘ghost children’, I was the first person to coin that awful term.

When there was the mess up with the algorithms, with exams in 2020, I did go to town on that, saying it was a shambles, because I just could not believe how badly it had been done. And reversing the decision, you know, going to the Times on the Saturday, saying we’re going to keep it and on the Sunday you change your mind. I remember I was pretty tough then, but I still just about stayed on the right line of alienating them completely. But it is difficult, because they’re your own side. 

SS: You returned to government in 2022 when Rishi Sunak became prime minister. What was it like going back to the department?

RH: It was interesting because, just to give you a bit of political context, I was originally supporting Sajid Javid [for the Conservative leadership] and then he dropped out. And Rishi, I had a meeting with him the next day. And I literally asked him if he would do a baccalaureate and he said he was really interested in the idea and that he had looked at it overseas – and then we talked about the Advanced British Standard. And I just decided to generally support him on that basis. I didn’t know I was going to be subsequently made skills minister, I didn’t ask for any job, I just asked him these questions about skills and apprenticeships. He knew that this was something that I was very passionate about and committed to.

The second time was very different because you get your call from the prime minister and then of course within seconds you get a call from the ethics person – the person who replaced Sue Gray [head of propriety and ethics in the Cabinet Office 2012–18], because it was originally Sue Gray. And then you get a call from the private office that night. It did actually change, so within a day I had one private office and then it all changed the next day – not because they didn’t want to work with me, just to be clear! But because there was originally going to be an extra minister. So I ended up doing higher education and skills, which they wanted to bring together, but I think the department thought there was going to be an extra HE [higher education] minister. 

So there were a number of things that were different. One, I realised I could negotiate responsibilities this time. Two, I was very clear from day one about how I wanted the box to be done and how I’d like papers, that I didn’t want printed paper. I wanted it all on tablets – I used a Microsoft Surface tablet, whereas in the old days it would be printed out. It was a complete waste of time, I would ban that now. I would give every minister a tablet with a stylus because it’s an unbelievable waste of people’s time, but many ministers still do the paper thing.

I was also very clear about the priorities, and this is something I call ‘the ladder of opportunity’, which isn’t just a slogan. I explained what this meant and what the priorities were. And then I worked with a brilliant guy called Stephen Wan who was doing strategy to give the ladder the pillars of the ladder, and each rung having a policy behind it. And they all had it, and everything we did was then subsequently based on that ladder. 

I also made sure this time round that box notes were short – unless of course they were secretary of state ones, which I had no control over, but my ones were six pages max – and also that I would only have six box notes a day. And this is not because I am lazy, but I just think the whole system where you’re supposed to look at 20, 30 box notes with 20, 30 pages each is insane. And you’re supposed to do that in the evening, having worked all day, alongside answering or at least looking at draft letters, 20, 30 a day, plus maybe 10 to 20 to 30 written questions a day. So unless you deal with that from day one, it becomes a Frankenstein’s monster, basically. And I learnt that, so it was a lot better. I had two heads of private office. Both of them were very good, but in very different ways. The second one was particularly incredible, a lady called Hannah Deighan, and she understood about the box and how I wanted it and made it really, really clear.

But it was a lot because when I got in, within two or three months, I had five select committees to give evidence to, plus bring through a bill. So I’d brought through a bill the first time round. And again, the first time round I had no idea. When you do a bill, you have to present it to PBL [the parliamentary business and legislation cabinet committee]. And that is scary because you’ve got all the cabinet ministers round the table, the relevant ones, plus the chief whip, plus the leader of the Lords, and you need to know what you’re doing. And the first time I did it, when I was first a minister, I didn’t handle it that well and I was asked to come back. And actually, a lot of the time ministers are asked to come back. 

But the second time, I went there with Baroness Barran [minister for the school system and student finance 2021–24], and I knew it like the back of my hand, and I just knew and understood what they were asking for. The first time no one had explained to me what you mean by concession and I remember I didn’t have a clue. They know within a couple of minutes whether you know your bill. They sniff it and they ask you, but if they feel you know [then] you’ll be out in five, ten minutes. If they feel there’s a problem, you’ll be in there for 20 minutes, half an hour, and they’ll either say no or tell you to come back. PBL is one of the hardest parts of the bill which the public never see. It’s hard, because it’s a bit like going into Dragons’ Den, you need to convince them, but you need to know the concession strategy and you really need to know the bill inside out. 

So this time round I did weekend after weekend after weekend of preparation just for the PBL, which helped me later on because it meant I knew the bill inside out. Even though I thought it was only going to be 10 or 15 minutes, I prepared it as if I was preparing for the exam of my life. The first time round no one told me what the PBL was, they said, “Oh, you just go and talk about the bill for five minutes”, so I go in and then they asked me about the concession strategy and I just didn’t have a clue. I’m being really honest with you. I had some vague idea. But this is what I mean, when you’re first a minister, you just don’t know any of these things. Some people are natural and they just wing it. But most of the time, no one tells you any of this stuff. 

"it’s a bit like going into Dragons’ Den, you need to convince them, but you need to know the concession strategy and you really need to know the bill inside out."

SS: You mentioned the Advanced British Standard – that was one of Rishi Sunak’s big priorities. How did this prime ministerial attention affect the way you approached this policy? 

RH: Well, first of all, I was delighted because I wanted to marry vocational, technical education. The presentation of it, unfortunately, seemed to be that the public just thought it was about maths to 18, but actually it was about mixing and matching, and you would do some kind of maths but it wouldn’t necessarily be A-level. I really believe in the power of language and of communication, so I was determined that ‘skills’ and the concept of skills was peppered through the document for the Advanced British Standard. Things like that were really, really important. 

But it did cross Gillian [Keegan, education secretary 2022–24] and myself and Damian and Nick [Gibb, schools minister 2022–23] and it took an enormous amount of work. I remember I was going to a Council of Europe event and on the way in the Eurostar, they’d sent – because everything was always in a rush, trying to get the computer to work, the government computer. I was with the private secretary and then talked on the phone with these people in the Eurostar. Very occasionally I have to use a wheelchair, which I hate doing, so I was taking this wheelchair to the taxi, and it was a very, very long way. And the private secretary was holding the government computer and I was on the phone trying to develop policy on one of the most important educational announcements, it was literally in The Thick of It, it was that kind of thing. 

So it was quite surreal, but they put a lot of time and effort into it. And the new government, I don’t think they’re going to introduce the ABS, but they may decide with the new curriculum they want more skills, and there may be elements of the ABS that filter into the new curriculum, who knows? 

SS: And how did you approach negotiating with the Treasury to get funding for things like care leaver bursaries? 

RH: You’ve obviously done your research! So again, the second time you do it, you realise that, although a lot is delegated – and actually Gillian was an extraordinary boss, that’s also one of the reasons I was a better minister, because she delegated a lot, she gave me a lot of support and encouragement. When I had done it previously, I didn’t have a lot of interaction with Justine [Greening, education secretary 2016 –18]’s SpAds, I get on very well with Justine, but it was just a very different way of working. Whereas the skills special advisers, both Guy and Jamie, they were with me all the time. I could ask them for anything, ask them [for] advice. And they were also brilliant minds – perhaps the sort of people you’d have working here, like you guys, eggheads or whatever! It was a really, really great environment to work in. Funnily enough I get on very well with Nick, although we have slightly different worldviews. I got on well with Diana Barran who did student finance. 

Also, I talked about negotiation about the brief – the first time I did it, I just had everything that was coming to me. The second time, I was given a list and I said, “I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to do this, I would like to do this”, and so on. And that was purely because I understood that you can – if the secretary of state agrees, obviously – you can negotiate with other ministers and other private offices and so on.

But I realised at select committee that it was a problem, the number of care leavers doing apprenticeships, a tiny amount. And one of the big things that came out with an inquiry that we did on children in care was that there was no money, the £1,000 was just not enough. So I worked with the director, the person in charge of apprentices and they negotiated with the Treasury – so I didn’t need to speak to the Treasury directly, I left it to them. But there were other times when I spoke to ministers, if I knew there was a problem on certain big issues. Usually my level was chief secretary level, so I would usually ring the chief secretary or speak to the chief secretary in the division lobby and just try and push something along a bit. Literally so much of politics is based on relationships and people don’t understand that. And if the relationships aren’t good, the doors just slam shut. 

"Literally so much of politics is based on relationships and people don’t understand that. And if the relationships aren’t good, the doors just slam shut."

TD: And would you say that’s the case for both other ministers and officials, meaning you need those good relationships? 

RH: 100%. Yeah. 

SS: You resigned from the government in March 2024 while also announcing you were stepping down as an MP. What was behind your decision to resign? 

RH: Yes, so I was gutted to resign, but I thought the election would be in May, possibly. And I completely get the ACOBA [Advisory Committee on Business Appointments] stuff, I have no problem, but I think it’s a crazy system really because you can’t work for three months. And I felt, well, if there’s an election in May, I won’t be able to earn a living. And the second thing is that it’s very frustrating, because the ACOBA people are incredibly nice, but there aren’t many of them. They are incredibly helpful, I couldn’t ask them for more, but it takes them an inordinately long time to sign off. And I think they should put proper resources into it – and I know the permanent secretary has to sign it off as well – but if you get a new job, they should have a two-week turnaround. You can’t keep people waiting for four to eight weeks, which is what has happened to me at the moment. 

Because at the end of the day, they let you do most of these jobs. You have no problem filling out the forms and doing it properly. It’s not their fault, because there aren’t enough of them and also they rely on the permanent secretary. But I absolutely think that has got to be changed. You’ve got to say to people, you have a two-week turnaround. And put resources into it, work with the departments to make sure these things are signed off. It’s the time frame, more than anything. The good thing – I don’t know if you do anything on ACOBA – but everyone I’ve spoken to, the head of it came to see me, she was brilliant. And when you ring them up, they are unbelievably helpful. Really, really nice people. So I don’t want it to be a criticism. It’s the system which is ridiculous. That’s got to change. 

You asked me why I resigned. Yes, well that was because of ACOBA, because I’d decided to step down as an MP. I was gutted to resign, I didn’t want to resign, but I thought there was no alternative.

TD: We’ve done a whistle-stop tour through your ministerial career, but you were also a very influential backbencher – you had your campaign area on apprenticeships, but you also did a lot on fuel duty. How did you see the respective weight of being a backbencher versus being a minister, in terms of impact?

RH: So as a backbencher, you can campaign for things, obviously, and on a select committee that gives you status. And so I was able to get things through like prisoner apprenticeships – I had [Dominic] Raab [justice secretary 2021–22] and Nadhim [Zahawi, education secretary 2021–22] ring me up one morning because I’d made a real noise about it in the House of Commons proposing amendments. And also more stuff on careers in schools in terms of apprenticeship advice, the Baker clause [an amendment to the Technical and Further Education Act 2017] stuff, more ‘encounters’ [opportunities for secondary school-age pupils to meet technical education or apprenticeship providers]. And again, I negotiated with Nadhim, because originally it was going to be two, I think I got it up to six encounters. I gave Nadhim a hard time at the committee but I always told him what I was going to do, going back to the original thing. And funnily enough we had a brilliant relationship, even though, if you’d seen me and him at committee, you’d have thought, God, I’m giving him a hard time. But he understood what was going on, and I didn’t discuss it all. 

So you can do things like that, and you’re free, which is a wonderful thing because I am quite a free spirit. If they had asked me to do any other ministerial job, I would have turned it down, genuinely. I’m not going to give up the Education Select Committee just to be minister for housing, or whatever. But because it was education and apprenticeships and skills, I just thought I had to do it. Because as a minister, you can make policy every day here. And if you have a great secretary of state, which I did – I mean she delegated a lot – and you get your delegated list a couple of weeks in, you know, what she’s going to delegate, what she wants to do. And Gillian knew all about apprenticeships, she was very passionate about them herself, so she obviously had a big interest. But she delegated a lot. 

You can make a decision about whether a fund goes to an FE [further education] college – you know, that’s a big thing, because you’re changing the life of a local community. So on the micro-level, individual colleges, plus developing the lifelong learning entitlement – which is huge, I mean people don’t realise, because the Labour Party support this, they’re not going to oppose it, but that is going to be life-changing and one of the most transformative things we’ve done as a government, in my view, in the last 10 years. Because people will be able to access lifelong learning in a way they’ve never done before, they won’t need to go to university for three years because they can do short courses, choosing to move from institution to institution, building up credits along the way. And that will change the nature of university. This thing about university funding in five, ten years, it will be very different. So we were able to do things like that, that I would never have been able to do. 

"developing the lifelong learning entitlement – which is huge, I mean people don’t realise, because the Labour Party support this, they’re not going to oppose it, but that is going to be life-changing and one of the most transformative things we’ve done as a government, in my view, in the last 10 years."

TD: You were in parliament and then in government, or scrutinising government, from the coalition to the Conservative majority government through to earlier this year. We had the referendum, the pandemic, lots of different configurations of parliamentary arithmetic. How do you think government changed over time? 

RH: I would say I felt that the No.10 operation in terms of policy was very, very good. And it was very different this time to when I did it before. They would work with you and talk to you and say if they disagree with a particular thing that you might be doing, but in a really constructive way. And I had a lot of meetings and discussions with them, they’d come and see you. So I felt that they were very impressive, the policy people. They really knew their subject, they really knew it. And the engagement, there was a lot more engagement with – so we’d have like a ship building task force at No.10. There was a lot of that really, really good stuff, because if you go to No.10 it makes a massive difference, if you’re not in the political world and you go to No.10. And so I felt that under Rishi, it was really professionally run. I think I just wasn’t experienced enough or mature enough the first time round to understand all this. As I say, I think it takes 10 years to be a good MP and you make a lot of mistakes along the way. 

TD: What about being a minister? What do you think is a good amount of time for ministers to become effective in the role? 

RH: So I think – not being party political here – I think it’s a big mistake for the new prime minister to just appoint people straight from the backbenches. It doesn’t matter who they are, they could be Mother Theresa for all I care. It’s just a mistake, because you have to build relationships with colleagues because so much of policy is relationships with colleagues. Again, I learnt that from the first time to the second time. Of course, you have an FE college or vocational thing in almost every constituency in the country and every MP wants you to visit their college or whatever, or has an issue with funding. I really made sure I responded really properly and quickly, as much as I could. And I travelled thousands of miles all over the country, literally many thousands of miles. Because the relationship with MPs is incredibly important. And so that’s where I would say it was different. 

"I think it’s a big mistake for the new prime minister to just appoint people straight from the backbenches ... you have to build relationships with colleagues."

TD: On that last point about visits, what would you say are the benefits of going on visits as a minister? 

RH: If I could, I would have done one every day. Because I’m a people person. And secondly, you get all these submissions and so on, but I’m a practical learner as well. There is no comparison to go to speak to an FE college. So, for example, the officials would say we’re cutting regulations. And they were, I mean, I had this operation called Operation Machete, which was getting rid of red tape for FE colleges and apprenticeship providers and so on. But you go to a college and then the college will show you literally 10 paper forms they have to fill out in duplicate or whatever. And you’ll never get that from sitting in the department, however good a minister you may be at reading your box. It’s not because anyone is misleading you, but you have to see stuff on the ground. And also that’s, of course, where you develop the relationship with the stakeholders.

So I had stakeholders that I would ring up and ask advice for like “What do you think of this policy?”, or whatever. It was invaluable. I made sure in Apprentice Week alone, I did 850 miles or something, from Harlow to Cornwall to Bath, Bristol, Ipswich, Cambridge, back to Harlow, all within five days. The year before, during National Apprenticeship Week I also did about 1,000 miles but it was in the north west. I did north west to south, to Basingstoke, and this time I did it from east to west and back again. And, you know, loads of small businesses, big businesses, and then the word gets out there that the minister cares about it. And it’s so, so important. I think almost every Thursday I would be doing a visit, subject to there being a UQ [urgent question] or something. And you’d be travelling, you know, hundreds of miles, often in one day. I did tours of Cumbria where I stayed two or three days, because no minister had ever been to Cumbria, to see anything there. You’ve got Barrow, and we did a lot there, and so on. 

So I wish there was more time for visits. I think the problem with the workload is so crazy, because you’re expected to deal with stakeholders, you’re expected to be able to answer debates in parliament, and because it was HE and FE there was almost a Westminster Hall [debate] every couple of weeks. You’re expected to be ready for a UQ at any time. And do a bill. And do your constituency stuff. 

Some people love the parliament stuff – I didn’t enjoy that side of it, if I’m honest with you. I didn’t mind Westminster Hall because it was less confrontational, but I’m not suited for confrontational atmospheres because I’m not a confrontational person. But I wonder whether you could have a system where you’d appoint a minister in each department, a minister for parliament. A bit like the Lords person, so the Lords person has to answer everything. You’d have a minister who’d just do the Commons stuff. And you’d free the other ministers. Because I was really good on media and communication and stakeholders, and so you’d free up time and say, right, there’s one minister – apart from the secretary of state when there’s big stuff – there’s one minister who does all the parliament stuff. 

"the workload is so crazy, because you’re expected to deal with stakeholders, you’re expected to be able to answer debates in parliament ... And do a bill. And do your constituency stuff."

You’d have plenty of customers, by the way, because lots of MPs love doing that stuff. I just felt that it was just enormously time consuming. Often you had to do it in areas that were nothing to do with you if the minister was away. I was at a Holocaust event in the Foreign Office and got a call saying, “You’ve got to come back straight away, you’ve got to do the debate and so on, because Damian Hinds can’t do it.” So I then have an hour to learn about the subject. As it happened, because I’d been Education Select Committee chair I knew a little bit. But it’s an insane system, right? And, okay, you have to learn quickly on the job. Now, which is going to be more valuable, going to an FE college or responding in parliament? So if there was a change, just as you have a Lords minister who responds in the Lords on everything, I would have a minister in the department who is the parliamentary minister for education, because it would free up so much time. 

TD: A lot of ministers complain about the challenges of dealing with parliament, because it distracts from the other responsibilities of the job.

RH: And then the correspondence thing, again I would reform that, because you spend your time looking at mindless stuff. Some of it’s really important, for example, mental health with students. Suddenly I realised when I first got in that it was probably the biggest issue in HE in terms of the kind of contact and what had gone on with tragic suicides across universities. And the mailbox was really big and the policy was a mess because it was a spaghetti junction, there was no narrative, there was no one-two-three. And we changed it because of all these letters coming in – we changed it into a very simple three pillars of dealing with mental health and set up this task force to deal with it, a real task force, not a talking shop. 

But why is it valuable for a minister to spend a lot of time on mindless stuff that anyone could write in? I know these are really important things, but you could just delegate it all for policy people to do. Because it just takes up [time], you’re spending an hour on letters when you could be doing policy, you could be doing a visit or whatever. 

TD: A couple of final wrap-up questions from us that we always ask everyone. What are you most proud of from your time in government? 

RH: I think transforming the culture of apprenticeships and skills and the way we think about it in this country. And I don’t think, apart from Gillian possibly, I don’t think there was any other MP in the House of Commons who did more to promote apprenticeships and skills. And I don’t want that to come across as a big-headed thing, but you asked me what I’m proud of, because we’ve changed the culture in our country in dramatic reforms: the levy, the T-levels, and so on. And, you know, I established IfATE [Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education] my first time round, brought in a bill. 

The lifelong learning entitlement, I’m very proud of as well, because I think that will be a major tool for social justice. Because lots of disadvantaged people who can’t go to university for three years, or do a higher qualification, will now be able to have access to skills and a pretty good loan agreement where they don’t pay back more than they borrow, compared to the previous scheme. And the work we do on social justice as well. 

TD: Do you think most of those will be carried forward? Do you think they’ll survive the change of party? 

RH: Yeah, I really like Jacqui Smith [appointed minister for skills by Keir Starmer in 2024], I’m very happy. Obviously I’m a Conservative, but I really care about this subject. And to me, one of the first things the new prime minister has done, he’s put a really big hitter in that post. And the second thing, he made a big speech on skills – and he’ll only be three weeks in office on Monday. And so whatever the argument about what they can do to the levy or whatever it is, it makes me very happy because it means that the new government genuinely cares about skills. It’s going to be a priority for the new prime minister, even if I have my own disagreement about what they’re going to do with the levy or whatever. And so I’m very encouraged. And they didn’t oppose the lifelong learning entitlement either. 

TD: What would your advice be to a new minister on how to be the best they can? 

RH: First of all, go and see other ministers to understand how it works. And not about the policy, because you can learn that pretty quickly, but about how it works. Because it’s so quick, you’re suddenly there. 

The second thing I would say is: preparation, preparation, preparation. You can’t get away by winging it. And so if I had a select committee [appearance], I would do three weekends preparing for select committee. And believe me it’s a lot harder to answer the questions than asking the questions! It usually takes three weekends for it to really sink in. And that’s a good few hours on a Saturday, a good few hours on a Sunday. And you can’t get away with it otherwise. 

And the other thing I would say is, work with the civil servants, because I hate all this stuff when they call the civil servants ‘the blob’ and all this. Nothing can be further from the truth – I just think it’s bad ministers who say that. Because I felt that the DfE people were brilliant. I mean, Susan Acland-Hood [Department for Education permanent secretary since 2020] – it was a very different department, by the way, the second time round compared to the first time – Susan Acland-Hood, she would come and sit in my office and she would give me advice and she was very wise. I genuinely would listen to it. The directors were incredible. You know, the calibre of the overall head of skills, but also the person in charge of apprenticeships, the person in charge of universities, the person in charge of T-levels. They were brilliant people, and because they knew I cared about the subject deeply and because I had the priorities, the relationship was a really good one. 

And there were also brilliant junior people. The only thing I would have with them is, I would say, bring more junior people up. I hated stuff on Zoom, because you’d have a Zoom call, there’d be like 50 people on the Zoom call. I didn’t know who they were and a lot of them wouldn’t say anything. So I said, “I don’t want that, I want to see people”. Obviously, if people are in DfE offices in Sheffield, whatever, it’s fine. But I want people who are going to speak. And I always asked, if there was a brilliant official who was middle-ranking or junior – because there were plenty of them in the building, and suddenly you would talk to somebody and they’d just explain it in a brilliant way – I’d say, “I want them up here in the meeting”. Because why not? It shouldn’t just be speaking to senior people. The senior people were great. And as I said, the permanent secretary was wise, she would just come in and suggest something and I’m grateful for that. 

"I hate all this stuff when they call the civil servants ‘the blob’ and all this. Nothing can be further from the truth – I just think it’s bad ministers who say that."

It was very different how the whole thing was run, by the way, it was very, very different. Because previously, when I was there the first time, if I wanted to speak to any official I had to do it through the private office, whether it was junior or senior. This time round the directors gave me their numbers and I quite like working like that. It was very different and the civil servants were very accessible – it was great that I could speak to them on the phone directly, rather than going through the private office. And the last day I was there, I felt I almost was in tears because I asked all the directors to come up to tell them I was going and I just said “You are great people who have really changed the world, in a little way”, these were great people in the room. 

TD: Is there anything we haven’t asked about that you would like to add? 

RH: Just as we need to understand the civil service, the civil service also needs to understand MPs, and I don’t think – however wonderful I’ve just described them, how brilliant they were – I don’t think they understand it, that you have to go to, you know, the church fête on a Saturday or a Thursday and rush back for something. I don’t know how you change that. They sort of got to understand it, but a lot of them just don’t understand the constituency pressures on an MP. 

And it’s not a criticism of them, but it’s another world, and I have to be like Doctor Who. One minute, I’m in a grand office in London, the DfE, and the next minute I’m literally, as I say, at the church fête buying a massive jar of chilli pickled onions from Mrs Valerie Dinwiddy – that’s her genuine name, she’s a wonderful lady (makes genuinely the best pickled onions I’ve had in my life, because there are chillies inside). You know, it’s hard for them to understand the pressures, and so on. So I would have much more training for civil servants about a marginal – not a safe MP who doesn’t go there a lot, if there is such a thing nowadays – but particularly marginal seats so that they would understand, even shadow the MP at their surgeries or going around for a day. I think that would be a very good thing. 

"One minute, I’m in a grand office in London, the DfE, and the next minute I’m literally, as I say, at the church fête buying a massive jar of chilli pickled onions from Mrs Valerie Dinwiddy"