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Calculators in Schools

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) on securing this excellent debate. I thank her for being kind enough to allow me to make some supportive comments. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on financial education, I absolutely support this call about calculator use because the absolute cornerstone and bedrock to making the next generation of consumers savvy, quick-thinking and financially literate is having a good grasp of mental arithmetic. Without that, it will be impossible for us to deliver improved levels of financial education. I also speak as a former employer. Time and time again in my business, we almost had to start again with mental arithmetic when we employed people. Mental arithmetic was important not just for my business, but for businesses right across the country. When I meet representatives of businesses of different sizes that frustration is borne out by experience. Mathematical ability is also incredibly important for personal confidence. This week, I visited an excellent school, Sevenfields, in my constituency. It has transformed itself into an outstanding school, and the main driver behind that is confidence in subjects such as maths, driven by mental arithmetic. Old-fashioned that may be, but it is making a real difference in that school. It is also important to foster personal confidence in students to embrace mathematics. We have been struggling for too long to acquire the number of students who wish to take on maths and progress further. If people can conquer mental arithmetic, they then have the confidence to progress further in maths. In common with my hon. Friend, I am a bit of geek in this respect. Confidence in maths drives forward the ability to acquire entrepreneurial skills. We see from the ““Young Apprentice”” TV programme that those young people with good mental arithmetic do particularly well in many of the tasks, particularly haggling. I recall from when I was running my business the number of times when I met suppliers who simply could not do mental arithmetic. They relied on a calculator, which they were embarrassed to use in front of me and which allowed me to run rings round them, and make reasonably good profit margins. That is a serious observation, because that was not just a one-off, but happened time and time again. For the sake of driving up maths standards, improving confidence and supporting our ongoing financial education campaign, I urge the Minister to get behind this campaign to promote mental arithmetic skills.