Sir Jeremy Wright
MP for Kenilworth and Southam · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I applaud my right hon. Friend’s passion and clarity on this issue. On the subject of democratic accountability, he knows that if, as the hon.”
“I welcome the intent that the Secretary of State has set out this afternoon, and the urgency with which she will require the relevant companies to act.”
“The Electoral Commission has made no formal assessment of this. It would be a matter for Parliament to introduce such legal protections. It is prescribed in law that poll cards and ballot papers must be provided in English or Welsh, but there are no other prescribed language requirements relating to election materials.”
“We can all cynically speculate about the reasons why this sudden about-turn has taken place this week, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), who spoke from the Front Bench, said earlier, it is our job to scrutinise this legislation and to ensure that whatever we put in place does justice to the determination o…”
“In today’s version of the amendment paper, for the first time, that amendment has disappeared and been replaced not with the detailed compromise that Intelligence and Security Committee members, who have been engaged with this process, have been working towards, along with many others, but with Government amendment 157.”
“As the House would expect, we engaged with that process as diligently as we could, with no partisan politics, in an effort to make good law in the pursuit of greater state transparency while preserving our national security equities. As the hon.”
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“I want to make a few brief comments about both the amendments before us. Let me start with Lords amendment 22B and the Government motion to disagree with it. I find it very difficult to disagree with this amendment. I was a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life when the 2021 report that has been referred to was produced, and I am a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee now. Both those Committees, as the House has heard this evening, take the view that further measures are required to protect our democracy from the influx of inappropriate foreign money, and I think both would say that the amendment is the bare minimum of what needs to happen. Lords amendment 22B does two things.”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that when it comes to AI regulation, two things are important? The first is that there is a significant international dimension, and I congratulate her and the Prime Minister on what they have already achieved in setting out this country’s stall to be a global leader in AI regulation. Secondly, does she agree that the lesson to be learned from the Online Safety Bill, which she mentioned, is that we must regulate swiftly, rather than waiting for the technology to develop and attempting to retrofit the regulation on to the technology?”
“I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point that this House can repeal any legislation it wishes, but we are discussing amendments that have come to us from the other place, not the principles of the Bill. Those amendments, including some that he is speaking to, add friction to the process of this House doing its normal work of passing subsequent legislation that may change the reality of previous legislation. If the hon. Gentleman is in favour of the House going about its normal business, would it not be right to reject the amendments he is referring to?”
“I am genuinely just seeking to understand the hon. Gentleman’s position on Lords amendment 6. The amendment does not define whether we are talking about devolved or retained competences. Is it his view that amendment 6 ought to apply to both?”
“Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) is the world expert on this—we would have seen that, despite their EU origin, the level of scrutiny and attention those laws got from Parliament was far lower than the level proposed in the amendment.”
“If the rest of Lords amendment 1 were passed by this House—not just the part that amendment (a) retains—we would introduce exactly the friction that I mentioned earlier when intervening on the hon. Member for Stirling. It would introduce a Joint Committee process and then debates and votes on the Floor of both Houses. I appreciate that, depending on which side of the argument someone is, they may regard those as additional safeguards or additional procedural friction, but it appears to me that it is more the latter than the former. That process is far more than is likely to have been done in the consideration of any of these laws when they were originally brought into British law. When that happened—my hon.”
“I will certainly support Government amendment (a) to Lords amendment 1, because it regularises the position in a much more reasonable way. The irony is that I rather suspect proceeding in the way originally intended would have led to the retention of far more retained EU law than will be the case under the Government’s revised approach. In fear of losing something vital, it is highly likely that the Government would have had to roll over—by default and before the deadline—a good portion of legislation, just to be sure they had not missed something. This approach is much more sensible and will rather better support the intentions of those who supported our departure from the European Union than the approach originally intended.”
“Were we to support amendment (a), it would restate, because the Government have already made their position clear, their new approach that rather than repeal a whole swathe of EU-origin retained law in effect by default, it would be better to list specifically those things that it is intended should be repealed by a certain point, such as the end of this year, unless further action is taken before that point. That is a much more sensible approach, although I will say it was somewhat inevitable, as others have said. It was always inconceivable that the Government would be able to manage the process of considering properly all the retained EU law in scope of the Bill before the deadline of the end of this year. Therefore, the Government have done the eminently sensible thing and should be congratulated on doing so.”
“Before we sign up fully to the wording of the amendment as it stands, we should have clarity about that, because it is an important point in the hon. Gentleman’s argument about the reinforcement of the devolution settlement. We do not want to subtly change the devolution settlement by accident. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman would be quite happy to change the devolution settlement either by accident or by design, and perhaps not so subtly, but in the context of the Bill, we had better be clear what we are talking about. For that reason, I certainly will not support Lords amendment 6 at this stage, though I will listen carefully to what their lordships have to say when they clarify the point. There seem to be similar points to make in relation to Lords amendment 1, Government amendment (a) to Lords amendment 1 and Lords amendment 42.”
“I suspect that the noble Lord Hope, who I think drafted the clause in Lords amendment 6—that gives me considerable hesitation in criticising it in any way, because it is unlikely he has got much wrong—is intending a deal of weight to be put on the phrase “as the case may be”. Subsections (2) and (3) refer to a “responsible Minister of a relevant national authority” and to “both Houses of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru or the Northern Ireland Assembly, as the case may be”. I suspect Lord Hope would say that that indicates that in the case of retained law, the body would be the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and in the case of devolved competencies, it would be the relevant devolved body.”
“I will focus on Lords amendment 1, Government amendment (a) to Lords amendment 1 and Lords amendment 42. Before I do, I want to close the loop on Lords amendment 6. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith), who made an interesting set of observations. As he would expect, I do not agree with all of them, but if I may say so, he is engaging in this debate in exactly the way we ought to when considering matters this complex and important. Just to finish the thought, the hon. Gentleman is right to say that their lordships may want to consider the matter further, as of course may we.”
“If we were to say that a Joint Committee should be established to determine initially whether there is a substantial change of the law in prospect, it would have to determine that and it would have to decide what substantial means. Does it mean, for example, that a large number of laws are consequentially affected when a change is made, or does it mean that a few laws would be affected but in a very significant way? I think it is important, if we want to do this, that we are very clear about the definitions that we apply, because just as other Members of this place are worried about the level of authority to be devolved to Ministers, there would be a significant level of authority to be devolved to a Joint Committee, and if we were not clear about the basis on which it was to exercise our authority, we may run into difficulty.”
“Well, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I think this is probably not the appropriate mechanism, as he says, but it would also duplicate to a large extent what his Committee already does. So I do not think it is an attractive mechanism, as he says. Of course, those who propose this amendment and those who speak for it today may say to me, “Look, it would only be in the case of substantial changes that some, at least, of these additional procedures would apply”, but it seems to me there are two points to make about that. First, it would be the Joint Committee’s assessment of what is a substantial change to the law, not anybody else’s. Secondly, we would, would we not, have to get into what the word “substantial” means in that context.”
“Lady’s point about a Joint Committee, I accept that there are Joint Committees, but the role of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, for example, is very different from the role that Lords amendment 1 sets out for a Joint Committee in this context. If we set up Joint Committees as scrutiny bodies, that is one thing, but if we are devolving authority to a Joint Committee to make judgments about what is and is not a substantial change to UK law, it seems to me that we ought at the very least to understand what substantial means in that context. Again, I am afraid that we can only decide on the basis of the wording we have in front of us, but the wording we have in front of us seems to me to require some greater clarification before anyone ought to support it.”
“I understand the points the hon. Lady is making, and I will take them in reverse order. On the point I made about the difference in the scrutiny that these laws may have on the way out, as it were, compared with the scrutiny they would have on the way in, I accept that two wrongs do not make a right. However, it would be odd, if nothing else, to take the view that we should give the vast bulk of laws—some of which, as I think we have agreed across this Chamber, do not require a huge amount of scrutiny, because they are technical and somewhat inevitable changes as a result of leaving the European Union—a process involving greater scrutiny and greater friction, as I would choose to describe it, than the process that was used to bring them in in the first place. On the hon.”
“It must be right that if we leave the European Union, we also leave European Union law behind us. That should not be in a rush or in a flurry of activity that might cause us to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but inevitably that is what should happen.”
“I return to friction. It seems to me that the friction that is sought to be added to the processes we use is undesirable. That is partly because it is unnecessary—the reassurance that the Government can offer by the new course they seek to take is adequate—and partly because we must see this specific discussion in the context of the broader discussion that has happened about our membership of the European Union. In the interests of full disclosure, I should make it clear to the House that in the 2016 referendum I did not vote to leave the European Union, and I urged my constituents not to do so, either—in some cases, they paid little attention—but I accept, and have accepted consistently since, that the decision was none the less taken that we should leave the European Union, and certain things flow inexorably from that.”
“It helps to offer the necessary reassurance that we will not simply stumble into a position where we lose from our statute book good and valuable things that happen to have their origins in the European Union. Parliament will not be caught by surprise by anything that the Government seek to do in that way. It is important to remember that if the Government seek to make a change to our law, they will have to do so through the normal routines of passing legislation. True, that may be through secondary legislation, but that is still a way in which Parliament scrutinises legislation and has done so for a long time under Governments of multiple colours. There is nothing particularly radical in the Government proposing to take a measure through Delegated Legislation Committees that it seeks to use to make a change in the law.”
“I want to say something about the benefits as I see them of the Government’s new approach and why they will help with some of the legitimate concerns expressed in the debate. The benefit of the Government setting out, as they have in the schedule, the measures they propose will lapse at the end of the year unless further intervention is taken is that that allows all Members of the House to pay attention to that list and reach their own conclusions—early—about whether they think there is anything troubling in it, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone described that he and his colleagues have done. That is a better and more conducive way to good scrutiny than the one previously seen.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and for his reassurance, I do not think that either he or criminal lawyers are in any way inelegant. However, I think there is certainly something to be said for greater and better scrutiny, and we should always in this place be looking for ways to improve the scrutiny we offer. As he knows, my concern about Lords amendment 6 is that I do not think we yet have sufficient clarity about whether it achieves the objectives it sets out to achieve without also causing some fallout in other respects. I do not close my mind to the way in which it seeks to do its work, but I am concerned that we need extra clarity before we could conceivably support it.”
“I fear that the public will spot that if that extra friction is unnecessary—I believe it is—it is a consequence only of seeking to delay the point at which Brexit has meaningful impact. I do not think it is good for our democracy or for the contract we made with the electorate, which is that if we offered them the chance to decide this question, the political classes would honour their judgment—and that is what we must do. From that, it follows—it seems to me, at least—that the Bill is necessary and that amendments that seek subtly to undo its effect are profoundly undesirable and should not be supported.”
“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and support the amendment. It is sensible, because the public have an expectation here, and we should not forget that. They believe that, having had a vote some time ago—in 2016—to leave the European Union, we would do exactly that. For them, that includes European Union law no longer holding sway in this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone talked about the disadvantage of having two sets of law—pre-Brexit and post-Brexit—that the courts must look at separately forevermore, and that disadvantage is considerable. Despite the fact that I did not vote for Brexit, the consequence of it is that we absolutely must have a Bill of this nature, and we must have the measures that flow from it.”
“My right hon. Friend will recall that the Committee on Standards in Public Life, when I was a member of it, recommended that the independent adviser should be able to initiate their own inquiries into breaches of the ministerial code and determine whether there was a breach, leaving sanctions properly for the Prime Minister to determine. That has several advantages. It gives the benefit of a decision being taken at arm’s length from Government and, if I may say so to my right hon. Friend, it also means we will have fewer occasions such as this and he will have to answer fewer such urgent questions. [ Interruption. ]”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that one curiosity of this debate is that earlier this afternoon the Minister referred with approval, as did the shadow Minister, to the ISC’s work in attempting to seek a resolution of the problems we all found with clause 28? Does that not demonstrate that the ISC’s remit matters because, if nothing else, the Government sometimes find it a useful institution to help to resolve this kind of problem?”
“I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and also grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) for setting out so clearly the position of the Intelligence and Security Committee, of which I am also a member. He made many points with which I agree and which I do not need to repeat, but I do want to say something very briefly about Lords amendments 22 and 122 in slightly more detail. Both amendments have something in common, which is that they highlight a significant problem and put forward, perhaps, an imperfect solution to those problems. The Government’s saying that they are imperfect solutions has validity, but it would have more validity if the Government were prepared to come forward with solutions to those problems that were less imperfect, which we could all then support.”
“I hope the Minister will reassure us that he and colleagues in other Departments will be able to work together to achieve that security of supply and those financial and economic benefits. Most importantly, patients who benefit from these medicines should not just receive them by prescription, but be reassured that their future and their supply is secure because we have developed a sustainable domestic industry in the production of medicinal cannabis.”
“However, that took up a good deal of ministerial time, because we were seeking to secure supply from overseas, when we could have so much more easily had that supply domestically. This is not just an economic argument, although I support the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale about the economic benefits. There is a direct healthcare benefit to ensuring that we have a domestic supply of these products. I support the arguments made by my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Strangford. It is sensible to follow through on the logic of the decisions that we have—in my view, rightly—already made. We must therefore support domestic supply and address the bureaucratic obstacles in the way of securing that supply, which my right hon. Friend rightly described.”
“If we were talking to a Business Minister, we could talk more about the direct financial benefits that have been mentioned. However, since a Health Minister is here, we can also talk about the direct benefits of a more secure supply chain to those receiving these medicines. This is not just a theoretical concern. Alfie Dingley and his family had periods of intense worry during the Brexit process. They were concerned about the security of supply of what Alfie needed, which at that point was coming from the Netherlands. The potential disruption of that supply was evident. I put on record my thanks to the Minister’s predecessors, who were able to intervene and ensure some security of supply.”
“We know that medicinal cannabis will be produced somewhere, and of course we must want it to be in order to have those products available for prescription within the NHS and the broader healthcare architecture. Why, then, would we not encourage the production of medicinal cannabis in this country, so that there can be a direct domestic financial benefit from it? It simply makes no sense to create a demand and then refuse to allow our domestic producers to meet it, and instead to import all the products. Doing that is not just a wasted economic opportunity, but has a direct healthcare effect. That is why it is of benefit that my hon. Friend the Minister is answering this debate. If we were talking to a Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we could talk about the benefits that these crops bring in an sense.”
“We have made the decision that medicinal cannabis should be made available to those who need it, and it seems to me that we need to follow through on the logic of that decision. The logic of that decision is not just that, in a medical context, we should make these medicines available to those who need them, but that we should also support their provision domestically. Therefore, the debate that we are having this afternoon, at the instigation of my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, is about ensuring that the logic of our decisions is followed through, and that the UK economy can derive the necessary benefit from those sensible decisions.”
“We have already had a change to the law to allow medicinal cannabis to be prescribed and to deliver benefits to patients who can have it, but all of us who thought that that was a good change to make had rather expected that considerably more progress would have been made by now in ensuring that medicinal cannabis products are made available to patients who can benefit from them. It is a matter of profound sadness and regret, and it should be of concern, that only three NHS prescriptions have so far been made for these types of medicines. That cannot be right. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will recognise that the logic of the legal change made in November 2018 was that we would make these medicines available to those who need them, and we are nowhere near that objective. As I say, we have crossed the Rubicon.”
“Alfie is a young boy whose circumstances are very similar to those of the constituent of the hon. Member for Strangford. He used to have a number of seizures a day of very great severity, and cannabis-based medicine has had a transformational effect on him. As a result, his family campaigned effectively and robustly for the change we have seen, and they deserve huge credit for it. I am delighted that they are here in the Public Gallery today. Alfie’s mother, Hannah Deacon, has been campaigning not just for Alfie’s benefit, but for the benefit of others who can also derive considerable beneficial change from these medicines.”
“It is worth recognising that the debate about whether we should prescribe medicinal cannabis medicines to patients who can benefit from them has been resolved. We have had that discussion and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale mentioned, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) made that necessary change to the law in November 2018 so that such medicines can be prescribed within the law, and medicinal cannabis was rescheduled under the law to ensure that that was a legitimate process. That was, in my view, entirely the right change to make. I argued for it at the time, and I was involved in that process. The credit must more substantially go to the family of my constituent Alfie Dingley.”
“It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) on securing this debate and on the way he opened it. It is of course a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I agree entirely that if this were a debate about the wider use of cannabis, about encouraging its use or, worse yet, about its legalisation for recreational use, neither he nor I would be speaking in favour—we would be speaking strongly against. But that is not the debate we are having today. We are talking about the prescription of medical cannabis by doctors for use by patients such as Sophia, the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. I will come on to my own constituent whose involvement in this process leads me to be here.”
“All of us understand that the Minister does not speak for each of the Government Departments responsible for this area, and I know he will take away from this debate that nobody is arguing that there should not be licensing of this process. There are obvious concerns that need to be met by regulatory intervention. The concern is the fragmentation of the regulatory landscape that applies to those seeking to grow these products. I am sure that the Minister can assist us by helping to better co-ordinate the way in which regulation is applied, as we are not seeking a removal of licensing.”
“The Minister is probably right, but I am sure that when he looks at this again he will also want to look at the NICE guidelines that apply, which are extremely restrictive. The risk to an individual doctor from making a decision to prescribe will be perceived to be much higher if the NICE guidelines appear to deter such a prescription. The Minister is right that there are many elements to this, but one of them is how much we encourage doctors to believe that this is the right thing to do. I go back to the point that I was making: there is some logical dissonance here. We have said already that it is right to reschedule these products as far as the Home Office is concerned. We are starting to see prescriptions in the NHS, but not in the numbers that will benefit the maximum number of patients.”
“My right hon. Friend will recall that my constituents Andy and Lynda Eadon have done tremendous work in raising awareness of the mental health challenges affecting young farmers in particular in rural areas, in memory of their son Len. Can I thank him for agreeing to participate in the Westminster leg of the Len’s Light tractor relay? Mr Speaker, he is perhaps the only Minister you will allow to drive a tractor anywhere near this historic building. Can I urge him to continue to apply pressure to land-based colleges and other educational institutions to make sure that mental health awareness is part of the educational experience of everyone entering agriculture?”
“For example, that person who arrived first as a baby could not, 20 or 30 years later, become a naturalised UK citizen as a result of marriage to a UK national. Such a scenario would, I think, be likely to constitute compelling circumstances and the Secretary of State should have the power to grant citizenship in such cases.”
“I hope the Minister will indulge me and consider that point, too. My amendment 182 would add the ability for the Secretary of State to grant, exceptionally, an application for citizenship where there are “compelling circumstances”. So, what might such “compelling circumstances” be? As I say, the consequences of an entry into the UK under the terms of the Bill are lifelong. The entry in question may take place at any age, which means that someone brought into the UK on a small boat within the terms of the Bill as a baby—something over which, of course, they would have had no say—would be excluded from entering and remaining in the UK, including as a citizen, at any age thereafter, except in the exceptional circumstances as defined in the Bill.”
“In relation to circumstances and applications for some entry clearances, the Government think that it is reasonable, beyond what is necessary to meet their international obligations, to allow some applications in “compelling circumstances” from those who would otherwise be refused. I think that that is very sensible. However, such provision for granting applications in “compelling circumstances” does not exist in relation to applications for citizenship, and it seems to me that that is not sensible. Incidentally, I must confess that I have noticed too late that the “compelling circumstances” exception is also not in the Bill in relation to applications for indefinite leave to remain, and I should really have tabled an amendment to the same effect regarding them at clause 29(3)(5).”
“However, I will perhaps say in passing that the Government may want to reflect on how attitudes to ECHR obligations in different parts of the Bill now fit together. My focus though is on the other ground for allowing, in exceptional cases, the granting of a shorter-term entry clearance to those otherwise excluded from that because they had previously entered the UK under the terms of this Bill. That is when the Secretary of State considers that “there are compelling circumstances which apply in relation to the person which mean that it is appropriate to do so.” That is in proposed new section 8AA of the Immigration Act 1971 introduced through clause 29(3)(3).”
“Despite the Bill’s clear and important deterrence objective, its effect is not as simple as, “break the rules and you’re banned for life”. It recognises, rightly in my view, that exceptions have to be made for exceptional cases. In relation to all the future applications that I have mentioned, the Bill provides for the Secretary of State to be able to grant the application, if it is necessary to do so, to comply with the UK’s obligations under the European convention on human rights, or under other international agreements to which the UK is a party. Given the focus of yesterday’s discussions on removing the ECHR from decision making in other parts of the Bill, I will not dwell on the significance of the ECHR in this part of it.”
“I rise to speak to amendment 182 in my name and the names of other hon. and right hon. Members. It makes a simple point, which I hope the Minister can accept. The Bill focuses on those who arrive in the United Kingdom in the circumstances described in clause 2 of the Bill. Essentially, it is those who arrive in the UK after 7 May this year without leave to do so and who have passed through safe countries on the way. The Bill not only provides for their removal and detention, but imposes lifelong consequences on those who enter in this way, including permanent exclusion from the granting in future of various types of short-term entry into the UK, of indefinite leave to remain and of citizenship—all set out in clauses 29 to 34.”
“Finally, let me say this: if this Bill is to succeed in its objectives, it must have both political and legal credibility. I agree with those who said yesterday that such credibility depends on having clearly available, safe and legal routes for entry to the UK in parallel with the sanctions this Bill imposes on those who do not use them. I look forward to what the Government will bring back on this point on Report, but the Bill’s sanctions will only have credibility if they allow for the fair treatment of exceptional cases. I hope my amendment will improve the Bill in that regard.”
“The right hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point, but I think we have to pass legislation in this place that assumes a degree of competence on the part of all Government Departments, and we must do that with straight faces throughout. In any event, it is important that Secretaries of State, as I know he would recognise, have the powers they need to do the right thing in the right circumstances. That is what I am seeking to provide the Secretary of State with here. Of course it is right to say that such cases would be rare, but I believe the discretion should exist to deal with them when citizenship is applied for, or indeed when indefinite leave to remain is applied for, as it is when shorter-term leave to enter is sought. That is what my amendment will achieve, and I hope the Government will be able to accept the force of it.”
“Is it not the case that the sub-committee of his Committee that he will set up to deal with this material is likely to deal with that sort of classified material on a routine basis? Is there not an advantage in having staff and members of a committee who are used to dealing with this type of material? Through no fault of their own, neither his Committee nor its staff will be used to that.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his statement and recognise that a huge amount of work has gone into it, including with the Government. I thank him for the engagement he has had with my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), the Chairman of the ISC, of which I, too, am a member. I know that my right hon. Friend would be here if he could be. If I may, I will put to the hon. Gentleman what the problem with the arrangement might be. He has said already that arrangements are to be made for the viewing of material that would normally be at a higher classification than members of his Committee would be able to see, but those arrangements as set out in the memorandum are clearly described as “exceptional”.”
“Q9. My constituent, Jamie Scott, spent four weeks in a coma, and remains seriously disabled as a result of a covid vaccination. He and his family continue to believe that mass vaccination is the right policy, but it must surely also be right to ensure that the tiny minority who are seriously injured as a result are properly compensated. In the absence of court cases, it is in no one’s interest to litigate. The current limit on compensation is £120,000, even for very serious and lifelong injury, and anyone who is disabled by less than 60% gets nothing at all. That cannot be right. Will my right hon. Friend look urgently at changing that?”
“Whether China is a threat, a challenge, an opportunity or all of the above, the UK’s response to it will surely be enhanced by better Chinese language skills. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that he is doing what he can with colleagues in Government to improve the UK’s capacity in that regard?”
“My hon. Friend the Minister will recognise that one of the greatest causes of strain and stress in the system is the assessment process. I welcome much that is in this plan, including funding for additional educational psychologists, but they will not be present in the system for some time. More urgently, what can we do to accelerate the assessment process so that children in need can take advantage of all the good things that she has described?”