Mr Toby Perkins
MP for Chesterfield · Labour · United Kingdom
“The hon. Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) is absolutely right to say that what is behind this is the deep unpopularity of President Milei; it is not anything actually that the UK has done.”
“In Chesterfield, there will be unmitigated despair at the statement we have heard today from my right hon. Friend. For the authorities for which she is doing a review—the 14 that thought they had got their decision in July—could she clarify the basis of that review?”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney Valley (Adrian Ramsay) on securing this debate.”
“The report spells out the link between degradation overseas and the impact here. The assessment lays out the consequences: food insecurity, economic insecurity, increased migration and refugees, increased interstate competition, conflict and geopolitical instability, all of which will threaten us here at home.”
“The Government are right to take their time and make sure that they get this right—we saw what happened when the previous Government did not do the work that was needed. This is a delicately balanced decision.”
“Thirdly, will the Minister consider bringing forward the fourth national adaptation programme? NAP3, published by the previous Government in 2023, was deemed ineffective by the Climate Change Committee. NAP4 is not due until 2028, but can we afford to wait two more years before we have an adequate plan?”
The complete record
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“The Minister for the Cabinet Office says that he welcomes this urgent question today, and for once I believe him, because there is nothing he likes more than seeing the remaining shreds of the Prime Minister’s credibility for probity being blown into the wind. We know that he will look forward to an opportunity to finally get his own head down in that lavishly furnished apartment above No. 10 Downing Street, and that when we come to the next Conservative party leadership contest he will once again be persuaded to put his hat in the ring, but is he really saying that the way this Government have operated is acceptable and that this is really the way we should expect a Government to operate?”
“I very much welcome the maiden deployment of the carrier strike group. The Secretary of State is right to say that it was envisaged and laid down under a Labour Government, and set sail under a Conservative Government. Built in shipyards in both England and Scotland, it is an example of why we are stronger in both our security and economic interests when we work closely together across the four nations. He is right to say it is important we work closely with our friends the United States and other countries, but it is also important that we have sovereign capability. Can he confirm whether we currently have the capability for both our aircraft carriers to go to sea at the same time with British support ships and aircraft if we were to choose to do that alone?”
“I would also like the Minister to offer some justification for the ridiculous and damaging decision referred to by the hon. Member for Waveney to claw back adult education funds where providers have provided less than 90% of the contracted amount. For those colleges that do most back-to-work courses or focus particularly on ESOL work, that target is totally unrealistic. It will inevitably fall to colleges to at best cancel pay awards and, in many cases, make redundancies. I really welcome this report and the contribution that the right hon. Member for Harlow and his Committee continue to make to this incredibly important area, but I think that the Government response to the report shows that there is still a long, long way to go before these challenges are properly tackled.”
“That is particularly damaging because those are the areas most likely to be without the major employers that seem to drive so much of this Government’s approach to skills. Many of us live in towns dominated not by three or four employers of thousands of people, but by thousands of employers of three or four people. They have been widely shut out of the Government’s reforms thus far, and there is nothing in the skills White Paper that goes close to addressing those challenges. Turning for a moment to the specific challenges that face the Government now, I remain mystified that the Government have failed to take up the apprenticeship wage subsidy idea put forward by Labour, utilising the money that remains unspent in the apprenticeship levy pot to support funding for the first year of new apprenticeships.”
“Chambers of commerce have some brilliant branches and great people and they are capable of excellent practice, but there is a large gap between where those organisations’ current capacity is and their ability to play the kind of role that the Government appear to envisage. It is telling that 50% of the Government’s adult education budget is devolved to the seven mayoral combined authority areas and London. It is depressing that the Government seem to be doing an about-turn on devolution. The Government’s dismissal of the Committee’s suggestion about devolving the National Careers Service is an example of that. They have no plan for devolution to those areas not in the shadow of a major city, and therefore a very limited plan for addressing the skills approach needed to target town and rural areas.”
“Member for Harlow was right to say that 39% of employers admit to providing no training whatever, so the idea that employers being in the driving seat will resolve all these challenges is, I think, deeply concerning. Of course employers are crucial stakeholders in this approach and absolutely have to be in the room, but there is considerable doubt as to the extent to which they want or are able to drive the vehicle. It is a stunning indictment of the Government’s approach to working with businesses that local enterprise partnerships seem to be entirely missing from the White Paper. The report, in recommendation 11, refers to attempts to bring local enterprise partnerships back in, but the Government response does not even mention that recommendation on local enterprise partnerships. Clearly, they are entirely shut out.”
“The Government outlined their ambitions to do that, but their approach so far has added barriers and complexities, not reduced them, so there is—I will be generous—widespread scepticism about whether the Government will deliver on their ambitions in that regard. I welcome the lifelong learning entitlement proposal, but given that the lifetime skills guarantee has turned out to be far more limited in scope than expected, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) said, the line “We will consult on the detail” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the Government response to that recommendation. The Government have huge confidence that their desire to put employers in the driving seat will address Britain’s skills challenges, but the right hon.”
“Member for Harlow referred to well intentioned reforms, and I am sure that in many areas there were well intentioned reforms, but it is impossible to argue that the specific cuts made to adult education were well intentioned. That was a positive decision that the Government made. The Government can address that or choose not to, but they should not pretend that those funding losses are not real or that they have been in any way addressed since the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) became Prime Minister. I welcome the Committee’s call for funding streams to be consolidated and streamlined.”
“I find very unconvincing the Government’s assurances that many of the issues raised by the Committee are already in hand. For example, we already know that there has been a 50% real-terms reduction in adult education funding under this Government, so the dismissal of the Committee’s suggestion that the spending increase required for adult education should be properly costed is most unconvincing. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) spoke about the value of adult learning, but also about how large the real-terms reduction has been. We cannot get away from the importance of that funding, and we know that adult education has seen catastrophic reductions in funding during the past 11 years. The right hon.”
“It was never about improving their use to their employers; it was about investing in their communities and themselves to widen those opportunities. It is the Government’s failure to understand that principle that leads them to say stupid things like Unionlearn was of no value, because it mainly worked with people who were already in work. Of course! No one suggested that Unionlearn was the only skills approach the Government needed, but a programme with a great success rate of helping workers to learn skills that will help them get promoted or get a pay rise has real value. People do not need to be out of work to be able to gain value from improving their skills. The Committee’s report makes some really sensible suggestions.”
“Further education is not just a service; it is a way of life, a pathway and a staircase. It is transformative, empowering, beautiful, and it changes people’s lives, not just their jobs. That sense of joy and boundless opportunity is entirely missing from the Government’s very narrow approach. Close to where I live, there used to be a college called North Derbyshire Tertiary College. It has long gone now, but it was funded by a penny levy on miners that they paid at the end of their shift on a Friday. Men arriving back at the surface after an exhausting day at the coalface would drop a penny in a tin to help them learn to read and write and to educate their children, so that for the next generation there would be choices other than following their fathers down the pit.”
“Whatever their narrative says, successive policy and funding decisions suggest that the Government see further education very much as something that narrowly loads skills that an employer needs into a recipient who goes from unemployed to an employee. Of course, skilling people for specific jobs and careers is a vital function of the further education sector, but further education is about so much more than that. My hon. Friend spoke powerfully about what further education and adult education is all about. It is about second chances; it is about alternative learning environments, often for those who did not thrive at school; it is about providing a vehicle that helps local communities, employers, learners and learning institutions to work together. I sense that this is a White Paper that lacks soul.”
“Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) did, that lasting transformation is very difficult when you only have one-year budgets, the White Paper represents a considerable missed opportunity. My initial response was that it was predominantly lacking in ambition and scale and so would not take the sector far enough down the path required at a moment of such seismic challenge. Furthermore, there are genuine worries that, far from not going far enough in the right direction, there are elements of the White Paper that are actually boldly marching in the wrong direction. I shall expand upon my views to that in a moment. We have heard really powerful testimony from many hon. Members. I particularly enjoyed what my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) said, that the Government just does not really get further education yet.”
“As Members referred to, we have recently seen the clawback of adult education funding and the further education sector excluded from the Government’s main post-covid jobs programme—the failing kickstart programme. We have seen an obsession with programmes aimed at major employers, often excluding towns and rural communities, whose economies are based much more on small and medium-sized enterprises and sole traders. The programmes the Government have introduced have lacked scale, ambition and urgency. The Minister probably did not help with expectation management regarding the White Paper. She regularly promised in the run-up to its publication that we were going to see transformational reforms that would offer the biggest change to the sector in 60 years. While I recognise, as the hon.”
“We have heard not only about the ways we have stepped backwards as a country in adult education and lifelong learning over the course of recent years, but about the scale of the challenge, which has been brought into particularly sharp focus by the coronavirus crisis. I think the sector has welcomed the rhetoric from the Government and the sense that there is a greater focus on further education and skills, but the sector and, indeed, learners will judge the Government by their actions and funding, not by their words. The sector’s experience over the last 11 years is an important piece of context. It has had a decade of funding cuts. Adult education in particular has been savagely cut.”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Ms Rees. I thank the Committee for an excellent report, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) not just on the report and on securing the debate, but on his wider commitment to this subject. He is a powerful voice speaking up for the sector, and his speech once again reflected that. The report produced by the Committee is excellent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) said, it is a bold report that goes further than the Government’s suggestions, and the Committee has made a number of recommendations that really should be investigated more fully. We have heard a lot about how vital skills are.”
“I have written to Ministers on behalf of businesses in Chesterfield—many other MPs have written too—and have waited months for a reply while a business was on the brink, yet Greensill gets 10 meetings in three months with Treasury officials, and the junior Minister has the audacity to stand there and say that this is a system working well. When David Cameron was the Prime Minister, he said corporate lobbying was “money buying power, power fishing for money and a cosy club at the top making decisions in their own interest.” He could not describe this grubby, shabby Government any better, could he?”
“Apprenticeships must be the gold standard, and the Government should recognise that their failure on apprenticeship incentives and on kickstart means that they need a fresh approach. I urge the Minister to look again at Labour’s apprenticeship wage subsidy proposal. This has been a welcome debate, Ms Rees, and I share the view of the hon. Member for Isle of Wight that the Government need to move with real urgency and at scale if, after all their hard work, our educators are not to be left facing an uphill challenge in giving English youngsters the opportunity to compete in the global race with the very best in the world.”
“Specifically, the Government must acknowledge that there is a race attainment gap, which goes wider than class disparities, and set specific targets and positive steps to address the number of black, Asian and minority ethnic students who go from outperforming white students at level 2 to getting worse university and work offers and outcomes at level 3 and beyond. We also identify many systematic failings with the Government’s approach to skills. Many of these have been caused by the missteps of the last 10 years, but we are anxious that the skills White Paper will continue to envisage an approach to education and skills that is far too corporate, and continues to leave thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises and young people on the sidelines.”
“Labour also recognises the need for an evidence-based response to these challenges post covid and recently launched the Bright Future taskforce, with a dazzling array of contributors who have agreed to take part. I think they will provide an excellent piece of work to address this area. The taskforce aims to identify the causes of the academic attainment gap, as it pertains to poverty, economic disadvantage, race, and many other areas. It will identify measures that a future Labour Government could take to address those causes.”
“Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden was excoriating in her analysis of the Government’s education record over the covid crisis. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) focused on the challenges facing our outdoor education centres, and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about the number of children falling behind, the pressure throughout the education system and the need to recognise that in the response post covid. The Labour Party recognises that a decade of underinvestment in our educational system in general—and, as the shadow skills Minister, I would say in further education and skills in particular—has left our nation less well prepared for the challenges of the next decade. Covid has simply exposed many of those challenges more graphically.”
“I would like to touch on the contributions of many hon. Friends and Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) spoke passionately about the forgotten children with special educational needs and posed a challenge that we look forward to the Minister responding to. The hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) was right about the pressures on our further education system and the need for a more holistic approach that recognises the need for FE and HE to work together. The hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) described this as a watershed moment for education and spoke of the need, which a lot of us feel, for a Government response that matches the scale of the moment. My hon.”
“On the coherence of the current system, I could not agree more on schools, further education, the closing of Sure Start, the huge growth in different apprenticeship standards, and the extent to which so many academies leave parents feeling they have no voice. We feel strongly that this Government have removed the sense of a systematic approach to education. I go further than the hon. Member for Isle of Wight and say that, while there are good providers in all areas of our educational system, there has to be a more systematic approach that empowers learners and their parents, supports educators, and involves employers and local decision makers. I am afraid to say that the skills White Paper offers little hope that the Government’s approach is likely to become much more systematic in the future.”
“Notwithstanding the number of schools that have struggled to access devices and the number of colleges that have been completely left out, on technology, I echo the endorsement that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight made of the fine work done by many schools and colleges to address the academic vacuum that existed in the first lockdown and ensure that things were much improved in subsequent ones. I agree that, at a time when we need young people to leave our educational establishments totally tech savvy, this crisis has opened opportunities that must not simply be set aside in a return to business as usual, post covid.”
“Member for Isle of Wight understandably spent some time on the specifics of the education challenges on the Island. He also identified three national areas for consideration—term and holiday periods, the use of technology, and the coherence of the DFE’s wider approach to education. On term times, he raised some interesting issues. There are many challenges that come with the kind of approaches that he outlined, but I agree that it is useful to discuss them. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) spoke passionately about the remote support scheme and the digital divide. She said that each click had increased the attainment gap.”
“That is very kind; I appreciate it. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees—even more, now I know that you are feeling benevolent. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on securing the debate, and thank him for sight of his speech in advance. I was expecting to have to express my admiration for his optimism that we might, in one hour, address the many areas of improvement required in our educational system. However, as he made clear, he did not propose to have all the answers in his speech or even to address all the questions. He very sensibly identified some of the issues that a royal commission might look at, and he made some practical suggestions for consideration. This debate is timely, and the need for substantial action is acute, as we heard from many contributors. The hon.”
“The Minister has announced many different pots of money. One of the things that really concerns us is that he will allocate money, but these chunks of money will not end up getting spent because the mechanisms, or systems, to get them utilised will end up with those funds not being used. What assurances can he give us that the amounts he is announcing will actually be spent on the things he is announcing they will be spent on?”
“My hon. Friend is making a characteristically excellent speech. What he says about the timing of the referendum is something that polling is clear about. While the polling has moved up and down on the subject of whether there should be independence, it is absolutely clear that even the majority of those who are in favour of independence do not think that we should have a referendum right now. What are those people supposed to do when they go to vote in May? If they vote for the Scottish National party, they will be seen as having endorsed a referendum that they themselves do not think should happen right now.”
“We have heard criticism of the SNP for picking this subject for this debate, but at least this matter is the responsibility of the UK Parliament. Many of the issues that my hon. Friend is raising are the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament, and so would be sensible things for the SNP to be spending the Scottish parliamentary elections debating.”
“Opinion polls go up and down—we all know that in all walks of life—but one thing has been consistent: even people who want independence for Scotland do not think now is the time for it to happen. Those polls are really consistent.”
“The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said that we could have one every seven years or so, but it is clear that she wants to keep having the debate time and again in the hope that one time, on one day, they might just get over the line by 0.1%, and then there are no more referendums—then it will be over and the decision has been made. The referendum in 2014 was pretty decisive, with 55% to 45% in favour of remaining in the Union. We should remember that more people in Scotland voted to stay in the United Kingdom than voted to stay a part of the European Union. We keep hearing from the SNP that Scotland is being dragged out of the European Union against its will, but more Scottish people voted to remain a part of the UK than voted to remain a part of the European Union.”
“I am not a mongrel. I am one of the few people speaking in the debate who do not have any Scottish blood, but I very much enjoyed the time that I spent campaigning in Scotland during the independence referendum in 2014. I went up to Scotland at a time when there were other elections in the UK because it was crucial for me to say to people that we in England desperately want Scotland to stay with the United Kingdom and be a part of our Union. While we made the argument that we thought it was in Scotland’s best interests to stay a part of that Union, we also felt passionately that the UK would be much weaker without Scotland. It would be heartbreaking if Scotland were to leave, but I accept that it is a choice for the Scottish people. What is really important is the question of when that referendum should happen. We had the debate in 2014.”
“What about someone who thinks that the SNP is doing a good job and wants to carry on electing an SNP Government to run the Scottish Parliament but does not want independence? How should they vote, given that they know that, if they vote for the SNP because they want Nicola Sturgeon to continue being First Minister, that will be taken as a vote for independence? I am not getting any interventions on this. I am asking: how should these people vote?”
“It is a matter for the UK Government. It would be one thing for the SNP to go into a general election campaign saying, “A vote for us is about independence,” but it is not the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament, so it is very odd for the SNP to ask people to re-elect it on that basis. The question I ask SNP Members is, how should someone vote this May if they want independence but think we should have a referendum in a few years’ time, rather than now? Should they vote for the SNP, knowing that the SNP will claim that that is a vote in favour of a referendum? We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) about many of the failings of the SNP Administration in Edinburgh.”
“I hope that the Scottish people will look at the Labour party anew under the leadership of Anas Sarwar, who has started absolutely fantastically. I really hope that they will consider very carefully what they have just heard—that is, if they do not want an independence referendum right now, they should not vote SNP, because their vote will be taken as support for that.”
“I have businesses in my constituency that have just discovered how difficult it now is to sell into the European Union as a result of Brexit. That is exactly what will happen to businesses attempting to trade either side of the Scottish border in the event that Scotland goes independent. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South listed a variety of questions about independence that we never have a debate on and that remain unanswered. I was totally against Brexit, the things that we warned about in that respect are in many ways coming true, and there is no question but that it makes Scottish independence far more economically reckless than it would have been back in 2014. The idea that we would impose that on either English or Scottish businesses is a terrible mistake. I really look forward to the elections in May.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Member for that point; it is a really important one. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) was saying earlier, “If they vote SNP, they know what they are voting for: they’re voting for an independence referendum”, but the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson) is saying, “No, if they want an SNP Government, they should vote for us and the referendum is a question on another day.” The mandate that the hon. Member for Edinburgh East was claiming at the start is not actually a legitimate one because it will actually lead to exactly what has just been said. I am grateful for that clarification. In the event that Scotland leaves the United Kingdom, there will be a huge economic hit to Scotland. There will also be a huge hit to England.”
“The cat is out of the bag. I am amazed that the Minister is being quite as brazen as he is. A moment ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) asked the Minister how we will know whether levelling up has been a success. The Minister’s response—I am paraphrasing—was, “Well, we’ll see if the Conservative Government get re-elected.” It is absolutely shameless. There is no attempt to pretend that this is a genuine process that has been properly worked through. It is purely about getting re-elected. We in Chesterfield were recently successful in the town deals fund and I know how important it is for councils to put in quality bids for support. Can the Minister assure us that anyone who wants to make a bid will get support from consultants to ensure that they can get a bid in front of the Minister?”
“I support entirely the need to make sure that sentences fit the crime, but is not the reality that courts have huge backlogs and are reluctant to jail people who should be in jail, because they know that our prisons are overcrowded? Does not this Government’s failure on courts and prisons massively undermine what the right hon. Lady says about sentencing?”
“I wonder whether the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson) has actually hit on something that might be helpful to the House. There are many aspects of the Bill that we all agree on. If only the really divisive aspects that the Home Secretary has put in were removed, could not the whole House get behind supporting our police, rather than going through the mess that we have in front of us today?”
“I was extremely proud that my county, Derbyshire, where less than 5% of residents are BAME, was the first area to elect a BAME police and crime commissioner. Five years on, we are even prouder. Hardyal promised he would set up a programme in every village and town in the county. Not only has he done that, but he has met residents right across our county, while fiercely fighting the corner of our dedicated police both in Government and in the media. He has never forgotten who he is there to represent, and if the police get it wrong, as they did when Derbyshire police published pictures of dog walkers in the Peak or fined people walking five miles from home, he has been quick to be the voice of the people, not hidden away from a difficult situation. I hope he gets people’s support on 6 May.”
“We can easily see why this division is a political strategy of Conservative Members. Listening to speeches like that of the hon. Gentleman, it is very clear that they want to introduce elements that we will all agree with, and then introduce one or two elements that we cannot possibly agree with in order to say that we are preventing the good parts of this Bill. It is absolute cheap politics, and it is the politics of division. This is a Government who have frozen police pay, cut police numbers, and let criminals off the hook due to backlogs in the courts and overcrowding in our prisons. There can be no doubt but that they are no friends of the police. Before I finish, I want to take a moment on someone who is a friend of the police—the police and crime commissioner for Derbyshire, Hardyal Dhindsa.”
“It is a testament to the Home Secretary’s insatiable desire for conflict that a Bill that contains so many measures campaigned for and fought for by Labour MPs should still be impossible to support. What a missed opportunity this Bill is. There is nothing that will make a significant difference on the issue of violence against women and nothing on victim support, despite what we have just heard from the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) about the Tories being a party that supports victims. Indeed, it considers protecting statues a greater priority than protecting rape victims. The events of this weekend have brought into sharp relief where a civilised society must allow protest and support our police to keep our streets safe from criminals, not instruct them to arrest peaceful and grieving women.”
“We will try to get back to some sense of reality after the nonsense we have just heard. This is a really important and wide-ranging Bill, and there are many aspects that I and my colleagues welcome. I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for their success in securing the “protect the protectors” aspects of this Bill; my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) for securing reform of the Disclosure and Barring Service; and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) for her work that has led to the dangerous driving reforms. All those things and more deserve support.”
“It is no wonder that the Government are painting such a gloomy economic picture.”
“The Secretary of State for Education keeps looking at Germany and saying that we will have a skills environment that could match Germany’s, but in Germany not only is there an engrained industrial strategy that all of the Government work collectively on, but individual Government Departments work collectively. Here, we have a skills approach that pays no attention to the economy or the industrial approach that the Treasury is taking and a confused picture for employers as to what is expected from them. We have a kickstart scheme that only 2,000 people have got jobs from, when we were promised 100,000. We have had a refusal to adopt the apprentice wage subsidy that the Labour party called for, which would have made a massive difference. We have an apprenticeship levy that is sending £330 million back every year.”
“Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), a few moments ago—maybe accidentally —hit upon the point. She said that our economy would take many years possibly to recover to its previous position. Then she highlighted and welcomed a series of measures that were just a few months long. What we needed from the Budget was a long-term plan—a sense that the country had a plan for how we were going to make our economy work in future. The right hon. Members for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) and for Maidenhead (Mrs May) spoke powerfully about the apparent end of the industrial strategy, because more than ever before, what we needed from the Budget was a long-term plan.”
“It would be impossible not to recognise that the Chancellor, as he sat down to consider what was in his Budget, would have had the start of some very grey hairs in that carefully coiffured mop of his. It would be understood that the reason he was nervous doing that Budget was that he knew not only that he had presided over the worst recession in any major country, but that it had coincided with the period when we had registered the worst death rate of any major nation. He also knew that he was the Chancellor of a party that, after a previous global incident—the global banking crisis of 2008—blamed the Government for not cutting at a time of economic crisis, which everyone recognised to be entirely economically illiterate. So he was going to have to ignore the advice that his own party had been providing. The hon.”
“Those listening to the Secretary of State’s answers in this session so far will fear previous failures being repeated. He talks about a targeted approach, but in the next breath says it is up to teachers to decide where those budgets are targeted. Once again, we have got the Secretary of State showing a complete lack of leadership, which leads to funds being unspent and his initiatives failing. We have seen it on exams, we have seen it on testing, we have seen it on school returns, we have seen it on university student wellbeing, and we have seen it on BTECs. We need a Secretary of State capable of providing the clarity, the leadership and the ambition required to support a generation of schoolchildren. If he cannot, will he please step aside and let us get a Secretary of State who can?”
“Can the Secretary of State say a little about the role of welfare policy and whether, by looking at issues such as the bedroom tax and the levels of rent being paid, we can take steps to ensure that this welcome progress is not lost when the eviction ban is ended?”