Wes Streeting
MP for Ilford North · Labour · United Kingdom
“We hope for the best and plan for the worst in terms of the continuation of this war, but we are also actively working to prepare for conditions in which a ceasefire has been agreed by Ukraine, with Ukraine and, from our perspective, for Ukraine.”
“The threats we face are not only evolving; they are getting closer to home. Every day, the UK and our allies encounter espionage, cyber-attacks and military posturing by hostile states.”
“One discipline I have to bring to the Ministry of Defence, drawing on my experience at the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS, is to ensure there is no culture of routine overspending, that we are improving productivity, that we deliver value for money and that we recognise that the money we are investing in defence comes wi…”
“With permission, I will make my first statement to the House as Secretary of State for Defence on Ukraine, the ongoing threat from Russia and the Government’s approach. It is not yet clear whether freedom or tyranny will define the 21st century. What is clear is that the United Kingdom will not be a bystander in that struggle.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that very serious and important issue. She will understand that, as a matter of policy, I will not comment on intelligence, but I will address the reports she has raised.”
“We know that this Prime Minister and this Chancellor are both fully committed to funding our nation’s defence, including meeting our NATO commitment of 3.5% by 2035 and setting out an earlier 3% commitment at the next spending review.”
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“Covid-19 is still with us and, with new variants presenting significant challenges to our lives, livelihoods and liberties, the goal must be to ensure we can live with the virus through effective vaccines, treatments and common-sense public health measures. In that spirit, I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcements and join him in his call for everyone who is eligible to come forward to get the booster jab, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition did just this morning. Vaccination remains the greatest tool we have in our fight against the pandemic. For the Government to achieve their overall target, they need to reach 500,000 booster vaccines a day. Labour called on the Government to set that target; I believe they have, and we support it.”
“I thank the Secretary of State both for his kind, warm words of welcome and for advance sight of his statement. I am looking forward to our exchanges. Last week I paid tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), and I do so again today. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), who did a magnificent job in the shadow Health team. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South took a constructive approach to the Government’s response to the pandemic, and I intend to continue in the same vein.”
“That Government had a serious plan to reduce waiting lists with 45,000 more doctors, 89,000 more nurses and the biggest hospital-building programme in our country’s history. The programme of investment, reform and clear targets delivered a decrease in waiting times from 18 months to 18 weeks. Although bricks and mortar and technology are important, and we do not sniff at the investment the Minister has outlined, the central challenge of the NHS winter crisis is a shortage of professional staff. A credible plan to tackle the NHS winter crisis, which was foreseeable and foreseen, would have been published long before 3 December. Without a serious strategy to build the health and social care workforce that we need, this plan is not a plan at all.”
“This week, the National Audit Office detailed starkly that things are set to get even worse, with waiting lists set to double in three years. Ministers cannot possibly believe that what we have been given today is a credible plan to meet those enormous challenges. If it were a genuine plan to prepare for the winter, why has it arrived on 3 December? A serious plan to bring down waiting lists would have the workforce at its heart, and would have clear targets and deadlines. A serious plan would recognise that, unless we focus on prevention, early intervention and fixing the social care crisis, Ministers have no chance of bringing waiting lists down to the record low levels we saw under the last Labour Government.”
“Almost one in 10 people in England waits months or even years, often in serious pain and discomfort, because the Government have failed to get a grip on the crisis. Everyone understands that we are in the midst of a global pandemic that has placed the NHS under unprecedented pressure, but that does not excuse or explain why we went into the pandemic with NHS waiting lists at record levels and with unprecedented staff shortages. Ministers want people to believe that the winter crisis is simply the result of the challenges of covid, but in reality, the entire health and social care system has been left dangerously exposed by their choices throughout the last 11 years. Before the pandemic, there were waiting lists of 4.5 million, staff shortages of 100,000 and social care vacancies of 112,000.”
“I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I pay enormous tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), who did a tremendous job as Labour’s longest-serving shadow Health and Social Care Secretary and worked constructively with the Government in response to the pandemic’s challenges. I intend to do the same. In that spirit, I welcome this week’s announcements on the vaccine and booster roll-outs. I know from my own experience this year of kidney cancer and covid that some of the best people in our country work in health and social care. They are at the heart of my response. NHS waiting lists stand at almost 6 million.”
“Like so many other aspects of the Government’s coronavirus response, the Department for Education’s handling of exams has been a total disaster. Schools are currently grappling with a whole series of challenges that could have been easily avoided if only the Department had planned ahead. Can we finally have the triumph of hope over experience, and the Government learn their lessons from last year’s disaster and the unfolding disaster this year and publish plans for next year so that those exams are not a disaster, too?”
“Can he be absolutely clear, straightforward and honest about that?”
“We all know that the delay in locking down the country in lockdown one, lockdown two and lockdown three led to a higher toll in both lives and livelihoods. What I do not think anyone expected was to read on the front page of the Daily Mail today that the Prime Minister had said: “Let the bodies pile high in their thousands.” The claim has been subsequently verified independently by other journalists. The Minister takes statements that he makes at the Dispatch Box more seriously than the Prime Minister does, so may I ask him again to be absolutely categorical that he has never heard the Prime Minister say those words, that the Prime Minister did not say those words, and that, prior to arriving in the House this afternoon, he received assurances from the Prime Minister that he did not use those words?”
“So I ask the Minister why it was that, in correspondence between Greensill and a senior Treasury official, they put in words: “Whilst not using this precise phrasing, we have crafted a formulation both in substance and form which provides an even stronger political position.” Why is a private company advising Treasury officials about political positioning; and does not this show that, despite his protestations, it is ludicrous that the Business Minister is here, not the Chancellor? If the Chancellor had nothing to fear, he would have nothing to hide and he would be here to answer the questions.”
“The simple fact is that, again and again, Members from all parts of the House pleaded with the Chancellor to meet us to hear the plight of millions of people who were excluded from any Government support, and the Chancellor would never find the time for such a meeting; but a few texts from dodgy Dave, and Greensill has got 10 meetings and a ream of correspondence with senior Treasury officials—the type of access that most businesses in this country could only dream of.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a comparison between the Treasury’s response to the covid crisis and the Treasury’s response to the last financial crisis. I wonder, therefore, whether we ought to be blaming the enormous deficit and debt now on Conservative profligacy or whether we will finally accept that, in 2007-08, as now, the Treasury did exactly the right thing to prevent the economic situation being even worse than it would otherwise have been.”
“Just as we begin our proceedings every day by sending our prayers to Her Majesty the Queen, this evening of all evenings the prayers of myself and my constituents are with her and the royal family as they grieve not just their loss but a loss for our entire country.”
“I implore the Government to commemorate the life and cement the legacy of His Royal Highness through a commitment on the part of the nation and the Government to support an expansion of youth work and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme, to ensure that extracurricular activities are enjoyed by all young people, especially at the end of this terrible pandemic. In conclusion, I want to say on behalf of all my constituents and all the people of the London Borough of Redbridge that the late Duke of Edinburgh was the epitome of duty and service. It was no surprise to me to see another great British institution—a convoy of licensed black taxis—lining the Mall to pay tribute to him, and we remember fondly his last visit to Ilford.”
“This weekend we heard one of those beneficiaries, a man named Jon, talking about how the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, in his words, saved his life. He had found himself in prison, was given the opportunity to participate in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, developed a skill in cooking and set up his own catering business. He was really proud, just as the Duke of Edinburgh was proud of him, even if, with his characteristic wit, the Duke asked him, when he was doing his Duke of Edinburgh gold award and they were let out on release, “Were you all attached by a ball and chain?” None the less, the Duke of Edinburgh’s pride in both Jon and the entire scheme is clear for all to see. Other Members have talked about how they would like the Government to take up that legacy.”
“I want to focus my remarks this evening on the late Duke of Edinburgh’s contribution to young people, which is a shared interest. Indeed, during this debate I have learned that we had a second shared interest: making my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) the butt of our jokes. Other Members have spoken powerfully and eloquently about the Duke of Edinburgh’s military service. Indeed, I was reminded by my father at the weekend that my late grandfather was in the Duke of Edinburgh’s convoy during the second world war. We have heard about his enormous commitment to the environment and conservation, and his endless dedication to such a wide range of good causes, but in my eyes it is the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme that is one of his greatest legacies, benefiting 6.7 million people since it began, across 130 countries.”
“She then turned to the Duke of Edinburgh and said, “Oh, how wonderful to meet you, Mr Churchill!” He went on to describe being present in Tokyo for Japan’s surrender at the end of the second world war and the slight awkwardness of his state visit with Her Majesty to Japan many years later. As he went round many official functions, he was asked time and again, “Your first time in Japan?” to which the Duke of Edinburgh replied, “Yes, indeed.” As he said himself, “I’m not always as tactless as people make out”. Perhaps the late Duke of Edinburgh was not always as tactless as is sometimes said, and perhaps Members of this House are not always a complete bloody waste of time—although I think our constituents have particular views on that.”
“If His Royal Highness the late Duke of Edinburgh did not think much of MPs, perhaps I can try to redeem us in his eyes, and also perhaps redeem the Duke, after the Prime Minister’s earlier reference to what the Duke himself described as his own “foot in mouth” syndrome. I do not know how many other Members saw it over the weekend, but there was a wonderful video from a speech that the late Duke of Edinburgh gave in 1990 to the National Press Club in Washington. He described how one member of the line-up in 1952 congratulated Her Majesty the Queen on the re-election of her father to the office of Prime Minister, before being corrected and told that that was Mr Churchill.”
“It is a privilege to be called to speak in this moving and at times light-hearted debate. I will pick up particularly on the light-hearted theme. As I have listened to the speeches from across the House this afternoon, I have wondered what the late Duke of Edinburgh would have made of this afternoon’s event, given his view of MPs, which, rather giving the game away, was cited by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn): “most of them are a complete bloody waste of time.” Indeed, I found time during one or two of the perhaps more repetitive speeches to read the sketch of the earlier part of this afternoon’s proceedings by Tom Peck in The Independent , which I highly commend.”
“That is why I appeal directly to the Minister in the hope that we can have a more constructive discussion between central Government and the Mayor of London, so that we can avoid some of the challenges that colleagues, particularly those from Kent, have raised this afternoon, but also make sure that we are building a stronger, fairer United Kingdom in the aftermath of the pandemic—driven by London, but with London not being the sole beneficiary.”
“We have to view some of the challenges in that national context, recognising that it is not always easy when we have a Mayor from one party and a Government of a different party, but if we are going to genuinely build back better, and build back a fairer, more prosperous country in the aftermath of this pandemic, the national success will be heavily reliant on the success of London and the south-east.”
“Of course we want to see prosperity shared, of course we want to see opportunity enjoyed right across the country, and of course we need to make sure that communities across the rest of the south, the midlands, the north and, indeed, Scotland and Wales also receive their fair share of support and investment and are equipped to grow their economies in order to make a greater net contribution to UK plc overall. If levelling up for others means levelling down for London and the south-east, however, that would be an extraordinary act of self-harm to the UK’s economy on the part of the UK Government. It would be a terrible mistake.”
“Members have heard this in debates in the Chamber and Westminster Hall—is that there is an increasing anti-London and the south-east sentiment. Often it is characterised as an anti-London sentiment, but I think Members from across the south-east would recognise this too. If we are going to level up in this country, and I absolutely believe that we must and should, that means levelling up, not doing down, the beating heart of the UK economy, which is London and the south-east. If our economy is going to bounce back, it relies on the economic strength of London and the south-east.”
“Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) mentioned, London is one of the only major cities in the world that does not have any kind of direct operating grant from central Government. We recognise that the Government have provided some funding and support to TfL during the pandemic, but we should all recognise that there are significant strings attached. It was a genuine mistake by the previous Mayor of London to negotiate away TfL’s direct operating grant. That left £700 million out of TfL’s finances—a 40% reduction in external funding. That decision ought to be revisited, if nothing else but for the period in the years immediately after the pandemic, because it is clearly going to take TfL’s finances some time to recover. The final point I want to make by way of appeal—I am sure hon.”
“That cuts both ways: there are plenty of places where there are Conservatives in government, or the SNP north of the border, and where they make decisions all the time that we do not necessarily agree with, but I would absolutely defend the right of people in local government or devolved Governments to make decisions on behalf of their communities. In my remaining minute or so, I want to make a broader appeal, which is a hard thing to achieve when there are elections looming. As MPs across London and the south-east, we need to have a better-quality conversation about what we do about the finances of Transport for London and the relationship between London and the south-east and the rest of the country. As my hon.”
“Goodness knows, from the Opposition Benches we are having to learn that lesson the hard way nationally. I am afraid that really is the case: if politicians want to run London, they should win elections by putting forward better candidates and making better arguments. I am afraid that appeals to the Minister that if London Conservatives or neighbouring Conservatives do not get their way, the Government should intervene and stop the decision of the Mayor of London, are not the way to go. Again, we cannot devolve power.”
“So let us not pretend that the financial challenges facing TfL are not mostly as a direct result of the pandemic, where we saw costs to TfL of up to £600 million a month during the height of the pandemic, fare income falling by 90%, and we will see ongoing long-tail challenges as a result of the pandemic. That is really what is going on here. The ludicrous charge that somehow this is because of decisions taken by the current Mayor, and that is why TfL is facing financial difficulty, is just nonsensical. We heard from the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) the bizarre idea that decision making is rigged. It should not have to be explained to politicians: if they do not like the fact that we have a Labour Mayor and a Labour-dominated Assembly, they should be better and win elections.”
“Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) decided to flog another dead horse, which was this ridiculous claim that somehow the reason TfL’s finances are in trouble is because of the Mayor’s administration of the finances. In fact, in his first term as Mayor up to 2020, Sadiq Khan reduced the operating deficit of TfL by 71% and increased cash reserves by 13%, while at the same time introducing the popular hopper fare and managing to freeze fares run by TfL. Contrast that with his predecessor, our current Prime Minister, who raised fares by 42%, yet handed over a TfL loss of £1.5 billion a year.”
“I noticed the other London Conservative colleagues did not mention him, presumably because they got the memo that the Conservative party has dropped funding and is not really supporting the dead horse in the two-horse race. The hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) launched quite a partisan attack on the Mayor of London, asking what he had achieved. I will not try your patience, Chair, by listing all of his achievements, but they include reducing air pollution by a third, starting to build more council homes than any Administration since 1983, putting 1,000 more police officers on the streets to replace those cut by the Conservative Government, and actually investing more in fighting crime than any other Mayor. The hon.”
“Hopefully, if the proposal were to go ahead, it would take into account some of the specific challenges they mention regarding smaller communities, access to which relies on crossing borders between London and neighbouring counties, and the issue of key workers, for whom there would surely have to be some subsidy. I am afraid that London Conservative colleagues rather gave the game away with their contributions that struck a far more party political tone. Hats off, though, to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), who managed to remember the name of the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London.”
“It is a pleasure for me to serve under your chairship for the first time, Ms Rees, and I am grateful to the Chairman of Ways and Means for enabling my participation in this important debate this afternoon. I thought the hon. Members for Dartford (Gareth Johnson), for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) and for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) struck the right tone in opening the debate. They engaged constructively, if critically in their case, with the proposals put forward by the Mayor, raising a range of concerns that ought to be taken into account. Indeed, were this measure to be put forward by the Mayor as a formal proposal, it would be subject to extensive consultation, no doubt taking years, rather than weeks and months.”
“I ask the Minister: what is going to change, beyond the resolution, the lived experience of people in Sri Lanka, and the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and around the world, who are seeking accountability and justice for historical crimes? As we have heard, it is not just the international community—I agree with the arguments made about the importance of CHOGM and the G7—that can take action; we can take bilateral action to apply Magnitsky sanctions against the rogues and criminals who perpetrated human rights abuses. At this point, after many years of campaigning for justice, my Tamil constituents are looking not just for warm words but for action and leadership, which has been missing from the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister.”
“Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) was far too generous in his assessment—gains in recent years; and the risk of the return to policies and practice that gave rise to the grave violations of the past. Indeed, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden, not only do we have a Government who have withdrawn from the commitments that Sri Lanka made to the international community, but we have back in power the same cast of characters who were responsible for perpetrating human rights abuses during the civil war, and resistance to any sense that they should be accountable for their historical actions and for ongoing human rights violations.”
“Those included a commitment for international involvement in the investigation and prosecution of allegations of historical war crimes, and a commitment—made before the eyes of the entire international community—to put a stop to ongoing human rights violations. But what do we see from the report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as from a wide range of independent international NGOs? We see a picture, described by the UN, of the last 12 months fundamentally changing the environment for advancing reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka: the erosion of democratic checks and balances in the civic space; threats to reverse the limited—I emphasise that word as I thought the hon.”
“I am afraid that it is with a sense of déjà vu that I participate in this afternoon’s debate, because we have been here so many times before, discussing exactly the same issues—the appalling atrocities committed during the civil war; both the literal scars and the emotional scars that survivors of that conflict continue to feel to this very day; the disappearance of families, still unresolved; and the responsibility that rests on the Government of Sri Lanka to promote truth, justice and reconciliation for all the peoples of Sri Lanka. It had felt that we had begun to make progress. We had seen, through successive UN Human Rights Council resolutions, not just focus from the international community but the Government of Sri Lanka signing up to commitments before the international community.”
“I, too, draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Like the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), this time last year, just as the seriousness of the pandemic had become clear in our country and days before formal lockdown was introduced, I was in Geneva, lobbying delegations and missions to the UN Human Rights Council about the need for firm action at UN level as a result of both the failure of the Government of Sri Lanka to honour the existing commitments that had been made and, as we have heard about during the debate, the ongoing human rights abuses in that country. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) set out perfectly well both the historical context and the ongoing challenges in the country.”
“The alternative is that their record will be on the front cover: 182,000 children left in poverty, even in households where one person is in work; a quarter of all households in fuel poverty, and that was before the pandemic; the NHS 12-week waiting time guarantee not met since 2012 and breached 360,000 times; the four-hour waiting time target not met since 2017 until the pandemic hit; 18-week mental health waiting times; and an employment rate that is actually lower than the United Kingdom rate. That is a record that we would see in the UK Government, too.”
“Why now would we plunge not just Scotland but the entire United Kingdom into a constitutional row consuming all the focus and all the resources when the focus must be on rebuilding our country? Why now, in the midst of extracting ourselves from one sophisticated political and economic alliance, which we have already seen has caused real challenges and broken promises, would we seek to repeat the same exercise against the very future of our own country? Then, of course, I look at the record of the Scottish Government, and it becomes perfectly clear why independence will be on page 1 of their manifesto.”
“It is a privilege to speak in this important debate. It is a debate that people in England and right across the UK need to start paying greater attention to, because while I fully respect that the future of Scotland is one to be determined by the Scottish people—indeed, the Labour party’s position on Scottish independence and the Union is one that is determined and led by the Scottish Labour party—the decision that is taken by the people of Scotland will have ramifications right across the rest of the Union. The argument I want to make on the part of the Union is both pragmatic and principled. The pragmatic argument is, “Why now?” Why now, in the midst of a global pandemic of a type we have not seen during most of our lifetimes and when the challenge is not simply to roll out the vaccine but to build the recovery?”
“Indeed—and that brings me to education, which is my hon. Friend’s passion, and mine. The number of teachers in Scotland is down by 1,700 since 2007; the promise to cap class sizes is broken; spending per pupil is down; and on the Scottish Government’s central challenge—to close the attainment gap—they are failing. Indeed, the First Minister herself said: “Let me be clear—I want to be judged on this. If you are not, as First Minister, prepared to put your neck on the line on the education of our young people then what are you prepared to. It really matters.” It is time for the First Minister to account for the record of educational failure in Scotland, because on class sizes, standards and the attainment gap, the record in Scotland is as abysmal as that of the Tories in the United Kingdom.”
“We need to refocus on the priorities that matter. Whether a voter has been sceptical about Labour in Scotland or about Labour across the United Kingdom, we ask them to give our leadership in London and in Edinburgh a second look and to get behind the Labour party. Having listened to this debate, I think that at this point Labour is the only party that can keep the Union together and rebuild a stronger, fairer United Kingdom for the future.”
“We have seen where that got us with Brexit, and with the Brexit decision we have seen that the grass is not always greener on the other side. We have already been pulled out of the largest single market in the world and are now seeing the consequences; why on earth would Scotland leave the most successful market in the world? In London and Edinburgh we see Governments who have been in power for far too long, with the resultant complacency, arrogance and record of failure. The choice that faces the Scottish people in May is not “Alien vs. Predator”—the Union offered by the Conservatives or the SNP’s Scottish independence; there is an alternative that is led by the fantastic leader of the Scottish Labour party, Anas Sarwar, with a national recovery plan that has the potential to unite Scotland and unite our country.”
“That brings me to the real risk of giving the SNP a majority: it is a question of not just independence but ethics and propriety at the heart of the Scottish Government. Much as I have tried to follow the Salmond/Sturgeon melodrama and the serious issues that lie at the heart of that case, it has been depressing to say the least to see factions and vested interests taking charge of ethical standards and ethics at the heart of Government. I do not care for one side of the SNP or the other—it is like watching a football match and wanting to both sides to lose—but the fact is, we have seen the SNP put its own divisions ahead of the interests of its own country. To put party before country is the central dereliction of any Government.”
“I would like the Lord Chancellor to stand up and explain in his summation how it was that a deputy children’s care manager in my borough could be involved in trafficking children to sell crack cocaine and heroin in Devon and Cornwall, and receive the paltry sentence of four years—four years—for trafficking children across the country. What does his Bill do to deal with that? What does he say to those children and victims of crime when, 11 years into his Government, with county lines becoming a feature of crime in a way that it never was before, his Government— [ Interruption. ]”
“We are asked on Second Reading to support or oppose a Bill on the basis of principle, and I am opposing the Bill on the principle that it fails women, it fails children, and it fails to face up to the serious evolving nature of crime in our country. Since the appalling murder of Sarah Everard we have seen, in our family, an outpouring not just of grief, but of a demand for change. That is why it so appalling that there is no mention of women in this Bill and no new sentences. Indeed, there is the ludicrous and offensive position that someone can be given a longer prison sentence for throwing a lump of iron into the river than for throwing in a woman. That is the miserable experience. We also see the experience in case law.”
“I rise to deal with the absolute brass neck that we have heard from the Government Benches during the course of the debate—interestingly standing up to laud what is in the Bill, which I can only describe as the “Government attempting to look busy on crime” Bill, because they do not want to talk about their miserable record over the last 11 years. It is a record that has left fewer police on our streets, fewer courts open for judgment, and fewer police staff to investigate crimes. We have seen the impact: longer delays to investigations, longer waiting times for criminals to be brought to justice, and indeed criminals getting off scot-free because often victims lose total faith in the criminal justice system. That is the Government’s record.”
“I am voting against this Bill, because it is perfectly right for Members to say, “We demand better and we expect better of this Government”, and unlike Members elected at the 2019 general election, we do not just read scripts from central casting, we demand better. We demand better for our constituents, and so should they.”
“They do not like it: Government Members do not like being confronted with their record. That is why, with this Bill, they are chasing headlines, instead of chasing serious criminals. They have the audacity to stand up and laud loads of provisions in this Bill that they have taken from Labour Members and their private Members’ Bills. I congratulate them on that, but it is still the case that they are not facing up to the serious nature of crime that affects women and children in my community. They have thrown in loads of measures to look busy, but they are running from their record.”
“I asked whether the Lord Chancellor could explain to my community why someone who was in a position of trust—deputy manager of a care home—who peddled kids to deal drugs across the country got a prison sentence of only four years. What is he going to do about that?”
“One of the biggest challenges that headteachers had, particularly when schools returned in September, was staff shortages, with teachers going off sick themselves. We think that the Government ought to have vaccinated all staff, and we regret that that has not happened. I am afraid to say that we still see too many examples of schools being short-changed when it comes to safety measures. Indeed, schools in my constituency have written to me because the funding that they have shelled out for personal protective equipment and other safety measures is not being reimbursed by the Department for Education. What does that mean? It means headteachers robbing Peter to pay Paul—taking funding from one area of the school budget and putting it into these extraordinary safety measures. That is a source of deep regret.”