Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Paula Sherriff

Thursday 17th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

The academies policy was started under the Labour party. We have adopted it and taken it forward, and it is providing a transformative education for young people in this country.

On breakfast clubs, £26 million will go towards developing and running breakfast clubs in up to 1,600 schools over three years, so that children can receive a healthy breakfast and start school ready to learn. The money promised for the longer school day, sport and breakfast clubs underlines this Government’s commitment to happy, healthy students who will be well placed to become the active citizens of tomorrow, contributing more to our economy and relying less on the welfare system.

We want to be absolutely certain that the investment in education promised by the Chancellor yesterday is felt up and down the country. Our new “achieving excellence areas”, supporting, among other regions, the northern powerhouse, will do exactly that. The Budget has given £70 million of new funding for the education powerhouse to add to the Department’s existing commitment to prioritise its programmes in the areas that most need support, and to deliver a comprehensive package to target an initial series of education cold spots where educational performance is chronically poor, including in coastal and rural areas. The investment will help to transform educational outcomes and boost aspiration in areas that have lagged behind for too long.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

On the northern powerhouse, a recent written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) shows that 100% of the Treasury’s senior civil servants are based in Whitehall and that 60% of them are men. Apparently, the Chancellor really does think that the man on Whitehall knows best—he had a lot of men on Whitehall making decisions for this Budget. Is that why they have failed to come up with a solution to the tampon tax?

[Nicky Morgan]

I had the pleasure of working in the Treasury with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the last Parliament, and hon. Members could not find anybody who is more supportive of promoting women and of women’s causes. On the tampon tax, we hope very much that we will make progress with the EU on the VAT rate. I know that the hon. Lady is new to Parliament—she joined last year—but the last Labour Government, including female Ministers at the Treasury, had 13 years to tackle the issue. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has put aside money and there is a fantastic list in the back of the Red Book of the charities and organisations that will benefit from it. We can all agree that it would be better not to have VAT levied on sanitary products, but we support those organisations.

I have talked about support for the northern powerhouse. The review of northern schools will be carried out by Sir Nick Weller, executive principal of the eight Dixons Academies in Bradford.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Paula Sherriff

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we are investing more in childcare. Those with disabled children receive £4,000 of tax-free childcare per child. During the last and current Parliaments, we have been rolling out education and healthcare plans for children, including those aged nought to 25 who have more complex needs. We are clear about the fact that our childcare policies must require providers to cater properly for children with disabilities.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

17. What progress the Government are making in negotiating the removal of VAT on women’s sanitary products.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Paula Sherriff

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

T2. St John’s infant school in my constituency is struggling to obtain support for its breakfast club because eligibility is now linked to pupil premium funding. With free school dinner already provided for all pupils, there is no incentive for parents to apply for the premium, despite the vast majority of pupils coming from some of the most deprived areas in the country. Will the Minister take action to ensure that children from deprived backgrounds do not lose out on breakfast because they have lunch?

[Nicky Morgan]

We do not want any pupils to lose out, which is why we have continued with the pupil premium in this Parliament, having spent more than £6.5 billion on the pupil premium in the previous Parliament. It is also why we introduced the universal infant free school meals. There are some fantastic breakfast club schemes. If the hon. Lady wants to write to me, I or one of the Ministers will happily have a further conversation with her about this.

Further Education

Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Paula Sherriff

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Young people, post-16, will have a mixture of face-to-face tuition, study in smaller groups, study in larger groups and their own study time, which prepares them for the next stage. The funding that colleges receive is for 600 hours, which enables them to teach a number of A-levels or technical qualifications.

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

How does the Secretary of State respond to the suggestion of Professor Alison Wolf that Britain’s supply of skilled workers may vanish into history if looming cuts to further education go ahead?

[Nicky Morgan]

What I would say to the hon. Lady is that we helpfully had the support of Professor Alison Wolf in the last Parliament in getting rid of 3,000 qualifications that did not prepare our young people for the world of work at all. The EBacc subjects that I have been talking about—the core subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths: just what we need for the future of our country—are exactly what our education system is rightly focusing on.