Awarding of Qualifications: Role of Ministers
Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Kate Green(4 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kate Green
I have always been clear, and the leader of the Labour party has always been clear, that students must return to class this September, and we are very pleased that the vast majority of schools have returned and children have returned to the classroom. The important task for the Secretary of State now is to keep them there. We must all be concerned, I believe, about the very swift picture we are seeing of children being sent home because of outbreaks. In the absence of a reliable and rapid testing and tracing system, schools are placed in an impossible position.
Kate Green
No, I will carry on if the hon. Member will forgive me, because others will want to speak.
Kate Green
Yes. This is the test that the Government have to pass; otherwise we will see thousands of children up and down the country unable to stay in class as the Secretary of State wants them to—I know he does—as I want them to, and as teachers and parents want them to.
Alec Shelbrooke
The hon. Lady is most generous and has always been so. She made a comment earlier about perhaps sitting exams this summer. She has just taken an intervention on and commented on the fact that it is difficult having children back in school. This is a very different scenario to where we were in March, so there is a certain amount of hindsight. Does she accept that at the moment those decisions were being taken, we were facing a very different picture—one that seems to be proven by the fact that people are worried about children going back to school at this stage, let alone in March?
Kate Green
I accept how difficult it was to predict the way in which the pandemic would open out in March and to decide on a course of action, and it is important that we understand how those decisions were taken, but what is not acceptable—