Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alex Burghart and Jonathan Gullis

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Alex Burghart)]

As a former Minister for apprenticeships, I share the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm. If he wishes to find out more about the Procurement Bill, he can join me and the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) in Committee Room 10 on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the foreseeable future. He will hear us talk about social benefit and the social value embedded within it, and I hope apprentices will be part of that.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

Stoke-on-Trent is proud to still be the largest recipient of the levelling-up funding announced to date, and the second-largest recipient of the Places for Growth programme, through which we now have 500 Home Office jobs coming to our great city, with 100 jobs recruited, another 160 being advertised and the office due to open in March at Two Smithfield, a regeneration site led by Councillor Abi Brown and her fantastic Conservative councillors on Stoke-on-Trent City Council. Will my right hon. Friend congratulate Councillor Brown and the Home Office on securing those important jobs for our local area and place on record my thanks to the Cabinet Office for all its hard work in making this achievement come true?

School Openings: January 2022

Debate between Alex Burghart and Jonathan Gullis

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

I know my hon. Friend understands these issues extremely well. We very much want to keep schools open. We think schools are the best place for children in the midst of a pandemic, particularly vulnerable children who are in care or on the edge of care. We are determined that social work contact should continue, so that we can ensure those children will be protected.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I take this opportunity to thank teachers, lecturers, support staff and other educationalists across Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke for their fantastic efforts. I spent eight and a half wonderful years working as a secondary school teacher in London and Birmingham, and it is absolutely essential that schools are kept open. I do not want to hear from the Minister that we are going to do everything we can; I want to hear simply that they will stay open. More than ever, secondary school teachers want assurances that exam plans for summer 2022 will go ahead as normal. The Labour party is stuck in the vice grip of the National Union of Teachers, so we need to ensure that we do not listen to them but to teachers who know that exams are always the best way forward.

[Alex Burghart]

It is always a pleasure to answer questions from my hon. Friend, who is an extraordinarily passionate advocate for children and education. He will have heard what I said. We want schools to stay open. We want exams to go ahead. We are working to that end.

Coronavirus: Education Setting Attendance and Support for Pupils

Debate between Alex Burghart and Jonathan Gullis

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart]

I thank both the hon. Lady for her question and the school in her constituency for the work that it has done to look after its pupils; it sounds as though it has gone above and beyond. As I said in answer to the shadow Secretary of State a few moments ago, the Department has invested considerable amounts of money in supporting children’s mental health. There has been £79 million across the piece, and £17 million for training for mental health and wellbeing in schools. We are fully aware that this is one of the lasting consequences of the pandemic, and we will step in to support schools every inch of the way.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I find the irony of this urgent question being called by those on the Labour Front Bench somewhat mystifying, because they went missing throughout the pandemic, and there was silence on the issue of schools. It is not just me who thinks this. Let me quote:

“Labour’s silence on closing schools is completely ridiculous.”

That was Corbynista Owen Jones saying that, so it is not just we on the Conservative Benches who think it. The NEU—or the “not education union” as we should refer to it—continually wanting to shut schools, and Labour keeping silent despite the donations running into its party coffers tell us everything that we need to know. Can my hon. Friend confirm to me that, no matter what happens this winter, schools will be kept open, pupils will be learning face to face and, in that way, they will catch up exactly as they need to.

[Alex Burghart]

I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate question. He has first-hand experience of working in schools, and I look forward to leaning on his expertise while I am in this job. It is absolutely the Government’s intention to keep schools open. We are clear that schools are the right place for children. The cost of children not being in school is extremely serious, so it is very much our hope that schools will be open from this point on.