Alison Seabeck
Main Page: Alison Seabeck (Labour - Plymouth, Moor View)Department Debates - View all Alison Seabeck's debates with the Leader of the House
(10 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend raises an important point, and I wish him well with the plans that his constituents are putting together. As he will know, our view is that there is a valuable long-standing tradition of faith schools in this country, and we support the contribution that they make. They are often high-performing schools that are popular with parents, and many of them are therefore over-subscribed. Two Hindu free schools have thus far been established—the Krishna Avanti primary school in Leicester and the Avanti House school in London, which opened in 2012. I hope that this continuing trend of support for faith schools will be sustained.
The Leader of the House has rightly commended the work of the emergency services in tackling flooding, and I particularly draw attention to the fire service. My local firefighters are somewhat bemused that they do not have a statutory duty to attend flooding incidents. May we therefore have a debate on the implications of there being no statutory duty, so that we can ask the fire Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), to explain why that is still the position?
I will gladly raise that point with the Minister with responsibility for fire services, and he may like to reply to the hon. Lady. I have to say that I do not think that fire services would generally regard themselves as in any way constrained by their statutory responsibilities in attending whenever they felt there was a public need for them to do so.