Business of the House Debate

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Department: Leader of the House

Business of the House

Alison Seabeck Excerpts
Thursday 23rd January 2014

(10 years, 11 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord Lansley Portrait Mr Lansley
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My 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.

Alison Seabeck Portrait Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
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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?

Lord Lansley Portrait Mr Lansley
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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.