Education, Skills and Training

Debate between Angela Eagle and John Pugh

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

We must look at the policy on schools against what the Institute for Fiscal Studies has called a real-terms cut of 8% in budgets over this Parliament. We have to judge it with that as a background.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that the volume of legislation is not an indicator of the quality of government, and a little legislation on schools would not go amiss now?

[Ms Eagle]

I certainly agree that quantity is not all. I will come on to some of the detail of those Bills as I make progress with my speech.

Michael Portillo went on to say:

“The Government is in total paralysis, because the only thing that matters to the Government now is the saving of the Prime Minister’s career”—

by—

“winning the referendum.”

In what will be a damning epitaph of this Tory Administration, he said that the majority that the Prime Minister secured last year is “all for nothing”. He said:

“The Government has nothing to do, nothing to say and thinks nothing.”

We have this “nothing” Queen’s Speech before us. We have a few eye-catching announcements designed to distract attention from the emptiness of the Government’s programme. We were presented with the possibility of driverless cars on our roads in four years’ time and even private spaceports, but there is still no sign of a decision on the much more pressing issue of airport capacity for the travel that millions must now undertake.

We were told that there would be a legal right to access digital broadband, but there is no clear route to resolve the scandal of this Government’s total failure to provide adequate digital infrastructure for all. Despite being the fifth largest economy, we still languish at 18th in the world for broadband speed.

Perhaps it is a sign of just how toxic things are in the Conservative party that even this self-described “uninspiring, managerial and vacuous” legislative programme has already caused yet another Tory Back-Bench rebellion.