Angela Rayner
Main Page: Angela Rayner (Labour - Ashton-under-Lyne)Department Debates - View all Angela Rayner's debates with the Department for Education
(6 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Hinds
Universities can be great engines of social mobility, and many do great work in that regard. Over £800 million is now being allocated to improve access to university, which is to be welcomed.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
We have heard concerns from many Members across the House about social mobility, and the Chair of the Education Committee has recommended that the Social Mobility Commission get the resources and the powers that it needs. It is now nine months since the entire commission resigned in despair, so will the Secretary of State guarantee that the new commission will be appointed before a full year has passed?
Damian Hinds
Of course, we have already had the appointment of the chair of the commission, and I expect to be able to announce appointments to the commission in October.
Angela Rayner
This summer the Conservative party was concerned about an unseen social mobility crisis following the departure of the Foreign Secretary. As a Telegraph headline asked, with no old Etonians in Cabinet, “where will the talent come from?” Perhaps the Secretary of State can help to answer that question by confirming that he has accepted our call to ditch the Prime Minister’s scheme to spend £20 million ferrying a few hundred pupils up to 30 miles a day by taxi to get to their nearest grammar school. Will he now tell us whether he accepts our point that he should reinvest the savings in reversing the cuts to school transport for all?