Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Angela Rayner and John Bercow

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We will have two questions from the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner). They need to be extremely brief, otherwise we will just have to move on.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Earlier, I set the Secretary of State a simple maths question on free schools, but I do not think we had a clear answer. So let me set her one on verbal reasoning. If David promised to protect school spending per pupil and Justine’s new funding formula cuts spending per pupil in more than 9,000 schools, what does that make Theresa?

Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Debate between Angela Rayner and John Bercow

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before I call the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), I will point out what is demonstrably obvious: more than 10 Members wish to speak. The programme motion that the House has passed—it is not a matter for the Chair—is extremely tight, but I want Back Benchers to be heard. The Minister has set out the Government’s position and the hon. Lady will set out the Opposition’s position, but Back Benchers must be heard.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let me reiterate that point and say how disappointing it is that the Government have allocated just 90 minutes to discuss all the issues relating to the welfare of the most vulnerable children, particularly when Back Benchers on both sides of the House contributed so much to the Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Angela Rayner and John Bercow

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I, too, would like to wish the Secretary of State and all Members of the House a merry Christmas, but it ain’t going to be a very merry Christmas for our schools. The recent Government consultation document says there will be a floor on schools’ funding so that no school will lose more than 3% of its funding per pupil as a result of the changes to the funding formula—a hugely necessary protection, as some schools face cuts that are too severe to manage. Not only has the National Audit Office shown that, despite the floor, schools are facing funding cuts of 8% per pupil, but it has criticised the Department for failing to make the scale of the coming cuts clear. The Secretary of State has two choices—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady will resume her seat. I am sorry, but if we are going to have a right for the Opposition Front Bench to come in on topicals—I make this clear now, with immediate effect—it must be done very briefly; otherwise, it completely absorbs the time that is for Back Benchers. A single sentence from the hon. Lady will suffice.

[Angela Rayner]

Thank you—sorry, Mr Speaker. The Secretary of State has two choices: will she cut the funding in 2020, or will she issue guidance to schools on what those cuts will be?

Education and Social Mobility

Debate between Angela Rayner and John Bercow

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Talking of excellence in sport, does my hon. Friend agree that we should celebrate the fact that Mo Farah, who grew up and went to a state school in my constituency, has succeeded on the world stage? The school that he attended is now suffering from cuts, which mean that it is referring more than 40% of its pupils for mental health support services.

[Mr Speaker]

He is also a staunch Arsenal fan, which makes him an even greater man.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. We need to make sure that every child, regardless of their background, makes the best progress in life. We know that selection is not the way forward.

Schools that work for Everyone

Debate between Angela Rayner and John Bercow

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

If I may, I would like to start by offering some advice to the Government:

“Stop your silly class war.”

[Interruption.] That reaction is very interesting, because it was not my advice but that of the last Prime Minister—who is still currently, I believe, the right hon. Member Witney—when asked about Tory MPs wanting to return to grammar schools. He went on to say:

“I think it is delusional to think that a policy of expanding a number of grammar schools is either a good idea, a sellable idea or even the right idea”.

He was the future once, but the current Prime Minister wants to hark back to the past. Where once, under Labour, we had “Education, education, education”, this Government’s mantra is “Segregation, segregation, segregation” .

Perhaps the Secretary of State can start by telling us when the Prime Minister told her what her education policy was going to be. When the Secretary of State came to this House last Thursday, she told us that there was nothing to announce. She said:

“we have not yet actually made any policy announcements; they will be made in due course.”—[Official Report, 8 September 2016; Vol. 614, c. 470.]

She assured us that she was looking into “a range of options”. Yet, lo and behold, just 24 hours later the Prime Minister unveiled their policy in full. Apparently it did not take that long to look at those options. This is not a surprise. The Prime Minister’s plan seems to be that we need grammars, secondary moderns and technical schools. This is a line taken directly from the Conservatives’ 1955 manifesto—hardly an education policy for the 21st century. Was the Secretary of State unaware of the Prime Minister’s speech or did she forget to tell the House—or perhaps the dog ate that bit of her answer?

Today’s statement is another sorry excuse, so I have some serious questions that the Secretary of State has yet to answer. Will she confirm that the new Prime Minister has absolutely no mandate for this policy? Not only was no such pledge in their manifesto, but the former Prime Minister, as Leader of the Opposition, promised precisely not to bring in new grammar schools. He said: “It is not something we would do if elected.” We will hold the Government to account, and the country will hold the Government to that promise.

When the Prime Minister’s predecessor was asked whether he would cave in to his Back Benchers over grammar schools, he said:

“I lead. I don’t follow my party; I lead them.”

He was able to do that for more than six years, but his successor has hardly managed six weeks.

It is not just the former Prime Minister who opposes the plans; the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) has said of the creation of new grammar schools:

“I believe that an increase in pupil segregation on the basis of academic selection would be…a distraction”

from the serious efforts to narrow the attainment gap.

The Conservative Chair of the Education Committee said last night:

“We have serious issues about social mobility…and I don’t think that having more grammar schools is going to help them.”

He went on to say:

“I think that the creaming off of the best is actually detrimental to the interests of the most.”

Will the Secretary of State now apologise for dismissing all opponents of her plans by placing dogma over pupils and opportunity? All the major research shows that where there are grammar schools today, access to them is limited to the most well-off. It also shows that educational attainment in grammar areas for those who fail to get into grammar schools is below the national average. Given the overwhelming academic evidence that grammars fail to improve the standards of the majority of children, what research is the Secretary of State basing her decision on, and will she lay it before this House?

Will the Secretary of State explain just how this policy is going to work? She seems to be saying not only that every new school can be a grammar, but that every existing school can convert to a grammar as well. I may be a comprehensive girl, but even I can see the flaw in thinking that it is possible to let every school in the country select through an exam. Will the Secretary of State tell us just how she will decide which schools will be allowed to segregate pupils and which will not?

We are told that the new grammars may be free schools, but free schools are not free to the taxpayer. How much of the schools budget will be put aside for these new grammar schools? Has the Secretary of State received any extra funding from the Treasury, or will it have to be taken from existing schools, which are already facing the first real-terms cut in decades?

Page 25 of the Government’s consultation document says that for schools to become grammars, one requirement that they may have to meet is to establish a new, non-selective secondary school, with capital and revenue costs paid by the Government. Perhaps the Secretary of State can reassure the House that that will be paid for by new funding arrangements that she has reached with the Treasury, rather than being squeezed out of school budgets that are facing a real-terms cut.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think the shadow Secretary of State is bringing her remarks to a close. I have been generous, but she is a little over her time and I think she has either finished or is approaching her last sentence—a pithy one.

[Angela Rayner]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister promised on the steps of No. 10 to govern for the many and not the privileged few, and to be led by the evidence when making decisions, yet now we have a policy that is aimed at not just serving the privileged few, but entrenching that advantage over the rest of society. This is a disgraceful attack on opportunity and inclusion, and we will oppose it. I appeal to every single Member in this House to oppose it, too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Angela Rayner and John Bercow

Thursday 21st July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the Minister to her place. I am really proud to be one of the women on the all-women Front Benches. It seems that we might be taking over the world slowly but surely, which is fantastic.

We have heard from many Members on both sides of the House that there has been a dramatic wave of hate crime, hostility and intolerance towards EU nationals and members of the BAME community living in the UK. I have been encouraged by the many members of the public and people in high-profile positions who have challenged that behaviour and shown what a great multicultural Britain we are. However, like many across the House and the country I was dismayed and upset by The Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie’s disgraceful Islamophobic attack on the “Channel 4 News” presenter Fatima Manji. Will the Minister join me in making it clear that all parties in this House regard those comments as totally unacceptable? That being the case, will she also join me in urging Mr MacKenzie to make a full public apology, and The Sun and other media to be more responsible as to who and what they allow on their media outlets?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. As a result of the extreme seriousness of the matter I let the hon. Lady complete her question, but never again must she ask such a long question. I am afraid it was not just too long, but far too long, albeit very important.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Angela Rayner and John Bercow

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Progress has been rather slow today, on account of some quite long questions and some long answers, but I do not like Back-Bench Members who are waiting patiently to lose out. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne will not lose out. I call Angela Rayner.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

17. Whether the Secretary of State has had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on proposals to increase VAT on solar panels.

Points of Order

Debate between Angela Rayner and John Bercow

Monday 6th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I appreciate that the House is in a state of some animation, but if there are Members who, quite unaccountably, are leaving the Chamber before the points of order from the hon. Members for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) and for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), I hope they will do so quickly and quietly, so that the rest of the House can listen with rapt attention to the said points of order. I know that the hon. Gentleman will defer to a newer Member.

[Angela Rayner]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Members will miss a great point of order if they leave now. I wish to correct the record in Hansard of last Thursday’s Adjournment debate on Hatfield colliery. In column 1742, the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise made reference to potentially “sexist comments” that I was meant to have made. That was not the case; I was merely pointing out that it was Mrs Thatcher’s Government who started the miners’ problems. My point related to ideology and was nothing to do with gender. I was not able to correct the matter at the time, as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) refused to allow me into the debate. Can we ensure that the record is corrected or moved?

If you will indulge me a little more, Mr Speaker, I am also incredibly disappointed that I still have not heard from the Secretary of State for Health regarding last Monday’s point of order. Will you remind him that I sit in this place not for myself, but to represent many thousands of Ashton-under-Lyne constituents? What can I do to get them the respect they deserve?

[Mr Speaker]

There are two responses to the hon. Lady’s point of order, for which I am most grateful. In respect of the first matter, she has now put what she regards as the correct interpretation of past statements on the record, and it is there for all to see.

In relation to the second matter—how the hon. Lady can get the respect she seeks and, specifically, a response to the point of order that she articulated last week—she will already have learned of the very quick journey that can be made from here to the Table Office. The Table Office staff are unfailingly professional, courteous and helpful. She may have to use the device of the Order Paper and follow-up questions to extract what she wants from a Minister. Knowing as I do already the assiduity of the hon. Lady, I feel sure that she will have recourse to the Table Office sooner rather than later.

Points of Order

Debate between Angela Rayner and John Bercow

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I saw the hon. Lady first. I am saving the hon. Gentleman up. It would be a pity a waste him at too early a stage of our proceedings.

[Angela Rayner]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As many Members know, I am new to this place, and I hope you can give me your wisdom and experience. This place is a little bit like Hogwarts to me: it has a lot of trapdoors, corridors and conventions. I believe that one of the conventions of the House is that, if a Minister or any other Member visits our constituency, they should at least inform us that they are coming. The Secretary of State for Health, who has been in this House a lot longer than I have, visited my constituency on Friday. I did not find out about it other than through the organisation that he visited. I just wonder whether you can give me some guidance on that, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for her point of order and the courteous terms with which she phrased it. Yes, the short answer is that there is a long-standing convention that Members notify each other in advance of what might be called public visits to each others’ constituencies. That is certainly, therefore, an obligation incumbent upon Ministers, a fact reflected in the content of the “Ministerial Code”. The hon. Lady has, at a very early stage in her career, discovered an important way to register her grievance with Government Front Benchers. She has done it through her point of order, the contents of which I feel sure will be winging its way to relevant Ministers almost before I have sat down.