Bridget Phillipson
Main Page: Bridget Phillipson (Labour - Houghton and Sunderland South)Department Debates - View all Bridget Phillipson's debates with the Department for Education
(2 years ago)
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Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
I welcome the new Secretary of State to her position and, I am sure she will agree, to the best job in Government.
Parents in key worker jobs—care workers and teaching assistants—are spending more than a quarter of their pay on childcare. Parents across our country are being forced to give up jobs that they love because of the cost of childcare. Yet, in the last two fiscal statements from the right hon. Lady’s Government, there has been no action to support families. Why not?
Gillian Keegan
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments and for welcoming me to my place. It is indeed the best job in Government.
We have taken a lot of action in this area. The last Labour Government had 12.5 hours of free childcare. That is now up to 30 hours. We have spent more than £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on early education entitlements and more than £20 billion over the past five years supporting families with the cost of childcare. Thousands of parents are benefiting from Government childcare support, but we will also work to improve the cost, choice and affordability of childcare.
Bridget Phillipson
On schools, Labour is committed to ending the tax breaks that private schools enjoy and to investing in driving up standards for every child. Why should we continue to provide such
“egregious state support to the already wealthy”—
the children of plutocrats and oligarchs—
“so that they might buy advantage for their own children”?
Those are not my words, Mr Speaker, but those of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Does the Secretary of State agree with him?
Gillian Keegan
I agree that the most important thing is to ensure that we focus on every child who goes to a state school getting a brilliant education. That is about 90% of all children in this country. The policy that the hon. Lady has been talking about and that Labour is developing is ill-thought through. Indeed, it could cost money and lead to disruption, as young people move from the private to the state sector. It is the politics of envy. We have fought for an extra £2 billion in the autumn statement, the highest per pupil spend in history, and I am sure that the hon. Lady—