Oral Answers to Questions

David Davis Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I appreciate why it is so important for this country to have a full public inquiry and that is why I made the announcement to the House that we would. I also think it is right that it should go ahead as soon as is reasonable. I do not think that right now, in the middle of a third wave when we are seeing many of the key people involved in fighting the pandemic very heavily occupied, it is right to ask them to devote a lot of their time to a public inquiry of the kind that I think we would all want to see. That is why I think it is right that it should start in the spring, when I am pretty confident, and so are the rest of the scientific community, that we will really be in a much, much better position and able to go ahead. That is the time to begin the public inquiry, but that does not mean that we are not continuing to learn lessons all the time.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con) [V]]

Forty years ago, this country led the world in social mobility. Since then, we have fallen so far behind we are now only 21st in the world rankings. If we are to succeed at levelling up the UK, we must restore social mobility for working-class pupils right across the country. The fastest and most cost-effective way to do that is to re-engineer the classroom to capitalise on the benefits of modern technology, using artificial intelligence to provide lessons tailored to the ability of each and every child. Countries around the world are already doing this, from America to Australia, China to Estonia. Private schools in the UK, including Eton, are already doing it using world-class British technology. Will the Prime Minister undertake to use modern technologies to give every working-class child the opportunity to reach their full potential—opportunity based on their abilities, not on where they grew up or how rich their parents were?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, and I am thankful to my right hon. Friend for the personal tutorial he gave me, using a laptop, in the opportunities provided by this type of technology and the massive increase in the cognitive powers of kids that is now made possible by these types of technology. We are looking at supporting schools across the whole of the UK with this kind of advance as we continue to level up.