Oral Answers to Questions

David Ruffley Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

My hon. Friend raises some points that are all too common. I have been deluged with similar stories from other prospective adopters up and down the country. We need to make it absolutely clear that we absolutely welcome people who come forward because they are interested in offering a safe, loving and stable home for a child in care who needs to be adopted. The adoption scorecards have contextualised data on them so that we can see how well local authorities are welcoming, retaining and converting prospective adopters into actual adopters. That provides important evidence to make sure that every local authority welcomes adopters with open arms.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

15. What plans he has for changes to the national curriculum for English.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

On 11 June, we published draft national curriculum programmes of study for primary English, science and mathematics. The draft curriculum for English demonstrates our commitment to improving standards of literacy. Pupils will be taught to read fluently and develop a strong command of the written and spoken word. There will be a greater focus on the fundamentals of phonics, grammar and spelling, and a much stronger emphasis on reading widely for pleasure.

[Mr Ruffley]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Two years ago, the Secretary of State struck a blow against cultural relativism when he rightly said that the teaching of Dryden and Pope, Byron, Shelley and Keats, Austen, Dickens and Hardy should lie at the heart of school life. Will the Minister assure me that when the curriculum is published and enforced, the promise set out by the Secretary of State is indeed met?

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this case. More than 500 schools applied for refurbishment under the priority schools building programme. We were able to guarantee refurbishment and rebuilding for more than 200 schools, many of which had never been included in the old Building Schools for the Future programme, but I entirely agree with the hon. Lady that that does not begin to meet the need for repairs and refurbishment across the school estate. One of the problems is that, under the previous Government, a comprehensive survey of the state of our schools was abandoned and the amount of money available for new school places for primary children was cut.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

T4. What further steps will the Minister of State take to induce small and medium-sized businesses to create apprenticeships? In that context, I draw his attention to the excellent work of West Suffolk college, which is at the centre of my constituency and is now very much on board with his brilliant initiative for making vocational education “front of house” when it comes to improving the chances of our young people.

[Mr Hayes]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for working with his local further education establishment and for highlighting the opportunities available to young people. He is right that we need more SMEs to be involved. That is why I commissioned Jason Holt to conduct a review of how we can be more helpful on bureaucracy and on allowing people to navigate the system more straightforwardly. It is also why we introduced cash incentives of £1,500 for every young apprentice that an SME takes on. My goodness, the previous Government could not have dreamed of that kind of record.