Education Recovery

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

We are doing a comprehensive plan, and there has been over £3 billion over the past year. We recognise that there continues to be more to do. That is why we are doing a review of how the school day can be best used as we work up to the comprehensive spending review. Every undertaking that we have made as part of this has been based on the evidence and what we believe is going to deliver the best results for pupils.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What measures will the Secretary of State take to ensure that the tutoring is indeed of high quality and the teaching great?

[Gavin Williamson]

My right hon. Friend knows a lot about tutoring having done much of it himself. I look forward to seeing in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, maybe in a year’s time, payments that he has received for all the tutoring he has done for state school children up and down the land, bringing a quality, an eloquence and a panache that has been missing from education as a result of his not being involved in it over the past few years.

My right hon. Friend is right that we need to ensure that there is high quality in everything we do on tutoring. That is why, as we have rolled out the national tutoring programme, we have always emphasised the need for quality tutors who are able to deliver, because that is what will bring the biggest benefits to these children.