Business of the House

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

It is important that pupils who are excluded from school should not lose contact with mainstream education, and that they should get back into it as soon as possible. The experimental statistics published today show that pupils in alternative provision perform significantly less well in GCSEs than those who are in mainstream schools. These are vulnerable children, and they need the support to which my hon. Friend refers. We set out in our White Paper last year our plans to increase the autonomy, accountability and diversity of alternative provision in order to help to drive up standards.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

May we please have a debate on the effect of the Deputy Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday about business rates? It seems to me that the better-off areas of the country will become still better off, and that the poorer areas such as my constituency will suffer even more.