Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Chapman Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to the teachers and staff at both schools, Ravenshall and Hollybank, for the amazing work they do. It is a very difficult and challenging job and it is incredibly important for the life chances of the children affected. My hon. Friend will know that in March we published the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, with new national standards. That is backed up by increased specialist provision locally, with £2.6 billion going into it. That includes opening 33 new special schools, with a further 49 in the pipeline.

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

Q3. Although the Prime Minister is absent, I hope he later gets the chance to watch the BBC’s dramatisation of the Brink’s-Mat robbery in the 1980s, when the police team assigned to recover the stolen gold got back only half. That sum pales into insignificance compared with the measly 1% recovered from the £1 billion in business grants lost to fraud under the Prime Minister’s watch as Chancellor. The fingerprints show that this massive fraud now lies at No. 10 Downing Street. To quote the Government’s former fraud Minister, Lord Agnew of Oulton, when will this Government “get their acts together” and step up the recovery efforts on behalf of the taxpayer?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Tackling fraud has become more complex because of the online incidence, but the hon. Gentleman will have noted the massive increase in funding for tackling it in the recent Budget, and we are confident that will give us the resources we need to deal with this often invisible but very damaging crime.