Business of the House

Elliot Colburn Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Again, the hon. Gentleman is so right to raise this matter. We are all, individually, champions for our constituents, and it is our job to seek redress of grievance when they are treated badly, whether that is by the state or by private companies, and to ensure that companies behave in a way that understands their societal obligations, as well as their shareholder obligations. I congratulate him on bringing the issue to the Floor of the House. It is a problem that the Government are aware of and I would encourage him to keep on asking for debates so that the issue can be examined more carefully.

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

Carshalton and Wallington is home to some of the best schools in the country. However, there is a worrying lack of secondary school places due to the incompetent Lib Dem council’s handling of school place provision, trying at once to block a new school at Rosehill on what has been described as an ideal site while trying to force a school on a tiny and inappropriate site at Sheen Way. Can we have a debate in this place on school place provision to ensure that every child has a good or outstanding local school place to go to?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I have a nasty feeling that when my hon. Friend says “incompetent Lib Dem-run council”, he is guilty of a tautology. I have not yet come across a competently run Lib Dem council. Supporting local authorities to create sufficient school places is one of the Government’s absolute priorities. [Interruption.] I am sorry. I hope I have not upset the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse). We share a local authority and I do not want to be too mean about it.

I sympathise with my hon. Friend. I am sure many Conservative MPs share his pain in dealing with Lib Dem-run local authorities and their flawed approach to planning in education. We provide funding for all the places that are needed based on local authorities’ own data on pupil forecasts. This is why we have announced nearly £750 million to provide places needed for 2022. The Government’s pupil places planning advisers will work alongside councils to provide support for any local authority that fails to provide sufficient school places. We announced that Sutton local authority will receive £16.2 million to provide new school places for 2022, taking its total funding between 2011 and 2022 to £141.8 million.