Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; making sure we have the best skills and the best schools is an absolutely key part of our long-term economic plan, and I support very much the university technical college movement. The number of pupils taught in underperforming schools under this Government has fallen by 250,000 in four years. Again, that is not just a statistic; it is tens of thousands of young people who are going to have the chance of a good education, a good future, and the chance to get a job and get involved in our modern economy. UTCs are well placed to help thousands of students in that way.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

When, on 22 February 2012, I asked the Prime Minister about fraud at A4e, a company working with jobseekers, he told me that he was waiting for the truth before he would act. This week’s guilty pleas by A4e staff reveal a culture of fraud in that company. Is not the list of taxpayer-funded fraudsters—Serco, G4S, A4e—getting too long? When is it going to stop?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. The answer I would give is that instead of bandying around names of companies, where many people in them will be working hard to do a good job, what we should do is investigate wrongdoing properly and make sure that cases are properly taken to court, as this case clearly was.