Covid-19: Impact on Attendance in Education Settings
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Greg Clark(3 years, 5 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
I can absolutely assure the right hon. Gentleman that that is the case. Obviously, the Department for Work and Pensions has its covid support fund, which is available for local authorities to provide free school meals. Any changes as part of the road map that would lead to the lifting of further restrictions and of bubbles within schools would also take effect for the summer holidays, so children who wanted to take part in holiday activity and food programmes would be able to do so without operating within a bubble system.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
Because of new variants, it is quite possible that long into the future the number of covid cases will increase from time to time. Is the Secretary of State aware that Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, who was behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, has said:
“If…high protection against hospitalisation continues despite spread in the community, the public health crisis is over”?
Does my right hon. Friend understand that we must move away from being concerned with the number of cases of covid and disrupting schools needlessly through testing and isolation, and focus squarely on hospitalisation?
Gavin Williamson
I very much have that at the forefront of my mind. If my right hon. Friend has time, it would be very interesting to sit down with him, and with some of my team and some from the Department of Health and Social Care, to discuss this in greater detail. The key thing is making sure that people are not being hospitalised and people are not in danger of dying. The vaccine has had enormous success in doing that, but we cannot then have the brake on children’s lives in the future.
Educational Settings
Debate between Gavin Williamson and Greg Clark(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
We will certainly write to all local authorities and all schools with guidance, and that will happen today. Before I came to the House, I spoke to the director of children’s services who represents the Association of Directors of Children’s Services about what we are doing. They were very clear about the need for local and national Government to work together. On supply teachers, there will be exceptional demand for the services of all teachers in the system—those on regular contracts and supply teachers.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
We will pay teachers when their schools are closed, because the closure is not their fault and we will need them again, but that applies to many other employees across the economy. That could be addressed very straightforwardly if the Government brought forward urgently a package to support employees’ wages right across the economy. Will the Secretary of State, when he finishes this statement, talk to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to ask them to turn their attention, within the next few hours, to making a statement on support for employees generally across the economy?