Oral Answers to Questions

Geoffrey Robinson Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather]

As the hon. Lady says, there is a very particular issue with communication problems and ensuring that we identify them early. That is part of the reason I am working closely with colleagues at the Department of Health to implement significant numbers of new health visitors and to ensure that we commission services better. The education health and care plan, which will integrate services, will, I hope, make a real difference to children in that position.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of my ongoing correspondence with him about Woodlands school in my constituency, which is held up not by pit props but by equally unsightly and unacceptable scaffolding. It seems that the school will be denied any access to the priority school building programme by an anomalous set of circumstances. It does not need extra places, yet the state of the buildings means that it obviously needs priority status and access to funds, but it has been denied that as more than 30% of the buildings are listed. What can the school do? We are due an answer. May we have it soon?

[Michael Gove]

When we had to close the Building Schools for the Future programme, it was inevitable that a significant number of schools in urgent need of repair would be just the wrong side of where the line was drawn. I know that in Coventry a number of schools are in desperate need of refurbishment. The priority school building programme is designed to ensure that as many schools as possible qualify and we will not be able to make an announcement until next month because we want to be absolutely sure that marginal cases such as this school, as it appears from the information the hon. Gentleman has shared with us, are fairly treated.