Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings
Debate between Gillian Keegan and Philip Hollobone(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Gillian Keegan
It is the responsible body, not the schools, that is responding to the questionnaires. As the hon. Lady says, the schoolteachers are there to teach the children, but the responsible body will be responsible for filling in the questionnaires.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s commitment to publish the list of impacted schools as soon as possible. She is urging responsible bodies that have not responded to the questionnaires to fill them in and return them, and she said that 5% had not done so. Could we not make it a statutory requirement for responsible bodies to return those questionnaires, and will she think about publishing a list of those responsible bodies that have not done so?
Gillian Keegan
My colleague Baroness Barran has written to those responsible bodies again and requested that they respond to the questionnaires by the end of the week. We will then need to consider what we do with those from which we are still awaiting responses.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gillian Keegan and Philip Hollobone(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Gillian Keegan
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. Child sexual abuse is an abhorrent crime and the Government are sympathetic to the victims and survivors of such abuse. As set out in November in response to the final report of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, it is important that due process is followed to allow investigatory and legal processes to take place to maximise the chances of conviction.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Can the Secretary of State confirm that the Government intend to raise starting salaries for teachers to £30,000 a year and that the pension entitlement that teachers enjoy is far higher than those earning the same wage in the private sector?
Gillian Keegan
My hon. Friend makes a good point. In line with our manifesto commitment to raise the starting salary, it is £28,000 this year and it will be £30,000 from September next year. I can confirm that the employer contribution to teachers’ pensions is 23.6%, which is considerably higher than for many in the private sector.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Gillian Keegan and Philip Hollobone(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Gillian Keegan
Very much so. Young people should be protected from inappropriate and excessive caring responsibility, and adult and children’s services need to work together better. We recognise, though, the lack of hard data and evidence on outcomes for young carers. That is where we are and that is why we have made the commitment, with the Department for Education, to amend the school census. We intend to introduce that as early as 2022-23 and each year thereafter. The data will be collected at primary school and secondary school, so we will be able to look at all kinds of outcomes for this particular cohort and take actions.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Adult Social Care
Debate between Gillian Keegan and Philip Hollobone(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Gillian Keegan
As I said, we have put in place £162.5 million-worth of funding and it has only just gone into councils’ bank accounts. We expect councils will use the funding to retain and grow the workforce.
Earlier I mentioned the all-party parliamentary group on social care, which I set up four years ago with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh). At that time the vacancy rate was 122,000, even greater than it is today. We have 1.54 million people working in care, and the need grows by 1% to 2% every year because of changing demographics.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The number of stranded and super-stranded patients at Kettering General Hospital has recently been increasing. Thankfully it is not at the level it was a few years ago, when as many as 200 of the 550 beds were occupied by stranded and super-stranded patients. They are mainly elderly and vulnerable people who, as the Minister will recognise, should not still be in hospital because they have completed their medical treatment. They need to be placed in an appropriate social care setting or at home with appropriate social care support. When can we expect firm proposals from the Government to address this issue? Unless we can get these very vulnerable people into the care they need, not only will it make life very unhappy for them but it will be extremely expensive and will clog up our NHS.