Public Sector Pay Cap
Debate between Gloria De Piero and Elizabeth Truss(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
My right hon. Friend is correct to say that we want improvement in our public services. I have highlighted education, where more children are going to good and outstanding schools; and I have highlighted our health service, which is dealing with more patients than ever before. School pay policy is set by individual academies, for example, so we are giving more freedom over pay and pay determination. It is important to look at the public finances as a whole, and to ensure that, overall, we are living within our means as a country.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
Right now, 130 workers at Annesley Department for Work and Pensions office are being told that their place of work will be closed and their jobs relocated up to an hour’s drive away. Have these public sector workers not suffered enough from the seven-year pay cap? Is not the last thing that they need to be told that they need to find more money to pay for their travel to and from work?
Elizabeth Truss
The hon. Lady refers to a specific issue with a jobcentre in her constituency. I am sure that the DWP is looking at how those people can be assisted, and it is certainly something that I am happy to raise with the Work and Pensions Secretary on her behalf.
A-level Reform
Debate between Gloria De Piero and Elizabeth Truss(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Elizabeth Truss
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I congratulate him on his work with the fair access to university group, which encourages students to study the rigorous subjects that will help them to get into top universities. One of the things we are also looking at is the accountability system and how we show what subjects students are studying, to encourage more students from different backgrounds to study subjects such as modern foreign languages, sciences and maths, where there is a particular gap in participation between those students and students at independent and grammar schools.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
My constituency is way down the bottom of the league table when it comes to participation in higher education. How will today’s statement help to address that?
Elizabeth Truss
Today’s statement will encourage students to take up subjects by giving them much more in-depth knowledge of those subjects and more time to study and learn, rather than having them feel that they are constantly examined between the ages of 16 and 18. At the moment in our examination system, we have tests at 11 and examinations at 16, 17 and 18. That is a very unbalanced system. I think that a system that encourages teaching, learning and in-depth study will be really attractive to students.