Oral Answers to Questions

Graham P Jones Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the way in which he has fought for improvements to the Marjorie McClure school, which was visited by my hon. Friend the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families. It was successful in its bid, and it is already in the feasibility phase. The Education Funding Agency has started to identify the options available to address the condition of the building, so that we can say that we do know where and we do know when.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Headteacher Steve Campbell, who runs The Hollins, a fantastic state school with great results in my constituency, has had problems trying to provide better sports facilities. He was supposed to have Better Schools for the Future funding in 2010, but that was pulled. It now seems that there is no hope of the children in this outstanding school getting decent sports facilities. Why is that?

[Mr Gibb]

There is £420 million available under the healthy schools capital programme. That is all part of £23 billion that we are spending between now and 2020-21 to maintain, rebuild and replace buildings in the worst condition. None of that would be possible if we did not have the strong economy that we have today and that we did not have when the hon. Gentleman’s party was in power.