Business of the House

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for the business statement.

The Backbench Business Committee formally agreed this week that, if awarded the time, on Thursday 13 July two debates will be held on behalf of the Liaison Committee. The subjects will be the second report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, “The cost of complacency: illicit finance and the war in Ukraine”, and the third report from the Health and Social Care Committee, “Workforce: recruitment, training and retention in health and social care”. If we are awarded the time, it is our intention to hold the second Sir David Amess memorial debate, otherwise known as matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment, on the last day before the summer recess.

As chair of the all-party group for football supporters, may I express my sympathy for the family of Craig Brown? He always struck me as a football manager who, in dire circumstances, would keep his head when all around were losing theirs. He was a bastion of football and a manager of great renown for about four decades. I send my sympathy to his family. He was a rock of Scottish football.

Yesterday, at Prime Minister’s questions, I asked the Prime Minister whether he would find time for primary legislation on the scourge of the indeterminate number of youngsters—roughly 140,000—who are missing from school altogether in England. The Education Secretary nodded when I asserted, having been told by the Minister for Schools, that primary legislation would be required to set up a national register to track those children and first, keep them safe, and secondly, try to get them into education. Will the Leader of the House please use her efforts in Cabinet to find time for primary legislation for this very important piece of work?

[Penny Mordaunt]

May I join the tributes paid by the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) to Craig Brown? I am sure the whole House would want to join those sentiments. I thank the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) for the helpful advert of forthcoming debates that his Committee is looking to schedule. I also thank him for his support and ideas about the Westminster Hall sitting hours changes that we have made this week—all credit to him for that suggestion and innovation.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise this very important issue of so-called ghost children. It is vital that local authorities really understand where those children are and whether they are in school settings that are not Ofsted inspected, as opposed to being home schooled. I know that the Education Secretary is looking at this matter with urgency. I have had discussions with her and her officials about it. The hon. Gentleman is right about primary legislation, but we are also looking at the data held by different Departments to help us get a clearer picture now of where those children are.