Oral Answers to Questions
Jen Craft Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
James Murray
As the hon. Gentleman will know, we set out our plans for reforming business rates to ensure that retail, hospitality and leisure properties on the high street with rateable values below £500,000 will benefit from a permanent tax cut from this Government. The importance of that tax cut being permanent is that it gives businesses the stability they need to invest and grow. I look forward to his support for our reforms when we vote on them in due course.
Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rachel Reeves)
Sound management of the public finances means spending wisely and not sending money to fraudsters. Today, I have appointed the health expert Tom Hayhoe as our new covid counter-fraud commissioner. As chair of an NHS trust during the pandemic, he saw the urgency of getting personal protective equipment to NHS staff when they needed it. Now he is at his desk in my Department starting the work to investigate the billions of pounds lost to fraud and underperforming contracts, and instead ensuring that that money is where it belongs—in our public services.
Jen Craft
My constituents expect the Government to treat taxpayer money with the utmost respect. However, during the pandemic the Conservatives handed out contracts to their friends and donors and failed to prevent fraud, using the crisis as a cover for their greed. Does the Chancellor agree with me that that money belongs to the taxpayer?
VAT: Independent Schools
Jen Craft Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
James Murray
We will take a community-wide approach that sees improved SEND provision in mainstream state schools, as well as ensuring that state special schools cater for those with the most complex needs.
Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)
As a parent of a disabled child, the issue of SEND education in this country is very important to me, as it is to a number of my friends and acquaintances. Let us be clear that the SEND system in this country is broken, and it was the actions of the previous Government that left us with parents being desperate and having to search for alternatives to mainstream education for their children. The vast majority of my constituents who find themselves without suitable education placements for their children, for reasons of disability or educational needs, are unable to afford to send their children to a private school. Does the Minister agree with me that perpetuating a system of inequality is not the solution for our broken SEND system?
James Murray
I thank my hon. Friend for her comments. She is absolutely right to say that we need to improve SEND provision for all children in this country in a financially sustainable way, and she speaks with great experience.
Jen Craft
You reflect on there being an exemption only for children who have EHCPs, and you mentioned that there should be an exemption for children who do not have an EHCP based on SEN or disability. My question is: how do you define that? There is huge scope for private schools to say that they are SEND specialists. There is not a measure of whether that is the case. How do you define those who have SEND or those with additional needs, beyond the scope of an EHCP?
Mr Speaker
Order. May I gently say to the hon. Member that when you say “you”, it is as though I have said it? I want to reassure you that I am not involved in any of this.