Joan Walley
Main Page: Joan Walley (Labour - Stoke-on-Trent North)Department Debates - View all Joan Walley's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Gove
I shall give way to the hon. Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), but then I want to make some progress.
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
Is the Secretary of State not in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? In my school sport partnership in North Stoke, we have transformed participation in sport. He asked how much our shadow Secretary of State wished to cut the budget by, but it is not a question of how much—it is a question of keeping the infrastructure. Can we for once use Parliament as a means of finding a solution to how we get sport in schools and in our communities? Will the Secretary of State continue his contribution in that spirit?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the fair point she makes. I chose to begin my remarks by making it clear that I wished to operate constructively. I should like to ask some questions to ensure that we have a proper informed debate about the successes, and about the areas where the current strategy may not have been delivering the value for money we wanted.