Integrated Communities

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work that I know she did to promote integration and community cohesion as a councillor in Tower Hamlets. She raises the important issue of people abusing the valuable right to choose home education for their children, and that is why, under the strategy that my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary has set out, we will review the guidelines for home education and particularly look at those instances—there is evidence of them already—in which people claim to be home educating their children but are in fact sending them to unregistered, unregulated schools, which is clearly a bad outcome for those children.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

I broadly welcome the strategy and the opportunities it provides to Bradford to become a more cohesive place for all. I urge the Government to make sure that their aims and ambitions are matched by sufficient funding to make them a reality. I also ask the Secretary of State to realise that the root cause of many of these problems is a lack of opportunity. There are too few good jobs, low levels of educational attainment and, ultimately, too many people living in poverty. If we truly want more integrated communities, we have to deal with those fundamental issues.

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady is right to raise the importance of opportunities and how having a more integrated society will help with that, particularly learning English, but it is about a lot more than that and other skills are required as well. It is good that we have a strong economy with more people—including more women—employed than ever before. That is a prerequisite, but of course there is a lot more to do, and I hope she agrees that the strategy will help.