Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Daniel Zeichner

Thursday 8th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, and he is absolutely right that we intend to issue a full public consultation shortly on how best to provide the legal protection that we want to see against caste discrimination. When we do that, I am sure that my hon. Friend and his community will want to participate fully in the consultation.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It took the Government almost a year to come up with a very thin eight-page review on the care and management of transgender offenders. That referred to

“a number of events linked to transgender prisoners”

that attracted attention last year. Those so-called “events” were, in fact, the deaths in the space of a month of two transgender women held in men’s prisons. Will the Minister tell us why the Government failed to acknowledge those tragedies in their review, and why their proposals are so meagre?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Daniel Zeichner

Monday 10th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

T4. Can the Secretary of State explain how allowing schools to select all their pupils by religion, abolishing the 50% cap, will in any way help to bring communities together?

[Justine Greening]

The current rule is generally inoperative for many free schools when they begin, because they are not over-subscribed, and it only kicks in if they are. We are proposing to put in place much stronger, more effective controls to ensure that faith schools that are opening will be community schools. I would very much encourage the hon. Gentleman to read the consultation document, which sets out proposals, including that those schools should demonstrate clear parental demand from parents of other faiths or no faith and that they should twin with primary schools and other schools.