Kevin Brennan
Main Page: Kevin Brennan (Labour - Cardiff West)Department Debates - View all Kevin Brennan's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Michael Gove
I do not mind embarrassment personally—[Interruption.] Just as well, some might say. What I do worry about is if any school, anywhere in the country, is not providing the highest quality education for children. One of the striking things about the free schools programme is that not only are schools more likely to be “good” or “outstanding”, but when schools have underperformed, we have moved rapidly to close them or replace the leadership of schools that have not been doing a good enough job.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Can the Secretary of State confirm that the architect of the free schools policy, Dominic Cummings, was in the Department last week, despite the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) saying in a written parliamentary answer to me that there was no record of his visit? Could that be because he wrote last week, in typically bad taste, that he always signs into Government Departments, including No. 10, under the name of Osama bin Laden? What on earth is the Secretary of State doing still relying on this man’s advice?
Michael Gove
The architect of the free schools programme was actually Andrew Adonis, not Dominic Cummings, as he himself has said. Free schools were a Labour invention—a point that was repeated by the former Prime Minister Tony Blair when speaking to The Times today. As for the hon. Gentleman’s points about former special advisers, all sorts of people from time to time seek to visit the Department for Education to exchange ideas with old friends and colleagues.