Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Trott Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We welcome the new shadow Secretary of State.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. May I say how delighted I am to be in the role? We will be a constructive Opposition working in the best interests of young people. In that spirit, I ask the Secretary of State to confirm that the Government’s early years funding rates for all age groups will increase to reflect the changes in employer national insurance contributions. Will she give us a figure for how much that will cost the Department for Education?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I welcome the right hon. Lady to her place: it is the best job in opposition, just as mine is the best job in government. I am sure that whatever disagreements we might have in the weeks and months to come, we can all get behind the importance of education to our country.

We will set out more detail on funding rates in due course. What I would say to the right hon. Lady is that the Conservative party left behind commitments, but no plan to make them real. Instead, they left us a £22 billion hole in the public finances, and this Government have had to take some tough decisions to get our public finances back on a stable footing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

There has been a lot of discussion about our record in government. Under the Conservatives, England climbed international educational league tables, but what happened to Labour- run Wales? It fell. Under the Conservatives, youth unemployment went down and school standards improved —that is the record of the Conservative Government, which we are proud to defend. Does the Secretary of State agree that academisation was one of the driving forces behind that very good school improvement?

--- Later in debate ---

[Bridget Phillipson]

We are focused on driving up standards for our children, the length and breadth of our country, by providing more teachers and improved school budgets, and by ensuring our children do not go to school in crumbling buildings, unlike the Conservative party, which made sure that our children went to school in buildings that were literally propped up.

[Laura Trott]

The problem that we have is that while we are learning the lessons of our defeat, the Government are failing to learn from our brilliant record on school standards. Results improved, more schools were “good” or “outstanding”, but now the party in government is trying to undermine one part of the basis for that success. Why is the Secretary of State scrapping the academy conversion support grant when it was such a push behind improving school standards?

[Bridget Phillipson]

The Conservative party has learned absolutely nothing and parents will not buy it. We were faced with some very tough choices because of the £22 billion hole in the public finances, as the right hon. Lady, the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, knows all too well—[Interruption.] We are fixing the foundations and rebuilding our schools.