Oral Answers to Questions

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

As we say in Scotland, “Facts are chiels that winna ding.” The truth is that the current system of school funding is inequitable. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has made that case most powerfully recently.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

In an earlier answer, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) again deferred to Magic Breakfast, an excellent charity, to plug the massive funding gap that has been left by the Government taking away extended schools money. Magic Breakfast provides 200 schools with free breakfast, yet 3,000 breakfast clubs have been closed across the country and thousands more are under threat. What are the Government going to do about that?

[Tim Loughton]

Let me have another go. Just a few weeks ago, I met the former chairman of Greggs who set up the breakfast club. That company did so not on the basis of how much money the Government were or were not putting into it or because of Government policy, but because it thought that it was the right thing to do, it was in a position to do it and it was good corporate social responsibility. The company did it and it did not take Government money to ensure that companies could step up to the mark and do their bit.