Mary Creagh
Main Page: Mary Creagh (Labour - Wakefield)Department Debates - View all Mary Creagh's debates with the Department for Education
(6 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Justine Greening
Absolutely. My hon. Friend’s question sets out how important it is to have a strong economy producing jobs and opportunity for young people. We are working with the Careers & Enterprise Company to build a national network, which will connect schools and colleges with employers. Over half of schools and colleges in England are already supported by an enterprise adviser, who helps them to build strong careers and strong enterprise plans for their young people. In opportunity areas, dozens of key employers, including Rolls-Royce, NatWest and KPMG, have committed to providing tailored careers support to young people.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
Pupils at the 21 schools managed by Wakefield City Academies Trust are among the most disadvantaged in the country. The collapse of the trust on Friday came as a bolt from the blue to them, their parents and their teachers. A leaked report in November found: that the trust was predicted to be £16 million in deficit; that hundreds of thousands of pounds had been spent on an interim educational consultant; and that Wakefield City high school did not even know which pupils were in receipt of pupil premium. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to make sure disadvantaged children do not miss out as a result of financial mismanagement and her Department’s incompetence?
Justine Greening
I was agreeing with all the points the hon. Lady was making on how important it is to tackle low education standards in those schools and to make sure we take swift action to have the schools rebrokered so that standards can go up, but I fundamentally disagree with her that standards are falling. Standards are going up. In fact, the place in our United Kingdom where standards are the worst and falling is Wales, where Labour is in control. I really think that before pointing the finger at England the Labour party should be apologising to Welsh children, who are missing out because of a flawed and failing education policy.