Higher Education Regulatory Approach
Matt Rodda Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
I think we can all learn from Frank Field, who brought wisdom to a range of areas. We can all reflect on the need to keep our views under constant review to ensure that we challenge ourselves. The chance to be educated, whether at school, college or university, is a crucial part of challenging ourselves and understanding the world in all its many forms. These measures will allow university students to have precisely that experience.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. I particularly welcome the emphasis on reducing burdens for universities, which will mean a lot to smaller institutions such as the smaller research-intensive institutions like Reading University in my constituency. Will she commit the Department to continuing to work with smaller research-intensive institutions?
Bridget Phillipson
Yes. One of the many brilliant aspects of our country’s higher education sector is its diversity—smaller institutions, larger ones and those that bring a wealth of difference, having evolved and changed in different ways. We will continue to listen to and work with providers and institutions of all shapes and sizes across our country.
Children’s Social Care
Matt Rodda Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) would be happy to meet her to discuss the issue further. She is right to identify the need for ongoing support for families when a child or children has been removed. Before coming to this House, I worked with many families who were in that situation. I saw directly not just how much of a difference could be made to the lives of those children and families, but how, when mothers were going through subsequent pregnancies, that intervention and support could often be crucial in making sure that the children were able to stay with the mother. That is sadly not always possible, but much more can be achieved with the right level of support. I certainly saw some amazing examples where it was possible to break what had sadly felt like a cycle.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I thank all those working so hard to support vulnerable children in our country, and I thank the Secretary of State for her statement today and some excellent steps forward. May I ask her for a little more clarity on the important point she made about the need for greater co-production with charities and other agencies?
Bridget Phillipson
As we take forward further proposals both for legislation and for wider change and reform across the sector, we look forward to working not only with family rights organisations, charities and others to make sure that they are involved in the design of services, but with our brilliant and often unsung workforce—as my hon. Friend identifies—who often do their work behind the scenes and without the recognition they deserve. Our social work workforce and others play a crucial role, and we are determined to do more to support them in their vital endeavours.
Oral Answers to Questions
Matt Rodda Excerpts(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Priti Patel
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We are prioritising reaching the most vulnerable people across Syria, including Christians, and UK funding is distributed on the basis of ensuring that civilians are not discriminated against on the basis of race, religion or ethnicity.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
3. Whether the Government plan to continue to meet the UN target of spending 0.7% of GDP on aid to developing countries for the duration of this Parliament.
The Secretary of State for International Development (Priti Patel)
Meeting the 0.7% of GNI target for overseas aid is a manifesto commitment. It is enshrined in law, and the Government have been unequivocal that we will continue to honour that pledge.
Matt Rodda
As well as committing to the United Nations target of spending 0.7% of GDP on aid to developing countries, does the Secretary of State agree that poverty reduction must be at the heart of UK aid spending?
Priti Patel
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the House. He is absolutely right, and that is exactly what our aid spending does. Importantly, poverty reduction is at the heart of the definition in terms of official development assistance spending, and that is something that the Government are absolutely focused on.