School Teachers’ Review Body: Recommendations

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

On the hon. Lady’s initial comments, let me say that there are processes and procedures in this House that we respect. We respect this House, and we will continue to do so. There is a process by which this statement and these announcements will be made. She will have to wait, alongside everybody, for the process that we adhere to in this House to be administered.

In response to the hon. Lady’s second question, as she should know, our funding system is not designed so that every school and college receives funding that necessarily fully matches their precise spending, as that—including NIC costs—varies from institution to institution because of the decisions that each school makes on staffing. We are providing schools and high-need settings with more than £930 million in 2025-26 to support them with their increased national insurance costs. That is in addition to the £2.3 billion increase to core schools funding announced at the autumn Budget in 2024. That means that the core schools budget, which includes the core revenue funding for schools and high-need settings, will total more than £64.8 billion in 2025-26. We will continue to support schools to spend that money in the most effective and productive way possible to maximise outcomes for children, which are our priority.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I spent most of the last Government’s time in office scrutinising public spending, and grew weary of promises of pay or other Government decisions not being matched with budgets for schools, hospitals and so on. When things like changes to national insurance and pay increases are made, I hope that this Government will be very honest about the impact on school budgets, and not have headlines that are not balanced with funding. I therefore hope the Minister is making good arguments in the spending review. Could she make sure that she really leans into the issue of falling rolls in London’s schools? Any hoped-for pay rise, which is much deserved by teachers, will be a double whammy for schools in London, because rolls are falling and their income is therefore much lower; that will have an extra impact on staffing decisions.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and for the work that she has done in this House over many years in scrutinising Government budgets and holding Governments to account. We have the highest respect for schools, for school leaders, and for the teachers and support staff who work in schools. We recognise the challenges faced across the public sector to make sure that every penny of public money is spent in the most efficient way possible and maximises the public benefit. We are working incredibly hard in the Department, as I know we are across Government, to get maximum output for public money. Frankly, the public sector was neglected by the previous Government over 14 years. We are picking up the pieces of that, and we will continue to work hard to do so.

Gender Self-identification

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Savage]

I wholeheartedly agree, and I associate myself with the hon. Member’s remarks.

Let us take the example of Joelle, a trans woman who died of an eminently treatable cancer after waiting for eight days on a general ward, because clinicians could not agree whether she should be placed on a men’s ward or a women’s ward. The delay in treatment cost her her life. That is not to mention the recent Supreme Court ruling and the devastating impact that its implications are having on trans people, who are just trying to get on with living their lives.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I have many constituents who have been really affected by the Supreme Court ruling. I highlight one who works in the ambulance service; she has breasts and uses women’s changing facilities without any issue. Were she to be forced into using other facilities, it would declare to everybody her transgender status. She has lived as a woman and has a gender recognition certificate. Dos the hon. Member agree that this legal ruling creates a real mess that needs sorting out?

[Dr Savage]

I am keenly aware of the distress that the Supreme Court ruling has caused. It seems to fly in the face of common sense when somebody who is clearly living life as a female would, under this ruling, have to go into male spaces. It beggars belief. The ruling hurts not only trans people, but any woman who does not conform to feminine norms, who may be challenged on entering a women’s space. This is not just a legal roll-back for trans rights, but a roll-back for women’s rights.

A recent survey response from a parent said:

“I’m primarily worried about my trans daughter’s safety as a result of the ruling. I’m also worried about my cis daughter’s future and the increasing pressure to conform to restrictive gender stereotypes.”

A trans person responding to the same survey said that they felt:

“Stress, anxiety and uncertainty for the future. More and more I feel like I am having to shrink my life for my own protection”.

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[Mr Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for introducing this important debate.

Although, as MPs, we must respect the independence and authority of the judiciary, the recent ruling does not solve anything. Let us be clear that the ruling does not absolve us from our ongoing responsibility to the trans community—our duty to respect, support and advocate for their rights remains as vital as ever.

I am deeply troubled by the rhetoric that has taken hold in recent years, which has been appropriated by those seemingly seeking to sow division and manufacture culture wars at the expense of people who already face hardship and discrimination in our society. It is disheartening to see figures including the Leader of the Opposition appear to wear their transphobia as almost a badge of honour. We must not forget that our words in this House matter and can really impact the most vulnerable. Like many Members, I came into politics to champion minorities and to give a voice to the voiceless. It is vital that we remember the power we hold to raise the tone of debate, rather than lowering it, and to support the vulnerable, not scapegoat them.

Trans people simply want to live in peace, not to be demonised or turned into a convenient political target during times of national difficulty. Our constituents, by and large, are not fixated on which toilets people use. They want change, improved lives and well-funded services. I am concerned by the growing narrative that improving trans rights somehow threatens the rights or dignity of women and girls. I will not deny that in places such as the Prison Service there have been troubling examples of individuals playing the system to gain access to women’s spaces. We must acknowledge and address those concerns seriously.

But when I hear some Opposition Members declare themselves to be champions of women’s rights—well, they might if they were here—I ask not only where they are now, but where they have been for the last 15 years. When violence against women and girls skyrocketed, where was the legislation? When women’s shelters were chronically underfunded, where was the outrage? When domestic abuse cases surged while court access diminished, where was the action? When male perpetrators played the legal system to harass their victims, where was the advocacy?

I do not raise those matters just to score political points, but to prompt reflection. If a person’s defence of women’s rights surfaces only in opposition to trans rights, I question whether it is truly about supporting women or simply a way to target trans people under that guise.

I stand not to provoke argument, but to urge every hon. Member in this Chamber to remember the human beings behind our words, and their families, their communities and their lives. Hate crimes against trans people are rising. We are failing in our duty as MPs if we do not accept some responsibility for the tone and consequences of our discourse.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend highlights an important point. Many people have been in touch with me who are very frightened because of the Supreme Court ruling. Does he agree that not only do we need to speak here but that the Government need to make sure the interim guidance is quickly firmed up as proper guidance, because the interim guidance is causing confusion and fear for so many people?

[Mr Quigley]

I agree entirely. As we have seen many times over the last 14 years, words matter. Ultimately, the petition before us is rooted in compassion, dignity and basic respect—principles that are unmistakably British. Respect for others, fairness and standing up for the vulnerable are values in which we rightly take pride. I hope that we can all agree on the simple truth that trans people are not the enemy and that the power we hold in this place must be used to uplift, not to vilify. My message to all of us here today is that we should not lose sight of that responsibility.

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[Kirsty Blackman]

I am not a lawyer, but my reading is that the Supreme Court tried to work out what was in the minds of the politicians who passed the Equality Act in 2010. That is a difficult thing to do, because I cannot say what is in my mind right now, never mind 15 years ago. The Supreme Court tried to interpret that, and it came down on the side of saying that the politicians were talking about biological sex when it comes to single-sex spaces, for example. Actually, the Equality Act mainly focuses on things like discrimination rather than single-sex spaces, which are a tangential side mention in the Act.

My understanding is that someone can now only be discriminated against on the basis of biological sex or on the basis of their transgender identity, so not their transgender gender but their identity as a transgender person. That removes a huge amount of protection for transgender people. I am massively concerned, and I think the only way we will get clarity is if the Government step up and make a change to the Equality Act.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Does the hon. Lady not agree that the Equality Act was well written to deal with intersectional issues when they arise, that the guidance around it was very clear, and that this Supreme Court ruling has muddied that. As she says, the Government may need to step in to resolve this.

[Kirsty Blackman]

I agree, and the court ruling made it clear that the Scottish Government had acted in line with the EHRC’s guidance, but that it was the guidance that was wrong, because it should have been done on the basis of biological sex, not gender.

I am aware that I am pushing up against the time limit, but lastly, I am concerned about the direction of travel with the EHRC. It would be sensible to have an independent body look at making these decisions. Given the EHRC’s current positioning and the comments it has made—and given that, a few weeks ago, I was at a celebration of 15 years of the Equality Act and a number of people from LGB Alliance and Sex Matters were invited to that celebration, but there was only one transgender person in the room—I am concerned that the EHRC is not able to be an unbiased arbiter of the law on this issue.

Actually, I think the EHRC has an impossible job right now, because we cannot interpret the Equality Act on the basis of biological sex. It does not make sense unless we tell everyone that they must have three toilets—if we are defining all toilets as single-sex spaces, and if businesses continue to be required to have single-sex toilets. The easiest way to solve this would be to say that every business should have unisex toilets for everybody, because then everyone could access every toilet.

However, I do not think we want to get to that position, so the Government have only two options. They can either talk to the EHRC and ensure that it is being completely unbiased, or they can change the Equality Act so that its meaning is totally clear, including on the definition of sex. That way, it would be clear that we are actually trying to protect human rights, particularly the right to privacy and the right of trans people to die a dignified death in their affirmed gender, if that is the phrase we want to use. I think we are failing right now, and changes need to be made to protect our constituents.

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[Tim Roca]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and why we should be extremely worried about what is happening to our record on LGBT rights. In him, his constituents have an excellent champion for their local LGBTQ+ community.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Under the previous Trump Administration, the British Foreign Office issued a travel warning to trans people because of the so-called bathroom ban—well, the actual bathroom ban—in parts of the United States. Yet now we are in a position where many trans women and trans men are very frightened about using toilets. Does my hon. Friend agree that Government action is needed?

[Tim Roca]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. She makes a good point about how urgent action is needed.

Almost all Members have touched on the recent UK Supreme Court ruling, which has created so much uncertainty about the legal rights of trans people, particularly trans women, under the Equality Act. Let me be clear: I am not questioning the existence or legitimacy of single-sex spaces. The Equality Act rightly allowed for such spaces in reasonable circumstances, particularly where privacy, dignity or safeguarding required it, but its principle was balanced. In my view, the Supreme Court judgment reinterpreted that balance in a way that completely undermines the legal clarity that we had before, and raises new concerns about consistency in application. That interpretation appears to directly contradict the spirit and purpose of the Gender Recognition Act, which was passed to give trans people full legal recognition in their acquired gender.

The judgment not only strips away legal certainty for trans individuals, but risks making the GRC, as Members have pointed out, a symbolic document with little practical effect. The critical question—I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) wants to intervene.

[Tim Roca]

Where I agree completely with my hon. Friend is that this debate—as has been pointed out already—has become incredibly toxic. We are seeing, with Reform and others, an attempt to import American-style politics to our country. We need a rational, reasonable debate that safeguards the dignity of all people, so I am glad that my hon. Friend made that point.

The critical question I was coming to was this: what is the purpose of the GRC now? For many years, we were told that the GRC was the legal mechanism by which a person’s acquired gender would be recognised in law, but many people are now left wondering whether a GRC still confers the rights and recognition it was meant to. If a trans woman with a GRC can still be excluded from single-sex spaces and services, what legal certainty does that document offer? Why are we asking people to go through a lengthy, intrusive and often dehumanising process to obtain one?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend is making an important point. The gender recognition certificate is often destroyed by trans people because they have their new birth certificate. The certificate itself is not always an extant document.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise his concern, as so many have this afternoon, about the state of the system for supporting children with SEND. It is not working, and we know it needs reform, but committing an extra £1 billion into the system at this crucial time was an important first step. We face choices on how to take this system forward, and how to make it less adversarial and more focused on better life chances for our children. One of the first steps I took was to refocus the work of the Department for Education on children with SEND.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

T2.   Schools are closing across inner London, and across London more widely, for various reasons, leaving premises empty or at risk of being sold off. What strategic oversight is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that we get the best value for our children from these properties?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important issue, about which there was a lack of thinking by the previous Government on how we do this properly and seriously. Challenges come with demographic change, but there are opportunities too. That is why we have announced more primary-based nurseries in empty classrooms, and we can think about doing more around additional support and provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities, in particular.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Nearly 5% of children in Hackney have an EHCP—and that is not accounting for others who have special educational needs. With schools closing, we have an opportunity to create alternative provision. The other week, one poor headteacher told me that more than a third of her reception class has special educational needs, most of which were not identified before the children started school. Clearly, there is a need for a different vision. Will my hon. Friend meet me and people from Hackney—or even visit Hackney—to see what we can do with spare school spaces to motor this change forward in Hackney, faster than is possible nationally?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She rightly identifies the need to ensure that we have the right school places for children whose needs are currently not being met in the most productive way possible. We are open to meeting hon. Members to discuss where in their constituencies this can best be achieved. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this further.

School Building Closures

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Education Committee. I apologise about the written answer the previous night; we had more recent information at the Education Committee. The cases are always being assessed and the numbers are always being updated, which is why we choose a date to publish the latest information. The numbers are moving very quickly. He is absolutely right: 11 RAAC schools already have temporary buildings that are installed or in use. There is a further 28 sites, I think, that have made inquiries and requested potential orders. As he rightly said, there are 180 single classrooms, 68 double classrooms, plus a mixture of toilet provision.

On the portacabins, I would just like to say that I have been to a number of these schools and met the children. At the first school I visited, the children were all petitioning me to stay in the portacabins, because they actually preferred them to the classroom. The portacabins are very high quality—[Interruption.] That is true. I advise the shadow Secretary of State to visit some of them herself.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Perhaps the Secretary of State could clarify whether it is 18 or 28 schools that still need temporary classrooms, because we have heard different figures from her and from her ministerial colleague at the Education Committee earlier. Something headteachers have said to me is that they do not just need the temporary classrooms, but they need some of them kitted out as science labs or design and technology classrooms, for example. There is a cost to doing that. It is not just a question of chairs and tables; it is much more. What is her Department doing to make sure that children have the right classrooms so they can do their assessments, which are already ticking along towards next year’s exams?

[Gillian Keegan]

I confirm that the project directors and caseworkers have made inquiries requesting potential orders for a further 28 sites. There are some specialist requirements for science labs or other specialist equipment, and there are a number of things taking place on that. Schools are sharing science lab equipment in the short term, either with another school or with another part of the school. We are also looking at mitigations. In the school I went to see where the children were very happy in their portacabin, they had horizontally propped and mitigated the science labs first, so they were able to use the science labs in combination with the portacabins. There are also specialist portacabins available, which are being looked at in specific circumstances.

Safety of School Buildings

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

The difference between the Labour Government in Wales and the Government here in Westminster is that, over the last 13 years, the Welsh Government have continued with a school rebuilding programme, unlike the UK Government, who have cut funding and cut support to our schools time and again.

We want to be clear, open and honest with local authorities and multi-academy trusts about the steps that the Secretary of State is taking to get in place the protections and mitigations that are needed. She said on Monday:

“Absolutely nothing is more important than the safety of children and staff. It has always been the case that where we are made aware of a building that poses an immediate risk, we have taken immediate action.”—[Official Report, 4 September 2023; Vol. 737, c. 52.]

Yet she was keen to spread the responsibility for the concrete crisis through time and space, including to her colleagues, who I understand had been sitting on their backsides; to the Welsh Government—a topic of interest for Members—whose ability to act swiftly has been hampered by key information not being shared; and to the last Labour Government, who left office 13 years ago.

The Secretary of State was keen to emphasise that it was not her Department’s responsibility, or hers, to ensure the safety of our children at school. Pushing responsibility on to others—local authorities, the schools themselves, multi-academy trusts—without the powers, resources or support they need, is very simply passing the buck, and my word, there has been an awful lot of that this week.

As Ministers have been keen to remind us, concerns were first raised about RAAC back in the 1990s. By then, the wider issue was that too many schools, built quickly and cheaply in the previous 50 years, were approaching the end of their design life. The issues were many: RAAC, asbestos and the simple reality—in the school I went to and in so many other state schools across our the country—of buckets in corridors, classrooms blackened by mould, windows that did not close and doors that would not shut.

I was at school back in the mid ’90s, but I know how serious Labour politicians took those warnings, and I am proud that as the scale of the challenge became clear, Labour Ministers rose to it. In 2004, the Buildings Schools for the Future programme was launched to rebuild every secondary school in our country over 15 years. In 2007, Building Schools for the Future was joined by the primary capital programme to give every child the chance to learn safely in a first-rate learning environment. That was done not because it was simple or quick, nor because there were no easier, more popular or more eye-catching choices, but because it was right, because it was responsible, and because that Labour Government believed then, as we do now, that excellence must be for everyone, and that every child deserves the best start—not just some children, but all our children.

The change we saw in 2010, when the Conservatives entered Government, reflected a very different approach: an entirely botched cancellation of existing programmes not by Ministers long since retired, but by the Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), who is still sitting on the Treasury Bench today, and by a former Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who is still in the Cabinet. Ambitions were reduced and timelines extended. Ministers knew the consequences when they took those decisions. They banked the savings and left our schools to rot slowly, quietly and inexorably.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend not think that the vast, overinflated amounts of money spent on some free school sites could have been better spent dealing with the collapsing schools?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for all the work that she has done over many years, as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, to draw our attention to the problems. I will say a bit more about the recent report by the National Audit Office on many of these issues.

When we leave risks unattended, they worsen and, in time, things start to fail—first quickly, then suddenly. In July 2018, a ceiling suddenly collapsed at Singlewell Primary School in Kent, where RAAC failed without warning. Mercifully, no one was hurt. Months passed, and an alert from central Government and the Local Government Association went out that autumn emphasising the risks. It said:

“The limited durability of RAAC roofs and other RAAC structures has long been recognised; however recent experience (which includes two roof failures with little or no warning) suggests the problem may be more serious than previously appreciated and that many building owners are not aware that it is present in their property.”

Let me emphasise that final point: many building owners are not aware.

A few months after that, in May 2019, the Standing Committee on Structural Safety issued a note on the failure of RAAC planks. It said that all those installed before 1980

“are now past their expected service life and it is recommended that consideration is given to their replacement.”

It was not until March 2022—almost four years after that ceiling collapsed—that the Department for Education responded to the challenge of RAAC. How? It sent out a survey—not a surveyor, not a team of surveyors, and not even funding for surveyors, but a survey. If the issue was such a priority, and if the Secretary of State and her Department believed in immediate action, why, after a school collapsed in July 2018, did it take almost four years for the Department to send out a survey about RAAC in March 2022? I appreciate that the Secretary of State was not in post throughout that time, but responsibility in Government is not merely individual; crucially, it is collective and enduring. It stretches across Government and down the years. If she does not understand that point, perhaps she could seek advice from the Schools Minister, who has been in post for so many years, as he is today.

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[Gillian Keegan]

I will definitely look at that case, because that sounds as though it took place before the decision I took and also before I stood up the caseworkers, proppers, cabinets and portacabins. If the hon. Lady will give me the details of that case, I will look at it, because that should not be happening. What should be happening is exactly the same as what my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) laid out.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The Secretary of State is confident, it seems, that there are enough surveyors to do this work, but since she made this decision about schools, questions have been raised about many other public buildings and I suspect structural surveyors are now in much shorter supply. Is she still confident that structural engineers and surveyors will be available to do this work, and is she sticking to her timetable of having answers by the end of next week?

[Gillian Keegan]

I am confident that, because we started early, we have done a lot of these surveys already. Quite a lot of the schools were involved at the beginning, so I am confident of that. I am also confident that the NHS has conducted surveys of its main buildings, and I think the courts have also done surveys. However, we have now increased the number of surveying companies from three to eight to make sure that we can get through all the cases, including any that Members are concerned about, as soon as possible.

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[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I rise as the Member of Parliament who, unfortunately, probably has more RAAC schools than any other. That does not take into account nearby secondary schools, three of which are identified on the list of cancelled projects in the Building Schools for the Future programme with RAAC in Colchester, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and which are all likely to be attended by pupils from my constituency.

I heave a deep sigh. Opposition day debates are about blaming the Government—I have been in opposition, and we all know that. They are not about what has fundamentally gone wrong and what lessons there are to be learned. Like the Prime Minister, as he pointed out earlier on the spending review, I can find no reference to RAAC schools in Hansard relating to any statement, urgent question or debate from 2010 when the Building Schools for the Future programme was cancelled, and cancelled it was for very good reasons. Labour’s motion is retrospectively trying to allocate blame in the past, not explaining what a Labour Government would do now or in future.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I am tempted to my feet to say that there was a properly planned programme of renewal of schools, and although RAAC in itself was not the only issue being looked at, it was part of that discussion. Just because it is not named does not mean that there was not a plan. There was a plan, and a Conservative Secretary of State axed that on day one of the coalition Government.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

That is of no comfort to my constituents, I am afraid, because nearly all the schools concerned are primary schools, and there were no primary schools in the Building Schools for the Future programme because it was a politically driven programme funded by the discredited public finance initiative, which made it extremely expensive. I do not think we should go back there.

The Labour party does not actually criticise what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State decided last week to protect the safety of schoolchildren and teachers. That was the subject of my intervention on the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson). Does she think that the Secretary of State has done the wrong thing? I will give way to her now if she would like to say that.

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete in Education Settings

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I am very happy to. I know that Kingsdown was one of the first identified, and obviously has additional special needs as well. A caseworker is looking into that. Also, just so that it is clear why we made the decision not to publish all the names initially, Kingsdown’s name was published by the council and it was inundated by media, which made it incredibly difficult. The school asked for our help in ensuring that it did not have too much of a media distraction, so we really needed to be conscious of that as well.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Department for Education itself assessed in 2020 that it needed around £7 billion a year for capital funding for schools. The Department bid, after some negotiation, for £4 billion in the 2020 spending review but was allocated only £3.1 billion. That was after over a decade of underinvestment in capital and maintenance in school buildings. Can the Secretary of State not acknowledge that some of these things are chickens coming home to roost?

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Nick Gibb]

I take on board what my right hon. Friend is saying. The condition data collection is a thorough nationwide assessment of the condition of every school in the country, and that is the data on which decisions are based when deciding how to fund capital funding.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Many schools up and down the country still have asbestos in them and are getting to a dangerous state. It is all very well telling governing bodies to identify the asbestos, but there is not much incentive if there is no special or directed funding available to remove it and that is beyond the budget of an individual school. What is the Minister going to do to make sure asbestos is removed from our school buildings?

[Nick Gibb]

Asbestos management in school buildings is, as the hon. Lady will know, regulated by the Health and Safety Executive. The Department follows its advice and works closely with it. The DFE published detailed guidance on asbestos management for schools in 2020. When asbestos is a problem in a school, that is a major factor taken into account when deciding to rebuild schools under the school rebuilding programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. In line with our manifesto commitment to raise the starting salary, it is £28,000 this year and it will be £30,000 from September next year. I can confirm that the employer contribution to teachers’ pensions is 23.6%, which is considerably higher than for many in the private sector.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State says she wants to support teachers, particularly in the first five years, and that the £30,000 a year salary will kick in next year. In London, people often move after about five years because they simply cannot afford to rent privately or buy in the capital. What is she doing, both in the immediate and the long term, to make sure that we keep good teachers in London?

[Gillian Keegan]

The hon. Lady may be aware that we have a London weighting for teachers, but I accept that the costs of accommodation in London are extremely high in some areas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who continues to champion students and businesses in Southend West. The local skills improvement plans that we have introduced under the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 will place employers at the heart of local skills systems and will facilitate more dynamic working arrangements among employers, colleges and other skills providers. Essex Chambers of Commerce has recently been chosen to lead on the development of an LSIP for the Essex, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock area. It is good to see that South Essex College is working with Essex Chambers of Commerce to achieve that.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Secretary of State and her team to their new positions, or back to their old ones. From her work on the Public Accounts Committee, among other things, she will know of the desperate need in this country for digital and cyber skills. At the recent Silicon Milkroundabout, a special day called Next Gen was set up to encourage companies to take on new graduates or people with lower qualifications, but companies said that they would only really take people with three years’ postgraduate experience. Does she think that there is an opportunity in the sector to boost apprenticeships? Would she be willing to work with businesses in Shoreditch to promote them?

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank the hon. Lady for her welcome. I would be very happy to work with businesses in Shoreditch. When I was the skills and apprenticeships Minister, I worked with Ada, the National College for Digital Skills, and I know that it is vital for digital and cyber offers to be made across the landscape. I recently visited Aston University, which is working with a local college to develop an institute of technology to provide, for instance, much-needed digital apprenticeships and full-time courses, and I would be happy to work with anyone who wants to ensure that that vital provision continues.