Brexit Readiness: Operation Yellowhammer

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Walney

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am very sorry that the hon. Lady’s questions were not answered. We will and we have published extensive information about our preparations for exit, and I would be more than happy to direct her to those. However, I would stress that Yellowhammer—a reasonable worst-case scenario—is just one aspect of the preparations that we have undertaken, and it would be wrong to think that it was the only thing that the Government were concentrating on.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Ind)]

The Minister has repeated his assertion that in the event of a no-deal Brexit some food prices will go up and some will go down, but our constituents deserve a straight answer. Will the cost of the weekly food basket of an average low-income family be higher, lower or the same in the event of a no-deal Brexit?

[Michael Gove]

That is a very fair point, but it is one of those questions that it is impossible to answer, because none of us can predict the variety of factors, from fluctuations in exchange rates to harvests to world grain prices, that will all affect the price of food. The one thing that I would say is that the Government are doing everything they can, and everything all of us can, in order to ensure, through application of the correct tariffs and through making sure that we have correct flows at the border, that people can continue to have access to not just plentiful but competitively priced and healthy food.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Walney

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

At a time when there is overwhelming evidence about the value of physical activity to improving health outcomes and learning in classrooms, why on earth is the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), defending the right of teachers to use running around the playground as a punishment, rather than using the bully pulpit of the Dispatch Box to condemn such outmoded practices?

[Michael Gove]

As a great admirer of Teddy Roosevelt, I am happy to use whatever bully pulpits are available. Let me take this opportunity to congratulate the Prime Minister and the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), on securing a sports premium in our primary schools, which ensures that more physical activity is available than ever before. I also thank the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) for the work he has undertaken with me to bring an independent school into the state sector—using the free school programme—in order to give more children opportunities I am afraid his Front-Bench colleagues would, for ideological reasons, deny them. He is a good Blairite; they are the bad ones.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Walney

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for praising head teachers in Rochdale. Head teachers everywhere are doing a fantastic job with limited resources. The one thing that I hope I shall be able to work with the hon. Gentleman to ensure is that head teachers can make those resources go even further by allowing their schools to convert to academy status.

[John Woodcock]

The report shows that capital spending on schools was the fastest-growing component under Labour, but that we shall see the biggest cut under the Secretary of State’s plans. In Barrow, a vital development is currently being upheld at the planning stage by Conservative councillors. Will the Secretary of State guarantee full funding for the project if those planning objections are dismissed?

Education Maintenance Allowance

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Walney

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

No, not yet. The fault for that debt and deficit lies with the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. The OECD said that in 2000, thanks to Conservative policies, the UK had one of the best structural fiscal positions in the world, but by 2007 we had one of the worst in the G7. Why were we in such a weak position? It was because Labour had doubled our debt. In 1997 our national debt was £351 billion, whereas in 2010, by the time the Labour Government had left office, it was £893 billion. You cannot spend money that you do not have. The truth was revealed in a statement secreted in a Treasury desk by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne). In a note to the succeeding Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he said “There’s no money.” Not a single member of the Labour party has yet had the courage to accept that truth, and to atone and apologise for it.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman will.

[John Woodcock]

The Secretary of State is talking about things that have been written down. Does he also accept that this is also about values? Will he therefore clarify for the House whether he wishes to apologise for the remarks, to which my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State referred, that he made in his article in The Times about the attitude to debt and the consequences for people going to university?

[Michael Gove]

That article in The Times was actually in favour of the previous Government’s efforts to improve access to university. Unlike many Labour Members, I supported what Tony Blair was doing on university tuition fees; I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman did. But never mind that, because the truth is that no Labour Member has atoned or apologised for the huge economic mess in which we have been landed. This is appropriate, because the motion stands in the name of the right hon. Member for Leigh, and he was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury when the ship was steered towards the rocks, so he cannot point the finger at anyone else—

Education Funding

Debate between Michael Gove and Lord Walney

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s kind words at the beginning. I have stressed that academy projects are those that, as we both appreciate, were designed to help children in the most difficult circumstances. If he would like to write to me, we will make sure that we do everything possible to help to support that academy project.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

In the light of the shambolic way in which information has had to be eked out of the Secretary of State today, he will forgive me for pressing him a little further. Can he say that he will honour every penny of the previous Government’s promise on the primary capital programme, including the £12.6 million to benefit three primary schools in my constituency, and the secondary enlargement programme, which, although outwith the Building Schools for the Future project, is vital to the future of education in my constituency?