Oral Answers to Questions

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I can tell the hon. Lady is that we are investing £1 billion of extra funding every year in early years entitlements, and that includes £300 million per year to increase the national average funding rate. This investment is based on work that was done—a plan that was done—by the DFE, which was described by the National Audit Office as “thorough” and “wide-ranging”. There are important ways that childcare providers can get more from their funding—the DFE is offering to support them to do that—but independent research has shown that our hourly funding rate is significantly higher than the average cost for providing a place to a three or four-year-old. I would hope that she welcomed the fact that this issue of childcare is one that this Government have taken on board and are delivering on.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Q11. For the second year running, I am planning the Wiltshire festival of engineering, this time with my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). We hope to inspire 3,000 children to help to challenge stereotypes of engineering careers and to combat the local skills gap. In addition, we want to highlight that Wiltshire is a hub of engineering, design and technology. Would the Prime Minister consider attending this wonderful event?

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her initiative. She raises a very important point: I think it is important that we see more young people moving into engineering and pursuing careers in engineering and science more generally. The steps she is taking with our hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) are an important part of that. We do need to address those stereotypes. I am particularly keen to address the stereotype about women in engineering, because we should see more women going into engineering. If my diary allows, I would be very happy to attend her festival.

Oral Answers to Questions

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 24 February.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

The House will be aware of the dreadful accident that occurred at Didcot power station yesterday afternoon, in which one person died and three are missing. I know that the whole House will join me in sending our condolences to the family and friends of the victim and our best wishes to those who are still missing or injured. I pay tribute to the quick and incredibly brave actions of our emergency services, who dealt with the incident with typical professionalism. The Health and Safety Executive will carry out a full investigation to find out what led to the tragedy.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others and in addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Michelle Donelan]

I would like to associate myself and the people of Wiltshire with the Prime Minister’s sentiments about the occurrence in Didcot.

Wiltshire has successfully integrated a number of Syrian refugees, including babies and children, who might otherwise have frozen or starved to death in the camps. However, there has been a serious delay by the Home Office, despite Wiltshire Council’s claims to have tried to introduce more refugees into the area. Will the Prime Minister tell us what more he can do on the matter? Will he look into it? Will he also outline what we can do to fulfil our moral duty to those desperate people?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me pay tribute to Wiltshire Council and to the many councils up and down our country that have done a magnificent job of integrating and taking in Syrian refugees and their families, finding them homes, finding them schools and, I hope, in time, finding them jobs, too. If we look at what has happened across Europe with the relocation and resettlement programme, we see that Britain has done far better than any other country. We said 1,000 by Christmas, and we have delivered 1,000 by Christmas.

My hon. Friend asked what more we can do. First of all, I will make sure that she can meet the Home Office to talk about how we can make sure the system works well. We will continue to invest in the Syrian refugee camps, not least with the $11 billion that we raised at the landmark London conference. We will continue to do what we can to deliver the 20,000 Syrian refugees we said we would take into our country.