Oral Answers to Questions

Miriam Cates Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robin Walker]

I remember well the hon. Gentleman’s Westminster Hall debate on this issue. We continue to work with Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council. In that debate, he put in a bid for the next round of the priority school building programme, and, as I mentioned earlier, we are consulting on our approach to that.

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

T9. Across the country, many local directors of public health are going far beyond the Department’s covid guidance in their recommendations to schools, and the recent reintroduction of masks in communal spaces has turbo-charged this trend. Headteachers, who are not public health professionals, are being put in an impossible position. We are now seeing the cancellation of important events, the isolation of—and denial of education to— healthy children, forced mask wearing in lessons, punitive measures for forgetting to follow arbitrary rules, and children subjected to dangerously cold classrooms. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is an unethical and frankly inhumane way to treat our children? What can he do to ensure that schools do not go beyond the Government’s guidance?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for ensuring that any mitigation is proportionate. The most important thing is that we prioritise face-to-face education. Keeping children in school is my absolute priority, and I have said from the Dispatch Box today that I will do everything in my power to maintain that situation. Of course, directors of public health can advise temporary additional measures, but they should always be proportionate. As long as schools continue to be open, they should be holding nativities, and delivering every other one of their important functions.