Oral Answers to Questions

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

What steps he is taking to (a) improve the wellbeing of disadvantaged children and (b) close the educational attainment gap.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

What steps he is taking to (a) improve the wellbeing of disadvantaged children and (b) close the educational attainment gap.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Williamson]

I think the hon. Lady and I have a shared passion to make sure that we close that gap, making sure that children, wherever they are born anywhere in the United Kingdom, have the very best opportunities in life. As the Prime Minister himself said, talent and ability are evenly spread in this country, but opportunity has not always been so. In an earlier answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Stuart Anderson), I touched on the fact that there is a three times weighting for children with special educational needs in terms of the covid catch-up fund, making sure that extra support is channelled that way. I am sure that the hon. Lady has welcomed the announcements we made not just last year but this year which saw a total of £1.5 billion-worth of extra funding being channelled into high need funding in this country over this year and next year.

[Mohammad Yasin]

The programmes that exist to encourage and inspire bright pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to access top universities have been severely impacted this year. The application deadline for Oxbridge medicine and dentistry is this Thursday. What action is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that this year’s state school pupils, who have already been disadvantaged because of the reduced teaching time and mentoring, get a fair crack of the whip?

[Gavin Williamson]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman welcomed the news this year that Oxford and Cambridge welcome more state school pupils than they have ever done before. We want to continue to build on that. We want to ensure that every higher education establishment makes sure that all the opportunities that they can offer are available to every single child, whatever background they come from.