Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Gibb and Dawn Butler(5 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
My right hon. Friend raises an important point, and the Government take these issues very seriously. For example, our apprenticeship diversity champions network is working in partnership with employers to help to overcome gender stereotypes in sectors such as science, technology, engineering and maths and industries such as construction. My right hon. Friend will be pleased to know that since 2010 there has been a 26% increase in the number of girls entering STEM A-levels in England, and that in the United Kingdom the number of women accepted on to full-time STEM undergraduate courses since 2010 has increased by 28%.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
On 22 April, we marked the very first National Stephen Lawrence Day. It has been 26 years since his tragic racist murder. Sadly, as the Prime Minister acknowledged, racism and racial discrimination are still very prevalent in our society.
In 2018, the UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance stated that any measure that directly or indirectly targets and undermines the rights of marginalised groups must be understood as breaking international human rights law. This Government have presided over an immigration enforcement system in which people are being unfairly racially profiled; refused to allow people to bring forward discrimination claims based on more than one aspect of their identity; introduced voter ID, which will disenfranchise marginalised communities; failed to act on the results of their own racial disparity audit; and introduced hostile-environment policies. Will the Minister inform the House whether, as well as breaking the UN’s human rights law, her Government are institutionally racist or just do not care?
Teachers Strike
Debate between Nick Gibb and Dawn Butler(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Trade Union Act 2016 will ensure that industrial action in essential services gets the go-ahead only after a ballot of at least 50% of members. Bearing in mind that the turnout for this ballot was just 24.5%, this strike would not be legal if the new regulations had taken effect. We are consulting with stakeholders on the regulations, and the thresholds are likely to come into force later this year.
Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)
I received a message today from Nicola, a teacher—I am sure her class is not full of twins—who said that she is trying to work out how to fit next year’s class of 34 into a room with furniture for just 28 children, while also making leaving cards for four members of staff. What does the Minister have to say to Nicola?
Mr Gibb
What I would say is that the percentage of pupils in infant classes of more than 30 is 5.8%, which is down from 6.2% in January 2015. In the last five or six years, we have created 600,000 more school places. We have doubled the amount of capital going into creating new school places, compared with that spent by the previous Labour Government. Incidentally, they removed 200,000 primary school places, which is the problem we have had to tackle, and they did not plan for the increased birth rate.