Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Raynsford Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am appalled to hear of yet another example of rogue landlords behaving unacceptably. As my hon. Friend knows, local authorities, including Harrow, have strong powers to tackle rogue landlords, and we expect them to make full use of those powers. Last October we announced a package to help hard-working tenants get a better deal when renting a home, including a commitment to look at property conditions in the private rented sector, and we will shortly announce which local authorities will receive a share in £3 million of funding to help them to tackle rogue and criminal landlords.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Q14. When the Deputy Prime Minister signed the coalition agreement, with its commitment to giving parents and pupils more power to choose good schools, did he ever imagine that it would lead to the current situation in which Conservative-controlled Hammersmith and Fulham council is threatening to close the successful and popular Sullivan primary school—which was rated “good” by Ofsted—in the face of overwhelming opposition from parents, governors, pupils and local residents, in order to hand the site over for a free school?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is present, and I am sure that he will want to write to the right hon. Gentleman about that specific case. However, one of the things that the Government have done is remove the dead hand of bureaucracy and centralisation from our school system, to ensure that teachers are freer to teach in the way that they judge best in the classroom and parents have a greater role—when they want it—in the running of our schools.