Educational Settings: Reopening Debate
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Nigel Evans
Main Page: Nigel Evans (Conservative - Ribble Valley)Department Debates - View all Nigel Evans's debates with the Department for Education
Educational Settings: Reopening
Nigel Evans Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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 Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I am not sure the Minister was the right person to ask that question of, but none the less, we will move on.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab) [V]
Special schools in my constituency, including Brent Knoll, Riverside and Watergate, remain open. They are doing a tremendous job and often provide personal and medical care on top of teaching. I echo calls for making school staff a priority for vaccinations, but will the Minister also consider treating staff in special schools akin to frontline care workers and prioritising them for the vaccine without delay?
Nick Gibb
Yes, I will join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the teachers in his constituency, who, like teachers up and down the country, are working round the clock to ensure that the children in their schools have a safe and caring environment, and also helping to educate children while they are at home. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the way in which he has analysed a lot of the scientific data and helped those of us who are less scientifically minded to understand the huge raft of data and science that is out there. He is absolutely right to say that, in all the decisions we take, we need to ensure that we are led by the science.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the Minister for responding to the urgent question for over an hour. He has answered 40 questions, of which 34 were remote, so let me also thank the technicians for making that possible. We will now suspend for three minutes for hygiene purposes.