Oral Answers to Questions

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely accept and recognise the important role that village schools play in our rural life. A lot of work went into the national funding formula, and it is right that we are introducing this fairer means of funding. We have yet to reach the end point of the national funding formula, but I want to see us progressing and ensuring that we are putting that national funding formula in place. I am sure that the Secretary of State for Education will have heard the request that my hon. Friend has made.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I am heartbroken, and Tooting is heartbroken. On Friday night, the streets claimed another victim. Cheyon Evans might be just another awkward statistic to this Government, but to us he was a son, a brother and a friend taken too soon. This senseless violence could have been avoided with adequate policing and good youth provision to give our young people a sense of hope. My question to the Prime Minister is simple. Will she use her remaining days in office to leave a legacy that will change the paths for those young people, or can we expect yet more of the same?

[The Prime Minister]

None of us ever wants to see a life, particularly a young life, taken before its time by violent crime. These are not difficult statistics; they are people who had a future ahead of them and who have sadly died as a result of the violence of criminal perpetrators. We have introduced our serious violence strategy, and we are working with the police and other organisations to ensure that young people are turned away from the use of violence and the use of knives. The hon. Lady says that this is a question of funding and police numbers, but actually it is a much wider issue—[Interruption.] Anybody who denies that this is a wider issue for our society is simply failing to understand the issue that we have to address, and if she wants to talk to somebody about the police on the streets of London, I suggest she talks to the Mayor of London.