Education Settings: Wider Opening

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend highlights the importance of ensuring that universities are able to deliver lectures not just virtually but for practical steps, and of opening up research facilities in universities. That is what we are working with Universities UK on, to ensure that they are able to return to normal as rapidly as possible, so that not only do students get the best, but the wider community of the UK gets the best from all universities being open.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

Sadly, Tower Hamlets has seen the fourth-highest age-adjusted death rate in the country and the Government’s own report shows that black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are at greater risk, with Bangladeshis twice as likely to face death because of the coronavirus pandemic. Parents are caught in a dilemma of survival versus education, because they do not have confidence in what the Government have done so far on school opening. Will the Secretary of State publish a risk assessment, area by area, so that there is transparency, with parents able to feel more confident that the Government actually have a proper plan, and that there is action to provide free school meals in some of the poorest communities in our country?

[Gavin Williamson]

At every stage, we will take the maximum cautious approach on how we bring schools back. Every step, whether it is making sure children are able to come back to much smaller class sizes, so that we reduce the risk of transmission, or making sure that contact between children is absolutely minimised—although these things are incredibly challenging for schools and reduce the ease of operating schools—has been taken to reduce the chances of transmission. SAGE always publishes all its papers and makes them public, and I imagine it will continue to do so.