Oral Answers to Questions

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because she gave me advance notice of this question. This is really a case for a project speed, and I hope that Highways England, which is currently undertaking a safety study of the A38 between Bodmin and Saltash, will be able to accelerate its work and get on with the Menheniot junction as fast as possible.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Before lockdown, children on free school meals finished education on average 18 months behind their classmates and the gap was getting worse. Schools closed and a quarter of these children did less than one hour’s schoolwork a day. Lockdown was temporary, but the impact could be lifelong. To help these children catch up, and in the spirit of togetherness invoked by the Prime Minister earlier, will his Government give time for my Bill to close the digital divide and give children on free school meals access to the internet in their homes?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, because she is raising a very important point. Getting kids back into school has been the most important objective that we have had over the last few months, and I am glad that it has got under way, but she is right in what she says about the digital divide. That is why we are investing massively in online education, giving 2,200,000 laptops and tablets, and putting routers in schools across the country. That is what we are going to do, and I want to see a world in which every school in our country has full gigabit broadband, with the equipment that will give pupils the access to the internet that they need.