Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I hope the Minister will forgive me for interrupting the eloquence of his flow, or the flow of his eloquence, but I think he is seeking to group this question with Question 3.

[Mr Vaizey]

Mr Speaker, I am incredibly grateful for your guidance. You are quite right that, with your permission, I would like to take this question with Question 3, which I also hotly anticipate. Thank you for correcting me. My eagerness got ahead of me in wishing to communicate to the hon. Lady that for the first time—[Hon. Members: “Get on with it!”] I have been asked to get on with it; things are going from bad to worse, aren’t they?

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[Mr Vaizey]

The phrase “With friends like this” is beginning to enter my head. At the risk of sounding like a scratched record, may I say that we have a fantastic rural broadband roll-out programme? About £1.7 billion is being put in to ensure that, by the end of 2017, 95% of premises in the UK—the whole of the UK—will have superfast broadband speeds of 24 megabits. That is a fantastic achievement and I look forward to subsequent contributions from my hon. Friends to highlight the amazing success of this programme.

[Mr Speaker]

Be careful of what you wish for.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

10. What assessment he has made of the role of the arts and the creative industries in supporting economic regeneration in coastal communities.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)]

I am aware of those concerns, but I am very confident, having met Ticketmaster and seen its 10-point plan, that the tickets will get into the hands of rugby fans. I am sure that the event will be a great success and I ask the hon. Gentleman to take note of the fact that successive Governments and Select Committees have said that regulation should be a last resort.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Miss Anne McIntosh—not here.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

T3. There are manifest and clear benefits from the game of chess as an educational and sporting tool, but while other countries continue to develop the game, in the UK participation is collapsing, particularly in the state primary school sector. Will the Minister meet me and other members of the newly formed all-party parliamentary group on chess to discuss substantive and low-cost changes that we could make to help the sport?

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[Nicky Morgan]

I am pleased that the hon. Lady has been listening to what I have said. She will, I hope, know from my previous track record that I am all in favour of action, not just words. I think that PSHE is very important, and that sex and relationships education is also very important. SRE is already required to be taught in maintained schools, and many academies already do it. As I have said, the important thing is to emphasise particularly the relationships aspect, which is why I support the Government’s “This is Abuse” campaign. I intend to continue to look at these areas further.

[Mr Speaker]

Last but not least, I call Diana Johnson.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am very intrigued by the answer that the Minister has just given. Is she or is she not in favour of compulsory sex and relationships education? That is what I am really interested to know.