Stephen Twigg
Main Page: Stephen Twigg (Labour (Co-op) - Liverpool, West Derby)Department Debates - View all Stephen Twigg's debates with the Department for Education
(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Michael Gove
Meetings with the hon. Gentleman are always a pleasure—I find myself better informed after every single one. On this occasion, however, I fear that, in the same way as even Homer nods, even the hon. Gentleman errs. The early intervention grant money will increase over the lifetime of this Parliament. The £150 million to which he refers is money that will go to local authorities in order to support the sorts of evidence-based interventions I know he has done so much to champion.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
Even a Conservative councillor described the Government’s approach on this as “typical smoke and mirrors”, and we have heard typical smoke and mirrors again from the Secretary of State today. If we compare like with like—not the money for two-year-olds, which the Government have claimed is new money—what are the figures this year and next year?
Michael Gove
The figure for this year, 2011-12, is £2,222,555,697, which then goes up to £2,365,200,000, so that is an increase from 2011-12 to 2012-13.
Stephen Twigg
A significant part of that extra money is actually the money for two-year-olds which the Government said was additional money. The figures in the Government’s own consultation showed that the cut would be from the £2.3 billion figure, which the Secretary of State has just given us, to £1.72 billion next year, which is a cut of 27%. Should not the Secretary of State be honest and listen to Merrick Cockell, the leader of Conservative local government, who made a clear point last week:
“this move…will force local authorities to cut early intervention services even further”?
Is that not what is really going on?
Mr Speaker
Order. Just before the Secretary of State responds, I am sure that the shadow Secretary of State would accept that the Secretary of State would always be honest with the House. There is no need to ask for a commitment to honesty; that is implicit.