Tom Tugendhat
Main Page: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge and Malling)Department Debates - View all Tom Tugendhat's debates with the Department for Education
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Nicky Morgan
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his appointment to the Sutton Trust, which is a very important organisation doing great work, but I disagree with his remarks. The education system in this country is actually doing very well for pupils of all abilities. My task over the next few years is to extend the excellent education that many of our pupils are getting. We have seen 1 million more pupils in good and outstanding schools since 2010, but I now need to focus on the next 1 million across the country and to root out those parts of the country—I will not say which local authorities—where the education is not yet good enough, and make it so.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
The parents of Tonbridge and Sevenoaks are very grateful to my right hon. Friend for her statement, and I know that I speak not only for myself but for my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) when I say “thank you” for expanding the number of places in an excellent school. Maureen Johnson is a fantastic headteacher who will make this work on two sites; I have great confidence in her ability and that of her team. I urge the Secretary of State to remember not only the grammar school, which does such great work, but schools such as Hillview, an academy trust in my Kent constituency in which I declare an interest as a governor, which does fantastic stuff in the arts and for kids of all abilities. The wonderful thing about Tonbridge—and, indeed, Sevenoaks, as I know my right hon. Friend will agree—is the range of education available to parents and kids. That is exactly what the Secretary of State has allowed to happen today, for which I thank her.
Nicky Morgan
I thank my hon. Friend very much indeed. He is absolutely right to say that one of the great things in our education system now is the range of schools available, which leads to real parental choice. Parents are able to choose the right school for their children. It is right that my hon. Friend mentions Hillview, as we have some fantastic academies in Kent and elsewhere, but there is also the free school, situated alongside the expansion and satellite site.