Shared Rural Network

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that challenge. He is right; improving rail connectivity remains a significant ambition. I have spoken to the Secretary of State for Transport about that. There are some other challenges, but we are working out how we can do that. I am pleased to say that in the latest franchise, there was a greater requirement for on-board connectivity, and I hope that we will be able to see that throughout the network.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I welcome this announcement. As my right hon. Friend knows, parts of Kent have worse coverage than Kabul. Will she tell me a bit about her 5G plans? I believe that there will be an announcement tomorrow about China’s possible involvement in our network. Does she agree that that poses a major danger to the Five Eyes community and that US sanctions against Huawei would leave us looking like we had just signed a long-term lease for business space with WeWork?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I am not able to say much about this for very obvious reasons. A decision will be announced in due course. I just want to say two things to the House. The first is that high-risk vendors have never been and never will be in our most sensitive networks. The second is that the security and resilience of the UK’s telecoms network is of paramount importance. We will bear both of those things in our minds when making any decisions.

“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s commitment, as a local Member of Parliament, to driving up educational standards in his constituency. He is absolutely right to say that. We know there are local authorities across the country—he mentions his own—that have never issued a warning notice or appointed an interim executive board to run a school. We could not be clearer with the regional schools commissioners. They are an excellent team who know they need to intervene swiftly when there is educational failure. We have seen that with the re-brokering of sponsorships and with the sending out of financial and educational warning notices. That absolutely will continue.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

As the governor of an excellent academy, Hillview school in Tonbridge, which has done so much to maintain the ethos of arts education, I am very proud of the Government’s work to support academies. I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s comments and ask her whether she timed them for me to be able to write to Ightham Parish Council and thank it for its very useful intervention only last week, or whether it was timed for Four Elms Parish Council, whose intervention was on Friday.

[Nicky Morgan]

I am delighted to have assisted my hon. Friend and those parish councils, if that is the case. It was important that we made the announcement. I congratulate him on being a governor of the school. On the arts, I visited the fantastic Lings primary school in Northampton—I think I have mentioned it in the House before—which has embedded Shakespeare in the curriculum from reception to year 6. That shows what inspirational headteachers, with the support of an academy trust, can do to transform education in their schools.

School Expansion

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[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.