Business of the House

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

This takes us back to the localism Bill. We will shortly, imminently and very soon introduce the localism Bill to Parliament. That will sweep away the last of the outgoing Government’s controversial regional strategies. It is clear that top-down targets have not worked; we propose to move to a different regime, giving local planning authorities some real incentives to get on with house building in their area.

[Valerie Vaz]

(Walsall South): Alumwell business and enterprise college in my constituency has seen a 14% improvement in GCSE results by getting marked papers, but it has had to pay for them. May we have an urgent debate so that state schools can get the marked scripts free, just as they do with standard assessment tests?

[Sir George Young]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on the good results in her constituency. I will raise with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education the question of whether these documents can be made available without charge.