Results 1-20 of 8,259 for speaker:David Laws

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: I congratulate the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), the Chairman of the Select Committee, on his speech, which has taken us a little closer to touching on some of the issues that we will need to debate when the Children, Schools and Families Bill passes through the House, presumably in a few weeks' time. I agree with many of the points that the hon. Gentleman made in his speech,...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: The hon. Gentleman correctly anticipates the comments that I want to make in my speech. I am not sure that I fully agree with the extreme position that he takes on the Badman review, if I may characterise it that way, but we certainly have some concerns about how the Government are going to implement it, which I want to touch on later.

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that clarification. As we have been drawn into discussing the Badman review rather earlier in my speech than I had intended, all I would say now is this. First, we accept the Government's approach of saying that it is sensible for all those who are home educating to be registered. That is a reasonable minimum requirement. Our concerns, which will...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman one last time, since he has managed to draw me into this issue so early in my speech.

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: The hon. Gentleman is right that local authorities already have some powers. However, the debate that he is trying to encourage now, at quite an early stage in the Bill, is one that we need to return to later, because the issues are quite detailed. The first thing that I wanted to say, before getting drawn into the details of the Bill, is that it is extraordinary and depressing that we should...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: On the Secretary of State's latter question, there must be strategic oversight of schools at some level, although I am not sure that I agree at all with the Government's approach. My point was that if they wish to legislate on the issue, they should have done so in a coherent way in the previous education Bill, not by having the debate twice. When he says that the NUT and NAHT are not the...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: The Secretary of State raises a serious issue about how we achieve accountability for money that goes to schools, but his solution is still entirely the wrong one. The problem with him-this is what divides his grouping within the Labour party from my party and, to a certain extent, from the Conservative party, although the Conservatives have different ideas about the amount of devolution that...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: We can never ensure that we deliver social justice by trying to prescribe from Westminster and Whitehall a system that will fit every school and every child in the country. What we can do is ensure that an individual school has the funding it needs and then that the school is held properly to account for what it does with the money. The Government's job, it seems to me, is to put in place a...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: The Secretary of State is trying to draw me into agreeing to something. Even though we would like to see a much more devolved system of education with much more freedom for schools, I agree that we will never end up delivering high school standards in the foreseeable future by relying only on market mechanisms. I would still like to see much more choice and competition in education, but we...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: Yet again, the Secretary of State is trying to draw me to his side of the Chamber. He knows that I think that the Conservative proposals-to leave vocational subjects out of the league tables-are very bad. I believe that the Conservative party may already have made a U-turn on this, if the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb) was right the other day.

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: Ah, it seems that there are two spokesmen on whether there has been a U-turn because the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said the other day that the Conservative party had dropped that particular proposal.

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: Well, it is on the record. The reason why this issue is so important is, as the Secretary of State said, that we do not want children choosing subjects because of league tables, because in many cases vocational subjects may be right for young people. What school is going to encourage the take-up of vocational subjects if they are not included in the league tables? The issue is to ensure that...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: While we are on the issue of funding, may I explore the Conservative party's policy on education funding? The Conservative health spokesman- the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), who is sitting next to the hon. Gentleman-has won a pledge that his party will increase health spending in real terms, if elected in the next Parliament. Did the hon. Gentleman make the same bid for...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind offer, which I am afraid I have already declined, but I am concerned that he has not answered my question. We need to know whether he decided not to make such a request, in which case we would be concerned about his commitment to education funding, or whether he made the request and was turned down. Why, when the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire has...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: The hon. Gentleman is perhaps being slightly unfair to the Secretary of State on the culture guarantee. That supposed guarantee says that "every pupil should have access to high-quality cultural activities in and out-of-school, with an aspiration that, over time, this will reach five hours". Is not the real criticism that that is a pretty meaningless commitment?

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: May I ask the Secretary of State how meaningful these guarantees are? Let us take the fifth pupil guarantee, which says that "every 11-to-14 year-old enjoys relevant and challenging learning in all subjects" and that this pledge "will be phased in by September 2010". How many schools are not already meeting the fifth pupil guarantee?

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: rose-

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: May I bring the Secretary of State back to the issue of health? A moment ago he was chiding the Opposition parties for not welcoming the proposals on personal care. What, then, does he say about the comments that Lord Lipsey made overnight? He said that "one of the consolations" of his Government losing the next election is that it would sweep away "one of the most irresponsible acts to be...

Bills Presented: Education and Health (19 Nov 2009)

David Laws: Will the Secretary of State give way?