John Pugh: I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) on securing this debate. I cannot compete with the expertise. A lot of people have done a lot of work in this field already. I am, however, the grandfather of six grandchildren, all of whom are close to me. Two live next door. I spend at least as much time every week playing narrative games with Playmobil as I do making...
John Pugh: There is a section of the Government that does not believe in experts, but, for the record, is the Minister really contradicting the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which predicts an 8% fall by 2020 in school budgets, in real terms?
John Pugh: Will the Minister give way?
John Pugh: Sir Roger, may I shock assembled company, and possibly some of my constituents, by saying that I am not generally a dog lover? In fact, I have spent much of my political career dodging dogs, and my cats, Arthur and Wilson, wish me to put that on the record, but I an admirer of dogs’ qualities—their loyalty, their bravery and so on. I come from an area of Merseyside where there is an...
John Pugh: I congratulate the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) on introducing a new angle to the debate. My uncle Will, a clergyman of strong opinions for whom I had a good deal of respect, used to argue from the 1970s that the BBC was run by communists. A more common view, though, is that the BBC is a great British organisation or institution and, like most great British...
John Pugh: We would make exactly the same point in the north-west, which is why we are so glad that the BBC was persuaded, sometimes kicking and screaming, to come up to Salford. A public sector broadcaster that degenerates into a clique of like-minded individuals who are inordinately pleased with themselves will not do the trick. We all recognise that the BBC has diversity issues and may also have...
John Pugh: The hon. Lady is a former member of the Public Accounts Committee, as indeed am I. She will be aware that the Committee has a long-standing issue with the BBC in relation to parliamentary accountability. Is she in favour of an increase in that accountability?
John Pugh: I apologise for missing the Minister’s opening peroration. I am sure it was very impressive and persuasive. Politicians are, generally speaking, good talkers but poor listeners. However, I and many others listen carefully to the Queen’s Speech. I also try to listen to the Minister for Schools, the Secretary of State for Education and the Department. Indeed, I listened carefully to their...
John Pugh: That is an excellent suggestion, but does the hon. Lady agree that there is an overlap between design and technology and IT, and that that might be affected by her proposal?
John Pugh: Does the hon. Lady accept that the volume of legislation is not an indicator of the quality of government, and a little legislation on schools would not go amiss now?
John Pugh: Will the Secretary of State update us on the strike price for tidal energy, and on the negotiations surrounding it?
John Pugh: Returning to the tests, the Minister cannot do them, the Department cannot organise them and schools cannot understand them. Does the Minister agree with the headmaster of a major primary school in my area, Adrian Antell, who wrote to him saying, “The primary assessment system in our schools is nothing short of shambolic…Yet again, the professional judgements of experienced educational...
John Pugh: What plans he has to reduce agency staffing expenditure in the NHS.
John Pugh: I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. I do not share his optimism. Is not the real problem the shortage of permanent staff and the budgetary constraints on the acute sector? Most of them are now below establishment.
John Pugh: Can the Minister specify why she objects to the line put across in The Times today by PricewaterhouseCoopers—presumably, a vested interest—who argue that academisation is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for school improvement, or is evidence utterly irrelevant?
John Pugh: The Southport to Manchester line has been prioritised for electrification, but we might lose our direct link to south Manchester and the airport through Piccadilly. Why is that happening, and how does it constitute progress?
John Pugh: As a Merseyside MP and a Liverpool supporter, I thank the Home Secretary for what is almost the last chapter of an unbearably sad book. She must recognise that in this world, justice does not compensate for loss and grief. Apart from the judicial process, what more needs to be done to support the families and for closure?
John Pugh: The National Audit Office warned against focusing all our attention on technology, and not users, so what is being done to encourage buy-in from the legal profession and to help with training?
John Pugh: Einstein said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different outcome. At the start of every Parliament somebody suggests that, before political capital is exhausted, there should be an attempt to restructure a major public service, with the hopeful, if naive, expectation that delivery will somehow be improved. In 2010, the health service was...
John Pugh: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the OBR has been any better at predicting the economy than the Treasury was before?