Mike Kane: I am due to go for a bike ride with the Greater Manchester cycling commissioner, Chris Boardman, in a few weeks’ time. As he is a former Olympic champion and maillot jaune holder, I am not looking forward to it and I am spending a lot of time in the gym. Chris is about to publish his strategy for Greater Manchester. What resources will the Minister put at Chris’s disposal, so that he can...
Mike Kane: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) on securing this timely debate and standing up for schools in Liverpool. If the Minister feels uncomfortable about the number of Labour MPs facing him, he should remember that I am a Mancunian and so just as uncomfortable. My hon. Friend spoke...
Mike Kane: The Secretary of State should be coming to the Dispatch Box first and foremost today to apologise for the collapse of the multi-academy trust in the city of Wakefield. Part of the problem is that schools are waking up to the fact that they have lost £2.8 billion since 2015. Despite another funding consultation, will she confirm or deny the figures from the National Audit Office and, while...
Mike Kane: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) for securing this debate. He has a long track record—it began long before he came to this place —in governing and managing further education institutions. And just look at the turnout that he has got today. It shows the respect in which he is held, particularly on...
Mike Kane: I have, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. There is a huge reconfiguration of training going on, and it has not been properly thought out. That puts additional burdens on colleges. He is right to highlight the point. There is also confusion about students between 16 and 18 who do not hold a GCSE grade A* to C—or 9 to 4 with the changes that have come in this...
Mike Kane: There is a scientific law known as Graham’s law, which says that gaseous material expands to fill the room. In the graveyard shift, with four contributions, we have gone on for quite some time and explored these very important issues in great detail. We are beginning to get some more clarity about the Government’s thinking. I thank the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion...
Mike Kane: The Minister will know that the armed forces compensation scheme is limited in scope and does not take into account the rehabilitation costs of members of the armed forces who have been injured. We need to keep the court system so that they can get full compensation for the lifetime’s worth of injuries that they have to face.
Mike Kane: As I said in my speech, it was my understanding that no court decision has ever second-guessed a military decision in the theatre.
Mike Kane: I have two points on that. First, to whom would the lawyer be accountable and who would employ them? Secondly, if the MOD had admitted its negligence and settled the Snatch Land Rover vehicle case, it would not have run up so much expenditure on the legal case.
Mike Kane: Part of the nub of the matter is how those independent assessors will be independent if they are appointed by the Ministry of Defence. Do we not already have an independent assessor system in judges?
Mike Kane: I beg to move, That this House has considered Government proposals for better combat compensation. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, in the last Westminster Hall debate before the recess. I refuse to call it the graveyard shift—this is an extraordinarily important debate. I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for...
Mike Kane: What advice his Department has provided to small private landlords since the Grenfell Tower fire.
Mike Kane: The Residential Landlords Association, which is based in my constituency, has raised concerns about the complex and sometimes contradictory guidance being given to private landlords by various bodies, including the Government, on fire safety. What plans does the Secretary of State have to address this matter?
Mike Kane: This point has not been raised so far in the debate. I am a Greater Manchester MP, and there was a first-class contingencies response after the Ariana Grande incident in Manchester. What does my hon. Friend think of the council’s civil contingencies response after the Grenfell Tower incident?
Mike Kane: I grew up in a two-bed flat in a council block and the traditional advice was always to stay put and await rescue. I wonder how many souls perished following that traditional advice. Will the advice change?
Mike Kane: Will the Minister give way?
Mike Kane: The Minister mentioned—it was a Minister’s “microphone moment”—1.8 million pupils. May I point out that those exact pupils were identified in 2010 by a Labour Government as being in coasting schools? The resources were put in, and this Government picked the low-hanging fruit. The Government say that more pupils are taught in good schools, but if that is so, why are our programme for...
Mike Kane: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) on securing this debate. It follows a debate in the main Chamber that she, the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) and the then Member for Sheffield, Hallam secured from the Backbench Business Committee in the previous Parliament....
Mike Kane: First and foremost, that was not in our manifesto. In this country, we have about £80 billion of student debt stored up, and the Department has already estimated that we will not get a third of that back. We already have the most indebted students on the planet, and at some stage the Government will have to tackle that scenario. The Opposition know the immense importance of intervention in...
Mike Kane: Not since the Suez crisis have the United Kingdom Government been so comprehensively defeated at the United Nations as they were last week over the Chagos Islands. In this week’s spirit of bipartisan co-operation, should the Foreign Secretary not just grant the right of return?