Speeches by Hinds.

“Do you have a formal road into Skills England—or did you go to IfATE before—for setting the occupational standards in these craft skills? Matthew?”

“I want to pick up on what Geoff said earlier about the project funding being fine but there being limited preventative and maintenance funding. To what extent are you able, as English Heritage, to focus the money that you control on the former, on the preventative maintenance? To what extent do you do that?”

“That is of course already possible, to be clear. You can do an apprenticeship across more than one employer.”

“It is currently changing. All the main institutions are changing. Has that solved or will it solve any of your problems?”

“I largely agree. In truth, it is a blend. Having distinctive independent traders is what sets all our towns apart; it makes them unique and it makes us very proud of them. But customers want both those independent traders and some brand-name retailers, and there is nothing wrong with being a brand-name retailer. The se…”

“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is natural in these debates that we repeatedly hear phrases like “lifeblood” and “beating heart”, because colleagues across the House love our town and village centres; they are the essence of our local communities. For me, that means principal town…”

“It is the Government amendment in an Opposition day debate. How are those 25% savings going to be realised?”

“Let me try to help the Minister, because Conservative Members are very keen to know the answer, and probably many of his colleagues are keen to know it too. It is one thing to say, “We would like to reduce the cost by 25%”—sure you would! The question is: how do the Government think they are going to realise savings of…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I might return the favour by mentioning the Robert Bolt theatre, which I think is in his constituency. Colleagues will know of “A Man for All Seasons”, and the hon. Gentleman is something of a man for all seasons himself. As well as bringing more people into the town centre, …”

“I want to talk about skills. It has come up a few times, including from Eilish earlier, and you mentioned both modern transferable skills like governance and digital skills but, crucially, I want to talk about traditional craft skills and heritage skills. On the red list of endangered crafts, 72 skills are listed as be…”

“One of the worries about the new regime and Skills England is the loss of independence, and the loss of what we had in the former Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education: a guaranteed business voice, written into law. How will the Secretary of State ensure that business has a voice in setting standards, a…”

“Could the hon. Member explain how he would stop that practice by the holiday companies?”

“Alton and Petersfield hospitals give excellent step-up, step-down and end-of-life care. The trust is introducing more home-based care, which is good, but it also proposes closing a ward in one of the community hospitals. Will the Minister ensure that there remain sufficient beds and sufficient capacity in our local com…”

“After the creative reimagining of the Government’s target for hiring more teachers, it would be helpful to have some precision on the record for the target of two thirds of young people in higher learning. We know that higher learning means level 4 or above, but what exactly is a gold-standard apprenticeship? Does it m…”

“It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms Lewell. Assessment in education is obviously one of the most important aspects of what we do in education. It gives children a chance to show what they have learned, what they can do, and we want that to be stretching, but also to be fair. Anything that measures our attainment is …”

“Obviously we are talking about elite athletes. Sometimes in the branding world, you talk about a halo effect. With investment in elite athletes, and with other Deaf people seeing role models—but also, crucially, everybody else in society seeing those elite sports performances—I wonder if a sales pitch could be made to …”

“Good morning. What would be the long-term benefits from stronger funding of elite Deaf athletes?”

“Not at all. Looking more widely than elite sports, in the national disability strategy the Government is committed to addressing the inequalities that people with disabilities face in sport and physical activity. How would you assess performance against that objective? The Committee has talked about this in the context…”

“There is a big question that hangs over this whole subject and which we have not addressed directly yet. Would you prefer to have a better funded elite sport programme specific to Deaf people and a higher-profile Deaflympics, or to be fully integrated in some way into the Paralympics, with the funding, the visibility a…”

“We have been talking about funding, but also about visibility and profile. I wonder what breakthrough or kick-start effect there might be from just having a much higher profile with one event. In the Tokyo Deaflympics, will there be live broadcasts of any events? Have you had discussions with Channel 4, for example, ab…”