Speeches by Hinds.

“When you say there are unanswered questions, there are questions from the BBC—”

“Speaking of consuming things online, you love it when people come to the iPlayer or your website or some other owned property, but there is continued growth in consumers going for news as well for entertainment to social media or news aggregators. The truth is that when you ask them where they saw something, they do no…”

“Yes, but in the scheme of things, people who say, “I’m going to find BBC Verify” are—”

“And BBC One is still the biggest single vehicle, but it is a minority.”

“To be clear, I am optimistic, too—or certainly hopeful—because I think your role is more important than ever.”

“On faith-based education, the Minister is quite right that there are large numbers of faith-based schools in the state sector. However, there are some denominations and particular religious traditions for which there are not large numbers of schools, and whose actually charge fees sometimes considerably below the avera…”

“I am coming to that. I am grateful to the hon. Lady—she can keep teeing me up. The Government’s second error was to fail to consider the cumulative effect of all the different cost pressures added on to schools; as well as VAT, there are also business rates, which are mentioned in the petition. There is also the increa…”

“That is what I just said.”

“As always, it is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. I thank and commend Mr Beckinsale and the other 114,948 petitioners, including 611 in my constituency of East Hampshire, for bringing this very important subject to Westminster Hall today. After all that we have heard today, we might ask, “Why? Why …”

“What about the corn laws?”

“The hon. Gentleman and other Ministers have constantly come back to the point about the higher rateable value commercial premises, saying that they include distribution centres for online giants. What proportion are they of the total?”

“But some of that happens anyway because of the way that national governing bodies work and how they target their programmes. There does tend to be some up-weighting towards disadvantaged areas.”

“I have one more question. It is a very quick question but it might be a longer answer because it is a fairly complicated question. Every few years we rack our brains about why it has never worked in the past when we have tried to open up school facilities to outside clubs and community groups. Every few years there is …”

“For completeness, a lot of primary school heads would also tell you that they were able to do things with the primary PE and sport premium that they were never able to do in the past. I don’t want to put words in your mouth but it sounds to me, from what you are saying, that you would keep ringfenced funding but not pu…”

“You do not think it is important to have a ringfenced fund?”

“What was the role of the PE and sport premium in schools? Inevitably, from time to time, there will be moves to just fold that into general school funding. Would you be happy to see that happen, or do you think it should remain as a ringfenced fund?”

“There was a trend back in the 2000s where lots of kids took a half GCSE in PE. Are you expecting that to return?”

“Very good.”

“Ali, presumably you have given evidence to that review. If you are at liberty to divulge, what have you asked for and do you expect to get it?”

“That covers it well, I guess. We have a curriculum review going on at the moment. What are your hopes and expectations about what that will deliver?”