Speeches by Hinds.

“If the hon. Member has counter-examples, let us hear them.”

“There have now been four waves of updates from the children and young people’s mental ill health prevalence survey conducted by the NHS. That invaluable resource has provided annual data and enabled us to look at ourselves against other countries, although the data are not perfectly comparable. I gather that there is n…”

“Will the hon. Lady give way?”

“The hon. Lady is quite right. I was only going to speak about this for three minutes or so, but the hon. Gentleman tempted me into other areas. On the promise that he was making one last intervention, I indulged him, and I am grateful to him. In an earlier intervention on the Minister for School Standards, I mentioned …”

“School uniform guidance?”

“Yes, of course; we are legislating, and that is the case. It is also the case that, in my experience in Committee, the Government side never just accept an amendment put forward by the Opposition or another opposition party—or indeed by their own Back Benchers. If that has ever happened in modern history, it has yet to…”

“I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says. I had my most recent constituency session with parents on the matter last Friday, and with some things, there is a bit of a grey area. Lots of parents say, “I don’t really mind so much about this”, but others do mind. With tracking technology, for example, some parents say tha…”

“On that promise, I will give way.”

“I am grateful to my hon. Friend the shadow Minister for refocusing what I was saying, and he is absolutely right. Some of our worries in relation to children apply regardless of the piece of technology. Anything that demands our attention and is ever-present brings such risks.”

“This is in danger of turning into a much longer speech than I anticipated.”

“The hon. Member is right about the difficulty with defining the term smartphone. People talk about a brick phone, a feature phone, a basic phone, a Nokia, a smartphone and an iPhone, but the truth is that there is no definition; smartphone is just a term. It originally came about when people did not want to use the bra…”

“The Government talk a lot about growth, and we often debate economic growth both here and in the main Chamber, but when we talk about farming, we talk instead about food production, sufficiency and security. We talk about land stewardship, we talk about fairness, and we talk about rural communities and the countryside …”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“Does the adjudicator also have a say in allowing a school to open?”

“Before the hon. Lady corrects me, I did not say she was doing that.”

“I know! [Laughter.]”

“I understand, acknowledge and respect what the hon. Lady says but, believe me, I do not need to see any more evidence on this subject, on which I have in my time perused large volumes. It is one of those issues—we talked the other day about another one—where the answer one wants can be found in the data. Let us step ba…”

“No, I am asking directly: could the adjudicator stop a new school opening on the grounds that we have tasked the adjudicator with making sure that there is not excess capacity in an area, which might make one or more schools unviable? Logically, surely the adjudicator ought to be able to stop the problem getting even w…”

“I seek some clarity. The Minister seems to be saying, “Leave it up to the independent adjudicator. They will decide.” Is she saying that the Government will not issue guidance on the criteria on which an independent adjudicator should decide?”

“It is a different but related question. There are falling rolls, initially in primary over the next few years, and then it will happen in secondary. There will be some difficult choices that someone will need to make. Sometimes that will mean varying the numbers in every school, but I am afraid that the scale of the ch…”