Speeches by Sewards.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. Yesterday, we heard plenty of evidence from lots of witnesses, specifically about private schools. We also heard from Professor Francis Green, who stated that the measure would have a negligible impact on private schools. At the same time, as the Minister s…”

“The account the hon. Lady is giving is incredibly powerful and I am really grateful that she has chosen to share it with the House. As somebody who was teaching maths at a secondary school until a few months before the general election, I can state that the situation she describes, while certainly not unusual, is not u…”

“Q I understand that the Minister wanted to move on from this, but on your comments about aspirational parents, the simple fact is that all state school parents are aspirational, and in many cases they will never be in a financial position to send their kids to private school. I wanted to give you an opportunity to clar…”

“Q I have a brief question for Kate Nicholls. You mentioned earlier that business rates always come up as a barrier to extra investment. Please can you talk more about that? Kate Nicholls: I chair the Mayor of London’s tourism recovery taskforce, to get London tourism going, and as part of that we look at foreign direct…”

“Q Thank you, Mr Gerrard, for your answers so far; they have been really insightful. We have Co-op shops in my constituency; the Co-op in New Farnley is virtually the only shop in that community. It was an absolute lifeline throughout the pandemic, and it is still a lifeline today, given that there are not other shops. …”

“Q Queen Street in Morley is a fantastic high street, but it has a number of empty shops. I tried to acquire one of them when I was setting up my constituency office, but I was told, “No, no, no—they are about to be occupied.” Six months later, they are still not occupied. I promise it is not just that they did not want…”

“Q I will be brief. We have heard a lot about the cost of measures in the Budget, including in the Bill. Do you accept that there is some positive benefit in providing certainty to business—certainty that has been missing for a while? The measures in the Bill are designed to provide certainty over a longer period, but t…”

“Absolutely. You are talking exclusively about multiple-choice questions. You are not talking about scripts or English assessments where somebody has written paragraphs.”

“People who commit crimes should be prosecuted and put in prison as quickly as possible. It is also clear that we need to do more to reduce reoffending rates in order to keep the public safe. To keep up with the current demand for prison places, we need to build three mega-jails a year, costing the taxpayer millions. Gi…”

“8. What steps her Department is taking to help reduce reoffending.”

“Thank you, Sir Ian, for your answers so far. Turning now to RAAC, exam boards recognised that RAAC adversely affected coursework and then extended the deadlines as a result. I know that you are on record pushing back against other uplifts, such as the 10% exam uplift that Durham University research suggested. Given tho…”

“That makes sense. You have already answered this question in part. What pressure was placed on you to allow a special uplift for students in schools affected by RAAC?”

“Yes. To follow up, some of those answers are absolutely fascinating, especially the ones about generating questions using AI. I want to clarify something. You have said repeatedly that a human must oversee the marking of student work. When you say that, do you mean that a human should always be involved and actually ma…”

“In a minority of cases, will AI look at the scripts?”

“I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, and the detailed and nuanced answers he has given to what have been some complex questions are extremely welcome. One thing that is not complex is the fact that Assad is a murderer who has taken 500,000 people’s lives, and my right hon. Friend was absolutely right to resist …”

“Some 47% of all the casework my office processed last week was regarding housing, or lack thereof. We absolutely must build 1.5 million new homes in this country if we are to solve the housing crisis and restore the dream of home ownership. I have certainly known councillors to oppose housing developments because they …”

“It is a pleasure to follow the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard (Alex Mayer), and I congratulate the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) on securing this debate. Public transport in Leeds South West and Morley is a lifeline for many of my constituents and m…”

“I welcome the Minister’s statement. He has set out concrete, deliverable and measurable milestones against which the British public can judge us. What a stark contrast to Conservative Front-Bench Members, who still refuse even to acknowledge the Liz Truss economic disaster that was the mini-Budget, and to apologise for…”

“Thanks for your answers so far. Qualifications such as BTECs will need to meet the new occupational and employer-approved criteria in order to be publicly funded from 2025. I have three questions, but will start with just two. How effective do you think the approval process will be in streamlining the qualification opt…”

“That nicely leads into my final question. James, you have identified 21 applied general qualifications at level 3 that you say it is essential to retain. How did you decide which qualifications needed to be retained and which we could dispense with?”