Speeches by O'Brien.

“I am glad that the hon. Member has prompted me—he must have a copy of my speech. In the last Parliament, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, real-terms spending per pupil went up by 11%. I thank him for allowing me to make that point. So why are so many teachers getting the sack? It is partly because that is…”

“Before the election, Labour said that increasing VAT would pay for more teachers. Even in December, the Chancellor said that “every single penny of that money will go into our state schools”. More recently, however, the Prime Minister has claimed that this will instead pay for investment in social housing. He said “my …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I will not detain the Committee for long, because this is a technical piece of legislation simply updating regulations to reflect new qualifications and, in a sense, maintaining the principle that we established during our time in government of devolving the…”

“Let me pay tribute to the hon. Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for leading this important debate and for doing such a good job in setting out all the different issues at stake. Although he covered a huge amount of ground in his opening statement, we also heard some excellent speeches from across the House…”

“Thank you, Mr Speaker. Although they did not mention it before the election, Labour is committed to abolishing every district and borough council in Leicestershire. It has also invited proposals to expand the city’s boundaries, and the Mayor of Leicester has put forward such a proposal. This is universally not wanted i…”

“Asked whether the Government were planning to restrict EHCPs so that they apply only to children in special schools, the Government’s strategic adviser on SEND, Christine Lenehan, recently said: “I think, to be honest, that’s the conversation we’re in the middle of.” Is she correct to say that Ministers are considering…”

“Ministers recently announced that they were axing level 7 apprenticeships. Strangely, they made the announcement during recess; and also strangely, it was only the day after the announcement that they finally answered my parliamentary question from April, revealing that they were making a 90% cut in those apprenticeshi…”

“The last Conservative Government added 27,000 extra teachers. Although we would never know it from the Minister’s answer, there are 400 fewer teachers in our schools than last year. Labour promised 6,500 more teachers, but it is ignoring the loss of 2,900 primary school teachers, because apparently they do not count. T…”

“I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. The truth is that the families benefiting from today’s announcement are the same ones who are paying for it, because the same group of people are hit hardest by Labour’s national insurance increase. Labour promised not to increase national insurance, but it broke…”

“I am happy to agree that we can bring maths into many other things, and that is also a fun way of teaching maths. In return, I put back to the hon. Gentleman that there are limits to that. If we want to have more time for something else, we have to say where it is coming from. The improvement in those international lea…”

“I congratulate the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) on securing this important debate. We have had some fantastic speeches, and any debate in which Johnny Ball gets a shout-out is a good debate in my view. Our profession, politics, is awash with mathematical metaphors. Lyndon Johnson famousl…”

“On a point of order, Mr Speaker.”

“Under this deal, we will be paying billions of pounds for the privilege of having our own territory taken away from us. The Secretary of State talks about the threat to the base as if Mauritius, a country with no navy, is about to steam in or pick a fight with the United States. That is implausible. The whole House wil…”

“It is, Mr Speaker. Earlier, the Minister said that funding had remained below 2010 levels. I am sure that was an innocent verbal slip. However, according to the widely respected Institute for Fiscal Studies, “Coming on the back of an 11% real-terms increase in spending per pupil between 2019–20 and 2024–25, this allows…”

“The Minister is being incredibly generous with his time. He is saying what a wonderful outlook there is for wages. Why, then, is the OBR’s forecast for real household disposable income to be lower than in the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s, the noughties and the 2010s?”

“I was just observing and enjoying the way in which the Minister was lecturing us about not wanting to talk about the economy, when at one point during the debate, literally only three Labour Members were in the Chamber—it is extraordinary. If they are so wonderfully proud of their record of higher unemployment, higher …”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“I had not realised I had spoken so long. Even I, at 23 minutes, have probably had enough O’Brien at this point, never mind the rest of you poor souls! The hon. Lady talks about police. In the last Parliament, the previous Government added 20,000 extra police officers to our streets. I was not going to raise it, but nat…”

“In one moment. I want to talk about some other public services that have been affected by the national insurance increase. There are a lot of examples in education. Nurseries have lost out, and they are screaming right now; they are in real difficulty. Lots will close and lots will fail to deliver the places that paren…”

“The hon. Member was probably not here at the time, but I was actually Social Care Minister. He says I have been converted to the cause of social care, but I am quite passionate about it. In addition to the professionalisation of the profession and the investment in skills and technology, one of the things we chose to d…”