Speeches by Gilmour.

“I understood that.”

“I understand that.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) for securing this debate. It is very encouraging to see so many parliamentary colleagues present, although I must comment on the notable absence of those who should be here and be held accountab…”

“In my beautiful constituency of Tiverton and Minehead, I have 25 grade I listed churches. There is hardly a village that does not have a grade I listed church and churches with other statuses. I hope the hon. Member agrees that, without this grant, there are dark days ahead for these communities.”

“I am sure that my farmers, like me, will be hugely grateful to know that the ban will operate with cross-party support; our farmers are more important than party politics. Back in 2001, I was the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Totnes constituency. The amount of communication with farmers before the outbreak was the…”

“rose—”

“Will the right hon. Gentleman give way? I will be quick and nice.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) on securing this important debate. We all know the importance of strong and effective railway services in the south-west. I will give a bit of background on my constituency. As I …”

“It is a pleasure to be called to speak in today’s debate on such an important topic. The Bill has many laudable aims, and represents a once-in-a generation opportunity to finally fix the private rented sector for the 11 million people in England—including me—who rent privately. I know that about 13,000 private renters …”

“From what Ms Acland-Hood said, I think that is a bit harsh. I have to say that this is the first time I have been at a hearing when I have heard civil servants use words like “professional” and “deeply interested”, and you have been able to support what you are saying to us very well. We like words like “outcomes” and,…”

“Can I make a couple of observations? I know exactly what you are talking about, because at Tiverton High School in my constituency, which is very disadvantaged, the headteacher has said over and over again that she has a constant number of vacancies. Something that came across my desk at one of my surgeries was somebod…”

“I know that historically—I am talking back to the beginning of the century, which makes me sound ancient—the Labour Government did exactly the same with their early years. They put money in there, and then where it dropped off and where the working-class white boys Mr Betts identified fell through the gap was when they…”

“In the past, the Department for Education has used several different measures to assess the attainment of disadvantaged children, but it goes without saying that there are weaknesses in its approach because things change. Your main measure for assessing progress—the disadvantage attainment gap index—compares national p…”

“To me, “core” means silo.”

“Referring to figure 5 on page 22 and figure 6 on page 25 of the Report, can you tell me something that, possibly because I am not as intelligent as you, is not obvious to me? Why have you not brought departmental work to support disadvantaged children together into a clear strategy or approach? I have to say that we fi…”

“To follow on from that, Juliet, I can understand the index, but how do you understand, monitor and factor into that local challenges and variations, given that it is a national measure not a regional measure?”

“So we are not talking about a huge fluctuation.”

“My second and third questions really fall out of that. How do you decide the balance of investment across all your interventions, and do you consider any trade-offs? I hope the answer to that is no. How confident are you that DFE teams equally prioritise support for disadvantaged children and work together? Those two q…”

“Sorry.”

“That is what I have just said.”