Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Max Wilkinson and Georgia Gould(1 month, 1 week ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
Children with special educational needs and disabilities have been let down for too long. We are determined to transform their experiences and outcomes. We are working with young people, parents and professionals to create a system where needs are identified and met early and schools have the training, resources and physical environments to be inclusive for all children. We will end the postcode lottery for children with complex needs, with stronger national standards for specialist provision and a new role for the best specialist schools as centres for excellence.
Max Wilkinson
Recent events lead me to believe that we will have an in-depth discussion about regional funding inequalities in this country. With that in mind, may I draw Ministers’ attention to the f40 group of local authorities, and in particular Gloucestershire, within which my constituency falls? In the last couple of weeks, I have met Caroline Parker from Gloucester Road primary and Rachel Penney from St Gregory the Great school, who told me that there is a particular problem with the provision of SEND in the f40 area. Will Ministers meet me so that I can tell them in more detail about that problem?
Georgia Gould
I would be delighted to meet the hon. Member to discuss funding. As he knows, it is an area that we are heavily investing in, with £4 billion going into early intervention to support children with special educational needs and disabilities. We will be consulting on how we fund special educational needs and the formula in the future, and I would be happy to discuss that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Max Wilkinson and Georgia Gould(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Georgia Gould
That £400 billion is an enormous amount of money, and we need to ensure that it is going into growth, delivering for our communities and SMEs, and delivering on our missions. We are determined to act on procurement and reduce inefficiency, and we will provide further information about that in February. We cannot take lessons from the Conservative party about cutting waste inefficiencies, given that they oversaw gross mismanagement—Lord Agnew himself referred to “schoolboy errors”—in the delivery of procurement for this country.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
The focus on public procurement will be welcomed by SMEs in the cyber-security sector in my constituency. CyNam has thousands of members, and when I talk to its SMEs they tell me that there is a real risk of our losing talent in the start-ups community to cities abroad such as Lisbon and Toronto. Can the Minister confirm that the steps being taken by the Government are good news for SMEs and Cynam?
Georgia Gould
As I have said, I firmly believe that we need to support SMEs, and I should be more than happy to speak to those in the hon. Member’s constituency and discuss the opportunities that are available. There is so much innovation and talent in this country. We need to ensure that public sector money is supporting our growth mission, and supporting good businesses in communities such as those in his constituency.