International Baccalaureate: Funding in State Schools
Debate between Roger Gale and Freddie van Mierlo(6 days ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered funding for the International Baccalaureate in state schools.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. The international baccalaureate—which I will henceforth refer to as the IB, but I hate acronyms, so I wanted to say it properly to start with—establishes the global standard for education and is recognised by universities, employers and educators worldwide as a symbol of academic excellence.
For those who are unaware, the IB diploma is an alternative to A-levels that offers a breadth of subjects across the curriculum: languages, humanities, sciences, maths and arts. Students complete extended projects, theory of knowledge and service in the community, making for a well-rounded education. Studies have shown that IB students in the UK are three times more likely to enrol in a top 20 higher education institution, 40% more likely to achieve a first-class or upper second-class honours degree and 21% more likely to continue to the second year of university. That is why thousands of British families choose to send their children to schools offering the IB diploma.
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for giving way. I have constituents who attend the Europa School in his constituency, and they have been in touch with me about this issue. He speaks of choice. If we can have faith schools, free schools, maintained schools, academies, grammar schools, state boarding schools and colleges—
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Order. Let us get the ground rules right: this is an intervention, not a speech.
Freddie van Mierlo
Does my hon. Friend agree that choice is an extremely valuable part of the education system, and we should be supporting the Europa School?
Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment
Debate between Roger Gale and Freddie van Mierlo
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda). I can confirm that Reading is an excellent place to do shopping; it is a vibrant city with excellent restaurants and an important regional hospital. I am disappointed that the hospital will not be rebuilt until the 2040s, but we will, like all constituency MPs who circle the Royal Berkshire hospital, continue to advocate for it.
It has been a pleasure to represent over the past year my constituents of Henley and Thame. It has been pleasing to back some local campaigns, but also to learn some of the national significance that those campaigns have, and I would like to speak to two of them. In my hometown of Henley, I have been campaigning to get Marsh Lock horse bridge reopened since it closed over three years ago. There had been a record of inaction, and when I became the MP, I immediately wrote to Ministers, the Environment Agency, Thames Path national trail and many other organisations—basically, anyone who would listen. I am pleased that that work has made progress. In doing that work, I have discovered a lot more about the state of our infrastructure on our rivers—that is, locks, weirs and bridges. We all know the state of infrastructure when it comes to education, health and our roads, but lesser known is the poor state of our locks, weirs and bridges. They are essential infrastructure for river navigation and safety on the river, and if we did not have them, my hometown of Henley pretty much would not exist and would not have a river running through it—or at least there would not be any water in it. I would like to highlight that situation and call on Ministers to continue looking at how additional funding can be raised for the Environment Agency and its vital work there.
The second campaign I have been focusing on is the Thame to Haddenham greenway. Thame and the village of Haddenham are just three miles apart. Haddenham has the train station, and Thame is the major town with shops, schools and many facilities.
The two are not connected by an off-road greenway capable of taking active travel. I have been campaigning alongside residents to get that going. That is why I introduced an amendment on compulsory purchase orders to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.
As we know, compulsory purchase orders are readily used for road projects, but they are difficult to use for active travel projects. That is why I called for Government guidance on that. Unfortunately, my amendment was not successful, but I am pleased that Active Travel England will bring forward guidance, including two case studies on how other councils have successfully used CPOs. I am grateful to the Government for pushing that forward. A cycleway between Goring and Wallingford would also benefit my community. Again, I hope that the Government will continue to invest in active travel.
I will touch briefly on another issue that I have been campaigning on: the lack of ADHD services in Oxfordshire. With no adult service commissioned for annual reviews by a specialist, once someone with ADHD who is well controlled on medication reaches the one-year limit, as required by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines, GPs are removing prescriptions from them. That is an absolutely scandalous and very dangerous situation for people with ADHD. I urge the Government to move quickly in their task of implementing the recommendations of the forthcoming taskforce publication, to ensure that we are properly treating and looking after people with ADHD.
In my remaining time, I will mention some of the excellent organisations that I have had the pleasure of meeting, including the Men’s Shed in Peppard; the Sharing Life Trust in Thame, which does excellent work as a food bank; the River Tame Conservation Trust; the Riverside Counselling Service; and the Henley YMCA. Like many first-time MPs who spent their summer recruiting officers and doing a lot of admin, I am very much looking forward to this recess, as I am sure all Members are. But rest assured that I and my Lib Dem colleagues will be back in September to continue holding the Government and the official Opposition to account, and I look forward—