Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Debate between Toby Perkins and Tristram Hunt(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Greg Clark
I will not give way.
Not for us the discredited model of a one-city economy, because much as we value London it is wrong to rely on a single centre of wealth creation. Instead, wealth must be created and retained in communities across our nation —hence our ongoing commitment to HS2, a north-south axis linking London to the midlands engine and to the northern powerhouse. Quite literally, we must go further. We must build the vital east-west links needed to unlock the full potential of our great cities beyond London.
The Pennines might be the backbone of England, but frankly they are not the Himalayas. Some of our nation’s greatest cities stretch like a string of pearls across the north—and they can and should be drawn together. That is why this Budget strikes out in a new direction with the key announcement on HS3.
Infant Class Sizes
Debate between Toby Perkins and Tristram Hunt(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Tristram Hunt
My hon. Friend is exactly right about the academic evidence, and I will come to that shortly. To those of her constituents facing ballooning infant class sizes, I say that we know the reason. It is a misallocation of funding away from basic need funding towards a range of priorities that do not support keeping class sizes low.
Some 14,000 kids are cramped into cattle classes of more than 40, nearly 6,000 are stuffed into classes that are plus 50 and, although it is barely believable, last year this country educated 446 children in classrooms containing more than 70 pupils. Is it any wonder that a Netmums survey published last week showed that nearly one in five parents think that schools are squeezing too many children into classes?
Unlike the parties in the Government, the Labour party believes in smaller class sizes because of the academic evidence referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones). In small classes, research shows, there is more individual interaction between teachers and pupils, more teacher support for learning per pupil, more attentiveness to the teacher and therefore less disruptive behaviour from pupils, and teachers spend more time teaching rather than managing pupils.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend and his team on securing this debate. It is incredibly important that parents across the country know that their child’s experience is not an isolated one and how serious the situation has become. When I read the list of schools with extra-large classes, I was surprised to find my own daughter’s school on it. This is happening in schools across the country, and parents are not aware of how terrible the situation has become.
Tristram Hunt
My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is the case in Chesterfield, in Warrington, in Peterborough and right across England. Constituents will want to know what decisions were made and what spending priorities were determined to allow the situation to get out of control.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Toby Perkins and Tristram Hunt(13 years, 9 months ago)
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