argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Education and Social Mobility — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Education
John Philip Glen (Conservative, Centre-right): Absolutely. I totally welcome that point. I welcome the value that we see in university technical colleges, studio schools, academies and the range of other options that exist. There is a lot of mobility between those schools and a lot of transferring to grammar schools at sixth form It is wrong to suggest that we should have targets for where children go when they leave school—a target of a certain number going to university. We need to work hard in the House to generate parity of esteem for apprenticeships, higher-level apprenticeships, vocational education and all types of higher education. We should enable movement to these different settings at different stages The fact that so many of Salisbury’s young people go to the grammar schools for sixth form is testimony to the enduring quality of those schools’ academic A-level offer. However, the fact that other young people choose the excellent free sixth form is a reflection of how it provides for the diverse needs that grammars do not provide for and of how grammars do not suit all children We need to recognise that social mobility is achieved by embracing the broadest possible range of options, by encouraging specialisms and diversity and by valuing the widest context for learning for our young people.
Education and Social Mobility — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Education
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I feel keenly the importance of every child having a chance to succeed, never more so than when I visit schools in my constituency or drop my own children off at school and see bright faces in the playground or lined up with crossed legs in assembly, full of hope and potential. The question today is how we best nurture that potential and enable every child to make the most of their talents. From pre-school, through primary and secondary school, and on to further education, every stage is an opportunity. Indeed, at every stage there is also a risk that some children may do less well, relatively, but fear of difference in results must not drive policy, as I fear it does for some Opposition Members. There is a clear consensus in the House about the importance of pre-school education and early years education—primary school. Progress is being made in these areas, particularly in the improvement of standards in primary schools, but there is more to be done, particularly so that children arrive at reception already having good language skills, particularly in their first language, which is not always the case Today we are talking primarily about selection. Opposition MPs have been attacking academic selection but, oddly, not any other forms of selection. They have not countered the points made about why they are so happy about selection for sports or arts, nor made it clear where they stand on existing grammar schools. They appear to have a pretty confused policy. I stand here representing a constituency in Kent where we have excellent grammar schools that are extremely popular with parents. I urge Opposition Members to listen to parents who like those schools and try to understand why Significant misinformation has been put out about achievement in Kent’s education system. Children in Kent achieve above the national average in their GCSEs. The system works well. Within that system, in particular, children from low-income families, on free school meals or in receipt of the pupil premium are doing especially well in our grammar schools. That enables those children to make up the gap between themselves and other children with greater advantages.
Education and Social Mobility — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Education
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): We know that children are much more likely to go on to Russell Group universities if they have attended grammar schools In Kent, an increasing number of children who have received the pupil premium are attending grammar schools, so Kent is working at widening access. I really welcome the points in the Government’s Green Paper on widening access so that more children have a chance to attend excellent grammar schools. One of the critical things is whether primary school headteachers support their pupils in getting into grammar schools. For primary schools that do so, that makes a huge difference; for those that do not, that is a real disadvantage to those children. I would like more schools to emulate our best primary schools, where children are supported to go to what is the best school for them. We also have grammar schools that favour in their admissions criteria children on low incomes. They are undertaking outreach to primary schools to make sure that children who have the right academic potential to do well in grammar schools get a place and can make the most of that potential Finally on the experience in Kent, I want to emphasise the cases where selective and non-selective schools are working very well together as part of a trust. An excellent example of that is Valley Invicta Trust. I encourage the shadow Secretary of State to come and visit so that she can see a comprehensive school and a grammar school in one go, and see the excellent results that both those schools are getting for their pupils Before I conclude, I should mention the importance, underlying all this, of high-quality teaching. What academies and grammar schools are doing so well is making sure that their teachers provide excellent teaching so that all the children who go to those schools can truly succeed.
Education and Social Mobility — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Education
David Thomas Charles Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I have sat here for hours listening to one Opposition Member after another criticising Government policies and trying to offer a few policies of their own. The interesting thing is that not one of those Opposition speakers has mentioned the fact that for the past 18 years they have been implementing their policies in another corner of the United Kingdom, which I come from: Wales. On any reasonable comparison of the difference between the education systems in England and in Wales, England comes out on top, and I say that as an ex-Welsh comprehensive school pupil with three children currently going through the state system in Wales The comparisons are absolutely clear. Fewer teachers take time off for sickness in England than in Wales. More money is spent per head on pupils in England than in Wales. Children in England have a much better chance of getting into university, as a headline from the BBC made clear only a month or two ago: "Top grade A-level performance falls in Wales". Pupils in England have a better chance of getting into the best universities and a better chance of getting a first-class honours degree than pupils in Wales Why is that? It is because in Wales Labour has followed the outdated policies that it tries to suggest that we impose in England. The Labour Government in Wales have scrapped testing. They do not like streaming or any kind of selection. They do not like classroom assessments, because they think that those assessments put teachers under pressure. They do not want to give parents the choice that my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards wants to give them in England No one has to take my word for that; they can look at PISA reports—the independent OECD surveys of education systems around the world, including those in the United Kingdom—which clearly show that England is doing far better than Wales. Alternatively, they can look at Estyn reports, a recent one of which showed that Wales is lagging far behind England in areas such as English language. Even if people are not convinced by those neutral reports, they can read what former Labour Education Ministers in Wales have said. Leighton Andrews said "we took our eye off the ball", while Huw Lewis issued an apology to the learners of Wales for the Welsh Labour Government’s failed policies. Labour Members like to promise a nation fit from cradle to grave, but as far as education is concerned, they have delivered a failure from the nursery to the bursary.
Education and Social Mobility — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Education
David Thomas Charles Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I notice that the hon. Gentleman says that the gap has closed, but he does not say that Wales is doing any better than England. In actual fact, one of the headlines I referred to is only a couple of months old, so there are still many problems here. In England, we have rejected the sort of left-wing, anti-selection, anti-testing, anti-choice dogma that Labour has followed since the 1960s, which is completely out of date. That is why we are delivering higher standards for pupils in England than for those in Wales. It is why Labour Members do not want to talk about their failures in Wales. It is why former Labour Education Ministers from Wales are having to apologise to their own constituents for their failures Members of the public know perfectly well that this Government can be trusted on the economy, on defence, on law and order, and on immigration, but there are still some people who think that Labour can be trusted more on public services. The reality is that we have put public services at the heart of our agenda, and we will continue to do so. We should loudly and proudly shout from the rooftops about the enormous successes we have delivered in education, health and other public services for the people of England.
Education and Social Mobility — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): In January, the ceremony to open the new £25 million Newark Academy was cancelled because the teachers were out on strike. On the same day, a window cleaner from South Leverton who came to my surgery said that he could not send his bright son to the local grammar school in Gainsborough, which is across the border in Lincolnshire, because he could not afford the £400 a year it would cost to get him there every day. This year, more than 50% of the children in my town are going to schools out of town, and they are the 50% who can afford to do so, not the 50% who might need that the most. It is no coincidence that Newark and Sherwood district is among the areas in the United Kingdom where social mobility is at its lowest The story of Newark secondary schools is a near-complete description of the failings of our state schools since the 1960s: the destruction of a successful grammar school, the Magnus, which had been established in 1531; the pre-emption of places at the good schools in neighbouring, better-off towns by articulate parents with the resources to work the system to their advantage and to afford the cost of travelling to them, given that such an option was not available in their own town; the flight of middle-class parents to Lincolnshire for grammar schools, for which demand was extremely high, but for which one needs £500 to £1,000 a year to bus one’s child to school; the tolerance of failure—or at least of consistent underperformance—and a great deal of complacency and hand wringing, with lines such as, "What do you expect? It’s only Newark"; and the gradual decline in aspiration and a pervasive culture of low expectations, including the kicking away of the ladder out of ignorance and poverty by neglect and complacency dressed up as egalitarian, progressive education policy.
Education and Social Mobility — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Education
Sue-Ellen Cassiana Braverman (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that the culture of low expectations and the soft bigotry of a "prizes for all" culture is exactly what needs to be changed and what this Government are standing up against?
Education and Social Mobility — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Education
Robert Edward Jenrick (Conservative, Centre-right): I could not agree more with my hon. Friend In Newark, social inequality is not the problem, but the symptom of a real malaise. The condition of the town’s education has been allowed to reach an appalling level. Having diagnosed the problems—the lack of a choice of school, an unwillingness to intervene, and an unwillingness to embrace selection in any form, even when parents are crying out for it—there are many solutions. In my town, armed with a range of tools, we are starting to make progress under this Government, and I am convinced that we have finally turned the corner We intervened to remove the sponsor of the Newark Academy, which was not working, and brought in the No. 1 school in the county to run it, thanks to Conservative policy. In September 2017, we will open a new free school in Newark, of which I have the pleasure of being a governor. It will be committed to the highest standards of education, discipline and character formation, and to repatriating children from across the county whose parents have had to send them away. The diocese of Southwell and Nottingham, which runs the other school in the town—the Magnus—has now increased its commitment to driving up standards as a result of the competition and choice that we are now putting into the system. The apprenticeship levy is forcing a long-overdue conversation between the employers in the town and the schools The common thread that runs through all these policies is parental choice. Parents in my town want the choice to send their children to the school that suits them and their needs, rather than being told by others that only the privileged few who can afford the bus fare or the fees at a private school deserve it.
Education and Social Mobility — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Education
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me towards the end of this interesting debate I have noticed that there is a gaping hole at the centre of the Opposition’s case on grammar schools. If grammar schools are based on a good principle, why would Labour oppose extending them? And if they are based on a bad principle, why is it not committed to abolishing them? Surely, if it is a good idea, a cap or ban is a crazy way to proceed if we want to widen opportunity and choice. If it is a bad idea, why should we allow grammar schools to exist? Why should we allow the existing grammar schools to continue providing a bad education, if indeed they are bad schools and it is a bad principle? It cannot be the case that the number of grammar schools in this country as of 2016 should be fixed in aspic for ever more and never increase. That would be a very illogical way to proceed Secondly, I want to pick up on the idea of elite education. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), who I am glad is in his place, made the point that everyone in the House is happy to see elite soccer teams, musicians and gymnasts educated in private facilities, private schools and even some state schools on a selective basis, yet when it comes to a broad education, somehow it is a taboo issue The other issue raised was the fact that we have independent schools. Even if we abolished every single grammar school in the country, we would still have a system in which private schools could be attended by very wealthy—and often very talented—people, accentuating existing differences and inequalities. Labour’s position is entirely incoherent. It has not given a single indication of what it wants to do with grammar schools. Does it agree with them in principle, or is it against them? If it is against them, why does it not have the courage to say publicly that it will abolish them The proposals in the Green Paper are actually quite mild. No one is suggesting that we go back to the 1950s or some sheep and goats, be all and end all 11-plus. Rather, we are saying that there should be diversity of provision. People should be able to access selective education not simply because they can afford to but because they have the abilities and aspiration to do so. We want a diverse system from which all children can benefit.
Education and Social Mobility — House of Commons, 2016-11-22
Topic: Education
Huw William Merriman (Conservative, Centre-right): To me, the conundrum seems to be how we break the grammar school system’s current status as perhaps the preserve of the middle class while at the same time not going backwards to what I would call the apartheid system that used to be in place I refer to that because I failed my 12-plus, as it was, and went to a secondary modern school. In my small town there were two schools, the Royal Latin School and the secondary modern, divided by one hedge. Siblings were unable to talk to each other across the hedge, because the grammar school head refused to countenance it. Pupils at the secondary modern left school at 16—they were told by their teachers that there was little point in going on to do A-levels, because why would someone like them pass A-levels? I ignored that advice and I am glad I did. I would certainly not vote for a return to a grammar school system that took us back to those days Equally, we have the huge problem of grammar schools being the preserve of the middle class. My constituency in East Sussex borders Kent. In my daughter’s primary school in East Sussex, a quarter of the class moved over to the grammar school, leading to a brain drain from East Sussex. Only those parents who can afford to pay the increase in house prices will see their children go to the grammar school which, while based on ability, is catchment-based. Entrance to another school is based on pure ability, so only parents who can afford the tuition, rail fare or prep school fees to have got their children to the school in the first place will be able to enjoy it. I therefore maintain that the current system does not work Should we stick or should we twist? I was surprised by the Opposition spokesperson’s speech. I expected the Opposition to state that the system does not work at all and that it should be abolished. If they wish to continue with the status quo, they will inadvertently support this middle class preserve. Perhaps somewhat reluctantly, I welcome the shift in the Government’s approach towards the expansion of grammar schools. The situation in relation to social mobility is so bad that something has to be done I spent the past couple of days reading research from the past 50 years. It is completely inconclusive on which system, comprehensive or grammar, is better. What is undeniable, however, is that our social mobility statistics are so bad that something must be done. Those on the Government Front Bench must reflect on whether creating more grammar schools, and perhaps taking us back to towns with a choice of two schools, means inadvertently moving back to a situation in which the choice is either success or failure. There must be success for all, regardless of entrance tests.
Procurement Programmes: Supply Chain — House of Commons, 2016-11-07
Topic: Transportation
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I would have thought the hon. Gentleman might have started by welcoming Friday’s announcement about the shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde, but he is absolutely right that it is a wonderful national moment as we complete these two fantastic carriers at Rosyth. I am sure he and I are both looking forward to seeing the Queen Elizabeth sail down the Forth some time next year. Given the ambitious shipbuilding strategy that we have and the national shipbuilding strategy that will be announced nearer to the autumn statement, I am sure that there will be great news for shipbuilding across Scotland and the whole of the UK.
Iraq and Syria: RAF Campaign — House of Commons, 2016-11-07
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Fallon (Conservative, Centre-right): I think there is agreement across the House that Russia’s actions speak far louder than its words. The key is to stop the violence and return to the cessation of hostilities as originally agreed. There have been a number of these ceasefires and, in each case, they have been broken by the Assad regime and its Russian supporters. It really is time now that Russia called a halt to the slaughter and got engaged with us in finding a political settlement so that Syria can finally live in peace.
Mosul: Reconstruction and Governance — House of Commons, 2016-11-07
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Fallon (Conservative, Centre-right): We encourage the Iraqi Government’s efforts to protect civilians, minimise the humanitarian impact, and support political reconciliation. A successful military operation must be followed by sustained stabilisation and reconstruction. The UK is providing £15 million to help secure liberated areas, clear explosives and support the renovation of power networks, clinics and schools. This year, we are also providing £90 million of humanitarian assistance to help people across Iraq, including those affected by the military operations in and around Mosul.
Mosul: Reconstruction and Governance — House of Commons, 2016-11-07
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Fallon (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I think it is fair to say that we learn the lessons from each of these successive campaigns. This is a campaign being helped by the international coalition and led by Iraqi forces, but yes, we have made our contribution to the United Nations effort to ensure that there are sufficient tents, food aid and medical supplies for those towns that are liberated. I hope the hon. Lady supports the overall aim of the campaign, which is to allow the Yazidi people to return to their homes and to live in peace.
Mosul: Reconstruction and Governance — House of Commons, 2016-11-07
Topic: International Affairs
Philip Thomas Hollobone (Conservative, Centre-right): Given the complex ethnic make-up of Mosul and the split between Sunnis and Shi’as, what plans are there for some kind of international observer force to be on the ground in the city once it is liberated?
Mosul: Reconstruction and Governance — House of Commons, 2016-11-07
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Fallon (Conservative, Centre-right): It is for the Iraqi Government in the first instance to determine the future local government of Mosul. It is, as my hon. Friend says, a very complex city and not entirely a Sunni city, and it is important that the administration there after liberation can command the confidence of all groups represented in that city. We have made our views on this known to the Government and military commanders of the operation.
Mosul: Reconstruction and Governance — House of Commons, 2016-11-07
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Fallon (Conservative, Centre-right): It is not for us in the west to question the territorial integrity of Iraq. In the end it is for the Iraqi people to decide their borders. One of the aims of the counter-Daesh coalition, which I shall be chairing at its next meeting next month in London, is to focus on the period after the liberation of Mosul and after the final mopping-up operations along the Tigris and in the Euphrates river valley, to see what more can be done by the coalition countries to help Iraq to reinforce its border and ensure that Daesh does not come back through it.
Yemen — House of Commons, 2016-11-07
Topic: International Affairs
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): I am sure the Minister will agree that in this situation we have to be careful what we wish for, given the alternatives. Will she outline what support the UK Government are giving to the parties involved to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law?
Yemen — House of Commons, 2016-11-07
Topic: International Affairs
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is right to say that in this situation the UK particularly supports a political solution. We believe that this is the best way to bring long-term stability to Yemen and to end the conflict. With respect to ongoing support, the UK backed UN resolution 2216, as my hon. Friend knows, and we have an ongoing defence engagement relationship with the Saudi Arabian Government.