Engagements — House of Commons, 2016-04-13
Topic: Education
Questions: My constituents John and Penny Clough, whose daughter Jane was tragically murdered by her ex-partner while he was out on bail, are campaigning to save Lancashire’s nine women’s refuges, which are currently under threat because Labour-run Lancashire County Council proposes to cut all their funding. Does the Prime Minister agree with the Clough family and me that Labour-run Lancashire County Council should prioritise the victims of domestic violence?; Will and Carol Davies and many other farmers in south Herefordshire are still awaiting their 2015 payments from the Rural Payments Agency, nearly four months after they were due. That follows the failure of the RPA website last year. It is causing great personal and financial distress, and threatens the future of farm businesses. Will the Prime Minister agree to meet farmers to discuss the issue and press the RPA to make these payments by the end of this month, and does he share my view that, at the very least, farmers should receive interest on the amounts overdue?; Again on Europe, does the Prime Minister agree that the European Union is not just the world’s biggest single market but an ample source of foreign direct investment, providing 50% of the investment that we receive; and an excellent platform for supply chains to thrive and prosper, which gives them the ability to get the skills and the innovation that they need? That, for my constituency, means that Sartorius, Renishaw, Delphi and a whole load of other hi-tech companies thrive and prosper, as they do elsewhere in the United Kingdom.; Brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and people under 40, but, despite that, research into them receives just over 1% of the UK’s national spend on cancer research. That will be the subject of a debate next Monday in Westminster Hall. Will the Prime Minister have a word with the Secretary of State for Health, so that the Minister who answers that debate might be able to bring with him or her some long-overdue good news of change in this area?; I have a steel producer at the heart of my constituency, and so I share concerns raised about the future of our steel industry and, more widely, of energy-intensive manufacturing. The north of England still has significant manufacturing, but it is being held back by green taxes, high energy costs and emissions targets. What more can my right hon. Friend do to help energy-intensive industries?; Research by the Sutton Trust shows that turning schools into academies does not necessarily improve them. Parents at thousands of excellent primary schools want them to continue to be maintained by their local authorities. Why are Ministers planning to overrule parents and force all those schools to become academies?
David William Donald Cameron (Conservative, Centre-right): All the evidence shows that academies work as part of our education reforms. Let me give the House the evidence. If we look at schools that converted into academies, we see that 88% of them are either outstanding or good schools. If we look at the sponsored academies, which were often failing schools, we see that there has been, on average, a 10% improvement over the first two years. All the evidence is that the results are better, the freedoms lead to improvements and, where there are problems, intervention happens far faster with academies. We have got 1.4 million more children in good or outstanding schools, and I say, "Let’s finish the job."