argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Investing in Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): That is not what the Institute for Fiscal Studies says is the record of our spending on schools once we reach the end of the three-year financial settlement for schools When schools were closed to most pupils in March last year, we continued to provide support to pupils eligible for free school meals, even though they were at home, and we extended it to the Easter holiday, to the Whitsun half-term and, with inspiration from Marcus Rashford, to the long summer break. Altogether, over £450 million has been spent through the food voucher scheme. We invested more than £400 million to provide laptops, tablets and internet access, with over 1.3 million computers built to order, imported, configured and delivered to schools, so that every child, regardless of means, could continue to study and be taught while locked down at home. Again, what a debt of gratitude we owe to our teachers, who have developed lessons and learned how to teach remotely and to engage their pupils while confronting their own challenges in working from home We supported the inception of the Oak National Academy, helping schools to provide high-quality online lessons. Thanks to the hard work and brilliance of scores of highly talented teachers, that has led to over 94 million views and downloads of those lessons, and Oak will continue to have a critical part to play in helping schools and helping pupils to catch up We put in place a system of controls in schools to ensure that as they reopened after the summer, they would be as safe as possible from the spread of the virus. We also provided £139 million to help schools cope with the exceptional costs that they faced during the first lockdown. Again, I thank teachers and support staff for all their hard work last summer to adapt their schools and introduce the new safety measures In June 2020, while we were still in lockdown, the Prime Minister announced the first £1 billion commitment to ensuring that pupils were able to catch up: £650 million of catch-up premium and £350 million for a teaching programme—a new initiative to provide private one-to- one or small-group tuition for the children most in need. We created a market. We worked with the Education Endowment Foundation to identify and evaluate the best tutoring companies—33 in all—and asked them to expand their number of tutors. So far, more than 230,000 pupils have been enrolled, and our announcement last week extends that further still to 6 million courses. This is an evidence-based approach that research suggests that could help to boost progress by up to three to five months for every pupil who takes one of those 6 million courses. Combined with our provision through the 16 to 19 tuition fund, it will amount to 100 million hours of tutoring over the next three years.
Investing in Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): We want to have both. In the package that we announced last week, £579 million is allocated to schools to do just that. They can use that money either to employ local tutors or to free up their own teachers to tutor the pupils who they know need the most help. The idea behind the hon. Gentleman’s exhortation was announced last week.
Investing in Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes; we share the hon. Gentleman’s ambition. Outdoor education centres are wonderful places, and none are more wonderful, of course, than those in the Lake district, which the hon. Gentleman represents. I would be happy to discuss those issues with him further. He will know that residential courses are now available for schoolchildren as a result of our moving to step 3 of the road map In February this year we announced £700 million of funding to extend the tutoring programme, to provide extra funding to schools through the recovery premium, and to fund a summer school programme aimed at year 6 pupils who are about to start secondary school But of all the catch-up and education recovery initiatives and funding that we have announced and provided this year and last year, the most important catch-up is happening every day in tens of thousands of classrooms throughout the country. Eight million pupils are back in school—back to the routines and disciplines of study and to being taught by 450,000 highly qualified and committed teachers. That is why the Government have been so determined to reopen schools to all pupils at the earliest, safest moment, and it is why the £400 million of funding for continuing professional development and teacher training is probably the most important element of the package of measures that we announced last week. We are supporting teachers with 500,000 courses over the next three years, helping the profession to be the best that it can be, and supporting the professional development of early years practitioners, with all the benefits that great teaching will bring for pupils and for catch-up. If having pupils back at school and benefiting from great teaching is key to catch-up, why would not a proposal to extend the time that children spend at school be a highly effective measure to increase attainment and help children to catch up what has been lost during the pandemic? That is why we are reviewing the evidence of the benefits of a longer school day and consulting with parents, teachers and pupils about how and whether to introduce such measures. It would be a big change and would require significant funding and more teachers, which is why we are right to take a short period of time to review the evidence and consult. The review will be ready in time for the spending review later this year.
Investing in Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not accept the hon. Member’s views. We have put disabled children and children with special educational needs absolutely at the core of our decision making. We have enabled vulnerable children to remain in school—in special schools or in mainstream schools—throughout the pandemic. As for all the funding that we have allocated to schools, particularly through the £650 million catch-up premium, three times as much funding per pupil was allocated to children with special educational needs and disabilities through that programme, demonstrating our understanding and concern about those children, in particular, in our school system.
Investing in Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, I would be delighted to write to the right hon. Member. We know that schools are spending considerable sums during this period. As I have set out, we have all the different funding provisions that we have allocated to schools for catch-up and, indeed, through the exceptional costs fund during the period from March to July. There have been other schemes—when there have been excessive numbers of staff off, for example—in which we have provided funding for schools. Schools that are in serious trouble with their finances will always have recourse to their local authority or to the Department, if they are an academy, to tackle those particular challenges.
Investing in Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Education
Alun Craig Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): The Minister is right about the importance of face-to-face and in-school education. I welcome a lot of the funding announced for England, but as a Welsh Member of Parliament, I note that our school attendance is the worst in the Union. I implore him to work with the Welsh Government, on the review, the funding and the tutors that he is making available, on a cross-border basis to address this issue. We need to work with the Welsh Government and help them with schemes such as the ones he is announcing today, which we look enviously over the border at.
Investing in Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I would like to try to conclude my remarks, so that other people can speak As we have shown throughout this crisis, the Government are ready to spend to deliver on our commitment to education. We announced £1.4 billion only last week, and as the Prime Minister said then, "there is going to be more coming down the track, but don’t forget this is a huge amount that we are spending." Behind the Opposition’s warm words and hot indignation, there is no substance and no real plan, but the Government are getting on with the challenging job of tackling the pandemic, keeping our economy alive, supporting people’s incomes, supporting the NHS and our doctors and nurses, vaccinating the nation, and providing education and support to 8 million children and young people. Working with tens of thousands of able civil servants and supported by Conservative Back-Bench MPs, we are doing every day what we believe to be right in order to get the country through this crisis. We know that there is more to do, not just to tackle the impact of the pandemic, but to continue to spread the benefits of our reforms since 2010 across the country to ensure that all children are taught an extensive, knowledge-rich curriculum by well-trained teachers in a disciplined and caring environment, with high expectations and where success is rewarded and celebrated. That is our vision, that is our commitment, and that is our ambition.
Investing in Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Education
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is a brilliant member of our Education Committee. Does he agree that a wealth of evidence shows that an extended school day, combined with academic, mental health and wellbeing activities, increases educational attainment, as well as helping pupils’ mental health? There is a wealth of evidence out there that makes his case absolutely.
Investing in Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Education
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): Further to my question to the shadow Secretary of State, does the hon. Gentleman agree with the core part of Sir Kevan Collins’s plan that there should be a structured, longer school day? Is that the Labour party’s position or not?
Investing in Children and Young People — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Education
Victoria Grace Ford (Conservative, Centre-right): I will not, because I want to address as many hon. Members’ comments as possible. If I have time at the end, I will come back That three-year programme of £14 billion takes the whole schools budget to £52.2 billion by next year. We levelled that up across the country, so that per pupil funding is at least £4,000 in every primary school and £5,150 in secondary schools this year. Over the past two years we have also put record funding into high needs, increasing the funding for special educational needs and disabilities by £1.5 billion—nearly a quarter—over that period The hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) spoke about special educational needs. Twenty-six of our 33 providers under the national tutoring programme can support those with SEND; 17 can support those in special schools. I visited some special schools last month. They are using their catch-up funding very sensibly to invest in speech and language and other therapies for children, exactly as the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South requested. I am very proud that we were one of the few countries in the world to keep open schools for vulnerable children, including those with more acute special educational needs and disabilities, even at the height of lockdowns. Vulnerable children are often cared for by local authorities, so during the pandemic we increased the funding for councils, with an additional £4.6 billion of un-ringfenced funding for both children and adult social care, and another £1.55 billion went to councils at the last spending review As we know that early education is critical, we invested around £3.6 billion last year in early years entitlements and continued funding nurseries and pre-schools at pre-covid levels throughout 2020, even if children were not attending. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) spoke with great praise for our early years settings, and I agree that early education provides the building blocks of a child’s future. I am sure he will be pleased that £153 million—more than 10%—of the funding announced last week goes to early years When schools were not open to most pupils, we set up the school meal voucher system, putting nearly an extra £500 million in the school food system, and we invested more than £400 million in laptops and devices.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not want the right hon. Gentleman to misinterpret any of my body language, but the reason for it is that he and his party had a chance to work cross-party by voting for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, and he did not do that. All I see from him, with the greatest of respect, is dither and irresolution.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I am happy to explain again why the Bill makes it absolutely clear that those sentenced for serious offences including rape will serve longer in custody. For those serving sentences of four years or more the automatic release date will now be two thirds—it will no longer be half, which was of course the policy of the right hon. Gentleman’s Government—and that builds on the change we made last year to make sure that sentences of seven years or more for serious crimes including rape also met with the same term of imprisonment, namely automatic release after two thirds as opposed to half. That is a longer term of imprisonment.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I am absolutely delighted to come to the Dispatch Box at the invitation of the right hon. Gentleman. Let me remind him that in the past 10 years the average sentence for rape has increased dramatically, up to about 10 years, and the maximum is life in prison. I thought that he and I were interested in making sure that more and more perpetrators—[Interruption.] I can do without a running commentary from the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle). The way in which we encourage people to come forward and make sure that their cases are heard is to encourage more and more people to plead guilty. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to tell me how any of these back-of-a-cigarette-packet measures that he proposes actually amount to anything when it comes to the effective prosecution and detection of people who commit rape.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I have a lot of time for the right hon. Gentleman and respect him as a lawyer, as I respect the Secretary of State, but he will know that if we are going to have a discussion about specific nomenclature the truth is that, whether we talk about time served or minimum sentences, to say that we should increase the sentence for rape is not something that can realistically be done because the maximum sentence for rape is, as a matter of common law, life imprisonment. I accept that there is a legitimate debate to be had about how long that should translate to in practice through guidance and other matters, but it is not fair, I respectfully suggest, to talk about failing to increase what is already a life sentence; that is just a matter of law.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): First, the right hon. Gentleman might be interested to know that I spoke to our Crown court judge in Gloucester earlier this afternoon, who confirmed that the backlog has been lower month by month over the last six months, and it is lower than it was before the pandemic. One key reason for that is that it uses the court resolution process very effectively Secondly, although the right hon. Gentleman is making a strong pitch for why he wants to look after the victims of justice, where were he and his colleagues when policemen were getting injured in Bristol and police vans were being set on fire? Where was he when the windows of retail shops and banks were being smashed and people were clambering over the tops of railway trains, endangering life?
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), for at least some of his remarks. I welcome today’s debate, which is an important opportunity for us to properly reflect on some of the serious issues that he quite properly raises. I can say at the outset that we absolutely agree with him when he talks about the ordeal of victims. The fact that this is nothing new is a matter of reproach for all of us. Can we do better? Yes, we can. Will we do better? Yes, we will. Are we taking action? Yes, we are—and it is there that, with the greatest respect, I take the gravest issue with his remarks To characterise my work or the work of this Government as somehow whistling or fiddling while Rome burns is a complete misrepresentation of the situation. Calm reflection and a look at the work that the Government have continued to do, well before the covid pandemic, will bear that out. I think of the actions that this Conservative Government took to address important issues of violence against women and girls. Many Members from the right hon. Gentleman’s party and other parties in this Chamber were involved as well—I readily and happily accept that —but it is a record of action Outlawing coercive control within an intimate relationship, an offence that we are now going further to expand; outlawing upskirting; creating a criminal offence of stalking, which I and other parliamentarians were involved with; outlawing revenge porn and now the threat of revenge porn; outlawing the so-called rough sex defence; dealing with the appalling offence of non-fatal strangulation—those are all achievements by this Conservative Government. Let us not hedge or make any qualification of that. It is a Conservative Government who have driven forward important action on violence against women and girls The right hon. Gentleman is right, however, that there is no monopoly on ownership of these issues. I do not want for one minute to convey the impression that somehow we hold the monopoly of wisdom on all things. I think it is right to gently, firmly and consistently point out that there have been many opportunities for us to work in a joint way. There have been times when that has been done; I particularly single out the approach that the right hon. Gentleman took on the counter-terror measures that the Government have introduced in the past year. That was an example in which we worked constructively and maturely together, but I hope he will forgive me for saying—well, I am sure that he will not, but I will say it none the less—that there was an opportunity to do that again on Second Reading of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, but the Labour party did not take it. Frankly, it makes it rather difficult for me to take seriously the words that come out of his mouth about working together when such an important opportunity to work together was missed.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James Buckland (Conservative, Centre-right): Having met and talked, in a professional and now a political capacity, to many of the victims that the hon. Lady describes, I say this: an apology is due, and I give that, but action is due as well, and that is happening. The hon. Lady talks about independent sexual violence advisers. From day one of taking office, I made the case consistently that the expansion of their important role was a vital part of my policy, and we have done that. In 2019, I put an extra £5 million into investing in ISVAs. We have now expanded that; the total that we are investing in increasing ISVAs as we speak is £27 million. That means hundreds more ISVAs who will be available to support victims of crime from the get-go. She is right: the evidence is clear that, where an ISVA is involved, the rate of dropped cases falls dramatically—by about 50%, in fact I take up the hon. Lady’s challenge and exhortation, and I say that this is work in progress but we are getting on with it—yet another example of the action that I and this Government are taking to deal with the heart of the matter. Of course, that is going to be followed up very soon by the important end-to-end rape review, which we will publish. That piece of work has, quite properly I think, considered and reflected on a very important judicial review launched against the Crown Prosecution Service that was dealt with earlier this year, and indeed on the representations of many groups in the sector, reflecting the important views of thousands of victims of the most heinous crime of rape. That review will be published imminently, and I can assure her that it will be a full and proper reflection not only of the problems that we have encountered but of what can be done and what will be done to help to remedy the situation I am not going to hedge or qualify; I am going to be absolutely frank about the fact that the current rates and numbers of cases being brought to court are inadequate. They do not reflect the reality of what has been happening to thousands of women and girls in our country, and we are determined to do everything we can to change that. That involves a change from end to end—police, prosecution and the court system itself. That is what we need to encapsulate and get right, and I can assure the hon. Lady that, when that document is published, it will be the fullest proper reflection of the important points that she is properly so passionate about.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims — House of Commons, 2021-06-09
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): My understanding from the judge of our Crown court is that there are ways to speed up the handling of the rape cases to which the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) so correctly referred. One of them, for example, is making the Crown court available for certain sittings at certain times as a magistrates court, so that a case can be heard in the magistrates court and immediately moved into the Crown court. That is a way of speeding up the whole process. Does my right hon. and learned Friend, who knows far more about these things than I do, agree that there are practical ways in which courts can work with the Crown Prosecution Service to speed things up so that these cases get heard faster?