A Brighter Future for the Next Generation — House of Commons, 2021-05-13
Topic: Education
Christian Wakeford (Conservative, Centre-right): It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Kate Griffiths) and several members of the Education Committee, which I am fortunate to sit on I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) in relation to aspiration. For three days, we have heard Labour Members talking down their towns and this country. The Conservative party truly is the party of opportunity and, more importantly, of aspiration, with the view that our best days truly are ahead of us. Let us not forget those great, well-known philosophers, the band Chumbawamba, who, in their hit single "Tubthumping", said: "We get knocked down, we get back up again, you’ll never keep me down." This country has been knocked down by the pandemic, but we will never keep this country or this Government down as we level up our regions and build a truly global Britain Levelling up, however, cannot be achieved without education, which is what I wish to focus on for the rest of my speech. The skills and post-16 education Bill will allow residents of Prestwich, Radcliffe and Whitefield to retrain later in life, with the lifetime skills guarantee ensuring that everyone will be able to achieve a minimum standard of a level 3 qualification. As we bounce back from covid thanks to the vaccine programme, this Government are delivering a long-term catch-up programme so that all children across Radcliffe, Whitefield and Prestwich can achieve to their fullest potential. However, catch-up cannot only be focused on attainment; it also needs to be focused on our children’s mental health, with a more holistic view, so that they truly are catching up and achieving the most I declare an interest in that, having a very young daughter, I want the very best in early years, so that our youngest children can get the best start in life, setting up their education and careers for life. Acting on the early years healthy development review, we are truly able to do that The Government’s free school programme is ensuring that the children of Radcliffe will no longer need to travel out of the town or, many times, even out of the borough to receive a world-class education. After many years of failed Labour promises, it is this Conservative Government who are achieving that. It is this Conservative Member of Parliament who has taken just over 12 months in this role to achieve just that However, to ensure a bright future, we need to address the elephant in the room: illiteracy. The BBC launched its programme this Monday to get the roughly 9 million people who have difficulties with reading talking about the issue and improving the country’s literacy rates. Not reading holds us all back in terms of health, employment, opportunity and family. If someone cannot help their own child with their homework because they are unable to read, they are holding their child back, too It has taken many years to overcome the stigma of mental health. With the help of the National Literacy Trust, which provides the secretariat for the all-party parliamentary group on literacy that I am fortunate to chair, we will overcome the stigma of illiteracy as well, because it cannot be right that in the 21st century one in six people in Britain, one in four in Scotland and one in eight in Wales are unable to read. My task is to ensure that the Government will continue to focus on that—I hope the Minister will be able to focus on it later, too —because it is a scandal that every single Member of both Chambers should be ashamed of. We will continue to do all the work we can to address that issue.