debates/debates2025-03-26b conversation_11
Source: hansard.parliament.uk (2025-03-26)

UK Parliament Hansard data: debates/debates2025-03-26b conversation_11

John Slinger:If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 26 March. \p Keir Starmer: Today’s spring statement will showcase a Government going further and faster on the economy. We are greenlighting the lower Thames crossing, investing £2 billion in building 80,000 affordable homes for working families, training 60,000 young people—the next generation of construction workers—and fixing millions of potholes. We are undoing a decade of stagnation, bringing jobs and opportunities for working people and securing Britain’s future.

Tomorrow, I shall meet President Macron in Paris to discuss further our efforts to secure a lasting peace in Ukraine. May I also welcome the delegation from the Bring Kids Back initiative who are in the Public Gallery? The abduction of Ukrainian children is grotesque, and the UK will play our full part to bring them home. It is a stark reminder that any peace settlement must see Russia held accountable for its deplorable actions.

This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today. \p John Slinger: Under this Labour Government, NHS waiting lists are down for five months in a row. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] The Hospital of St Cross in my constituency of Rugby is playing its part, but many of my constituents remain concerned about long waits in A&E, which we inherited from the Conservatives—especially those constituents who have to travel to the general hospital in Coventry. Will the Prime Minister set out how our plan for change to bring the NHS back into the heart of Government will help us to support the frontline and deliver better emergency care closer to the community, which our constituents have long called for? \p Keir Starmer: Our plan for change has already cut NHS waiting lists by almost 200,000. That has happened for five months in a row during the winter months. The local trust’s waiting lists in my hon. Friend’s area are down 93%, and he is doing great job for his community. We have already delivered 2 million extra appointments that we promised because of the record investment in the Budget. The Conservatives cannot have it both ways: if they welcome NHS investment, they cannot criticise raising the money to pay for it. \p Lindsay Hoyle: I call the Leader of the Opposition. \p Kemi Badenoch: In 30 minutes, we will hear the Chancellor’s emergency Budget—even the Home Secretary’s husband calls it an emergency Budget—as she scrambles to fix the mess she made last October. But first, let us turn to another Government Minister who is making a mess of her brief: the Education Secretary—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] Why did Labour MPs vote against banning phones in schools last week? \p Keir Starmer: Because it is completely unnecessary. I have teenage children. Almost every school bans phones in school; they do it already. We need to concentrate on what is really important here, which is getting to the content that children should not be accessing. I would genuinely like to work across the House on that, because there is a huge amount of work to do. But the battle is not with schools already banning phones; the battle—an important, emerging battle—is to work together to ensure that the content that children are accessing, wherever they are, is suitable for their age. \p Kemi Badenoch: We can look at the content, but if the ban is unnecessary, why have the Government started a review? Just last week, the Education Secretary described a ban as “a gimmick”, yet teachers and headteachers say that the evidence already shows that schools that ban phones get better results. The Prime Minister is wrong: not all schools do this. Only one in 10 schools is smartphone free. Will he U-turn on this? \p Keir Starmer: We need to ensure that all schools do this, but the vast majority do. It is really important that we focus on the battle we need to have with mobile phones, which is the content that children are able to access. We need to ensure that that content is controlled wherever they are. It is a question of having the right battle on the right issue, not wasting time on this when almost all schools are already banning mobile phones. \p Kemi Badenoch: I am surprised that the Prime Minister would say that. His own Government’s evidence says that phones disrupt nearly half of GCSE classes every single day. Discipline is the No. 1 issue in many schools. Under the Conservatives, schools became twice as likely to be good or outstanding after going through our behaviour programme, so why did the Education Secretary abolish that programme? \p Keir Starmer: The right hon. Lady talks about the record of the last Government. Under their watch, a third of children started school without appropriate-level development, such as not being able to use a knife and fork. A quarter left primary school without the required standard of reading, writing and maths, and one in five children was regularly absent. That is why we are pushing up standards, with more information from Ofsted, transparency for parents and more interventions where schools need it. \p Kemi Badenoch: The Prime Minister is not answering the question about discipline in schools, because he does not care about discipline in schools. Everything he does is ideological, and his decisions are costing schools so much. The national insurance hike means that every state school in the country has to pay more for teachers. The Education Secretary promised to compensate schools in full for the jobs tax. Why has it not happened? \p Keir Starmer: It was Labour that introduced academies and pushed up standards. This is not ideological. I am a parent of two teenage children, both of whom go to a state school, so I am invested in this, and it matters hugely to me. There is nothing ideological about it. That is why we are driving up standards, as we always have done. \p Kemi Badenoch: The Prime Minister did not answer the question about compensating schools for the jobs tax, which is costing schools a lot of money. The CEO of the United Learning group says that the grant that they were given is 20% short. Some schools will face shortfalls of up to 35%. Can he guarantee that no teacher will lose their job as a result of his jobs tax? \p Keir Starmer: It was this Government who put a record amount into our schools at the Budget, just as we put a record amount into our NHS and public services, which were utterly failed under the last Government. Yet again, the right hon. Lady wants all the benefits—the NHS—but she cannot say how she is going to pay for it. That is what got us into the mess in the first place. \p Kemi Badenoch: The whole House will have heard that the Prime Minister could not guarantee that teachers’ jobs are safe. Not only is he taxing schools, but he is lowering standards. He talks about our record, so I will tell him what our record was: under the Conservatives, English schools shot up the international league tables while standards fell at schools in Labour-run Wales. Academy freedoms led to the biggest improvement of standards in a generation, but the Education Secretary is attacking them with her reforms. Can the Prime Minister point to any evidence at all that these discredited academy reforms will improve school standards? \p Keir Starmer: Yes. Take the example of schools going into academies. The vast majority of schools are already academies. Therefore, we need to think again about what we do about failing schools that are already academies. We need to go on to the next chapter. The Conservatives never take the big decisions. That is why we ended up with their record: open borders, which the right hon. Lady was a cheerleader for, a crashed economy, mortgages through the roof, the NHS on its knees, and hollowed-out armed forces. What have we got already under this Government? Two million extra NHS appointments, 750 breakfast clubs—including one in her constituency—record numbers of people who should not be here being returned, and a fully funded increase in defence spending. That is the difference a Labour Government makes.