Extract from Commons statement on Covid-19 Keir Starmer (Holborn
and St Pancras) (Lab):...We all recognise the huge damage that
closing schools will cause for many children and families, but
Prime Minister knew that closures might be necessary, so there
should have been a contingency plan. Up to 1.8 million children do
not have access to a home computer and 900,000 children live in
households that rely on mobile internet connections. Can the Prime
Minister tell us when the Government are...Request free trial
Extract from
Commons statement on Covid-19
(Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab):...We all
recognise the huge damage that closing schools will cause for many
children and families, but Prime Minister knew that closures might
be necessary, so there should have been a contingency plan. Up to
1.8 million children do not have access to a home computer and
900,000 children live in households that rely on mobile internet
connections. Can the Prime Minister tell us when the Government are
going to get the laptops to those who need them? He has spoken
about the 50,000 delivered and the 100,000 more, but 1.8 million
children do not have access to a home computer, so real urgency is
needed as we go into the coming weeks. I welcome what the Prime
Minister said about telecoms companies cutting the cost of
online learning It is vital
that they do so. I am assuming that will happen straightaway,
because we cannot delay...
Extracts from
Commons statement on Education Settings
The Secretary of State for Education ():...Unwelcome though this latest lockdown
is—and I am very conscious of the real challenges that parents are
facing with their children at home—we are far better placed to cope
with it than we were last March. We are now better prepared to
deliver online learning This is an
important step forward in supporting children to make the progress
with their education that they so desperately need. We will also do
what we can to help their parents, and I thank all those parents
and carers who are having to step up once more to take on the
challenge of home learning...
(Buckingham) (Con): I commend my right hon.
Friend for the work being done to roll out online learning but for a
significant proportion of my constituents there is a small
practical problem: up to 13% of households either have very slow
broadband or no access to it at all, and mobile data is
non-existent in many villages. What practical support can he offer
pupils living in such households, competing against other members
of the household and trying to work or learn with no or little
broadband?
:
This is an incredibly challenging problem for many people
living in rural communities. I would be very happy to meet my hon.
Friend to discuss what further measures we could take. I am
beginning to think about some of the additional resource of
textbooks and other resources that can maybe be made available to
families and communities that have these acute problems, where it
may not be something we can work around in terms of a technical
solution. There may be other routes forward, but I will ask my
Department to organise swiftly a meeting between him and me to
discuss this issue and any other educational issues in his
constituency.
(Leicester East) (Ind) [V]: The pandemic has
highlighted the injustice of tuition fees. Students are incurring
on average £57,000-worth of debt to be isolated in university halls
and to be restricted to online learning and beyond that,
education must be a universal right, not a costly privilege. The
last decade of extortionate tuition fees has saddled young people
with debt, deterred working-class people from gaining higher
education and reduced our universities to profit-seeking
businesses. Will the Government take this opportunity to support
students by refunding rents, scrapping tuition fees and cancelling
student debt for good?
:
The statistics bear out something rather different from what
the hon. Lady said. We have seen a massive expansion of the
university sector, with more young people going to university than
ever before. If she took the time to look at the statistics and the
facts, as opposed to not basing her question on the statistics or
facts, she would discover that more children from the most
disadvantaged families are going to university—often they are the
first from that family—than ever before. That is something that
this party should feel incredibly proud of, and I would like to see
even more youngsters from the most deprived backgrounds going to
some of the best universities in the
country...
Extract from
Commons debate on Public Health
(Eltham)
(Lab) [V]:...At the end of last term, the Government
threatened legal action to keep schools open in Greenwich, while at
the same time planning to keep all schools closed in January. All
the time, the Government were aware that a new variant was ripping
through Kent and the south-east, and today, the Government
recognised that this new variant was rapidly causing schools to be
a vector in our communities. It has been obvious from the start of
this pandemic that education was going to be severely disrupted due
to school bubbles having to regularly isolate, and that
online learning was going to be a
regular part of children’s education, but the Secretary of State is
yet again way behind the curve. He failed to get devices out to
children during the first lockdown, and according to Ofqual, 1.8
million children in this country face lockdown without access to
digital devices. A report in July warned the Government of a second
spike this winter and also warned there was a possibility of a new
variant, yet there has been too little urgency from the Government
to get devices out to those who need them. Too many children are
going to suffer due to the inability of the Government to read the
facts before them...
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