Graham Stuart

Graham Stuart

Conservative — Beverley and Holderness

Speaking in the House of Commons on 18 March 2025

Debate

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Contribution

I thank the hon. Lady for her speech, if not intervention, and I certainly applaud her passion for the interests of children, disadvantaged children in particular, and her rage at failings in the system and her desire to see improvements, which might need to be radical, but we have not heard how the mechanics of the changes proposed in this Bill will raise standards. They will in fact dismantle them. The hon. Lady’s intervention comes in the context of my following the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr talking about Wales, and it is clear that the system being created by this Bill is much more akin to that in Wales, exactly as the hon. Gentleman so honestly said. Does the hon. Lady suggest that deprived children in Wales have better outcomes than they do in England? [Interruption.] She moved to stand up but then thought better of it, which was wise because she knows that the situation in Wales—which, as the hon. Gentleman said, is exactly what this Bill is trying to create—is infinitely worse than it is in England. Whatever the failings of the system in England, it is demonstrably better than it was 15 or indeed 25 years ago, and it is demonstrably better than it is in Wales.

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