Alicia Kearns

I welcome the hon. and gallant Member for North East Derbyshire (Louise Jones) to her place. We need more people in Parliament who have service in their hearts. I also thank her for her good comments about her predecessor and in particular for her comments about Corporal Riley, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) felt deeply. I thank her for taking the time to do that. Sadly, I turn to a decision by the Government that does not have service to the country at its heart. This is a cruel, vindictive policy that will damage the prospects of children in both state and independent schooling. It is particularly damaging also for rural economies, which seem to have been entirely overlooked. In Rutland and Stamford, we have 10 independent schools that cater for a vast number of pupils—particularly those from military families and those with SEND—and what is common to all those families is how hard they work for their children to have the right education for them. I have received heartbreaking emails from parents who have had to sacrifice the education they have worked so hard for. One was from a mother of twins who are midway through their GCSE year. There is no space in the state sector for them—twins who now question whether they will be able to sit their GCSEs because of this policy. The entire county of Rutland has zero available state school spaces in years 10 and 11, and only three SEND spaces.