Speeches by Voaden.

“My hon. Friend is being very generous with his time. In 2024, storm overflows at Harbertonford waste water treatment works discharged into the Harbourne river for more than 3,500 hours. In other words, raw sewage was pumped into the river, which flows into the glorious River Dart, for 40% of the year. As of this mornin…”

“I recently visited the Fulham boys school, which, 18 months ago, introduced a complete ban on smartphones in school. That school and Kingsbridge community college in my constituency both talk about the transformative effect that a ban has had. The most compelling evidence for me is this: where a secondary school comple…”

“In May 2024, an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis in my constituency left 17,000 properties under a boil water notice for as long as two months. Although the incident is the subject of legal investigation, I would like to highlight my constituents’ frustration that the then CEO, Susan Davy, later picked up a share bonus of…”

“A speech about teacher retention that I made in Westminster Hall recently has been seen by more than 135,000 people on Instagram, and there have been hundreds of comments from teachers. They speak of pay not rewarding experience and far too much time being spent on administration and tests, but it is also clear that sa…”

“3. What steps her Department is taking to improve teacher retention.”

“I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement and her commitment to Greenland, which is not for sale. President Trump’s threat of tariffs is an alarming escalation and strange behaviour from someone who the Foreign Secretary describes as a close ally. France and Germany have suggested imposing retaliatory tariffs, but ou…”

“So Devon as well?”

“Just briefly going back to the workload question, the Department launched a Workload Reduction Taskforce in July 2023 under the previous Government, which published some recommendations in January last year. Do you think the Government should implement any or all of those recommendations? Maybe you could just summarise…”

“Melanie, there seems to be more of a problem with recruiting secondary than primary teachers, particularly into STEM subjects and MFL. Do you have any thoughts on that?”

“The recent postgraduate initial teacher training census presents a fairly positive picture of teacher recruitment, particularly for primary schools, although the secondary school target has only been hit once since 2012-13. Could you tell us the extent to which you believe this survey aligns with the reality on the gro…”

“Is it quite a lengthy process for them to get recognised?”

“Could it be an organisation that just does BSL GCSE and nothing else?”

“Can you rebuke them if they do not do it.”

“There was an article in Schools Week that said that AQA have said it does not want to offer it, and there are three other exam boards that have not said yet whether they will. So there are concerns that there may be no exam board that wants to offer it. What steps can you take if that is the case?”

“Will my hon. Friend give way?”

“I would like to ask you about the new British Sign Language GCSE, which was set to be rolled out in September last year. Ofqual did not start consulting on the assessment regulations until April and there has been huge disappointment in the deaf community about the length of time it is taking to bring this GCSE into ex…”

“If I am gauging this right it seems that you are really reluctant; you are really not keen on the idea of on-screen assessments at all. So why do you not just say it is not going to happen?”

“It is probably fair to say, though, that schools in richer areas, possibly private schools, have more income and will be more likely to offer online assessment because they will have the necessary IT equipment.”

“Your own research highlights that on-screen assessments could give students from wealthier backgrounds an unfair advantage over others. How are you going to monitor the impact of this? If students are negatively affected, what changes could you make?”

“Ofqual is proposing that exam boards must use substantially different questions in on-screen and paper-based specifications. Could you explain why that is? How will you ensure that this is done fairly and that the qualifications will be comparable?”