Speeches by Voaden.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse, and I wish you a very happy new year. I thank the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for opening the debate. He obviously has a lot of experience in the classroom and has taken the themes behind the petition very seriously. I start by sending out hea…”

“I welcome the strategy, and I commend the Minister for her tireless work supporting victims and trying to reduce violence against women and girls. I welcome the cross-governmental approach and the focus on prevention and public health promotion. We know that boys as young as nine or 10 are being spoon-fed hardcore viol…”

“I warmly welcome the Erasmus agreement that the Minister has announced, which is a Christmas present for young people. Turning to the SPS agreement that he is negotiating, I hope that those negotiations will be just as successful because that is undoubtedly in the best interests of this country. Can he confirm for me a…”

“I welcome the multi-year settlement, but I am deeply concerned that the statement made no reference to the particular pressures facing rural areas. Devon has the longest road network in England, so everything costs more—SEND, care, bus services and bin collections—and Dartmouth library is now facing a cut in hours beca…”

“So Devon as well?”

“The hon. Member will be very familiar with my constituency, as he is my constituency neighbour. Does he agree that the Minister might have got his figures wrong? I surveyed all the farms in South Devon—there are nearly 500 small farms—and 44% of respondents said that they would be hit with an inheritance tax bill of ov…”

“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…”

“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…”

“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?”

“If I can just follow up on that quickly, you have talked a lot about having a higher qualified workforce, but there are lots of girls and young women who go into childcare who have not gone down an academic route at school, and maybe were not ever going to get A levels and they see it as a legitimate profession that th…”

“That has to be across the sector, PVI settings as well as maintained settings?”

“How realistic do you think the Government’s aim is of a qualified teacher in every early years setting, given the context of existing peer pressures?”

“Chair, could I ask Neil a very quick question?”

“I apologise for coming in late; I was in another meeting. From what you have said, given the importance of the first thousand days in a child’s life, do you think that we have the emphasis right in our education system with early years always being the Cinderella part of the system? Or should we be putting all the atte…”

“Why do you think only 65% of childminders are being paid monthly, as they should be by the local authority?”

“For some families, the setting that is quite different from a nursery could be just what a child needs. It is an important part of the jigsaw, is it not?”

“I was going to come on and ask you about this.”

“Regarding childminders, Ka Lai, you have spoken about the important contribution that childminders make to the early years offer and the fact that newer childminders are not coming into the sector. We know that the number has halved since 2010. How do you think the movement to pay through entitlements has affected chil…”

“Will the hon. Member give way?”

“One of my constituents recently spent nearly two weeks calling the DWP every day to find out why his employment and support allowance had been stopped without warning. Each time he called, he waited for over an hour, only for the line to be cut off with no reply. Will the Minister explain to my constituent—and to the t…”