Speeches by Hinds.

“I am so pleased that the hon. Gentleman asked me about that, because it is one of the great slogans of his party. One of my favourite statistics, however—people can look it up; it is available in an official publication—is that there were more children’s centres open in this country when I was Secretary of State for Ed…”

“It is a great pleasure to see you presiding, Ms Barker. This has been a good debate, and very good points have been made by hon. Members on all sides, including the hon. Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon), who has just spoken. This is a rare and important opportunity to talk about the vital role of hospital s…”

“The Minister says that the limit is three items, but actually, the limit is three in primary school, while I believe it is four in secondary school—she will correct me if I am wrong—so long as the fourth is a tie. Can she tell me for what reason a fourth is not allowed in primary school, if the fourth is a tie?”

“As a simple, comparative piece of maths, if the Minister is saying that breakfast clubs will save families £450 a year, how much money is the Department for Education providing to the school to provide that breakfast?”

“David Laws!”

“There is nowhere in the DFE budget from which £6 billion could possibly come other than the core schools budget, so either SEN funding is being cut, the core schools budget is being cut—that implies 5% per head—or the Secretary of State has an explicit agreement with the Chancellor for the money to come from somewhere …”

“Professor Francis was clear that the EBacc grouping should be kept in the progress 8 measure under the heading “Academic Breadth”. The Government have overruled the review, which is quite a big thing to do. The Secretary of State herself used to be a student of modern languages. Have they learned nothing from their ter…”

“21. What discussions she has had with the chair of the curriculum and assessment review on her proposals to change the progress 8 measure.”

“Did the Minister just say that all of these documents would be FOI-able and would then be released, albeit in redacted form, presumably in the usual way, with personal details being blacked out?”

“Dr Shah, a few moments ago you came back to what I think is a central issue, which is the speed of response. I am old enough to remember 2007, before your time leading the organisation, when the BBC was in hot water over the misnaming of a kitten. You do get held to a higher standard. That comes with the privilege of t…”

“I am going to have to rush you, Dr Shah.”

“It was Socks and Cookie, in case you are interested.”

“Let us return to the backward-looking thing and what is in the Prescott memo. The board is committed to revisit everything that is in that memo and to report back your conclusions on those items transparently. What does that mean in practice, and what is the transparency we should be looking out for?”

“That was in time for the January meeting. An awful lot of time has passed between January and November, so there were still a lot of people who had a blind spot. So after this thing had been identified—”

“I do not mean a literal blind spot, in that they did not spot the splice—I do not think anybody did—but rather that, its having been brought to people’s attention, a lot of people apparently overlooked it until, as Dr Shah says, having had 500 complaints after your memo, there has been a period of reflection.”

“It was a very good splice job—that is why.”

“This question is for both of you. Do you agree that it is people who would like to see the demise of the BBC who are the ones—”

“No, no—let me finish my sentence. It is the people who would wish to see the demise of the BBC who ought to downplay this incident. The people who love the BBC and think it has a more important role than ever in the information meltdown and mosh pit of information and disinformation—they are the ones who will say that,…”

“Earlier this afternoon Mr Prescott said to us that you should treat all the issues he has raised as systemic unless and until they are demonstrated to be otherwise. Do you think that is a correct way to go about that analysis that you are talking about?”

“I am asking about a principle. I was asking about the splice—that is correct—but you could apply the same question to a number of other things in the memo. My question really was, for all the 99-point-something-per-cent output that is very high quality and unquestionable, is it not the case that if you really care abou…”