Speeches by Hinds.

“That is what I just said.”

“As always, it is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. I thank and commend Mr Beckinsale and the other 114,948 petitioners, including 611 in my constituency of East Hampshire, for bringing this very important subject to Westminster Hall today. After all that we have heard today, we might ask, “Why? Why …”

“What about the corn laws?”

“The hon. Gentleman and other Ministers have constantly come back to the point about the higher rateable value commercial premises, saying that they include distribution centres for online giants. What proportion are they of the total?”

“But some of that happens anyway because of the way that national governing bodies work and how they target their programmes. There does tend to be some up-weighting towards disadvantaged areas.”

“I have one more question. It is a very quick question but it might be a longer answer because it is a fairly complicated question. Every few years we rack our brains about why it has never worked in the past when we have tried to open up school facilities to outside clubs and community groups. Every few years there is …”

“For completeness, a lot of primary school heads would also tell you that they were able to do things with the primary PE and sport premium that they were never able to do in the past. I don’t want to put words in your mouth but it sounds to me, from what you are saying, that you would keep ringfenced funding but not pu…”

“You do not think it is important to have a ringfenced fund?”

“What was the role of the PE and sport premium in schools? Inevitably, from time to time, there will be moves to just fold that into general school funding. Would you be happy to see that happen, or do you think it should remain as a ringfenced fund?”

“There was a trend back in the 2000s where lots of kids took a half GCSE in PE. Are you expecting that to return?”

“Very good.”

“Ali, presumably you have given evidence to that review. If you are at liberty to divulge, what have you asked for and do you expect to get it?”

“That covers it well, I guess. We have a curriculum review going on at the moment. What are your hopes and expectations about what that will deliver?”

“That leads nicely to what I want to point out. We quite often say “PE and school sport” as a single phrase and we use the two halves of it almost interchangeably as if they were the same thing. When we talk to people like you, we realise that they are not the same thing at all. What do you think is the right balance, p…”

“Which hoops is the hon. Gentleman looking forward to the removal of?”

“We cannot just wish it into being, we cannot assume it or assert it, and we cannot legislate for it: esteem is in the eye of the esteemer and parity of esteem is earned. In technical and vocational education and training, that requires a clear and understandable set of qualifications with high standards and specificati…”

“I thank Kim Campbell and the petitioners, including almost 400 from East Hampshire, for bringing this debate to Parliament. There has been a lot of interest of late in Australia’s upcoming ban on social media for under-16s, and I was interested in how the Australians are going to implement it, considering some of the c…”

“It was disappointing to see in the January figures that fraud has risen again after it had been coming down, but I commend the Government for proceeding with the Payment Services (Amendment) Regulations 2024 to slow down payments where there is a reasonable suspicion of fraudulent activity. What effect does the Ministe…”

“I think the Minister takes my point.”

“The Minister would be making perfectly adequate points if we were talking only about this country. We could make all sorts of points about what Government policy was and what happened to Sure Start, the curriculum and youth clubs, but those things did not happen in France, Germany or the United States.”