Speeches by Hinds.

“In principle, what is the distinction between full-time private schooling and private tuition, from the point of view of what it is right to tax? Will he guarantee that no tax will be put on private tuition?”

“No, I mean families who send their child once or twice a week for an hour for academic study or something extra-curricular. Why should that be tax exempt, when if it is done for all the hours in the school week, it is not?”

“rose—”

“First, the Minister knows I said no such thing. I spoke about the additional investment that had gone into the high-needs budget under the previous Government, particularly since 2019, and said that there was more to do. Since I am on my feet, can I ask him to expand on what he just said about capital? What he has just…”

“Look, I want every child to have the best education available to them. When I was working at the Department for Education, I regarded it as part of my job to ensure that nobody thought, “I have to send my children to a private school”—but I would not have denied them the choice. State school improvement over that time …”

“The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I will come to exactly where the money to meet the costs will come from. We have talked about revenue costs, and the policy paper from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs covers that, but what about capital costs? What if whole new places need to be created? What if entire ne…”

“You need to add the two together, though.”

“Secretary of State, we have already talked about some of the cuts. I will move on to the national youth strategy. You announced this about a month ago, but it was going to be co-created with young people. You announced at the same time that the National Citizen Service would be cut altogether. Did you entertain the pos…”

“Was it just about saving money?”

“What was it about, then?”

“I think many people would agree with that. The challenges and issues for young people are certainly different from what they were when we were young, and in many ways more difficult. At the same time as announcing the co-creation of a national youth strategy the Government also cut funding for the cadets programme. The…”

“So why cut the cadets programme?”

“It is a cadets programme. You are calling a cadets programme a summer camp?”

“We have moved on to cadets. At the same time as your Department announced the national youth strategy, another Department was cutting money from a very successful programme that was spreading cadet units through more state schools. You talk about being joined up and having this mission-led approach, everyone working in…”

“Some might say that the cadets is such a programme. The saving made by the DFE by cutting the instructor grant is barely more than £1 million, which in the context of the other programmes you are talking about, I would suggest, Secretary of State, is not that much. Can I ask you about young futures hubs? Young futures …”

“Thank you. I am conscious that we need to pick up the pace. You mentioned earlier the curriculum review and creativity and sports. Of course all children should have a broad, balanced curriculum, including an opportunity to experience being taught in and taking part in the arts, music and other cultural activities. We …”

“There has been an increase, of course, in children doing vocational qualifications in music, as you will know.”

“Let me ask you one quick question on tourism, and then I think that Rupa Huq will follow up. The Government have an aim to increase to 50 million inbound visits by 2030. That is quite a hike from the position today.”

“Yes, from 38 million, so that is about a 25% increase. There is another way of looking at it, though, as well. I did this maths very roughly; I hope it is about right. If we were to increase to proportionately the number of inbound visitors that the Republic of Ireland gets per head of population, I think that number w…”

“I do think that the local visitor partnerships and the higher level destination partnerships—I think they are called that—are a good thing to try to rationalise the mishmash that we have always had. Ultimately, it is the marketing spend that will make the difference in how much of that can be harnessed. Very quickly on…”