Speeches by Wilson.

“Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. Today’s National Audit Office report confirms what parents, carers, children and young people across the country have been telling us for years: that our system to support those with special educational needs and disabilities is in crisis and on the brink. The l…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) on securing this incredibly important debate. It is important to parents, children, our whole society and our economy. May I just say that it is wonderful to see so many men here, particularly fath…”

“As well as needing more GPs, our GPs need decent premises from which to deliver high-quality care to patients. Park Road surgery in my constituency has been looking for new premises for more than a decade—it serves 13,000 patients out of an old Victorian house—but there simply is not the budget, and the processes are t…”

“A recent review of children’s mental health services in my local authority, the London borough of Richmond, found that, staggeringly, children with mild to moderate needs in tier 2 waited on average 15 months before receiving treatment, and those with more severe needs waited on average nine months. The Minister does n…”

“A constituent of mine who served with British forces in Kabul came to see me earlier this year about a friend who had appealed his failed ARAP application. This individual is an Afghan national who was contracted by the British military in the early 2000s. He worked as an interpreter, including with the British embassy…”

“My hon. Friend makes an important point about grassroots sport. I am proud that we have a thriving grassroots sport scene across Twickenham, but there just are not enough playing fields. Udney Park playing fields in Teddington in my constituency have been lying derelict for more than a decade, having been sold to succe…”

“Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and I am grateful for the Health Secretary’s advice—[Interruption.] I did not need coaching—you will hear that soon enough. When I heard that today’s debate would be about schools, I thought, thank goodness, we are finally going to give the crisis in our classrooms the attention it dese…”

“The Climate Change Committee has said that there should be no more than a 25% increase in airport capacity, compared with 2018 levels, if we are to achieve net zero by 2050, yet current planned and recently approved airport expansions will allow for a 50% to 70% increase in demand. Can the Secretary of State explain wh…”

“I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention but I would gently say two things. First, I would not describe private schools as covering a “multitude of sins”. This is also not just a London problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) who represents an Edinburgh constituency says that she has…”

“May I just finish by urging Ministers to look, instead of a damaging and counterproductive tax on education, at ways to get independent schools to do more of that great partnership work with state schools and their communities and to ensure they are investing in that local community? Let us ensure that every child, no …”

“I apologise, Mr Speaker. I was just coming on to the last paragraph of my speech, but I wanted to take some interventions from those on the Liberal Democrat Benches.”

“I think many of us—certainly on this side of the House—would recognise the point my hon. Friend makes, and many have already made it. I suspect that quite a few people on the Government Benches would also recognise that this policy will be a real challenge, because Members from all parts of this House have been turning…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his important intervention. As I have said before, it is best that the policy is dropped altogether, but if the Government insist on going ahead, it should be delayed. We need further provision to exempt all special educational needs children, and not just those with EHCPs. Those are two crit…”

“Mr Speaker, I would not dare to second-guess your position on this issue. The best way to deal with this issue is to drop the policy entirely, but if we are to exempt children with special educational needs, a good place to start is the SEND register. Just yesterday, I was discussing with one of the headteachers in my …”

“I would rather the Government do not go through with this policy at all and drop it, but if they insist on pressing ahead with it, all children with special educational needs, whether or not they are on the SEND register—they can be identified in other ways—should be exempted. I will share a story from a constituent wh…”

“I point out for a start that when the Liberal Democrats were in government, school budgets increased in real terms, and we introduced the pupil premium to help the most disadvantaged children. When the Tories were left to their own devices, they slashed budgets, and the pupil premium has been devalued over the years.”

“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is absolutely right to say that because only children with EHCPs will be exempt from the VAT charge, there will be the unintended consequence of adding yet further pressure to what is already a broken system. Indeed, a parent in my constituency has written to me along t…”

“Thank you, Mr Speaker. As we have a Treasury Minister rather than an Education Minister opening the debate for the Government, I say gently that he should look at what the Liberal Democrats proposed on reforming capital gains tax as a way to fund some of the important investment that we need in education, rather than l…”

“The shadow Education Secretary was suggesting to the Minister that that is where he could find some money—[Interruption.]”

“Lord Darzi’s report was utterly damning about the treatment of children in our health system. He said that too many children were being let down, and pointed out that they account for 24% of the population, but only 11% of NHS expenditure, and that over 100,000 children wait for over a year to be assessed for mental he…”