Shadow education secretary Laura Trott has written to Leader of the Commons Lucy Powell over a phantom amendment to Labour’s education bill. At PMQs Starmer claimed Labour’s education bill, which included provisions to cap some teachers’ pay, was being amended to prevent a reduction in education salaries. The government said its amendment would come last minute to introduce a “floor” not a “ceiling” for pay – control over which is being wrested from academies’ control…
One week later there is no such amendment. The Tories and Labour have moved on to arguing about whether or not to ban phones in schools for under-16s, as argued for by the former. Laura has trotted out a letter demanding to know whether Starmer will correct the record for claiming an amendment would be tabled or if it would be tabled any time soon. If the DfE can’t come up with a basic fix to its bill there’s no wonder Downing Street is briefing hard against Bridget…
Read Trott’s full letter below:
“Dear Lucy,
As Leader of the House of Commons, and Chair of the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee, I would like to raise a serious concern regarding a statement made by the Prime Minister in the House last week.
PBL Committee, which you chair, has the following terms of reference:
To consider matters related to the Government’s parliamentary business and delivery of the legislative programme, and prepare proposals for future legislative programmes.
On 22 January at Prime Minister’s Questions, the Prime Minister, when discussing the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, said ‘If the Leader of the Opposition had hopped off social media for a while, she would have seen the amendment put down this morning.’
As you will be aware, no such amendment to clarify what this Bill will mean for teachers’ pay has yet been tabled. Yesterday at Education Oral Questions, the Education Secretary failed to answer my question on when we will see said amendment.
Section 1.6 of the Ministerial Code states that ‘It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity’.
I would, therefore, like to ask you the following questions:
- Will you ensure that the Prime Minister corrects the record at his earliest convenience?
- Has tabling an amendment to change Clause 45 of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill been discussed by the PBL Committee?
- If so, when do the Department for Education anticipate tabling the amendment?
- As Chair of PBL Committee, why did you not make sure that the Prime Minister was accurately aware of the timing for this amendment being tabled?
- Can you confirm when this amendment will be tabled?
- Will the amendment be tabled in sufficient time before Clause 45 is debated at Committee so that members will be able to amend it if they see fit?
Yours ever,”
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”