Prime Minister

Engagements

I know that for the last couple of years the Deputy Prime Minister has been trying to prep Prime Ministers for PMQs, but these punchlines are dire—he really needs to go back to school himself. Speaking of school, thousands of children are missing from school; absence has nearly doubled since before the pandemic. The Prime Minister says that he has maxed out on his support for school pupils, but why did the Government abandon their plans for a register of missing children?

On the specifics of the right hon. Lady’s question, that is not the case: we continue to keep the policy under review. I am very proud of this Government’s record on funding and support for schools: £4 billion more this year, £4 billion next year, and the result of all that investment is that we have the highest standards of reading in the entire western world. What a contrast from when the Labour party was in power.

An error has been identified in my response to the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner).

The correct response should have been:

On the specifics of the right hon. Lady’s question, that is not the case: we continue to keep the policy under review. I am very proud of this Government’s record on funding and support for schools—£4 billion over the next two years, and the result of all that investment is that we have the highest standards of reading in the entire western world. What a contrast from when the Labour party was in power.

In spite of Government spin to the contrary, the backlog of undetermined initial asylum claims has risen even since December from 160,000 to 170,000-plus. Caseworker numbers are down, and returns are still down. So will the Deputy Prime Minister agree to meet me to hear my constituents’ concerns about the Home Secretary’s plans to commandeer yet another hotel, the Stradey Park in the village of Furnace, and explain what more he will do to speed up clearing the backlog so as to return people to safe countries, settle genuine refugees and avoid the need to use the Stradey Park hotel?

This Government will take whatever action is necessary both to clear the backlog and to stop the boats. Actually, as the hon. Member may have heard from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, small boat arrivals to the UK are down 20% this year, our French deal has prevented 33,000 illegal crossings this year, Albanian arrivals are down 90%, we have removed 1,800 Albanians, we have increased the number of illegal working raids and the legacy asylum backlog is now down 20%.

An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith).

The correct response should have been:

This Government will take whatever action is necessary both to clear the backlog and to stop the boats. Actually, as the hon. Member may have heard from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, small boat arrivals to the UK are down 20% this year, our French deal prevented 33,000 illegal crossings last year, Albanian arrivals are down 90%, we have removed 1,800 Albanians, we have increased the number of illegal working raids and the legacy asylum backlog is now down 20%.