Ministers appear largely to have given up on taking scrutiny from the Labour party seriously, if today’s Education Questions was anything to go by. Both Nicky Morgan and Sam Gyimah had come armed with jokes and jibes about the Opposition’s predicament, which were designed to deflect from a rare co-ordinated Labour attack over the implementation – or lack of – of the Conservatives’ flagship manifesto promise to double free childcare for three and four-year-olds, and questions about the attainment gap. Jenny Chapman asked about that promise – and whether one in three families who were told they would get free childcare would in fact receive no additional care at all. Gyimah replied:
‘Well, I thank the honourable lady and welcome her to her post. I look forward to her future contributions as a vice chair of Progress, especially as I now understand this to be a front for hard right views in the Labour party. She asked the question – she will know that the first 15 hours is a universal offer, 99 per cent of four year olds take that, 94 per cent of three year olds get that. We have been very clear that the second 15 hours is a work incentive, surely she does not believe that Islington parents on £100,000 a year should be entitled to free childcare? I know she wants to represent the new core constituency of the Labour party…’
https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/jenny-chapman-vs-sam-gyimah-education-minister-in-the-commons
Later, Nicky Morgan did give a reasonable answer to Lucy Powell’s questions about the attainment gap, pointing to figures showing that it was narrowing for disadvantaged pupils, but adding the following in her final answer:
‘Mr Speaker, it’s really quite extraordinary that the honourable lady should seek to give lessons to this House when she was the lady who not only commissioned the Ed Stone, the carving of the promises, but then managed to lose the receipt!’
https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/nicky-morgan-vs-lucy-powell-in-the-commons
Clearly ministers don’t feel the need to put much effort into those jokes that they boast they are filling their prepared responses to Labour with at present. The session was rather easy overall for the Tories, given so many backbenchers are desperate for their first promotion and happy to take questions like the following:
Mr Alan Mak (Havant)
What steps her Department is taking to ensure that schools in every part of the country have access to high-performing teachers.Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire)
What steps her Department is taking to ensure that schools in every part of the country have access to high-performing teachers.Chris Green (Bolton West)
What steps her Department is taking to ensure that schools in every part of the country have access to high-performing teachers.
But the scaling back of the childcare pledge in the manifesto is a significant one, and it is something that, if Labour manages to organise itself a little better, it could create a real stink about. Voters presumably trusted the Tories to deliver it because they trusted the party on the economy, which allowed the party to spray around expensive pledges without anyone wondering if any of those pledges were deliverable.
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