The return of David Laws

Here’s one grace note to this parliamentary term so far: the return of David Laws to public life. Since it was revealed that the former chief secretary to the Treasury has written a book about the formation of the coalition government, he has made more and more regular forays into the outside world. Last week, it was an appearance before the Commons’ political and constitutional reform committee. This weekend, he admitted that he still harbours ambitions to be “in the frontline” of politics. And today he’s got an article, co-written with the Lib Dem think-tanker Julian Astle, on the pupil premium in the Financial Times.

His argument in the FT piece is worth noting down, not least because Laws developed much of the thinking around a pupil premium outside of government. Here’s the crux of it:

“…if the potential of this policy is to be realised, the government must guard against a number of risks.