What difference has Kemi Badenoch’s victory made to the way the party talks about education? Badenoch doesn’t want to make policy straight away, having stood on a platform promising a fundamental rethink of what the Conservatives stand for. Today’s Education Questions in the Commons suggested that in the meantime, she wants her frontbenchers to put their efforts into defending the party’s legacy.
Laura Trott had been appointed to the shadow education secretary brief just hours before the question session, along with Neil O’Brien in the shadow minister of state role. Her first contribution was to ask about early years funding and whether it would increase in line with the hike in employers’ National Insurance – with no answer forthcoming other than ‘we will set out more detail on funding rates in due course’. Trott then used her slot to argue that the Conservatives had overseen huge improvements in school standards in England:
There has been a lot of discussion about our record in government.
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