THE Prime Minister is not behind briefings against Wes Streeting which have claimed that the Health Secretary is about to be sacked, a minister has said.
School Standards Minister Georgia Gould told GB News: “My position, and I know the Prime Minister’s position is that Wes Streeting is doing a brilliant job as secretary of state in health.
“Waiting lists are coming down. We’re seeing the impact in communities around the country. Today, I’m talking about some of the health workforce that will be wrapped around schools to support children with SEND. We back him to do this job.
“These anonymous briefings. We don’t know who they are. They don’t represent the Prime Minister.
“The Prime Minister has a Cabinet. They’ve all come out clearly to support him and we are getting on with doing the job of changing things in this country.
“We are taking on big issues, the support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. This is an issue the Conservative government ducked for years. Too many children were failed, and today we’re taking bold reform to address it.”
On reports that vetting for Peter Mandelson was fast-tracked, she said: “The thing that’s really important to say is that the correct vetting was done, that all the stages were followed.
“It is normal that when there is an important post that needs to be filled, that can be expedited, so it can be done more quickly. But all the stages were filled.
“The Prime Minister has acknowledged that we need higher standards, that the vetting system does need to improve, has acknowledged that the issues with with this appointment, and you know, it’s something that we are absolutely committed to do to improving the vetting standards in future, so we’re never in this position again.”
On the government’s new education reforms, she said: “Today, I’m really delighted that we’re investing £4 billion into our school system to ensure that there is wraparound support for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
“I’ve been traveling around the country, and I’ve heard from too many families that they have to fight to get the basic support for their children, how exhausting it is to become a lawyer, just just to get the support they need.
“So we want to make it much easier for schools to be able to draw on the resources they need to do small group interventions, to be able to provide speech and language therapy, to put in place the things that that children need without a battle.”
