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Pre-Budget Report

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who persistently puts the case for her constituency both to me and other Ministers, and quite rightly so, because of the degree of need in the constituency. We will listen to what she says about the issue of the number of people in poverty in her constituency and the need for better training. I agree with her entirely that it is easy to talk about the schools and educational institutions capital budget of £10 billion, which I announced, as simply a figure, but it is thousands more schools repaired, hundreds of children’s centres, better colleges all round, more books, whiteboards and computers, and modern facilities. The Conservatives may want to scorn what are major changes, but if they had done half as much as we have since we came into power, perhaps they would not have been out of power for so long.