House of Commons
Parliament

Lib Dem former leader Nick Clegg says it "beggars belief" that EU citizens do not know what will happen to them because of government "inaction". 

House of Lords
Parliament

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Labour's Baroness Royall of Blaisdon says an amendment ensuring international students are not registered as migrants is a "no brainer". 

She says that students are "visitors" who have a beneficial impact on research, university life and the UK's economy. 

Ensuring that students can visit the UK to study is part of the envisioned post-Brexit "brave new global Britain", she adds. 

Putting limitations on numbers would be detrimental to the UK's world-renowned educational reputation, she says. 

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Anna Soubry argues the debate is about parliamentary sovereignty, and the "worst-case scenario is that this place is not allowed a say" on the deal agreed with the EU.

She points to David Davis' personal track record of defending Parliament against the executive, adding it would be "deeply ironic" if he were to "deny" MPs a role. 

Select Committee
Parliament

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Lib Dem John Pugh challenges the Department for Education's permanent secretary Jonathan Slater on whether the £6.2bn allocated to maintain the department's estate is enough.

Mr Slater says the assessment is to bring the estate up to a "satisfactory" level, but acknowledges that it would not wholly deal with problems with the physical infrastructure. 

Conservative Kwasi Kwarteng says that there seems to be a lack of understanding about how great infrastructure problems are.

Mr Slater replies that new measures are being put in place to create a better picture of the estate as well as ways to challenge local authorities who don't produce information on problems with schools in the area. 

House of Lords
Parliament

Minister Lord Young replies that the government is looking "very carefully at the issue" but adds that "I can't say more than that today".

He understands that Lord Dubs has had and will have meetings with the Home Office on the subject.

Lord Dubs replies that he takes "a little bit of comfort" from the minister's response and withdraws his amendment.

House of Commons
Parliament

The SNP's Brexit spokesperson Stephen Gethins says MPs ought to bear in mind "the kind of country in which we want to live, and the kind of country we want to be".

He calls attention to Nicola Sturgeon's announcement today that she will seek a second Scottish independence referendum, saying she's made it "very, very clear" that they don't want to be part of "a hard Tory Brexit". 

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Sir Oliver Letwin says if the amendment giving Parliament the right to approve the final Brexit deal were passed it would be "inimical" to our interests. 

Its effect would be to "provide a massive incentive for our EU counterparts to give us the worst possible agreement" so that Parliament would reject it, he warns. 

House of Lords
Parliament

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Labour's Lord Dubs now moves his amendment which would require the government to provide financial support for higher education courses to be offered to students with certain immigration statuses.

This amendment, he says, would give those with the humanitarian protection status the same access to funding as those with refugee status.

Currently, he explains, those with humanitarian protection have to wait three years before being able to get student support.

Humanitarian protection status is given to those who are in need of protection but who do not meet the criteria for refugee status.

Select Committee
Parliament

Free schools are set up by groups of parents, teachers, charities, businesses, universities, trusts, religious or voluntary groups, but funded directly by central government.

They are often run by an "education provider" - an organisation or company brought in by the group setting up the school - but these firms are not allowed to make a profit.

The schools are established as academies, independent of local authorities. Unlike local-authority-run schools, they are exempt from teaching the  national curriculum, external and have increased control over teachers' pay and conditions and the length of school terms and days.

Select Committee
Parliament

Pete Colenutt says that a lot of the time, free schools are opening in places where they aren’t needed. 

He also asks for greater communication between local authorities and building developers so that new schools are built in the right places. 

He says that when the communication fails, it can lead to a failure to have the appropriate amount of school places in the area.

He also says that they are sometimes "struggling to find good sponsors" for free schools in areas where they are needed. 

The government has pledged 500 new free schools by 2020. 

House of Commons
Parliament

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Conservative Charlie Elphicke and Labour's Frank Field both object that the UK cannot protect EU citizens' rights without assurances in return about UK citizens in the EU.

But Sir Keir says that would mean "we will not do what we should do unless we get something in return".

House of Lords
Parliament

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Government spokesman Lord Younger of Leckie insists the bill does have safeguards to protect students at foreign register providers.

He adds that the government will be issuing guidance to the Office for Students on carrying out a risk assessments of such providers.

Baroness O'Neill withdraws her amendment but suggests that she may bring it back at the next stage of debate (third reading)

House of Commons
Parliament

Opening for Labour, shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer says he knows some Conservatives are "sympathetic" to the amendments in the face of what he describes as "an increasing obsession with passing a clean bill".

He rejects the argument that the amendments would slow down the Brexit process, saying we should "accept them and get on with it". 

Select Committee
Parliament

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The committee chair Meg Hillier says that the challenges facing the Department of Education are significant with up to 420,000 school places needed by 2021. 

The committee starts by asking about how conditions of buildings affect learning.

Poor quality of classrooms, including asbestos and lack of heating, had led to delays in teaching at Hetton School, says Phil Keay, the former headmaster. 

However, new buildings at the school gave teachers "confidence" to teach with new facilities.

The current headmaster, Craig Knowles, says that the funding from Building Schools for the Future had helped with the construction, but that "on-going" costs which weren't wholly accounted for - such as equipment and maintenance - have led to conversations about redundancies to reduce costs. 

Chairman of the Educational Building and Development Officers Group Peter Colenutt says there are concerns over "capital costs" of caring for school estates in the future. 

There is a need to prioritise the worst-case scenarios, he says, which has led to "patching up" buildings - a more economic way to look after buildings, but not the best way in the long-term. 

House of Lords
Parliament

Labour spokesman Lord Stevenson of Balmacara says his party will support the amendment.

He says there is currently no provision for what happens to a private company which decides it no longer wishes to teach students.

Where will students seek redress, he asks.

"How on earth can students recover their loans?" he adds.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Nicky Morgan tells David Davis that Parliament will "find a way" to have its say on the final Brexit deal and asks him to "officially recognise that position from the dispatch box". 

He replies that it's a matter for Parliament, not the government - and he doesn't want to "tie our hands" in negotiations. 

House of Lords
Parliament

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Next up is an amendment from crossbencher Baroness O'Neill of Bengrave, which would only allow student loans for courses at legally incorporated institutions.

She worries that at present there is nothing to ensure that those who seek to provide education in the UK have adequate levels of governance.

"We do this for banks," she says and asks "should we do less for universities?"

She cites "the gory story" of "the collapse of Trump University" as a example of the possible risks of not protecting students.

The slender Tory majority in the Commons should make life difficult for Theresa May in the Article 50 vote - but she can rely on support from leave-backing MPs from other parties.