Pupils at a Mickleover school were given the chance to grill Derby North MP Amanda Solloway during a virtual Question Time session and asked her about the UK’s shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and next year’s GCSEs.
Students at Murray Park Community School were invited to submit questions for the hour-long session with Mrs Solloway, who was recently promoted to Science Minister.
The questions, which were written by pupils from years seven to 10, were delivered on their behalf by head of history Joe Hyndman, who also teaches AS-Level politics at the school.
READ MORE: Students from Royal School for Deaf encourage deaf community to remember the holocaust
Pupils from Murray Park School in Mickleover, Derby quizzed Derby North MP Amanda Solloway.
Students asked what Mrs Solloway’s normal working week looked like, what made her want to become an MP and how she was managing to work during lockdown.
Josh Allison, in year 8 channelled the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg by asking why the UK was not better prepared with PPE before the coronavirus outbreak.
Mrs Solloway told him: “We all live in Derby or the surrounding areas and I’ve had regular meetings with the NHS Trust’s chief executive and here in Derby we were OK. We didn’t have a massive surplus in terms of the NHS, but we had a steady supply.
READ MORE: Derby secondary school Murray Park launches a food bank to support vulnerable families
“Different countries were able to very quickly mobilise to produce different PPE and one of the things we were able to do very efficiently was look at ventilators and places like Rolls-Royce were very quickly able to change what they were doing in their manufacturing units.
“But in terms of PPE we just didn’t do it quickly enough and we were running out of components. I would say that in terms of a vaccine, which is one of the things we have been looking at, we are making sure we have enough needles, syringes, enough of everything to make sure we don’t hit that problem.”
Cameron Lees in year 10 asked if she knew what might happen with GCSEs next year.
She told him: “The plan is to go ahead. We don’t know what is going to happen in terms of the coronavirus but we’re trying to fight the disease and make sure that we sustain everything that we possibly can.”
Politics student, Arjun Singh Binning, is in year 10 at the school. He asked Mrs Solloway if she was proud of her voting record.
She said: “During my first term in 2015-2017 I was able to vote a lot more, there hasn’t actually been a lot of voting since I’ve been back. The one thing we have voted on is Brexit and absolutely I am proud of being involved with that. I actually voted remain going back to the referendum, however, the country very clearly wanted to leave and when it came to the vote for Brexit I was very clear in that we needed to do that.
“It’s interesting because I don’t often get asked about my voting record and it’s a really brilliant question and I can tell you are very interested in politics by asking that.”
Mrs Solloway told Ewan Phillips, in year seven, that when she is in the House of Commons she often tries to sit in the same seat she used during her first term in parliament – because her dad is used to seeing her there when he watches on the television.
And she also told students that she considered being given a ministerial role so early in her political career to be one of her greatest achievements, as well as using her platform to raise awareness of mental health issues.
She added that she was really impressed with the questions asked by the Murray Park students and has offered to give them a tour of the Houses of Parliament and even arrange work experience for those interested in a career in politics.
Mr Hyndman said: “I was really impressed with the amount of questions I received from our pupils and by the level of engagement and understanding of political events they showed in their questions.
“Introducing AS politics into the curriculum has really had a positive impact on the level of political understanding and debate that now takes place at Murray Park.
“Students found the responses helpful and informative and our AS politics students are very excited about the comments relating to further talks and visits. We really appreciate Amanda taking the time out of her incredibly busy schedule for this session.”
ENDS
For further information please contact Sarah Newton at Penguin PR on 07974 502 764 or email sarah@penguinpr.co.uk
