At the beginning of last week a topical questions education session took place in Parliament on Monday and a range of MPs asked questions and they were responded by the Ministers in the Department of Education. Fascinatingly for Sussex people is that two of the Ministers are both from West Sussex (Gillian Keegan and Nick Gibb) and one of the Sussex MPs Henry Smith who is the MP for Crawley asked a question and the Minister who responded to his question was Claire Coutinho who is the MP for East Surrey and the Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing. One of the aspects he mentioned was that apparently he is a vice-president of the British Dyslexia Association which can be obtained from their website here. Here is the question and the answer that took place last week and it is clear that the Green Paper needs to be promoted very significantly when it is written out!

Henry Smith: I welcome Crawley schools’ funding being increased to a record £100 million for the coming financial year. Can my right hon. Friend say a little bit more about specific support for dyslexic pupils? I declare an interest as a vice-president of the British Dyslexia Association.

Claire Coutinho: My hon. Friend is passionate about securing an excellent education for all his residents. The funding will help many children in mainstream education, but with dyslexia early identification and teacher training is key. I will be setting out more details in the response to the special educational needs and disabilities and alternative provision Green Paper.