Back to the day job! Matt Hancock returns to Commons to push for dyslexia screening legislation after spending time in the jungle of I’m A Celeb
- Matt Hancock returns to Commons action after I’m A Celeb performance
- Former health minister proposes legislation to boost screening for dyslexia
- Mr Hancock currently sits as an independent after the Tory whip was suspended
Matt Hancock returns to his day job in the House of Commons today as he pushes for dyslexia screening legislation.
Fresh off his stint in the I’m a celebrity jungle, the former health secretary will urge MPs to support his bill as a matter of ‘social and economic justice’.
He smiled at photographers this morning as he arrived in Westminster by car.
Mr Hancock is currently the Independent MP for West Suffolk, having suspended the Conservative whip for choosing to go on the reality show when the House was sitting.
Mr Hancock – who is dyslexic – will later present his bill to the House and is expected to say the current approach to the condition ‘needs to change’.
“It is not only a question of morality, but also of both social and economic justice,” he will say.
Fresh off his stint in the I’m A Celebrity jungle (right), Matt Hancock (pictured left arriving in parliament today) will urge MPs to support his bill as a matter of ‘social and economic justice’
Former cabinet minister Hancock came third in the latest run of the ITV reality show
While his jungle jaunt drew criticism from colleagues including Rishi Sunak, Mr Hancock “has no intention of resigning or moving away from politics,” according to his team.
Tory MPs have been given until Monday 5 December to declare their intention to run again in the next general election, which is expected to be in 2024.
The second reading of Mr Hancock’s Dyslexia Screening and Teacher Training Act ranks third on the Commons Order Paper, meaning it will likely be heard before the end of trade.
Such pieces of legislation rarely make it into statutes unless there is near-unanimous support in parliament or the government approves them.
Mr Hancock will say to MPs: ‘So we rightly screen for physical health problems to support individuals, so why don’t we also screen for neurological conditions?
“My proposed bill today would ensure that every child in primary schools is screened for dyslexia and that teachers are adequately trained to properly teach dyslexic children.”
He will call it a “scandal” that “while every teacher is a teacher of a dyslexic child, teachers don’t need to be trained to tutor dyslexic children.”
“This leaves thousands of dyslexic children behind in class without the education they need and deserve.”
‘It is a scandal that only one in five dyslexic children with dyslexia leave school. This means that 80 percent of dyslexics go on to further education or to the labor market, not knowing that they have a neurological disorder, but only thinking that they have poor reading skills.’
As usual, other MPs will be able to take part in the debate and representatives from both the government and the opposition will have their say.
Some may take the opportunity to watch Mr Hancock’s TV escapades, as it will be their first chance to express their views to him directly in Parliament.
The former cabinet minister last spoke in the House of Commons on October 17, when he welcomed the ‘return of ironclad fiscal responsibility’ and asked Chancellor Jeremy Hunt whether OBR projections would show debt falling as a percentage of national income .
Mr. Hancock, who was diagnosed with dyslexia in college, had vowed to use I’m A Celebrity’s “incredible platform” to raise awareness of the learning difficulties.
Looking back on his school days from the jungle, he said he was “desperate to learn” but struggled with English.
He said that at the time his dyslexia was diagnosed, he realized that his “brain works differently” and that he could “work on that.”