Teesdale pupils quiz House of Commons speaker

A SPECIAL assembly saw the speaker of the House of Commons drop into dale primary school – hours before he spoke out against US President Donald Trump.
Children from Ramshaw and St Chad’s Primary Schools kept John Bercow on his toes in a videolink question and answer session.
Among the 20 questions the speaker fielded were what laws he thought should be repealed and who was the funniest member in the commons. And Mr Bercow surprised staff and pupils when he revealed he “very much disagreed” with President Trump’s travel ban, branding it “objectionable”.
He added: “Whether they are Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or Jewish – equal treatment before the law is very important.
“That notion of human equality of people of different backgrounds I think is important.”
He had earlier explained how “it was expected” for him to remain impartial.
He said: “First of all it’s my duty and I’ve known that from day one. Secondly, parliament is televised so if I was partisan it would be known pretty quickly and I would be heavily criticised.”
Joint headteacher at Ramshaw and St Chad’s, Dominic Brown, said the school got a call the week before confirming the speaker’s presence. He explained how Ramshaw's participation in the Votes for Schools programme had triggered political interest from school pupils.
Mr Brown said: “Every week kids get to vote an a particular issue and we compare what our demographic says against other views from across the nation. That has really got them interested in politics. We are told the North East is hard to engage so we put our name in and got a phone call from the Commons.”
Mr Bercow said the school sessions had become a regular Monday morning fixture.
He added: “The children of Ramshaw Primary School have come up with some absolutely first class questions – some of which I haven’t been asked before.”