Further Education
Debate between Baroness Morgan of Cotes and Nick Boles(9 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Nicky Morgan
What I would say to the hon. Lady is that we helpfully had the support of Professor Alison Wolf in the last Parliament in getting rid of 3,000 qualifications that did not prepare our young people for the world of work at all. The EBacc subjects that I have been talking about—the core subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths: just what we need for the future of our country—are exactly what our education system is rightly focusing on.
The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)
She is on our panel that we announced last week.
Nicky Morgan
As my hon. Friend says, Professor Alison Wolf is also on our panel looking at technical and professional education.
I want to remind the House that the reason we spend almost the same amount on servicing our debt as we do on the entire schools budget is the financial mismanagement of the Labour party. Its recklessness means that we have been forced to make difficult decisions to balance the books and live within our means, because if we had not, our education system would have fallen into the chaos that we have seen in countries that have failed to balance the books—thousands of schools closed in Greece; teacher and lecturer pay slashed in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain; an exodus of talent.