Education and Local Services

Debate between Lord Harper and George Howarth

Tuesday 27th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a number of good points about the opportunities for young people. Does he agree that, in Gloucestershire in particular, we have seen a rapid rise in the number of apprenticeships? There have been 7,000 in the city of Gloucester alone over the past seven years. Does he absolutely support another great opportunity, which is to have a health university technical college serving the people of the whole of our county and beyond?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr George Howarth)]

Order. Before Mr Speaker left the Chair, he did point out that interventions needed to be brief. If anybody finds themselves using the word “and”, it means that they are making one point too many.

[Mr Harper]

What excellent advice, Mr Deputy Speaker. I agree with my hon. Friend. He has led a number of successful job fairs and apprenticeship opportunities in Gloucester. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) has also helped to introduce a cyber training centre in Cheltenham to deliver those extra opportunities for our young people in the industries of the future.

Finally, let me touch briefly on local services, particularly social care. Too often when we talk about social care, we refer only to older people. I want to remind Ministers that almost half the social care spending in England is on working age people between 18 and 24. That social care spending is incredibly important, as it ensures that those people can be independent and that they have the opportunity to work, but we need to think about how we can fund it. It cannot be funded in the same way as social care for older people, as younger people are not likely to have accumulated assets. Any form of means-testing sets up another barrier to work, and I want to ensure that more of those young people can get into work.

In our manifesto, we pledged to get a million more disabled people into work. As chair-designate of the all-party group on learning disability, I want to ensure that more people with learning disabilities have the opportunity to get into work and to succeed in the years to come. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind as the Government make their plans for the future. We have a proud record. The only thing that I regret about our record is that we did not talk about it enough during the election campaign. If we had, the Leader of the Opposition would not have got away with his irresponsible over-spending manifesto that would have bankrupted our country. I am glad that the people of Britain saw through it and made sure that they returned this Government to office. We will continue to deliver for Britain as we have done over the past seven years. We have a record of which we can be proud.