Oral Answers to Questions

Annette Brooke Excerpts

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

On the night of the “black and white” party, I was at my desk working, actually, and then I had a half of mild at a working men’s club.

The truth is that, in a very tough spending round, we guaranteed funding for young people, boosted funding for 16 to 18-year-olds and boosted funding for adult apprenticeships, and we are seeing real growth. The right hon. Gentleman is right: people over 24 will borrow to invest in their future, but my goodness, the repayments are income-contingent, there are no up-front payments and, as he knows, it is real value for money.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

2. What recent progress he has made in establishing local enterprise partnerships.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

7. What recent progress he has made in establishing local enterprise partnerships.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr Mark Prisk)]

I am pleased to say that we are making good progress with regard to local enterprise partnerships. Indeed, I can announce today that we have cleared the London enterprise partnership. That brings us to a total of 31, covering 87% of England's population.

[Annette Brooke]

I thank the Minister for his answer. Naturally, I am rather disappointed that Dorset has not yet found a solution. May I have an update on progress towards the inclusion of Dorset within a local enterprise partnership? What timelines are the Government working to? If it is necessary for support to be given, will that be given?

[Mr Prisk]

As the hon. Lady knows and we have discussed, Dorset has the challenge that Poole and Bournemouth face eastwards economically but the rest of the county does not. So we have worked with local partners, and offered them an opportunity: once they have decided, they will come back to us and we will help to ensure that they progress with their enterprise partnership as quickly as possible.