Secondary Schools (Accountability)

Bob Russell Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful for the sedentary chuntering. It has to be said that the place the hon. Lady has in mind is nowhere near Birmingham, but I am sure that the Minister, who is a man of prodigious brainpower, will be fully conscious of that fact.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

As a former pupil of St Helena secondary modern school for boys, I thank the Minister for taking the first step in 50 years to address the educational imbalance between academic and non-academic subjects. The Minister mentioned vocational subjects, one of which was engineering, but he was silent on building trade skills and motor mechanic skills. Will he give an assurance that they will form part of the vocational subjects, and with the holistic approach of “schools for life”, does he agree that first aid should be part of the curriculum?

[Mr Laws]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s welcome for these announcements, but I fear that on the issue of first aid, I will be unable to give him a different answer from the one given on previous occasions by the Secretary of State. On my hon. Friend’s wider point, it is important for all serious, high-value vocational qualifications to be accessible through this route. He will know that we have taken a close look at the whole suite of vocational qualifications to make sure that there are serious equivalents because of some of the problems that arose under the last Government. If he is concerned about particular qualifications, he should write to me and I will respond in detail.