Colleen Fletcher
Main Page: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)Department Debates - View all Colleen Fletcher's debates with the Department for Education
(8 years, 6 months ago)
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Sajid Javid
Job losses, whenever they are announced, are regrettable, as they of course are in this case, which is why we must do everything we can. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that soon after the Prime Minister said that, the Minister for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise and the Minister for Employment had a meeting with a managing director from British Gas. I understand that the redundancies are not final yet—the consultation period is still going on—so let us hope that they are not as bad as those that have been seen. We will continue to do whatever we can, and that includes contact with the company.
Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)
4. What his Department’s strategy is for the funding of adult skills provision in FE colleges for the remainder of this Parliament; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)
We are protecting the adult education budget in cash terms, extending subsidised loans to advanced learners and introducing an apprenticeship levy, so funding will be 40% higher in cash terms by 2020.
Colleen Fletcher
We are told that the adult skills budgets will be devolved to regions that have secured a devolution deal. Will the Minister assure me that those budgets will be ring-fenced and not subjected to cuts?
Nick Boles
We will certainly be ensuring that the budgets are spent on skills training, but the whole point of devolving them is to give the local combined authorities the power to decide which are the skills priorities in their area, not to have them asking me for permission to spend on a skills need that they have identified.