Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Heath and Nick Gibb

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. The careers and enterprise company recently announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is doing precisely that—inspiring schools and young people to engage with business in considering their future careers. The importance of that has been shown by other surveys. The Economist this week points to a 2012 British Chambers of Commerce survey of 8,000 British companies, reporting that 96% of them had no foreign language speakers. In a country like Britain—an international trading nation—that is a disgrace and something we are working hard to remedy.

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

Are not our horizons still too limited? With the advent of IT and refinements in distance learning, should not any child in any school be able to learn any language?

[Mr Gibb]

I agree with my hon. Friend that that should be possible, and we are doing everything we can to encourage more young people to study a foreign language. The problem is that a decision was taken by the previous Labour Government in 2004 to remove the compulsory nature of taking languages to GCSE, and that has had a devastating effect on the numbers doing so. We have reversed that trend.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Heath and Nick Gibb

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I am very aware of that issue, and once we have the final agreement and settlement, I hope to proceed in that area with the utmost possible speed.

[Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

3. If he will make it his policy to intervene when measures introduced by the Environment Agency or Natural England to enhance the natural environment threaten the safety and security of people’s homes.