Gordon Marsden
Main Page: Gordon Marsden (Labour - Blackpool South)Department Debates - View all Gordon Marsden's debates with the Department for Education
(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Anne Milton
We have a pilot project running in five areas across the country specifically to target young people in disadvantaged areas who might be less willing to take up an apprenticeship, particularly in sectors they would not traditionally look at. We have £500 million of disadvantaged funding in the sector and £127 million of discretionary bursary funding, and there are other projects focusing particularly on apprenticeships to encourage young people who might not have thought of them as an option.
Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
It is clear that the Chancellor has dashed FE’s hopes massively in his Budget, but the Prime Minister, when told in Prime Minister’s questions by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) last week that FE funding was in crisis, replied complacently that he
“could not be more wrong”—[Official Report, 30 January 2019; Vol. 653, c. 811.]
MPs debating FE here recently all said otherwise. One Member said
“it is clear that funding for…16 to 19…has fallen”—[Official Report, 21 January 2019; Vol. 653, c. 20.]
Another said:
“The bottom line is that the…sector needs more money”—[Official Report, 21 January 2019; Vol. 653, c. 23.]
Those are the words of Conservative Members in that debate. Will the Minister get the Education Secretary to pledge to tell the Chancellor that increased FE funding in the spending review is his top priority, to keep at it and to not take no for an answer?
Anne Milton
I notice the hon. Gentleman pointing his finger across the Dispatch Box. The Secretary of State is very aware—because I have not ceased to point it out to him—of the challenges that FE colleges face, and I did hear the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) raise this in Prime Minister’s questions last week. It is good to hear people across the House talking about further education, because sadly the House collectively, including under the last Labour Government, did not talk about it very much.