Jack Brereton
Main Page: Jack Brereton (Conservative - Stoke-on-Trent South)Department Debates - View all Jack Brereton's debates with the Department for Education
(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberI thank the hon. Lady. We are keen that schools are as inclusive as they say they will be when it comes to children with special educational needs. We have nine change programme partnerships to try to make sure that the system works a lot better. The money is given to local authorities, and we should already be seeing an improvement, but I would be happy to discuss it further with her.
We are transforming skills through our local skills improvement plans, backed by £165 million and supported by business, further education and higher education, and though a £300 million investment in institutes of technology, which are collaborations between business, higher education and further education to revolutionise our tertiary education offering.
I thank my right hon. Friend for that response. Stoke-on-Trent College has recently launched its new “Skills Ready, Future Ready” strategy and has been working with a number of employers locally to fill skills shortages, and it is very welcome to see the local skills improvement fund investment of around £3 million for Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire, but given our industries locally and the skills shortages, we need to go further, so what will my right hon. Friend be doing to help fill some of those skills shortages—to support our industries to help people earn better wages and get skilled now?
My hon. Friend is a true champion of skills in Stoke-on-Trent and, as he mentioned, we strongly support the £3.2 million we are investing through the local skills improvement fund. That is underpinned by £3.8 billion of additional national investment and my hon. Friend will be pleased to know we will be opening the Stoke-on-Trent Staffordshire institute of technology in September 2024, with £13 million of capital funding as part of our revolution in tertiary education.