Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

The encouraging evidence from the UCAS application data is that people from poorer backgrounds are not being put off going to university. There is no evidence that changes in patterns of university applications are affecting poorer students in particular. I have been considering the issue of sharia-compliant student loans, and we continue to do so.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to increase levels of employee ownership.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

The Government have welcomed the excellent report by Graeme Nuttall, which provided a series of recommendations on how we can promote employee ownership. We will publish a full Government response to his recommendations this autumn. We have already published a call for evidence on the right to request employee ownership, and I encourage any Members who have ideas on it to get in quick as it closes tomorrow.

[Jane Ellison]

I thank the Minister for that answer and warmly welcome her to her new role. The German and US economies have a much greater diversity of corporate ownership structures, so I wonder whether the Minister, in addition to looking at excellent British companies such as the John Lewis Partnership, will be looking abroad for useful lessons.