Business of the House

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

As ever, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving a heads-up of his Backbench Business Committee requests. I will certainly take them away and look at them carefully.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

The present is formed by what we know, and the future is shaped by what we learn. In that spirit the Workers’ Educational Association reaches 50,000 people a year through a network of branches and an army of volunteers. It teaches everything from architecture to arithmetic and from computer skills to competence in English, and yet, alarmingly, it now faces a 28% cut in its core funding. You, Mr Speaker, will doubtless be familiar with the words of the Commission on Adult Education from 1919:

“Adult education is a permanent national necessity, an inseparable aspect of citizenship, and therefore should be both universal and lifelong”.

Is this generation to forget what its forefathers knew: whatever disadvantage people face, they deserve the chance to bask in the light of learning?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I certainly agree with my right hon. Friend about the importance of learning. I am not aware of the organisation he mentions, but I am sure he will, in his usual way, seek an Adjournment debate so that he can raise the issue directly with Ministers.