Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I agree with my hon. Friend. One of the results of the decision to leave the European Union is that we as a nation will have to do what we have done for hundreds of years, which is live by our wits and our talents, and we need to develop those talents by investing in education, in science, in research and in skills training. He is absolutely right about the crucial role that universities play—obviously, my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science is leading on that—but we are working closely together to get more universities involved in providing degree apprenticeships, so that people can get degrees and rise to high positions through apprenticeships.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the messages that has clearly come across to me from my experience campaigning in the referendum is that the free movement of people between this country and the rest of the European Union is no longer acceptable to the people I represent. What contingency plans has the Department got for what it will mean for the British economy to end the free movement of people?

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Gentleman will know that no changes are going to take place any time soon in any of the arrangements with the European Union. We have made a decision that we are going to leave the European Union, but there will be a lengthy process of negotiation to establish exactly what new arrangements will be put in place. However, he is right that one of the chief sources of concern in our communities is the free movement of people, and I am sure he is also right that in his constituency, as in my own, that will have been a motive for many people to vote. That does not alter the fact that whether we are inside the single market or not, whether we have free movement of people or not, investment in the skills of our own people so that British people can get the best British jobs is what we need.