Business of the House

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The Government are sympathetic. We want to deregulate, and the regime that the hon. Gentleman has described is the one that we inherited. There will be Department for Culture, Media and Sport questions in a week’s time, but if this is a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills issue—which it may well be—I will raise it with my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary. The hon. Gentleman might like to be here in a week, and I will ensure that whichever Minister answers his question is well primed.

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

Leek further education college in my constituency has been providing excellent skills-based training to young people for over 100 years. It is now in negotiations to become part of the university of Derby, so that, for the first time ever, both further and higher education will be available to young people in Staffordshire Moorlands. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on how we can help all young people with educational aspiration, including those in Leek?

[Sir George Young]

I welcome that initiative, which is to have on one campus the two institutions to which my hon. Friend has referred. We are trying to reform vocational education to ensure that there are high-quality alternatives to academic subjects, such as the ones that she has mentioned, and to remove all the perverse incentives to push pupils into lower-level qualifications that might not improve their employment prospects. I am delighted to hear of the initiative to which she has referred.