Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Creagh Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise national apprenticeship week, which is a really important moment to advertise to businesses large and small the advantages of taking on apprentices. What we are going to see during this Parliament is 2 million apprenticeship starts. That is what we are aiming for, and there have already been some 1.6 million. As my hon. Friend says, unemployment in his own constituency has fallen, as has the claimant count, but we want to see many more apprentices and we also want smaller firms to come forward and take on their first apprentice.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

In 2006, 7-year-old Christi Shepherd and her little brother Bobby died of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a faulty boiler at their hotel in Greece. Their father Neil and his partner Ruth narrowly escaped with their lives and after seven agonising years the inquest into their deaths is about to begin, but the Legal Aid Agency has refused the family funding to be legally represented at the inquest, and on Friday Thomas Cook tried to prevent the inquest from even taking place. Will the Prime Minister meet me and the parents to hear why it is imperative that the parents are legally represented at this inquest so the full facts surrounding their children’s deaths are learned, and so that no other British family suffers a similar tragedy when they take their children on holiday?

[The Prime Minister]

I do remember this absolutely tragic case and it is appalling that it has taken so long for the inquest to take place. When you have lost a child, you want answers and to know why it happened, whether it could have been prevented, and that lessons will be learned for the future. I am very content to arrange the sorts of meetings the hon. Lady talks about to help in this case and to make sure that the Foreign Office, which does an excellent job in helping people when they are dealing with issues overseas, is doing all it can to help her constituents.