Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Freer Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

As I said in my earlier answers, we will publish the impact assessment very soon. The crucial question is how, in the context of getting the country out of the budget deficit mess that was left by Opposition Members, we can make decisions that will have the best possible impact on the ground. Is it fair to fund 18-year-olds, who usually take fewer hours of education per week, at the same rate, or should we reduce the funding for all 16 to 19-year-olds instead?

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

T6. Does the Minister agree with the shadow Secretary of State that Labour failed on vocational education, and does he agree with me that the Government’s rectifying of that mistake means that we now have more employer-led apprenticeships than ever before?

[Matthew Hancock]

I try not to be partisan at the Dispatch Box, as you well know, Mr Speaker, but it is absolutely true that we are driving up standards in vocational education across the board and in apprenticeships. It was a real pleasure to visit McDonald’s in my hon. Friend’s constituency, which does a brilliant job on vocational in-work education. The previous Government made the intellectual error of thinking that just because people have not attained yet, we should not have high expectations of them. We are reversing the consequences of that error.