Oral Answers to Questions

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

If the right hon. Gentleman’s desire is to avoid more uncertainty, the right thing for us to do is to double down and get a deal by the end of this year. If his desire is for us to dig ourselves out of the economic challenges that we, the European Union and the world face, the answer is not to engage in protectionism but to do this deal and give a shot in the arm to businesses on both sides of the channel. That is what we are whole- heartedly focused on doing, and we are doing it as one United Kingdom.

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Con)]

The company programme run by the charity Young Enterprise provides young people with the opportunity to apply their skills in real-world situations by working in teams to set up and run their own young enterprise company. Does my right hon. Friend agree that providing financial education in our schools is a vital way of empowering young people and ensuring that we are able to further our levelling-up programme across the country when we come out of this crisis?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that excellent programme. He is absolutely right; a strong understanding of numeracy—for example, calculating percentages or doing divisions—underpins a young child’s ability to manage money. This Government’s reforms have made a step change in progress on numeracy and literacy for those young children, but that needs to be backed up by practical applications. Many organisations that support schools with financial education are adapting their programmes, and Young Money is an excellent example of that.