Business of the House

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who may like to intervene in the debate on Monday about youth unemployment. He asks what more we are doing. We have commissioned Professor Alison Wolf to review vocational education, and we are trying to remove perverse incentives that may push pupils into easy options. We are working with employers and universities to identify the best vocational opportunities.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

In the light of today’s welcome report by the Procedure Committee, will my right hon. Friend make a statement about ways in which debates on e-petitions can be better accommodated by the House?

[Sir George Young]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and to the Procedure Committee for the report on e-petitions that it has just published. He will know that some 3 million people have engaged with the e-petitions system that we launched, and it has inspired a number of good debates in the House and helped to shape Government policy on some key issues. The Committee states:

“The system introduced by the Government has proved very popular and has already provided the subjects for a number of lively and illuminating debates.”

I propose to consider the detailed recommendations in the Committee’s report and respond in the usual way in due course.