Oral Answers to Questions

Sajid Javid Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

That is a very interesting idea. It is absolutely right that British satellite technology plays a greater role than is recognised in ensuring that we have information about the sites of disasters. Earlier this year we chaired the disaster monitoring committee, which ensured that satellite images were immediately available after the tsunami in Japan and after disasters elsewhere in the world. There are certainly imaginative ideas through which this role could be enhanced.

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to promote adult and community learning.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

The Government are enthusiastically committed to adult and community learning. That is why we have protected the £210 million a year adult safeguarded budget. On 1 December we announced our intention to devolve its planning and accountability, so that local people are at the heart of deciding the learning offer. We will pilot different community learning trust models in 2012-13.

[Sajid Javid]

The Minister has been an excellent advocate of adult community learning. May I ask him how his pilot on community learning trusts is working at the moment? In particular, how has he engaged local communities to improve adult community learning?

[Mr Hayes]

We know, as W B Yeats knew, that education lights a fire that burns brightly. It certainly burns brightly in the hearts of Ministers. We have much to do in respect of adult community learning, which was derided by the last Government as mainly holiday Spanish. That was how the former Secretary of State described it. We will work with local communities. The first meeting to discuss models and timings will take place one week from today, and we intend to publish a prospectus in spring 2012. We are delivering.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

Many businesses, as I have just said, receive substantial tax cuts, which is absolutely right. As the economy progresses, there will be more, and there is also an exercise in tax simplification, the results of which will be announced at the beginning of next year.

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The Department has a key role in supporting the rebalancing of the economy and business, to deliver growth while increasing skills and learning.

[Sajid Javid]

May I thank the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning for visiting my constituency of Bromsgrove and opening a £3.5 million extension to North East Worcestershire college? Will he update the House on what other investment plans he has for colleges up and down the country, and how that will promote young people’s life chances?

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

I said a few moments ago that we have made £100 million available. It will be spent quickly, and that will affect colleges across the country. I should like to thank my hon. Friend for being such a generous host when I visited NEW college in his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) was in attendance as well, because the college serves both constituencies. On that occasion, I had an opportunity to ride a Harley Davidson motorbike, and like that bike, the career of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) is powerful, speedy and impressive.