Alex Cunningham
Main Page: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)Department Debates - View all Alex Cunningham's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hayes
Proust said:
“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey”,
and a journey from the age of 16 to higher learning can be a journey down a practical pathway—no longer a cul-de-sac but a highway to higher learning. To that end, I am working to create 25,000 higher apprenticeships during this Parliament; when I became a Minister, there were 180.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
T7. The Department’s consultation on the future of child care ran for all of 44 days over the school summer holidays, greatly limiting the potential for parents to make their views heard. Given the importance of this issue, will the Minister reopen the consultation for at least another six weeks? If not, is that because she and her colleagues have already decided what they are going to announce during conference?
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)
We have had a lot of responses, but I am afraid that I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the precise number. If he has constituents who wish to make their views known, I would be happy if they were to write to him and he were to write to me. If he does that quickly, I will make sure that I take them into account.