Douglas Carswell
Main Page: Douglas Carswell (Independent - Clacton)Department Debates - View all Douglas Carswell's debates with the Cabinet Office
(8 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that. Getting 3 million apprentices trained during this Parliament is a very stretching target. We will have to see those large companies that have really put their shoulder to the wheel on this agenda continue to do so, but there are two sectors where we need to do better. One is the public sector; we need more public sector organisations to get behind apprenticeships. We also need to make it simple and attractive for small businesses to start training apprentices again. That is absolutely what the Minister for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), is doing with the skills agenda. We all need to work very hard to deliver this by the end of the Parliament.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)
Q15. If the United Kingdom votes to leave the European Union in June, does the Prime Minister believe that the EU institutions will respond vindictively?
The Prime Minister
It is a very difficult question to answer. We should not be naive, were we to vote to leave, in believing that other countries would automatically cut us some sort of sweetheart deal. Just take one industry as an example: farming. Our farmers know now that they have duty-free, quota-free and tax-free access to a market of 500 million people. Were we to leave, could we really guarantee that French, Italian or Spanish farmers would not put pressure on their Governments to give us a less good deal? I do not think that we could. That is one of the many reasons why I think we are safer, more secure and better off in a reformed European Union.