Fiona Mactaggart
Main Page: Fiona Mactaggart (Labour - Slough)Department Debates - View all Fiona Mactaggart's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)
I certainly congratulate my hon. Friend, along with colleagues, on his lobbying for that important expansion of that new enterprise zone. We are seeing across the country that enterprise zones are one of a number of policies that are attracting and driving jobs. Very large numbers of jobs are being created, reversing the pattern under the previous Government.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
T7. In the time that he has been in government, East Berkshire college has lost 40% of its Government funding, and the courses that have been hit, while apprenticeships have been protected, are technician-level courses, so we will not have the nursery nurses, the lab technicians or the IT technicians that business and industry desperately need. What is he going to do about it?
The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)
What we are doing is investing more in apprenticeships than any previous Government, and apprenticeships create lab technicians and nursery nurses—[Interruption.] They do. They are very successful, and they are much more valuable than full-time college courses. An apprenticeship for a nursery nurse or a lab technician is a much better way to go for a young person than any other.