Judith Cummins
Main Page: Judith Cummins (Labour - Bradford South)Department Debates - View all Judith Cummins's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(1 day, 10 hours ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I am now imposing an immediate four-minute time limit.
Alex McIntyre
My hon. Friend is making an excellent point about how, when the Opposition say they are going to cut funding for certain courses, they really mean that those courses will be available for wealthier students who can afford to pay for them without a Government subsidy. Does he agree that that will lead to a decrease in students from working-class backgrounds being able to access arts degrees?
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Members are being very generous with their time, but I remind them that I will be starting the Front-Bench speeches at about 6.40 pm, and we still have four more Back Benchers left to speak.
Andrew Western
What I say is that students, like everybody else, benefit from an improved NHS and from a range of interventions that this Government are making, but we cannot change everything overnight.
The hon. Member for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune) commented that young people not in employment has rocketed under this Government, which is an interesting take given that the number of NEETs is 14,000 lower now than it was at this point last year, but it increased by 250,000 in the Conservatives’ final few years in office.
We then heard from the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst). I simply reiterate the comments made in the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) about the rubbishing of the Conservatives’ proposal already done by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The hon. Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) mentioned youth unemployment figures, and I absolutely agree that these are a concern. We are not complacent on this issue, so he will welcome the youth guarantee, the jobs guarantee, the increase to apprenticeship funding, the shift to more apprenticeships for young people, the revised target of two thirds of young people either in an apprenticeship or at university, and the update to our approach to encourage technical learning while earning. He will also be pleased to know that, unlike him, I do have a history degree, so I have no problem looking at the Conservatives’ record of the past 10 years. I absolutely appreciate that they do not want to be held to account for the mess they left, but sadly they devastated this system, and it falls to us to resolve the problems they left.
We then heard from the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), who said that all forms of education have intrinsic value, which leaves me somewhat confused given the Conservatives have made a compelling argument today for scrapping a number of degree courses and they ran down the number of apprenticeships available to young people.
I want to briefly come to the contribution of the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), because he is always considered in this area and, indeed, I consider him an expert on this subject. I cannot pretend to be familiar with the Brown and Cable plans, but it is important to pick up a point he made around the vast majority of apprenticeships being taken by people over 25. I believe that that is a problem in the system. That is why we are creating foundation apprenticeships and that is why—[Interruption.] I am not suggesting—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I want to hear what the Minister has to say.
Andrew Western
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I did not attribute a time period to the hon. Gentleman’s comments. I am simply stating that it is a fixed intention of this Government to seek to address that and to ensure that more young people under the age of 25 can access apprenticeships.
Yet again in these Opposition day debates, we see a Conservative party that continues to run away from its record and that brings forward overnight solutions that, in this case, have already been discredited. It is not fit to govern and would never solve this problem for young people.
Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.