Speeches by Cox.

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for securing this important debate. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a member of the UCU and a former professor in higher education. As someone who…”

“I will not give way, if the hon. Member does not mind. I hope we can work at pace today to pass this Bill.”

“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The issue is whether we should delay the introduction of this measure to allow more time to set up Skills England. A lot of preparatory work has already been done to set up Skills England, as we discussed quite fully in Committee, and we should get going on training up the carpenters, p…”

“Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was rather blown away by that. My birthday was actually on Saturday, but thank you so much. It is a pleasure to speak in favour of this Bill, as a member of the Public Bill Committee and of the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships. The Bill is vital because it paves the way fo…”

“I have concluded.”

“I am sitting down.”

“I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I agree. This morning, before I travelled to Westminster from Colchester, I visited JTL, a national organisation with a base in our city that trains thousands of apprentice electricians and plumbers, and I had similar exchanges with them. So I very much agree, because th…”

“It is my understanding that the Bill, as unamended, does not preclude the continuation of level 6 and 7 degree apprenticeships. I speak as somebody who worked in the higher education sector before coming here and sees the value of them. It is my understanding that nothing in the Bill rules them out at this point.”

“I am a new member of this Committee, and I am not a lawyer, but I find it quite frustrating to hear that. I am sure the public and all the users of the court and the professionals involved must also find this incredibly frustrating. You are both leaders in this aspect of the judicial field. How are you contributing to …”

“I am just wondering, since we are in that vein, whether we continue the reform discussion and then move to the other areas?”

“Good afternoon. I am the MP for Colchester, and my interests are as declared.”

“It just seems to follow on from what you were saying there, Sir Geoffrey, to ask about the HMCTS reform programme. I understand it has cost £1 billion, and it sounds like it has not delivered anywhere near the kind of change everyone was hoping for. How should we get a grip on it?”

“That sounds very encouraging, and congratulations on the result yesterday of having the property cases brought into scope. What is the strategy for bringing further cases into scope of that committee?”

“How difficult would it be to separate the southern from the eastern circuit, where I am an MP?”

“rose—”

“The right hon. Member has missed one: the Statute of Artificers 1563, known as the Statute of Apprenticeships. We have been trying to do this for many centuries, and it is only right that each generation tries to do so. We are still not getting it right for our young people, hence the need for speed.”

“Did the shadow Minister note the submission from the Association of Colleges, which offered very strong support for the Bill? As it represents a large proportion of providers of this education, its views should be taken into account.”

“Will the shadow Minister acknowledge that an awful lot of preparatory work has gone on to establish Skills England already? Once the Bill goes through, we will be in a good position to set this up quickly.”

“There is a whole raft of qualifications, are there not, in gym instructing, personal fitness, or sports coaching, which are being offered in really limited numbers, but which could be really transformative?”

“I will just push that a little further. We went to Buckley Hall, and we visited a fantastic textile workshop, which was empty. It was suggested to us that one of the reasons why there was a lower uptake of the courses offered there was because there was not an accredited qualification attached to it. I know that in oth…”