Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:12 pm on 15 November 2021.

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Photo of Nadhim Zahawi Nadhim Zahawi The Secretary of State for Education 7:12, 15 November 2021

I hope, as I did in the weekly briefings that I gave as Vaccines Minister, to convince the hon. Lady tonight that that is incorrect. We are not getting rid of BTECs.

I know at first hand how important education is. As colleagues who have known me for a long time will know, I came to this country with my family at the age of 11, without a word of English—and here I am now in this Chamber. With the right education, opportunity abounds.

Unfortunately, we are still feeling the aftershocks of the pandemic and we still have many challenges ahead. We need to recover economically; we need to level up our country. I am glad to say that we are already making headway with levelling up. The Chancellor’s Budget is putting the money where it is needed, with £374 billion of direct support for the economy over this year and last year. The Prime Minister’s plan for jobs is working, with the peak of unemployment forecast to be 2 million lower than was previously predicted. Wages are growing, and we will build on that by having skills at the very heart of our plan.