Education and Skills Bill

I am most grateful to all who have taken part in this debate, particularly the Minister, who has again proved that his heart is in the right place. We just need to make sure that his pocket is full enough. I know that Governments want swift returns for investment, and this is the great difficulty in doing anything to reduce offending or improve employability, because what you do for the child of five is a reward to the state when the child becomes an adult. The Minister can comfort himself with not only KPMG’s figures but also the Prince’s Trust’s figures. It reports that £70 million is lost to the economy per week due to educational underachievement in terms of productivity resulting in foregone income. The amounts of money to be saved are enormous. As I said to start with, we are looking at a great pool of potential unrealised and talent unqualified. I conclude by saying: "““If anything motivates me in politics it’s this. When I see potential unrealised, and talent unfulfilled, and opportunity denied, that’s where we’ve got to be and it’s the right economic future as well as the right way of dealing with opportunity in our society””." I am quoting the Prime Minister, George Brown, in a speech made in May 2008. We are all on the same side here, but if all that marvellous money was saved, think how much he could take off petrol tax.