The Conservative party leader said that Labour’s plan allows for too many serious offenders to be freed early
Reform UK has issued its response to Andy Burnham’s proposal for more localised, vocational education. It is in the form of a statement from Suella Braverman, the former Tory home secretary who is now Reform’s education spokesperson. She is a bit more positive about it than her old party. (See 9.16am.) She says:
Reform UK has long argued that Britain needs a technical and vocational renaissance alongside a genuine skills revolution.
For too long, the philosopher has been valued more than the plumber. We welcome any effort to rebalance the scales, but we’ve been here before. Successive prime ministers have promised parity of esteem and failed to deliver.
Spot the difference: “A new ‘T-level’ system, which overhauls how technical education is taught and administered, aims to put the courses on an equal footing with academic work,” announced in Philip Hammond’s 2017 budget … “We need finally to do what we always promise we will — to elevate practical and technical qualifications, so that we recognize their immense value to society and to the individual,” Boris Johnson, 2019 … “Technical education is not given the respect it deserves but today, I am changing all of that, pulling one of the biggest levers we have to change the direction of our country,” Rishi Sunak in 2023 as he announced plans for a British baccalaureate … “While you will never hear me denigrate the aspiration to go to university, I don’t think the way we currently measure success in education — that ambition to get 50 per cent of kids to uni — I don’t think that’s right for our times,” Keir Starmer, 2025 … “That’s why today we’re putting technical education back where it belongs — not as a second thought, but as a first choice,” Andy Burnham, 2026.
The home secretary [Shabana Mahmood] has brought forward a very rigorous plan in relation to this, and let’s remember, the numbers can fluctuate but overall boat crossings are down, down quite significantly year on year. So that does suggest that the plan is working.
The public wants to see control being exerted, and while we’ve made progress, there is more to do, and I recognise that completely.
But the trend is down, and the number of people being removed is up, so the figures are pointing in a better direction. But there is much more to do.
