Labour Campaign Event Election 2017

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for coming to Leeds city College

the day. Thank you to the college for hosting today's event. It is my

pleasure to support Jeremy Corbyn today as he sets out our big deal to

upgrade the economy. It is a big deal that recognises the future

success of British business and industry, the future success of our

public services, and the future success of each and every person in

the United Kingdom is founded on five pillars: Education, childcare,

industrial strategy... These form the foundations of an economic

environment that ensures that every business, every public service and

every employee can realise their full potential in Britain. Of the

utmost critical importance in this plan is education, training and

skills. Education starts when we are children but it shouldn't stop when

we are teenagers. We should be enjoying the rewards of learning

throughout our entire lives, not least to allow us the opportunity to

choose our own career paths, but also to ensure that workers in

Britain are kept skilled to the highest possible levels, ready to

embrace technical log -- technological change and advancement

in industry. If you are in insecure work in Britain, you can't cover the

cost of going back to education. You are being held back. If your career

has stalled and you can't access the qualifications you need to climb to

the next level, then you are being held back. If you are in a

fast-paced industry but you're not being given the skills to leave golf

with it, then you are being held back. And if you are being held

back, then so are our public services. -- to vault with it. Our

industries need you to be confident and equipped with high skills for

the future. High skills and lifelong learning will unlock the door to a

richer Britain, richer employees, richer businesses and richer public

services. In my role as Shadow Business Secretary I know all too

well that for far too long adult training and skills have been the

poor relation of our education system. This hasn't stopped the

current Government from decimating it further since the last Labour

Government left Paola in 2010. Funding allocations for adult

further education and skills in England had fallen by ?240 million

in 2015, which is a cup of 14% in real terms. And the adult skills

budget lost over ?1 billion in 2015-16. The results of all of this,

fewer and fewer available courses and fewer attending students funding

further education -- pushing the further education sector into

crisis. This is further education in Conservative Britain, and simply

repairing the damage of the last seven years will barely address

existing shortfalls. Not only have there been huge funding cuts, the

sector has also been held back by repeated reorganisation. Labour's

big deal to upgrade the economy will unleash the potential of our people

all across Britain and in all age groups, so no one will be written

off. Key here is confronting the high skills challenge posed by

automation and Brexit, because the UK is mired in a productivity crisis

and has been for decades. It takes UK workers five days to produce what

workers in France, Germany and the US do in foul-mac days. That is not

because we're lazy -- four days. Other nations have invested in the

skills, infrastructure and education systems that businesses need to be

more productive. The Conservative Government has failed on every count

when it comes to providing businesses with the tools they need

to succeed, and skills and education is one key failure and is a primary

cause of the stagnant wages and poor economic growth that we see as a

nation. I will say more about this in the coming weeks when I talk

about Labour's industrial strategy, but today is about laying out

Labour's plans for lifelong learning. Our new national education

service. Our measures will upgrade the entire education system, and

Labour will unleash the potential of the British people at every point in

their lives. An education system that is truly fit for the

21st-century, for the many, not the few. So, without further ado, it is

my great pleasure to introduce our leader and the next Labour Prime

Minister, Jeremy Corbyn. APPLAUSE

Thank you, thank you very much, and thank you to all the students for

being here this morning. I'm sorry the room isn't big enough

everyone who wanted to come, but we will make sure we talk to everybody

this morning. Thank you very much to Leeds city College for giving us

this space this morning, and thank you for what you do to inspire and

educate a whole generation of students. It is a great pleasure to

be here with some good friends and colleagues. The leader of Leeds City

Council has done a fantastic job in standing up for this city, and she

and I have many wet and happy memories of trying to deal with the

flooding crisis, and today, we pray for rain! And to my colleagues,

Hilary Benn and Richard Bergin, brilliant MPs from this city

standing up for the city. Thank you for coming along this morning. I am

absolutely delighted to be speaking alongside Angela Rayner, annexed

Education Secretary and the next Business Secretary. They have done a

fantastic job in what has turned out to be a very Short Parliament. There

is an advantage in that - it gets them round the Cabinet table a bit

quicker than it would otherwise, so I am looking forward to your doing

those jobs in Government. He will hear from Angela shortly about our

detailed plans for education, training and skills. There are four

weeks left of this general election campaign, and I hope everyone of you

in this room is registered to vote, and that every student in this and

every other college is ready to vote. Use your democratic right. A

positive message we will take across the country are simply this: We want

to see a better country, a Britain in which everyone has the

opportunity to fulfil their potential, a Britain that works

literally for the many and not just the few. Because if you are stuck on

a zero-hours contract, you don't know what you will learn from one

week to the next, or if you have talents but can't afford the tuition

fees to develop them, or you are stopped in a job that you hate, then

you are being held back. Labour is on your side and we want you to

succeed, because those who aren't held back of those who are hoarding

huge levels of wealth, or enormous influence of those who jealously

cling on to privilege and power, they don't want any of that to

change. They work together to make sure things don't change. It's no

coincidence that we learn from this week 's Sunday Times Rich list that

a third of those on the list donate to the Conservative Party. The

Conservative Party looks after money, and money looks after the

Conservative Party - it is a virtuous circle. You find yourself

meeting a great deal of hostility. Question how things are and you

encounter a abuse. Ask those at the top to pay a little more towards

society and you are viewed as not online. That is how the system is

rigged, and that is how it stays rigged. I say this: It doesn't have

to be this way. Help us make the change we can all enjoy. On the same

day that the Sunday Times Rich list came out, my friend, our Shadow

Chancellor of the Exchequer, John McDonnell, set out a different form

of change. He unveiled Labour's plan to upgrade our economy, because

without an upgraded economy, there can be no fairer Britain. As John

said, it means Government understanding that education,

childcare, housing, infrastructure and industrial strategy are the

essential pillars of upgrading the economy. So, this week and next, we

are setting out our detailed plans for each pillar of our plan to

upgrade the economy. We all benefit from an upgraded economy that

preserves the long-term survival of our public services, so much under

threat will stop we have said a Labour Government will build 1

million homes and tackle the excesses of the private rental

market. We want to put an end to our workforce being priced out of living

near to where they work. Labour wants families to spend more time

together will stop but it's no good making progress in housing for our

workforce if it's not equipped to take the opportunity is made

possible by an upgraded economy. So, today, Angela will be putting forth

our detailed plans for education, skills and training. A higher

skilled and confident workforce is a must have for a fairer Britain

negotiating in a post-Brexit well. Our businesses, both large and

small, will prosper on the back of education, skills and training

finally being given serious attention by a serious Government.

It is only fair that businesses should be asked to contribute to the

plan by financing the steps we are setting out today, and we will do

this by reversing the tax cuts made by the Conservatives and still keep

UK rates of corporation tax at the lowest of the group of seven most

industrialised countries. It is what we term our new settlement. When it

comes to small businesses, the backbone of our economy, a Labour

Government will restore small profits raked and make only a modest

increase. To the owners and leadership of larger businesses and

corporations, we will slowly raise your level of corporation tax to 26%

by the end of the next Parliament. It was 28% when the coalition came

into office in 2010. This is below the level of the last

Labour Government. Inclusive, fair and costed. That's our plan to

upgrade our economy. That's how we'll transform Britain. It's what

you vote on, on June . Angela will set out our belief in

education for all from cradle to grave because it's Labour investment

that will ensure people are not held back. Don't led the Conservatives

hold you back. Don't let the Conservatives hold this country

back. I want now, I'm just the warm-up act, to introduce our Shadow

Education Secretary Angela Rayner to set out her vision for a national

education service. Angela is somebody that has fought against

very difficult odds to achieve the position she now occupies. She's an

inspiration to a very large number of young people all over the

country. They see in Angela somebody who didn't have all the advantages

that many others do in childhood and as a young person. But, by her

determination to learn, study, strive and get on and work for the

good of others, she was elected to Parliament and I'm very proud that

she's our Shadow Education Secretary. Can I introduce to you,

the next Education Secretary, Angela Rayner.

Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you all for being here today. .Ed to people of

this country, I say this, you have a clear choice on June

8th. A choice between a Conservative Government that's let you and your

children down or a Labour Government that will stand up for you and

provide a better education and life chances for all. The Conservatives

said they would look after our children. But instead, they've cut

the funding to state schools, abolished education maintenance

allowance and tripled tuition fees. Over the past seven years, the

Tories have been dismantling the incredible legacy of the last Labour

Government. And it has across the economy too. This Conservative

Government has held you back. If you're a teacher, living the reality

of falling investment and rising class sizes, you're being held back.

If you're a parent, like I am, and your children aren't getting the

education they deserve because class sizes are too high, then our

children are being held back. It is truly frightening school budgets are

being cut for the first time in 20 years. We're going to see a

generation of our children being held back. It never used to be like

this under Labour. Harold Wilson spoke of a new Britain forged in the

white heat of technological revolution and Tony Blair spoke of

the need to rebuild an education system fit for a millennium. This is

how Labour always equip Britain, to rise to the new challenges, the

history of Labour in power is of us giving power to people. To fulfil

their potential. To have the economic security to start a family

and get on in life. And to pass on to their children more than they

were given. An education has always been at the heart of how we have

delivered this. But in the past seven years, as the Tories dragged

us further away from the legacy of the last Labour Government, more and

more children are being held back. Held back by an education system

that, under the Conservatives, isn't giving them the support that they

need. That over 800,000 young people not in education, employment or

training, who aren't able to get a good job, are being held back by a

Government that is not supporting them. The nine million adults who

have poor literacy, poor numeracy or both, too often attract in low wage,

low skilled work, struggling to make ends meet as wages stagnate and

living costs rise. Because for a long time I was held back too. If

you grow up in poverty, and on a rundown estate, it doesn't take much

for you to feel held back. You feel you've never had the same

opportunities as your better-off mates for even the most basic

things. You feel like education isn't a for you. You leave school

without qualifications. You become NEAT, just another statistic on

Philip Hammond's spreadsheet. Of course, in my case, I left school

pregnant too. At that point, you forget all about feeling held back

and you start to worry about the most basic things. How to make ends

meet and provide for a child. How to try and give them even a little bit

more than you had yourself. You do the best you can. But it can be so

easily through no fault of your own, end up in an early adult life

trapped in a cycle of deprivation, unable to get a decent wage you need

to break out of it. Slowly watching your dreams of becoming a nurse, a

teacher or a scientist slip away as fantasies created by a young, naive

child. But education can offer a line that's simply transformative.

It shouldn't stop at a particular age in life. Like many people,

including some of my colleagues, I went back to education as an adult

to get the skills and the qualifications I missed the first

time round. I did that thanks to a Labour Government introducing free

childcare, Sure Start centres and free adult learner courses for my

local college. It's difficult to say how much this changed my life. But I

think I can safely say that 23 it hadn't been there for me, I wouldn't

be standing here in front of you today. I left school feeling I was

thick, feeling a failure. For too many, the transformative power of

education is lost from the schools not getting the funding they need to

the debts you need to take on to return to education as an adult. I

feel that the opportunities that were there for me are not there for

those who need now. But things can be different. We can build a fairer,

richer Britain where opportunity and prosperity can be shared by all.

That provides businesses with the skilled and ready British workforce.

And that is why I am proud today to announce the first stages of

Labour's national education service. First, we will secure the best

education possible for every single child. By getting the basics right.

And that starts with proper funding of our schools. We will reverse the

?3 billion of cuts that our schools currently face by 2020 and protect

per pupil funding over the course of the next Parliament. And, unlike the

Tories, when we say real terms, we mean real terms. No child will be

held back by being in a school that doesn't have the staff it needs or

can't offer the curriculum our children need. Under Labour, every

child, whatever their background, will be begin the opportunity to

unlock their full potential. We will give further and technical

education, the parity of esteem that it deserves. Not just with warm

words but with bold action. We will give further education to

16-19-year-olds the funding it needs. Reversing the seven years of

managed decline under the Conservatives. NEETS will no longer

be held back but instead given the support they need to go into further

education and be able to acquire the qualifications they need to get on

in life. It's vital that we have lifelong learning. Learning is a

ticket, not just out of poverty, but also out of isolation and loneliness

that many of us will face at some point in our lives. 30% of jobs will

be affected by the rise of automatication. Up to nine million

more people who will see their industries decline as their

livelihoods disappear. If anyone thinks the Conservatives are up to

the challenge that these changes to our economy will bring, I would

remind them of this. What happened in a post-industrial towns up and

down our country, including in Leeds? All the Conservatives did

under power, under Margaret Thatcher and John Major was manage the

decline of our industries and left nothing but low-paid, low-skilled

work in its place. Ghost towns with the heart ripped out of our

communities left to rot with little opportunities. I tell you, Theresa

May, she's continuing Thatcher's legacy. There's nothing strong and

stable in creating an economy that holds people back and puts a cap on

their ambition and leaves them in job insecurity. In only Labour has

the vision to deliver a fairer Britain. Where opportunities are

available to all and prosperity is shared. The national education

service has been developed by thousands of people, thousands of

teachers and organisations who have spoken to me over the last 12 months

either by e-mail or in person, in my many visits up and down the UK. Of

course, in my own constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne. The Labour Party

has listened. You are the heart of Labour's national education service.

Offering opportunity for all to ensure nobody, be they a child,

adult or a community, is held back. This will help everyone who wants to

use education to enrich their own life and their career. Moving into

jobs with better wages and more security. Education is a central

pillar to Labour's plan to upgrade Britain's economy. Because all of

our businesses will benefit from Labour's plans too as they thrive in

a richer Britain. As Rebecca laid out earlier, productivity in Britain

remains stubbornly low compared to our competitors. The average German

worker can make everything a British one does in a week and take Fridays

off. It is no surprise that countries with high quality,

technical education, have more productive economies. Which is why

Labour will upgrade Britain's economy by ending the historic

negligent of further education. Giving teachers and facilities of

investment they need to lead the world. I will make sure the

education system is fit for the 21st Century by introducing free,

lifelong learning education in further education colleges. Labour

will abolish adult learn alones and make all adult education free at the

point of use for all those who need it. So, adults who don't have the

basic skills they need to move on and move up in life will no longer

be held back by the fear of loans. They will instead be able to return

to education whenever they need it. It will enable everyone to upskill

or retrain at any point in their life. It will correct the historic

negligent of further Education Secretarier by investments in

teachers and in our facilities. Labour will set a target for all

further education teaching staff to have teaching qualifications within

five years and we will back this up with financial support. We will

increase capital investment to equip colleges to deliver levels and an

official pre-apprenticeship training programme. Beyond lifelong learning,

we will transform the provision of apprenticeships but there must be a

focus on quality and not just quantity. Frankly, the number of

apprentice ships does not matter if they're more about poor wages than

getting a foot on the career ladder. Currently, half of all

apprenticeships are below national vocational qualification of level

two. This is simply not good enough. So, a Labour Government will shift

the emphasis from quantity to quality by doubling the number of

completed level three apprentice ships before the end of the next

Parliament. It is only by transforming our

education system that we can upgrade our economy so that nobody and no

community is left behind. And while the Tories have seen the benefits of

the economic growth go to a small number of their very wealthy,

concentrated in the south-east, Labour will share prosperity across

the country. We will ring fence ?240 million from the apprenticeship levy

to give small and medium-sized companies the support they need to

recruit and train highly skilled staff, and encourage joined up

thinking between local Government, schools and the further education

sector and businesses so that everyone, young and old, can leave

education with a valued qualification and the skills they

need to get a decent job in their local community. And we recognise

that 75% of apprenticeships are delivered by the independent

providers, and we appreciate their contribution to the sector. And yes,

we are going to ask businesses to pay a little bit more tax to fund it

all, because this is... They have an opportunity, an important part to

play in a new deal for Britain, transforming our economy. Quite

simply, we are asking good businesses to do what they have

always done and what they always do - to make long-term investments that

will yield a significant economic return. And the Labour Party and

Britain's businesses both know that we face our exit from the European

Union, that we need to upscale our workforce to tackle the challenges

that we face in the years to come, and it has never been more

important. Labour's National education service will give everyone

in Britain, no matter their age or background, the opportunities they

need to use education to transform their lives, just as it did for me.

And the businesses that help us fund it will get a highly skilled

workforce, more productive and better able to adapt to the

challenges to come. This will give them the certainty and security they

need to continue to create the jobs and wealth across Britain. There can

be no doubt that we face great challenges in the years to come.

From Brexit, to the rise of automation to the decline of

industries that will be replaced in our economy by new high-tech and

green industries. It takes a united approach of individuals and

governments at all levels and business to respond to them to

ensure that we can deliver opportunity, security and prosperity

for all. By offering everyone a properly funded school, a

high-quality technical education and support for lifelong learning that

will allow everyone to Rhys Gill, retrain and return to education as

they need to. -- to gain new skills. We want to deliver an education

service fit for the new millennium, to deliver richer lives for Britain,

and a richer Britain for us all. A National education service

delivering hope and prosperity. For the many, and not the few.

APPLAUSE And for those near the window, we

are delivering you sunburn if you don't have factor 50 on! Apologies

for the heat. We have time for some questions, and I would like to hear

from the students as well as the Prez, if I may. I have seen a

fantastic sign you have on the wall about registering to vote. Just to

remind you, and you are covered in stickers, so make sure you are

registered to vote because it is critical your voices heard in this

election. You have until the 22nd of May. We will take the questions in

rounds of three. One from the lady with a blonde hair just there,

firstly. ITV News. Angela said people are being held back by fear

of loans. There is no promise here to scrap tuition fees, and only the

very poorest students will qualify for your maintenance grants. You are

helping the few, not the many, aren't you? Next question, we will

do them in rounds of three. The gentleman with the red tie and the

stripey shirt. Will Hazel from the Times educational supplement.

Jeremy, what are your thoughts on the massive shake-up to GCSE grading

systems, which will happen this summer and I would imagine will

affect students in this room. One more. Any questions on this side? A

lady at the back in a black and white top. There is a microphone on

the way. My question is not specifically about education but

it's about children and adoption. Would you consider amending the

children's act to cater for adoptive families whose children need to live

elsewhere due to the results of their rarely trauma? Currently, this

is treated in the same way as children removed from abusive

family, which demonises the doctors. Can you explain the question a bit

more? At the moment, if adopted children cannot stay with their

adoptive families due to their attachment issues, they are removed

under a care order and the adoptive family is treated in the same way

that abusive parents are treated when the children are removed for

their own safety. OK, I see your point. Thank you. Shall I take some

of them first, and then Jeremy, you can pop up if I don't catch them? I

know, Rachel, you want to Jeremy to answer your question, but one of the

reasons why I didn't want to give too much of the manifesto I today

was the what two things I wanted to focus on. One was to reassure

parents who are frightened up and down the country that their schools

don't have the funding they need. That was first priority to me, to

say to any parent out there today that your children will have the

funding you need, because we know we are already losing teachers and

support staff, and that parents are already being asked to support

schools and give donations, so I wanted to do that. I also wanted the

focus to be on further education, because I am sick of the focus being

on higher education. Further education changed my life. I wanted

there to be a day where a politician in Paola said, you are just as

important. The rest of the tuition fees, wait for the manifesto, but

the date is about further education, lifelong learning and adult

education. That's what I wanted it to be about.

APPLAUSE Will, I think me and you are the

only people who have heard of the education shake-up and the greats

that will -- and a change to the grading that will happen in the

summer. Half of the people I talk to don't know about it. It concerns me

and I think the Government have failed. It has been systematics

since I took over this brief, because they are changing too much

and it is not evidence -based. They are not allowing changes to be

bedded in and they are not basing them on evidence. I have said,

because of my working-class roots, I wasn't a teacher, but I know from my

background that having a team of experts and listening is the best

thing you can do to provide a well rounded, brilliant team and good

policy, and this Government fails to listen to policy and fails the base

their policies on evidence, so that is the difference between us. I

think it is chaotic, what the Government has done, and I think

there is a challenge the Government still hasn't faced in terms of how

they support businesses and our students, and frankly, there will be

many students who get GCSEs results in September and will feel like

failures, and it is not their failure but the Government's.

APPLAUSE Thank you for the three questions.

Angela is right - today is about further education, the esteem with

which we hold it, and the value of colleges and the opportunity which

can develop into university education or apprenticeships. It can

develop into a whole lot of things. On the question of fees for

universities, you will have to wait for the manifesto. I know you are

desperate for it, and I have some stuff in my pocket, but sorry, I'm

not allowed to give it to you. Do you mind? Can you cope with the

excitement? I don't like to wait. I know you don't like to, but you will

have to! I am really sorry. I can tell you this: We value people who

worked really hard in our public services. We value our nurses, we

all value our nurses. We will reintroduce the nurse bursary so

nobody is prevented from taking an education and training course in a

qualification in nursing to work in our NHS. They will get a bursary to

do it under a Labour Government, OK? On the point on GCSEs, I endorse

what Angela has just said. It is difficult to explain this to

students who at this moment, and I was talking to some yesterday, are

going through the trauma of starting GCSEs, going through day after day

about very complex matrix of exams and knowing that the grading system

has been so changed that they are going to feel a bit devalued at the

end of it, so that has to be explained, it has to be explained in

the publication of the results, and it has to be explained to all future

employers and universities exactly what it means to have done your

GCSEs in 2017 compared to 2016 or any other time, because it is a very

traumatic time, and you think of all those students working really hard,

they need to be rewarded, appreciated and supported in what

they are trying to do in school in order to go one do other great

things in their lives. The points that you raised about adoption,

thank you very much for them. I fully understand that. Those that

take on adoption are doing a fantastic job for all of us, because

children that are taken into care for all kinds of reasons need to be

fully supported, not just at the age of 18 but much longer than that. If

you grew up with your biological parents, you maintain a relationship

with them for the rest of your life. Adoption is for life, so we should

be supporting the adoptive family for much longer than just the time

when the children reach early adult hood or even into their early 20s.

On the point you are making about those that have to move somewhere

else for their own safety, I fully understand that. There should be no

stigma whatsoever attached to those that have stepped up to help our

children, and I want to say now, this opportunity, thank you to all

those people around this country who do take on the very difficult job of

fostering. They are doing a huge good for all of us. And thank you

for those that go even further and become adoptive parents. Thank you

to all of them for what they do. It is rewarding for them but it is also

a very difficult time for many of them. Yes, we will look at

legislation and make sure there was no stigma attached whatsoever to it

because of circumstances way beyond the control of both the children and

the adoptive parents. Thank you for your question.

APPLAUSE Time for a few more questions. Emily

at the back. Jeremy Corbyn, just your comments on the news that has

broken in the last few minutes, from what we understand, the CPS is not

going to have any criminal prosecutions into Conservative

spending on the last election. Could we get your thoughts on that? We've

got a student, I think, at the front, in the black T-shirt. This

strays from the topic of education a bit, but it is more if if Labour

were to win the general election, will they be pushing a renewable

energy policy for the future? And a lady with glasses. Just on the topic

of the GCSEs and being changed for this year and staff, my sister is

doing then this year, and I've found out some months ago that the English

literature, when they are doing the poetry section, they are having to

memorise 15 poems, I think it was, and all the themes on them and

basically only one or two would appear in the exam, and I thought,

shouldn't the education be more an application of a concept rather than

having to memorise an entire anthology of poems or an entire

anthology of anything, really? Thank you. On the last question, about

memorising 15 poems, I can probably quote is much more than 15 poems at

you because I love poetry, but the idea that you would send a young

person into an exam having to remember 15 poems on the base is one

of them might show up on the exam paper is going to put them off

poetry for the rest of their lives. And that is not what we want to

achieve. APPLAUSE

I want people to love poetry and be inspired by it, not put off it. What

is your favourite poem? I can't remember any of them. Take a poetry

after the exams. John Cooper Clarke, he is good. Yes, John Cooper Clarke

or John Lennon. The question of renewable energy, it will be in the

manifesto what the figures are. What I can say is that the two leadership

campaigns that I ran for in the Labour Party, I made it very clear

that I want to move the balance much more towards renewable energy in

this country. We have moved some way towards that with the development of

onshore and offshore wind farms, solar generation and tidal barrage

schemes, such as the one in Swansea and others that are being

considered. We could achieve more than half, possibly as much as two

thirds coming from renewable sources. It is a huge job creator. I

was in Northumbria recently where there is the development by Arch

which had a local and owned company of the former coal-fired power

station which is being used as a dock plays in order to take the wind

turbines out there is a huge enterprise going on there. A lot of

jobs being created. I'm very committed to much more sustainable

energy and when buildings are constructed, look around this city

and all other cities in this country, if we had a planning

requirement of solar powered cells in the rooms as well as solar power

is -- panels in the city, it all adds up. It is an attitude of mind.

I'm very keen to put it forward. On the question of the CPS, I have only

just heard that news. I'm interested and surprised by it, but we have got

to look at the details of it. Quite clearly, the Electoral Commission is

independent. Crown Prosecution Service is independent, director of

public prosecution is independent, they have to make a judgment on it.

Our electoral laws must be adhered to. There are strict spending limits

for a reason, so that money can't buy power, only votes in the ballot

box can and that is why I want you all to register your vote. I'm

afraid that is it for questions. Angela want to do answer. What was

loaded in the poetry question for me and what is really devastating about

what the Government has done for the curriculum is they have choked out

the love of learning. That is what the day is about for me, bringing

that back. The passion of lifelong learning. I didn't enjoy school. I

felt education was something that was dumb to me, when I got older, I

love finding out new facts. If all we do is feed people for a test, we

really don't get the best out of people and you don't get that love

of learning and lifelong learning. We will do things differently. Watch

out for our manifesto. We want people to love learning not be

concerned by it. Because we all learn all of our lives. That is what

Angela is proposing, lifelong learning, cradle to grave. You don't

ever stop being a student. It just remains for me to say thank you to

everybody for coming today. I know it has been a bit warm in the room

so go out now and enjoy the sunshine. Thank you to Leeds city

College for hosting today's event. I have to say it is very apt that we

are launching a visionary educational policy going forward in

a place that I understand used to be the home of monopoly, they used to

manufacture the Monopoly board. A home of leading industry, a home of

education provision. It hosts a leading educational visit down like

vision for the future. Thank you very much.