Lord Digby Jones speaks to Stourbridge Conservative Business Group about the need for wealth creation
11th February 2010
Lord Digby Jones spoke at a lunch for the Stourbridge Conservative Business Group this week and called for a shift in public policy towards the creation of wealth.
Lord Jones talked about his time in government, surrounded by colleagues and officials with no experience of life outside Whitehall and Westminster. The ‘bubble’ that removes politicians and those who run the country was a danger to policy making he said.
Lord Jones drew attention to the scandal of 50 per cent of children, leaving school unable to read and write properly after eleven years of free education; referring to the fact that 50% of children do not even attain the basic qualifications of five GCSEs at grade C or above.
He also criticised the government’s target of getting 50% of school leavers into Universities. There should be a greater emphasis on apprenticeships and vocational qualifications and young people should not be made to feel inferior if they were not among the 50% who were targeted to receive a university education.
Lord Jones, who was born in Birmingham and went to Bromsgrove School, expressed great concern at unemployment in the West Midlands which had increased faster than any other region. Unemployment together with one of the lowest skills bases in the country here in the Black Country was a risk to our growth as a region. He made the case for bringing back capital allowances for small to medium sized enterprises and policies to stimulate exports.
Margot James, Parliamentary Candidate for Stourbridge said “Lord Jones talked sense about the needs of our region, one of George Osborne’s benchmarks for the success of Conservative economic policy in practice is the creation of a more balanced economy which is less dependent on financial services; there is still a manufacturing and high tech business base in Stourbridge and the Black Country and this vital sector the will receive support from a future Conservative Government”.
Photos: Lord Digby Jones speaks to Stourbridge Conservative Business Group about the need for wealth creation.
