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Education and Skills Bill

Instead of looking at Sheffield MPs in 1916, when there was a very different age of majority in very different circumstances, perhaps we should look at—perhaps the Secretary of State should be looking over his shoulder at—some of the Members who represent Sheffield today. I am advised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Stephen Williams), who is right about most of these things, that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) represents a constituency with one of the lowest participation rates between the ages of 16 and 18 of any constituency in England. As the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) noted, the right hon. Gentleman said, not 100 years ago or in 1916 but last November,"““We need to look at why””" these young people"““drop out; why they're truant; why they find the traditional education system unacceptable””—" the hon. Member for Surrey Heath missed out that bit of the quote. He went on to say that"““the idea that deeply damaged young men and women could somehow be fined and it would make them go into education or training””" was"““cloud cuckoo land””."