Downing Street Says » PM’s CBI Speech

The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister would be addressing the CBI at an event in Birmingham this evening. The speech would dovetail in with today’s Tomlinson report. The Prime Minister would underline the importance of manufacturing to this country, pointing out that British industry produced a third more today than it did twenty years ago and that productivity had gone up by a quarter compared with seven years ago. He would say that what our success stories had in common was that they were about the appliance of science and technology with highly skilled people. That was why it was necessary to have an exam qualifications system which equipped all our young people with the basic and more advanced skills they needed. He would say, “The purpose of reform will be to improve upon the existing system, not replace it. As Mike Tomlinson and Charles Clarke say, GCSEs and A-levels will stay. So will externally marked exams. Reform will strengthen the existing system where it isn’t adequate. There will be greater challenge at the top for those on track for higher education. There will be a sharper focus on the basics of literacy, numeracy and ICT. And there will also be improved vocational provision”. The Prime Minister would say that present system on vocational training was ad hoc with insufficient emphasis on English and maths, which was why he welcomed Tomlinson’s focus on providing clear vocational pathways.

Asked to clarify the Prime Minister’s point about Britain’s success stories, the PMOS said that Prime Minister would underline the fact that manufacturing in Britain was working, but that there was more to do in terms of improving our education system and keeping up to date with global challenges. He would also talk about the role of regulation both in Europe and in the UK and would refer to his meeting last week with President-elect Barroso of the European Commission.

1 Comment »

Britains success stories…….. would this involve foreign companies buying, splitting up, selling off, and laying off staff of british companies be classed as a success then ?
Even then, most af the components are made overseas and shipped here for assembly. Maybe we should think about contracting out the the government to cut make it more efficient…..
Comment by tony — 19 Oct 2004 on 11:33 pm | Link

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Monday, October 18, 2004

PM’s CBI Speech

1 Comment »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries