Plymouth Sutton MP Linda Gilroy returns to Parliament today after the Summer Recess determined to put skills and enterprise on the top of her agenda for the forthcoming session.

Linda spent much of the summer working in Plymouth, meeting with key institutions, such as the City Development Company and University, together with major employers and the small business community. 
Linda Gilroy MP said:  “From meetings I have held over the summer, a clear consensus is emerging that the development of a skilled workforce is particularly crucial to Plymouth’s future”.

“Plymouth has ambitious plans for expansion. We need to attract a range of secure and well paid jobs. In turn, we need to ensure that the local community can provide the necessary skills”. 

“The Prime Minister has talked about the key challenge today being the skills race, just as the arms race was in the last century. I agree and was pleased to see this feature strongly in the City Development Company’s work plan which was presented just ten days ago. If Britain is to thrive in the international community – and meet the challenge presented by the rise of China, India and the Far Eastern economies - then the Government, the education system and private sector need to work together to ensure people are better educated, better trained and better skilled”.

“When we return to Westminster I shall be adding this issue to my other priorities for Plymouth:-  affordable housing; tackling our unfair water and fuel bills; defence and the dockyard; marine science, more investment in our schools and hospitals, climate change and the environment; and making our communities safe and pleasant places to live in”.

In addition to meeting with the business community over the summer, Linda also attended the Reserves Mobilisation Training Centre at Chilwell as part of the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme. Here she received training necessary to visit service personnel in operational theatres. It was also an opportunity to meet with reservists who are shortly to deploy and to hear about the particular challenges they face.

6 October 2008