Ed Balls MP - Keynote Speech at Progress Annual Conference

On Saturday, I attended the Progress Annual Conference. Progress 'seek to promote open debate and discussion of progressive ideas and policies.' The overall subject of the conference was 'Towards the General Election: How can Labour win?'

The first speech of the day was by Rt Hon Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

His speech covered the NHS, reiterating the idea of a clear remit not just to treat ill health, but to prevent it. He spoke of an NHS that is more personalised and more focussed on the needs of individuals.

Of education, he had both good news and bad news. There were the best ever results at KS2, GCSE, A-Level this year, but the UK is still one of the lowest developed countries for children staying on post 16. Part of his solutions was that for 14-19 year olds, we need to break out of vocational qualifications being seen as second to academic qualifications.

One of the questions he was asked was a concern about whether the break of up of the previous Department for Education and Skills, had led to a weakening of education policy. He responded that we now actually have 2 education secretaries - John Denham for Adult Skills and Universities, and Ed Balls for education up to 19.