Education questions January 2026: Live blog Follow live updates as Bridget Phillipson and her education ministers take questions from MPs in the House of Commons
Apprentice minimum wage to rise to £8 New hourly rate will apply from April 2026, chancellor set to announce at tomorrow’s budget
FE is no longer Cinderella, it’s the government’s Fairy Godmother The post-16 white paper shows that even fairy dust can’t hide the lack of a clear purpose behind yet another wave of reform
Badenoch: I’ll double apprenticeships budget by slashing uni degrees Leader of the opposition would reintroduce student number controls for ‘poor quality’ uni courses to fund apprenticeship boost
Starmer swerves a deadline for headline ‘two-thirds’ target ‘If there’s no date for people to work towards, then it’s just a vague aspiration’, says ex-SpAd
Skills policy just moved house, and the neighbourhood matters Every department brings its own instincts. In the DWP, skills will be filtered through a jobs lens. That could mean welcome alignment with growth – or the slow erosion of training as a route to better work
Skills are the missing piece in our fight against wasted potential One in eight young people are not in education, employment or training. The answer lies in more training in skills that lead directly to work
DWP will take over apprenticeships, minister confirms Shifting adult skills and apprenticeships policy will give “bigger emphasis on skills”, Jacqui Smith claims
Reform plots a political tsunami, but skills policy is lost at sea Farage’s turquoise tide: The insurgent party’s supporters want to fix ‘broken Britain’, insisting that trades and industrial automation are the key