Northern Ireland

On education, if the Assembly can reach a cross-party consensus that seeks to change in some fundamental or other way what the Government are doing, I will obviously have to listen to it. I must return a question to the hon. Gentleman: will he get involved in the serious process of beginning to build trust and share government? Without giving offence to anybody, it sometimes seems that the political debate in Northern Ireland is conducted as though the world is standing still. I have just returned from India on a trade mission for Northern Ireland. We see big companies in India, such as the Tata Group, recruiting 6,000 graduates a month in order to drive forward their competitiveness. Northern Ireland cannot stand still. In particular, we cannot stand still with an unreformed education system that palpably fails at least a third of its children. We must have reforms to have high skills for everybody. That is what the debate is about.