Mansfield MP determined to see more young talent unlocked in the town

The Prime Minister has rightly said before that talent is spread evenly across the country, but unfortunately opportunity is not.

Our main focus last week was how we unlock the talent in areas like Mansfield to improve social mobility and level up our area.

The debate was incredibly positive, including local experts from our schools, colleges and universities, as well as the youth sector, and students too.

We met local business owners and residents to talk about our town centre and the regeneration priorities, and we visited Mansfield Town FC to talk about football in the community and how the club plays a major role in the life of the town as a whole.

As you may know, skills and education is a major area of focus for me in Parliament, and I think it’s a key part of ‘levelling up’ too.

We can (and will) invest financially in improving infrastructure and the town centre, but we also need to invest in local people to offer the opportunity to improve their skills, to retrain in new sectors of work, and to access better, higher paid jobs.

I’ve said before that I feel like politicians are often guilty of imposing their own aspirations on to young people who don’t necessarily share them, and the idea that 50 per cent of all kids have to go to university is a reflection of that.

Young people are not all the same, their talents are different, their goals are different, and so we should give them lots of high quality options.

To make a massive change, I’d love to see us trust our teachers and education providers more to make the right decisions for each child.

Schools and teachers are in the best position to understand a child’s passions and strengths, so if each young person in Mansfield is to reach their potential, we need to work with those who are best placed to understand what that potential is.

The whole day and debate will form part of a documentary that I look forward to sharing with you in the coming weeks.

Ben Bradley is MP for Mansfield.