Cryer in a crisis

MP for Hornchurch and former Tribune journalist, John Cryer, has taken great pains to bring the crisis in further education to the top of the Government's agenda.

Last Friday he managed to rally three colleagues, including education minister Kim Howells, to a House of Commons adjournment debate on the state of further education.

There he launched into a lengthy speech, lamenting the "creeping casualisation" of the workforce, attacking "gross underfunding" and the "massive, overweening powers" of principals.

After ten minutes of polemic, he climaxed: "I want some sort of national inquiry into further education, along the lines of the Dearing report," he demanded.

"Although I shall bear in mind the fact that my hon. friend the minister told me yesterday that Helena Kennedy QC is to report on further education next Wednesday."