11:01 Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)

The challenge is as significant in its own way as that of climate change, and I argue that, like climate change, it should be included in school curricula. Putting an agriculture GCSE on the curriculum would also widen opportunities for students, by giving them the option to learn about a sector that relatively few of them will have knowledge of, or have considered as a career choice. The majority of farms are family businesses, mine being no exception, and the routes to getting involved if someone is not directly from a farming background can, sadly, be quite limited. That is to the detriment of both the sector and school leavers, who are restricted in their ability to get a taste of a sector in which they could well thrive.

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11:22 The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)

In geography, for instance, pupils are expected to learn about changing weather, climate change, global ecosystems, biodiversity and resources, including an overview of how humans use, modify and change those ecosystems and environments in order to obtain food, energy and water. In the nutrition GCSE, pupils are required to understand the economic, environmental and socio-cultural influences on food availability. That is quite important. There is also content in some of the science GCSEs. I suspect that that will not be enough to satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer, or indeed my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire, who spoke with his usual passion, but material in the core reformed subjects provides a general background, which forms an important grounding in some of the knowledge needed to go on and run a business.

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