The Government has published its final Bill to introduce top-up fees. This Bill, which Labour MP Candy Atherton intends to support, will force students into further debt.

All of this could be avoided if the Government dropped its idealogical requirement that 50 per cent of school-leavers should go to university and instead concentrated on providing more vocational training places for people to get good jobs.

Students who need to go to university to get the jobs they want should be able to go based on their ability to learn, not their ability to pay: that is why the Conservatives oppose top-up fees. Just as important, however, is proper funding for vocational training so that the vast majority of people who do not need to go to university to get the job they want get a fair share of funds.

There is a need for high-quality skilled vocational training if we are to attract companies like Quaife Engineering and build on the CPR regeneration plans. What we should be doing is working with local firms to establish more vocational training places.

The Conservatives are committed to the proper funding of vocational training and scrapping the false 50% university admissions target. Our challenge to Labour's Candy Atherton MP is to stop supporting Tony Blair and join the local Conservatives in concentrating on what will really help her constituents.

Ashley Crossley, Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Falmouth and Camborne Constituency.