Question Time with Andy Burnham
On Monday 23rd January ’17 we had the pleasure of welcoming Andy Burnham to college.
A Labour Party politician, Andy Burnham has served as Leigh’s MP since 2001 and is Labour’s nominee to be the first elected Mayor of Greater Manchester in the May 2017 mayoral election. Since 2005 his parliamentary career has seen him hold a number of parliamentary posts in government such as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Chief Secretary to the Treasury and more recently in opposition, Shadow Home Secretary, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Shadow Secretary of State (Education and Election Co-ordinatior).
Andy kindly came into Aquinas to answer questions from LVI and UVI students on a variety of issues. He spent an hour and a half with our students talking about his campaign to become Greater Manchester’s first Mayor and answering questions on a variety of local issues including bus travel passes, regulation of transport, building on the greenbelt and social care.
Our Principal, Danny Pearson, and Will Dawson, Head of Government & Politics, met Andy on arrival and after the event Will commented, “nothing was off limits and more than 150 students who came to listen to him are very grateful to Andy for his generosity with his time (including 20 minutes of selfies after!).”
Danny commented, “thank you to everyone involved in the Question Time with Andy Burnham. It went extremely well. He was very generous with his time and I am delighted our students made it happen. They seem to have gained so much from Andy’s and Lord Stunell’s visits.”
As with Lord Stunell’s recent visit this was part of a programme of speakers put together by U6 student Amy Clarke, an active Student Council member.
We are very fortunate to have such an engaged and active Student Council and as you can see from their Twitter feed I think they enjoyed Andy’s visit.
Many thanks Andy.