This week MP Neil Carmichael discusses the new team in charge of education policy

JUSTINE Greening MP has been appointed as the new education secretary, replacing Nicky Morgan in the first cabinet reshuffle of this new government.

Commentators have noted she is the first education secretary to attend a comprehensive secondary school, Oakwood School in Rotherham.

The Department of Education has also been reshaped. Four years ago, I proposed a reform of it to provide for all levels of education to be covered by one department.

This has now happened – so the Education Select Committee, which I chair now, covers early years to universities and beyond.

Our departure from the EU will bring new urgency to the challenge about how we equip our young people with the skills the UK needs to survive and prosper in the world; a challenge we struggled with both before, during and now after our membership of the EU.

As Sir Michael Wilshaw recently identified, both government and business will surely have to learn to rely less on foreign workers to plug existing skills gaps and much more on upskilling our own population.

I spoke at many universities across the country during the referendum campaign. As we now know, 73 per cent of 18-24-year-old’s voted to remain. The opportunities to work, study and travel across the breadth of the enlarged EU are huge achievements which only this generation have known – and ones that students and young people often cited for our continued membership of a reformed EU. They are rightly concerned about what their future now holds.

More than 200,000 students and 20,000 staff have benefited from study abroad through Erasmus work and study placements – which is the biggest source of funding for study abroad. In fact it has been a UK government priority to increase the numbers of UK students gaining international experience, and students who have pursued such experience have been shown to be more likely to start their own business, driving the skilled employment and increased productivity of the UK economy that we need to see to succeed in the global marketplace. Likewise EU students studying in the UK are estimated to contribute more than £2 billion to the UK economy and support 19,000 British jobs in the local communities. Maintaining these links and opportunities is going to be of huge importance to a Brexit Britain.

None of us should want to see a return to the divided Europe before 1989-90. This is neither in the interests of the EU or a Brexit Britain, which wants to continue to make its way in the world.

Adjusting to Brexit represents a huge challenge for our universities – and indeed all institutions in 16-19 education. The Education Select Committee’s priority over the next year is to work with universities and FE colleges to overcome this challenge and ensure they can continue to turn out the properly educated people our industries will need to compete in this new world they will face.