Esther McVey

My dad started off in scrap metal, real men doing men's jobs.

If your route is that you are practically minded, and that is what presses your button, and you do an apprenticeship and you get a job that way, that is fantastic.

If that is your route, to go to university and get a job that way, that is fantastic.

Universal Credit claimants who refuse to accept a zero hours contract job offer, without good reason, can be subject to a sanction.

This is how I am. I'm happy with my friends, my family, my job.

Politics has to be a place where women want to go.

Has my accent held me back? I don't believe it has at all. I think it can be a colourful accent.

Outside Westminster, political debate must seem like white noise that bears little relevance to people's everyday lives. But political choices made by the governments we elect have a real impact on how we live.

Only three per cent of people are born with a disability; the rest acquire it through accident or illness, but people come out of it. Thanks to medical advances, bodies heal.

I'm forever being told, and intrinsically understand, that people want to study at different times in their lives, often inspired to do so when they see the practical benefits of their studies.

Part of the Brexit debate was about control, having a say over our laws and money and letting politicians stand up for what the people voted for, not signing away our sovereignty.

Labour parades compassion for the poor, but it practised casual cruelty by consigning millions to benefits. Yet there's nothing compassionate about being trapped on benefits, being robbed of the dignity of work, and shut out from the choices that brings.