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.
Esther McVey
Labour's disastrous legacy and the Conservative success did not happen by accident: it was about the choices each party made, choices that impact on everyone.
Everyone deserves the chance to make their own choices. The first step on this pathway is experiencing the working world.
What you've seen from the 1980s, particularly in this country, is far fewer people doing Saturday jobs and doing jobs after school.
We know that children living in a household with someone in work do better in school, have better educational attainment, and are more likely to have a job later in life than children growing up in a home where no one works.
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.
Success isn't anything to do with being lucky. It's knowing what you want, taking the necessary action, and believing you can achieve anything you set your mind to.
The people I believed in were people like William Lever, the great philanthropic industrialist - self-made men who realised anyone could achieve.
Not only does work experience provide the opportunity to sample a potential career, but it also builds the essential skills often regarded as 'soft skills' that are needed to thrive in work.
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.
For too long, people have had to neutralise or lose their accent out of fear of prejudicial treatment or to fit in. This has then led to a lack of regional accents, which has allowed this lazy stereotyping and prejudicial attitudes to prevail.
If people are coming into the country to add an extra dimension, to bring skills and expertise with them, we have always been open to that.
I come from a background where people have had their own business, where it has been incredibly tough for a long period of time, and you are only as good as the last contract you have got, as the last job you have done, where the notion of a precarious existence does exist, as it does for a lot of people.
People shouldn't have to lose their accents to get a fair crack at the whip at a job or move up within a sector or industry.
When I speak to young people around the country, I'm impressed with the confidence and self-assuredness with which they look to the future and the range of options they consider beyond traditional routes.
I believe most people in their life will fall upon tough times at some point.
Universal Credit claimants who refuse to accept a zero hours contract job offer, without good reason, can be subject to a sanction.
We have seen a shift in the focus of education before entering the workplace, with earning and learning the new norm.
I, for one, want to make sure we give every young person the chance to find the fuel for their confidence, something that will power their ambition.
People no longer have one job for life, so it is right that younger generations adapt.
Work experience for many is their first taste of work and an essential first step into the jobs market.
Growing up with a bold feminist in my mother, I witnessed her march magnificently from mini to maxi, fashions so obviously linked to powerful statements of female progression, equality and recognition. I knew no other than freedom of expression in all the forms it came in; art, theatre, fashion, literature and music.
What does a teacher do in a school? A teacher would tell you off or give you lines or whatever it is, detentions, but at the same times, they are wanting your best interests at heart. They are teaching you, they are educating you, but at the same time, they will also have the ability to sanction you.
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.
There is a whole host of people that have got an accent like mine, whether they're from Merseyside or Wales or the North West.
When we cannot find enough extra money for policing, yet we are having huge sums to other countries in aid, it is time to start a serious conversation.
David Cameron, and before him Iain Duncan Smith, went out of their way to attract women into the party. Yes, we need to sell politics to more women, but quotas are not the way forward. You set a quota, what is the right quota? What is the wrong quota?
To think that we are all the same and going to follow the same journey, that is wrong. We are going to support and liberate people, to give people as many opportunities to succeed as possible without being prescriptive.
Politicians themselves, every one of us, has a responsibility to make sure that we send out a message that it is a good place to work, that it is positive, that you are transforming people's lives.
Life is not a theoretical problem to be solved in class.
Politics has to be a place where women want to go.
We never have been closed to immigration.
Lifelong learning is becoming commonplace, with people studying at different times when they see the benefits of doing so.
If feminism was a dress, it would be that essential little black number, reached for in times of need; different for everyone but a steady constant in a woman's life. Outspoken or understated, demure or provocative, worn to reflect the mood, the personality, the time.
My dissertation focused on the character traits and personality types of successful women.
I work with a host of amazing women who act as role models, who give their spare time freely to encourage these girls to give things a go, to reach out and take a chance and to explain that should they fail, well that's just a part of life.
It is only by giving people the tools to empower themselves will they be able to achieve their potential.
Every Labour government has left office with higher unemployment than when it entered.
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.
Top performers in their fields such as Debbie Moore, Jean-Christophe Novelli, Deborah Meaden and Jo Malone, did not go to university and are just a handful of the individuals who show that with drive and determination, you can succeed by treading your own path.
Life teaches you it's not where you come from, it's where you get to, and work is exactly the same.
We all have dreams, whether it be about success in our careers, improving our relationship with family and friends, or sorting out our finances.
The government should only have one voice so the country knows what we stand for, so the world knows what we stand for.
If that is your route, to go to university and get a job that way, that is fantastic.
That is what we should be doing: liberating everyone's potential, whether it's a self-made individual, whether it's someone taking the university route, whether it's the apprenticeship route. They are all equal and good and worthwhile.
My friends have always known there was this more serious side to me, and all my life, I've had Conservative values.
I have had long relationships but have never married.
The behaviour of several male politicians against me has never been condemned by Ed Miliband, or the Labour Party, and it needs to be because in the end, it will have a long-term corrosive effect for politics full stop and for young girls who want to go into politics.
Sometimes, for girls, it's about building confidence and giving them a can-do attitude. It's seeing role models, people like yourselves, doing those jobs and achieving them, just to say, 'I can do that.'
