My friends have always known there was this more serious side to me, and all my life, I've had Conservative values.
— Esther McVey
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.
We all have dreams, whether it be about success in our careers, improving our relationship with family and friends, or sorting out our finances.
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.
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.
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.
Work experience for many is their first taste of work and an essential first step into the jobs market.
We have seen a shift in the focus of education before entering the workplace, with earning and learning the new norm.
My dissertation focused on the character traits and personality types of successful women.
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.
If that is your route, to go to university and get a job that way, that is fantastic.
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.
Life teaches you it's not where you come from, it's where you get to, and work is exactly the same.
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.
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.
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.
Lifelong learning is becoming commonplace, with people studying at different times when they see the benefits of doing so.
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.
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.
The government should only have one voice so the country knows what we stand for, so the world knows what we stand for.
Universal Credit claimants who refuse to accept a zero hours contract job offer, without good reason, can be subject to a sanction.
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.
Every Labour government has left office with higher unemployment than when it entered.
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.
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.
It is only by giving people the tools to empower themselves will they be able to achieve their potential.
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.
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.
