Nadhim Zahawi transcript
00;01;46;11 - 00;01;49;20
Jimmy McLoughlin
Nadhim Welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future.
00;01;50;00 - 00;01;51;06
Nadhim Zahawi
Thank you very much. Great to see you.
00;01;51;15 - 00;01;54;29
Jimmy McLoughlin
So tell us what the role of education Secretary involves.
00;01;55;27 - 00;02;25;16
Nadhim Zahawi
So this is my third stint in the department. I was here in the coalition government as the apprenticeship Tsar. We had lots of Tsars those days when the Prime Minister, David Cameron, couldn't find you a slot as a minister. He tried to find you something to do. Actually, it was a real job, to be fair. I walked into this building and Nick Boles was skills minister and he said, you know, I've done the thinking, the policy making, you now implement the apprenticeship levy and the new standards.
00;02;25;16 - 00;02;48;26
Nadhim Zahawi
So we raised the standards and the sort of the golden thread which actually carries on now is you can't really have a skills landscape without the qualifications being designed, co-designed by industry, by different sectors, because in a dynamic economy where sectors get crushed and reborn in double time, it would be foolhardy at best.
00;02;49;01 - 00;02;49;08
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;02;49;13 - 00;03;16;28
Nadhim Zahawi
For any minister to think they could design it without actually the industry the sectors doing that. I was returned here as the Children & Families Minister by Theresa May, which I loved, I thought was probably the I describe it as the most important portfolio in the department, if not in government, because it's looked after children, social care, special educational needs and disabilities, really important work.
00;03;16;28 - 00;03;33;28
Nadhim Zahawi
And we can talk a bit more about it now as Secretary of State. So what is my role? My role, I think is very much to focus the department. This is a great department. I walked in here and I said it's a privilege to be part of the leadership of this department. Why? Because it's full of talented people.
00;03;34;03 - 00;03;43;02
Nadhim Zahawi
Now, I'm sure other departments would say they've got as talented people in it. The Treasury's got lots of talented people. But I bet you they don't have people who are as passionate.
00;03;43;08 - 00;03;43;16
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;03;43;24 - 00;04;07;21
Nadhim Zahawi
And not just this building but around the country in Darlington and Sheffield and elsewhere, Coventry and in all our hubs. Why? Because you don't go into education if you don't really get it, aren’t passionate. And so that combination actually of passion and talent is great for any leader. What are you going to do is focus. All right.
00;04;07;21 - 00;04;29;03
Nadhim Zahawi
So what I try to do is focus the department. My mantra, we all fall back on our own successes and failures. Life experiences is: don't try hug the world, do a few things and do them well. And actually, once you do them well, people begin to believe you. And actually, when they begin to believe, then you can do more.
00;04;29;20 - 00;04;58;02
Nadhim Zahawi
And so it's skills, schools, family. So focus the department, deliver in those three areas. And we can talk about each one of those in turn. Then I would have done something truly great because, you know, I always talk about my own back story. Yeah. Of a child arriving here at the age of 11 as an immigrant and not speaking a word of English, but having a mother who understood the value of education.
00;04;58;21 - 00;05;19;14
Nadhim Zahawi
And I want the system to work for every child, you know, wherever they live, whatever their postcode, the right time, the right place for them to be in a classroom with a great teacher in front of them. And get that same opportunity. I don't believe that a child in Knowsley is less talented than a child in Kensington. They just don't have the opportunity.
00;05;19;14 - 00;05;28;19
Nadhim Zahawi
They don't have the school or the teacher. Some schools are clearly on an improvement journey, but I think we can do much better on that. Yeah. And so it's exciting.
00;05;28;25 - 00;05;47;16
Jimmy McLoughlin
And it's also about the skills and family bit because I think, you know, people perceive kind of education secretary as running the schools, particularly exams with everything that's happened in the last couple of years with the pandemic. So I think that's quite well understood. But like it is education and education is becoming a lifelong thing.
00;05;47;16 - 00;06;06;28
Jimmy McLoughlin
And you talk there in your kind of opening remarks about partnering with business much more because, you know, people are going to work for 50 years now. So it's really hard actually to plan in 2022 to what skills somebody is going to need in 2060. Right like it's as you say almost foolhardy.
00;06;06;28 - 00;06;10;23
Jimmy McLoughlin
So talk us through the priority area of skills and what that may be.
00;06;10;29 - 00;06;41;14
Nadhim Zahawi
Absolutely. So couple things. One, I think in my first week in the department I was invited by the CBI to address they did a big business dinner and I stood up, I said you know friends you many of you know me because of my business background before entering politics, I run an economic department and I tell you why, because actually the most valuable resource on this earth is not hydrocarbons.
00;06;41;20 - 00;07;21;03
Nadhim Zahawi
It's not precious metals. It is human capital. Right. And my department is in the business of producing, you know, great human beings that are well, adults that have high quality skills that can benefit your sector. Or your business. And that's the journey we're on. We began that journey in the coalition government. I just talked to you about the skills, the apprenticeships are the golden thread throughout - the strategy is that businesses have to be embedded in the creation of the qualifications and the, what I would call the skills landscape in our country.
00;07;22;20 - 00;07;41;11
Nadhim Zahawi
So what do I mean by that? I got here and the skills bill was making its way through Parliament Her Majesty, the Queen gave a royal assent to the bill last week. It means now we have a school in the next chapter. It's probably next book and there's one more book to go.
00;07;41;12 - 00;07;41;23
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;07;42;28 - 00;07;54;01
Nadhim Zahawi
Which is essentially you're taking the journey of what we did with apprenticeships into other runways for people's careers to take off on. Now what do I mean by that?
00;07;54;14 - 00;08;28;20
Nadhim Zahawi
T levels were actually the brainchild of a Labor minister in David Sainsbury. They'll say, yeah, but you know, clearly a really good idea that we need to implement to scale up. And so my big focus on skills is to scale up these. What is a T level. It's a fusion between an apprenticeship and an A-level. So you can take a T level now in digital and go work in Microsoft or an SME in digital.
00;08;28;20 - 00;08;52;08
Nadhim Zahawi
You could take it to a level in construction and go work in the industry and we're gonna launch more T levels. You can take a level and go and do an apprenticeship degree. Yeah. So you can take a T level and go and do a traditional degree. There's now I think 70 universities that will take T level. I hope by the end of this Parliament, we've got about six and a half thousand T levels today, to have 80 plus thousand.
00;08;52;14 - 00;09;34;15
Nadhim Zahawi
Yeah, that's when you begin to get real scale and scale is hard whether in the private sector or the public sector, but that's real scale. Yeah. Now the really exciting bit now this is really exciting, but the really, really exciting bit is and if you told me back in a coalition government that there will come a Prime Minister that will convince the Treasury to stand behind any adult at any time in their career, in their life, if they want to upskill or reskill, retrain, you know, if you're in if you're in Aberdeen Oil and Gas and you think you have an opportunity in in the Northeast, in offshore wind, we'll stand behind you to the
00;09;34;15 - 00;09;53;17
Nadhim Zahawi
equivalent of £37,000 yeah. You can take it as a whole four years of post 18 education or in modules right I would have bitten you arm off back in the coalition government this prime minister has done it we're building it it's called the lifelong learning entitlement. I promise you I'm going to come up with a better brand than that.
00;09;54;10 - 00;10;17;08
Nadhim Zahawi
I came up with the name YouGov so I'll come up with a better brand. But it is truly, I think, a revolution in skills.Why? Because in a dynamic economy, right? When sectors are changing so rapidly. Yes. Right. You need people to have the ability to say, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to do something different on that.
00;10;17;09 - 00;10;22;24
Nadhim Zahawi
You know, I'm going to train, retrain and do something else with my life and we're going to stand behind you.
00;10;23;03 - 00;10;39;26
Jimmy McLoughlin
And on that kind of like branding language point. So like doing the research. Yeah, we've known each other for over ten years, but it was interesting researching it because sometimes you get familiar with people and you kind of forget their stories a little bit. Like, I didn't realize that when you came here from Iraq You couldn't speak a word of English.
00;10;39;26 - 00;10;57;25
Jimmy McLoughlin
Right? And actually, like, trying to read the telegraph was a nightmare. And you started by reading The Sun, and I just and part of me for about that and actually like some of the language that we use around this stuff, like tertiary and, and even skills to a degree, does that kind of relate to the common man and woman on the street?
00;10;57;25 - 00;11;06;16
Jimmy McLoughlin
I'm not sure is does so that: the skills, the 37 thousand, is an amazing thing. But how do you how do you get out and communicate that that's an opportunity for people?
00;11;06;22 - 00;11;12;26
Nadhim Zahawi
You know, this is why, you know, I obsess about saying I want to make T levels as famous as A levels.
00;11;12;29 - 00;11;13;10
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;11;13;15 - 00;11;43;18
Nadhim Zahawi
In many ways actually T levels as a brand is quite an easy brand to communicate. You have different paths. You can go to work, you can go to university, can go to an apprenticeship degree or higher apprenticeship. But you're right, one of the things when I was the apprenticeship Tsar back in coalition government, when we're looking at the apprenticeship landscape and looking what other countries did and who does it really well, and we looked at Germany and Switzerland, what you very quickly discover is a couple of nuggets.
00;11;43;22 - 00;12;06;02
Nadhim Zahawi
The first is the stability of the system. This system has been around and stable for decades in those countries. So everybody understands that. You know, the cab driver taking me from the airport will describe to me how proud he is that his daughter is on a Siemen’s apprenticeship and can describe the process of how she applied, how it worked in that country because of that stability.
00;12;06;11 - 00;12;31;17
Nadhim Zahawi
The other thing is, you know, we have something like 12,000 qualifications, a level three and below right. Our competitors, Germany, Switzerland, we've got probably about 400 to 500. So we have a very complex system. You know, I sometimes sort of joke with my officials I say you need a Ph.D. just to understand the skill system and how to navigate it.
00;12;31;18 - 00;12;31;27
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;12;32;06 - 00;12;47;10
Nadhim Zahawi
And part of that actually, because we've been so successful in our higher education sectors, you take universities: in this country we are world class.
00;12;47;10 - 00;12;47;19
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;12;47;27 - 00;13;03;10
Nadhim Zahawi
Right. If you think about what we have been able to design, it's taken us in some case 700 years with some of the Oxbridge colleges. Yeah. But nevertheless, the product, right has been embedded in the culture of this country.
00;13;03;10 - 00;13;03;19
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;13;03;23 - 00;13;24;26
Nadhim Zahawi
For hundreds of years. So parents understand that, you know, your son or daughter in my case I did O-levels and then you do your A-levels and then you go to uni yeah. That's, that's a fantastic thing. Out of every four international students in the world, America gets two, we take one and the rest of the world shares 1.
00;13;24;26 - 00;13;58;05
Nadhim Zahawi
We really do punch way above our weight in terms of our university education. But if truth be told, if that product is so dominant and part of sort of the Blair obsession with so many people having, you know, 50% have to go to university. Yeah. Hand on heart. I would say to you, there'd be some vice chancellors who'd say some of their courses weren't designed to deliver a great skill or great career path for that student, but were probably designed to take advantage of the system the £9,250 a year that you get from it.
00;13;58;05 - 00;14;05;01
Nadhim Zahawi
And that's what we're working to sort of move away from to say actually there are other runways for your career to take off on.
00;14;05;06 - 00;14;05;15
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;14;05;21 - 00;14;28;26
Nadhim Zahawi
Have you looked at these other runways? But you're right, the challenge and it remains a challenge and I haven't got the full answer for it is how do I create products that can sit along with what is a really well-established product. Yeah. That is equally stretching and aspirational and that, you know, that punch the air moment of breakfast when you get the T level envelope, you know, is what I want to get to in the way you get the A-level envelope.
00;14;30;01 - 00;14;32;01
Nadhim Zahawi
You know, in in past years, I.
00;14;32;01 - 00;14;56;21
Jimmy McLoughlin
D you think that we push too many people into those degrees too early? Because I just think that that is one of the reflections that some of the specificity of the undergraduate degrees that we get people to do actually means it is very hard at 21/22 after graduation to actually go back from that, it's almost like we talk a lot about Skilling up and actually it's almost harder to unskill you yourself and start again.
00;14;56;28 - 00;15;08;01
Jimmy McLoughlin
What can we do to kind of change that? Because you're right, it comes from the fact that we're world class, but actually yeah. How do we how do we change that? Because that seems to me to be one of the biggest challenges that we face.
00;15;08;17 - 00;15;36;20
Nadhim Zahawi
So what I've tried to do and I think it's the right strategy is to take our university sector with us on this journey. So the regulator, the Office for Students, is now much more focused on outcomes, not just inputs. So yeah, it's not just about getting students onto degree, it's about okay, are they completing the degree? Yeah, right.
00;15;37;05 - 00;16;02;21
Nadhim Zahawi
What's the outcome at the end of it? Are they going to a great job at the end of it? Are they going on to doing a master's or a Ph.D. at the end of it? And actually, the really powerful thing that I can do is data and transparency. You know, one of the lessons of the vaccine deployment is, you know, we went from a standing start.
00;16;03;16 - 00;16;33;26
Nadhim Zahawi
You remember we started publishing data basically every fortnight that we moved to every Thursday. And then we moved to daily data and we got deeper and deeper with data so regional by local authority by constituency by ward, you know, it got deeper and better. And allowed, you know, whether it's Fraser Nelson's data hub or, you know, a couple of kids in a garage, they can put an interface on it and analyse it, they said in any complex system.
00;16;34;04 - 00;16;41;18
Nadhim Zahawi
Yeah, like education, like health data and transparency is my ally. On the journey of reform.
00;16;41;18 - 00;16;41;29
Jimmy McLoughlin
Why?
00;16;41;29 - 00;17;12;13
Nadhim Zahawi
Because actually, I don't believe anyone goes to work to do a bad job. But if you can share the outcomes, OK, so if this career path takes you to a good job and a fulfilling career at the end of it and by the way, if after ten years in that career you feel you, you know, you want to start again and do something else, we'll stand behind you with the lifelong learning entitlement that is, I think, the best ecosystem I can create.
00;17;12;20 - 00;17;41;20
Nadhim Zahawi
Yeah. For skills and bringing actually universities closer to colleges so that, you know, further education, higher education are much more knitted closer together. So one of the things we have launched, yeah, it's a bit technical, hasn't really cut through is the Institute of Technology. So basically a collaboration between university, college and crucially business. Yeah. So Aston University in my part of the world.
00;17;44;00 - 00;18;01;01
Nadhim Zahawi
Takes with the local college group, with BMW and other engineering firms in the area came together. We fund them. We basically it's a mini factory but it's high tech.
00;18;01;06 - 00;18;01;14
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;18;01;14 - 00;18;20;16
Nadhim Zahawi
Factory with, you know, 3D printing and working on A.I. and all sorts of other things. For far too long I think culturally we've seen this sort of silo. The separation. FE is separate from HE.
00;18;20;22 - 00;18;20;27
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;18;20;28 - 00;18;40;06
Nadhim Zahawi
In reality, if you go back in the history of higher education, is actually very much based on the job experience even if you if you go and train as a doctor or a or a lawyer, you have historically the culture of education.
00;18;40;10 - 00;18;40;19
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;18;40;21 - 00;18;58;01
Nadhim Zahawi
Is very much a fungibility of both, you know, bringing them together. And that's what we're in that journey. I think, you know, if I do my job properly, then I would have, I hope, will leave a legacy of a landscape that is able to continue to feed a dynamic economy.
00;18;58;06 - 00;18;58;16
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;18;58;16 - 00;19;11;25
Nadhim Zahawi
Now, back we'll talk about in a second, but the data and transparency is crucial to it. And one of the things I'm launching, we launched it in the leveling up white paper with Michael Gove is a unit feature skills.
00;19;12;05 - 00;19;12;19
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah. Well.
00;19;12;27 - 00;19;31;10
Nadhim Zahawi
You know, again, with my old vaccine deployment hat on and loving data and publishing of data we don't have in the United Kingdom a, you know, a dynamic dashboard for what the skills needs of the economy are in six months, 12 months to five years, ten years time.
00;19;31;12 - 00;19;31;21
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;19;32;02 - 00;19;41;26
Nadhim Zahawi
But Singapore has yeah, they've got the unit fixed skills. That's where I sort of got the idea from. I went to the Prime Minister said Look, let me build this thing and we'll drop it into number 10.
00;19;43;05 - 00;20;17;14
Nadhim Zahawi
Into cabinet Office, Treasury, every department, home office, because then we can flex the infrastructure. You know, I have here in education infrastructure that we'll be spending 86 billion a year on by 2024. How do I challenge that infrastructure? Do I say to our, you know, great college leaders or school leaders or university leaders yeah. Are we there, are we meeting the skills needs of the economy in, you know, 12 months, two years, five years, ten years out yeah.
00;20;19;04 - 00;20;38;00
Nadhim Zahawi
Knowing what you know, what the inputs, the investments that are coming through, you know, we are a very attractive place for inward investment but the part of that is I want to publish because the best thing you can do is publish that data because actually it's the best way to reform a complex system.
00;20;38;00 - 00;20;56;25
Jimmy McLoughlin
What sectors excite you most? I mean, what you you may not be seeing the data already to confirm this yet, but what sectors excite you. I mean if you were 22 in 2022, you know, what would you be sort of looking at and thinking, right, well I'm going to go for that because we’ll come onto the background in data that you had with YouGov as well.
00;20;57;10 - 00;21;01;13
Jimmy McLoughlin
But what sectors would you be looking at now thinking that's what I'm, I'm going to go after.
00;21;01;28 - 00;21;04;24
Nadhim Zahawi
So if I was still a primary school boy.
00;21;06;12 - 00;21;15;24
Nadhim Zahawi
And this is part of my school's white paper is actually of course, you know, you need a knowledge rich curriculum.
00;21;16;01 - 00;21;16;09
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;21;16;15 - 00;21;49;22
Nadhim Zahawi
Right. But you know, until I learned to read English, to write in English, actually most important thing, I learned to think in English. I didn't know that I loved things like biology and human biology and chemistry and math and physics. So you need the building blocks, the foundations. Right. Which is why so much of my focus at primary school is making sure that we really lift our ambitions at the moment.
00;21;50;22 - 00;22;17;00
Nadhim Zahawi
You know, we've had some incredible reforms, right? We're about to announce our 10,000th Academy now in a school system that's 22,000 schools. 10,000 is real scale. And that's very much thanks to you know, what Michael Gove and my predecessors did in this job. But only two thirds of children complete primary school with, you know, the right level of quality of math.
00;22;17;05 - 00;22;17;15
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;22;17;15 - 00;22;40;28
Nadhim Zahawi
And English. I mean, one third are not- they're going to secondary and they still don't have the right level of math and English. My white paper will change that. We're going to get to 90% in primary school and completing prime school with 90 with with 90% having the quality in math and in English. Why does that matter. Because if you think how are.
00;22;40;28 - 00;22;42;00
Jimmy McLoughlin
You going to do it right.
00;22;42;04 - 00;23;12;29
Nadhim Zahawi
So I actually because I've now got the evidence, because you've got 10,000 academies right in the white paper, what I've tried to do is share the evidence with parents. It's very much it speaks to parents, to students, to teachers as to what I think works right. And what is really clear is that a family of schools that is really tightly managed, really well supported in a high performing and underlying high performing why?
00;23;12;29 - 00;23;43;16
Nadhim Zahawi
Because actually not all max multi academy trusts are high performing, but in the high performing Multi Academy Trusts. Right. If we always remember that what we're trying to do is to give that kid wherever they are the best chance in life, then those families, the schools have delivered.
00;23;43;23 - 00;24;12;04
Nadhim Zahawi
So my journey now is how do I complete that journey to go from where we are today? 10,000 academies to all 20 by 2030. What's great about them is the evidence is clear that actually they've done it in the most deprived regions parts of the country. Yeah. And they've been able to lift that ambition. You know, I went to a brilliant school in not far from in Hammersmith, the brilliant head teacher called Gary Kinnison.
00;24;12;23 - 00;24;40;07
Nadhim Zahawi
And you know, his big mantra is, you know, he makes sure that every one of his students, He runs a very selective secondary school, he's got 50 almost 60% pupil premium in the school, but he doesn't allow his ambition for each and every child right. To be a stretching as he can possibly make it because he thinks that's the best thing he can do for them.
00;24;40;20 - 00;25;05;18
Nadhim Zahawi
So we've got the evidence right. I've been able to look back at where previous exercises maybe haven't managed to land. Yeah, the strategy I've, you know, really engaged with Church of England schools, Catholic schools, Jewish, Muslim schools, grammar schools across the board to join me on this journey.
00;25;05;20 - 00;25;05;28
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;25;06;08 - 00;25;14;15
Nadhim Zahawi
Because like with vaccine, if we just remember why we're doing this and we evidence it, then we will, will do the right thing. And so that's schools.
00;25;14;18 - 00;25;14;28
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;25;15;15 - 00;25;45;04
Nadhim Zahawi
What would I do? I'd want to be good at core math one. Yeah. Because actually everything flows from that, right? If you want to be in data programing, right? If you want to be in data analytics in anything else you need core math. Yeah. And so actually getting the, the literacy and numeracy. Right, right. Plus having a knowledge rich curriculum, I think is the best start in life.
00;25;45;25 - 00;25;50;06
Nadhim Zahawi
And, and then later on, I would definitely look at an apprenticeship degree.
00;25;50;12 - 00;25;50;20
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;25;50;20 - 00;25;56;03
Nadhim Zahawi
I've got 20,000 people now have done an apprenticeship degree. I want to double that.
00;25;56;03 - 00;25;56;10
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;25;56;10 - 00;26;01;22
Nadhim Zahawi
I'm going to get to 40,000
00;26;01;22 - 00;26;15;28
Jimmy McLoughlin
Talk us through what an apprenticeship degree is. Right. Because, because one of the challenges with education sector is that is the one department that everyone has experienced I say everyone's got their own opinion on it to right. But it always comes from their own experience. So explain there'll be a lot of people that listen to that and don't know what it, what it is.
00;26;15;28 - 00;26;17;01
Jimmy McLoughlin
So what's an apprenticeship degree?
00;26;17;01 - 00;26;30;05
Nadhim Zahawi
Right, so again, back in a coalition government when we were lifting the, the quality of apprenticeships and designed the new standards with business.
00;26;30;09 - 00;26;30;18
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;26;31;15 - 00;27;07;12
Nadhim Zahawi
And leading it for us we realized actually, you know, the higher level apprenticeships, you know, we can really stretch and we wanted more of them and actually some of our businesses, you know, we collaborate with universities as well on these sort of higher technical qualifications. So we thought actually what do we create, you know, basically a an apprenticeship degree that is as high quality as you would get in a traditional degree.
00;27;07;12 - 00;27;50;11
Nadhim Zahawi
The big difference actually is you get on the work experience. Yeah, I remember when I was The Apprentice Tsar we launched one with Goldman Sachs and Goldman Sachs decided to I think it was Queen Mary's University, if I'm not mistaken. It's going back now some years and they took on 420 apprenticeship degree starts in digital I.T. back office systems in banking financial services now know if I had my life over again, what's not to like right you get to do a degree all right if you like technology.
00;27;50;11 - 00;27;50;22
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;27;50;28 - 00;28;17;06
Nadhim Zahawi
Right. And you're learning on the job because you're working in Goldman as an apprentice and going to do the academic work at Queen Mary's. You finish your degree, you got a fantastic job at the end of it. And you're highly qualified. And so that's where we're at and it's becoming incredibly popular.
00;28;17;11 - 00;28;17;22
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;28;18;08 - 00;28;19;16
Nadhim Zahawi
So it was exciting.
00;28;19;21 - 00;28;41;19
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah. With all like due respect to some of the universities, like. Yeah, I mean, you have Goldman Sachs, for example, has a better brand recognition than most due to prestige. Very good. Wants to be fast. So it's I think it is a really inspiring way. I'm coming on to that kind of like branding. Want to talk a bit about your kind of entrepreneurial journey because and the first question I kind of wanted to ask you was where did the name YouGov come from?
00;28;42;00 - 00;28;44;09
Jimmy McLoughlin
And what was the story behind its foundation?
00;28;44;10 - 00;29;10;21
Nadhim Zahawi
Yeah, totally. It was a no taxation without representation. Boston Tea Party. The, the, you know, this was a in 2000 when the Internet. Yeah. I think it was only of memory. Only about a third of the country had Internet access. It was still America Online.
00;29;10;21 - 00;29;11;02
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;29;11;09 - 00;29;33;10
Nadhim Zahawi
Freeserve Portals. No one had done an online survey. And the initial idea was that you would you would pay your council tax online and then you would give your opinion to your local council as to how you want your money spent.
00;29;34;04 - 00;29;36;25
Jimmy McLoughlin
All right. So the polling was this sort of a secondary.
00;29;36;25 - 00;30;01;14
Nadhim Zahawi
Polling was the secondary for that and of course, we very quickly worked out that actually there are much larger players in doing sort of know legacy tax systems integration and what really began to what was the polling element of it. So we pitched the idea to Freeserve at the time and we became the news channel of Freeserve.
00;30;01;14 - 00;30;27;14
Nadhim Zahawi
When you clicked on news, we were producing the news for them, but we called it interactive news because every news story and we hired a bunch of young graduate journalists and some more mature journalists as well, like John Humphreys and yeah, and others. And one young Boris Johnson in fact used to write for the for the site. We wanted people from different they had different followers.
00;30;27;14 - 00;30;41;05
Nadhim Zahawi
Yeah. In terms of their writing. But the condition was on everything we produced, they'd have to ask questions to even a sort of the daily news story. Yeah. We'd have a battery of questions below it.
00;30;42;07 - 00;30;43;16
Jimmy McLoughlin
Kind of a media company.
00;30;43;21 - 00;30;48;04
Nadhim Zahawi
It was, it was, it was then all about basically gathering public opinion.
00;30;48;06 - 00;30;48;18
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;30;49;10 - 00;31;13;22
Nadhim Zahawi
And then the sort of the real success of the idea was the traditional market research companies were still doing some were still doing clipboard. Yeah. But actually were being replaced by the likes of ICM. If you if remember that name. Yeah. I think ICM who actually was the sort of the revolutionary at the time because they would do telephone surveys.
00;31;14;14 - 00;31;55;07
Nadhim Zahawi
And so we came along and the idea was basically if you build a large enough panel of human beings online that is broadly representative of the adult population. Yeah. Then you pull off the computers, the machines would then take a smaller sample that is much more representative of the adult population, randomly invite them to do a survey. Then actually that's better quality data because actually all market research or polling is, you know, will I say this when I was in the industry that, you know, we were all in the business of modelling.
00;31;55;18 - 00;32;21;09
Nadhim Zahawi
And it's whether you can build a better mousetrap, build a model to try and capture how people are feeling, how they're thinking, you know, what they will do and that was the real success because we were able to prove something as an academic study sort of, you know, high calibre sort of the gold standard, which is called the British Election Survey - goes around the world is the American Election Survey, the Australian Election Survey.
00;32;21;29 - 00;32;33;25
Nadhim Zahawi
And Professor Anthony King, God bless his soul. Passed away a few years ago noticed us because we contributed to the British Election Survey back in 2000.
00;32;34;07 - 00;32;48;04
Nadhim Zahawi
The first election that we called accurately. And then they gave us our first break with some work for the Telegraph and we have from, from there on. The rest is history. And once you prove the model.
00;32;48;19 - 00;32;51;02
Jimmy McLoughlin
And that was the moment that you knew, we thought.
00;32;51;24 - 00;33;08;09
Nadhim Zahawi
This is a big idea. Yeah, I thought it, I thought this is a big idea. Absolutely. This is, this is going to transform the world because it's faster yeah. It's, you know, much better value for money.
00;33;08;16 - 00;33;08;25
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;33;10;09 - 00;33;29;12
Nadhim Zahawi
And you know, the other thing is, is it can be deliberative it can be you can return to the same respondents, you know, telephone and face to face. You know, it's a one off survey. You know, by the time you've delivered the data and the report, it's out of date. But you can't go back and say, oh, I'm interested in this subgroup here.
00;33;29;18 - 00;33;29;28
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;33;29;28 - 00;33;35;07
Nadhim Zahawi
Why did they say that? Can we go back to them? You can't. Was actually panel based research is so much more powerful.
00;33;35;11 - 00;33;43;01
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah. And amazing. And this artwork, I believe, is was what hung on the offices of YouGov so talk us through it.
00;33;43;04 - 00;34;23;02
Nadhim Zahawi
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So so Stephan Shakespeare, who is a wonderful human being and a great friend of mine, and he co-founded the and the was a lover of art and he knew a great artist called Derek Boshier, who and Derek is, you know, one of the UK's Pop artists. Yeah. Never became as famous as, you know, Peter Blake and Peter Blake actually came to the show that Stephan put on for Derek Boshier at the time.
00;34;24;19 - 00;34;28;10
Nadhim Zahawi
And it wasn't it didn't become sort of Warhol.
00;34;28;10 - 00;34;29;08
Jimmy McLoughlin
Or Blake.
00;34;30;28 - 00;34;59;29
Nadhim Zahawi
Because I think he partly wanted to continue to teach as well. And we Stefan did this exhibition for him. And we each of us bought three pictures, not for not for a lot of money. Yeah. But they I've taken them wherever I go. I have been very lucky for me because they were in my YouGov office and then they moved with me to my parliamentary office when I was a backbencher for pretty much I think I was there for eight years.
00;34;59;29 - 00;35;03;23
Nadhim Zahawi
And I keep reminding, you know, the certainly my colleagues the 20.
00;35;03;23 - 00;35;05;25
Jimmy McLoughlin
Lucky to fit them in a Backbencher's office. All right.
00;35;05;29 - 00;35;32;28
Nadhim Zahawi
Well you were then given slightly better offices because, you know, if you weren't promoted. Yeah, especially. And I spent I think seven or eight years really loving the backbenches and doing lots of work. And I was on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, I was on the Business Select Committee apparently someone told me it was on the Panorama with Post Office Scandal, which was terrible, I have to say on that.
00;35;33;07 - 00;35;48;28
Nadhim Zahawi
But nevertheless, they have travelled with me all the time. And I love the I just love the sort of the vibrancy you've got to love, you know, the stuff that you you know, the art that you hang on the walls you got to because you got to live with it.
00;35;49;18 - 00;35;59;02
Jimmy McLoughlin
Because you have had quite a non-linear like not only just education career, but also like political career as well. It's been sort of. Yeah, it's not always been like going forward.
00;35;59;14 - 00;36;28;27
Nadhim Zahawi
You know, me for long enough to know that at one stage I thought I was going to go from the sort of the rising star to elder statesman with nothing in between I had, I think, seven or eight years on the backbenches. Yeah. And I have to say, I now, you know, do share with my younger colleagues in the 2019 intake that I am the definition of it is a marathon, not a sprint.
00;36;28;29 - 00;37;10;01
Nadhim Zahawi
Yeah. You know so many of my intake actually you know got promoted very quickly into government and actually taking a bit more time, spending more time on select committees, spending more time, you know, on the backbenches I think is invaluable and it certainly served me well. And then just, you know, being someone here who was working on a particular project like the apprenticeships stuff with Nick Boles here or then as to the Families Minister and then as an industry minister, then of course it was the biggest, most important job I'll ever do in my life, which is the vaccine deployment.
00;37;10;23 - 00;37;34;25
Nadhim Zahawi
One of my friends said to me at the time when we began to really succeed with the vaccination programs, it will be the first line of your obituary, the most important job I ever do. But I think it's important to get that sort of ministerial experience because it serves you well when then you're asked to take on a whole department.
00;37;35;06 - 00;37;51;17
Jimmy McLoughlin
And how did you find that transition from kind of business to politics? Because, you know, when we predominately interview entrepreneurs on the show and when the when the mike stops, they often say, you know, I've often thought about giving it a go and you know, I'd like to do it, whatever. But it's, it's there's a lot of hard yards to put into it.
00;37;51;17 - 00;37;58;07
Jimmy McLoughlin
And if you've built a successful business, there's lots of hard yards people don't see there as well. But how did you find that transition?
00;37;59;10 - 00;38;35;15
Nadhim Zahawi
So I'm slightly unusual because, you know, I got I caught the political bug very early on. So I was a councillor in Wandsworth from ‘94 and so I, you know, always thought that one day I'll end up in Parliament and then I was very lucky in being part of the YouGov team in the YouGov idea and to be able to take that company public in 2004 as well and so, you know, politics was always a passion for me.
00;38;36;03 - 00;39;09;01
Nadhim Zahawi
A couple of similarities. One, when you first enter, Parliament is very much like a Startup, but now what I mean by that, you know, each and every member of Parliament backbencher is a small enterprise. Yeah, you've got to build a small team. I arrived in this building in Port Cullis house and you walk in in 2010. Yeah, we've just about formed the Coalition government and you get handed a laptop, you open it and sort all, you know, logged in with your name.
00;39;09;01 - 00;39;25;20
Nadhim Zahawi
But there's 800 emails saying you know, you're my member of parliament, please help. Yeah, right. There's a postbag about the same. And so you've got a very quickly put together a small team, you know of two or three people that can just deal with the casework because they're the most important people there. The people have put me in this place right.
00;39;26;10 - 00;39;37;24
Nadhim Zahawi
You must never ever forget that. And, but you're a small enterprise because you need to basically serve constituents, serve your customers, make sure you, you know, deliver for them on time.
00;39;40;03 - 00;40;01;21
Nadhim Zahawi
And you want to try and, you know, find your way around the space become famous for something. Yeah. What is your passion? Obviously, you have the business select committee for me was the thing to get on to and I did immediately. Almost immediately. And then Foreign Affairs Select Committee. So it is there are similarities to that, what I call the sort of startup culture.
00;40;01;21 - 00;40;09;12
Nadhim Zahawi
You've got to be able to wake up in the morning and just motivate yourself and engage and fight with all the levers, you know, form coalitions.
00;40;09;12 - 00;40;09;20
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;40;09;25 - 00;40;35;04
Nadhim Zahawi
Across the house to try and get a particular idea or a bill through parliament. The other area, which I think has been incredibly helpful for me in ministerial office is we're running a large organization. We took YouGov from, you know, six or seven of us in a shed.
00;40;35;14 - 00;40;35;22
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;40;35;28 - 00;41;02;11
Nadhim Zahawi
To, you know, few hundred in a slightly bigger office. 2000 plus people on three continents. Now as many thousands, change management at heart. Yeah, you know, I had to survive the financial crisis of ‘08 and ’09 and right size the business I don't believe people wake up in the morning, go to work because they want to do a bad job.
00;41;02;16 - 00;41;02;25
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;41;04;06 - 00;41;20;15
Nadhim Zahawi
They get frustrated if they don't know why you ask them to do something different, which is why actually much of the the challenge is how do you communicate people to explain to them, I was give the example here to my team. So, you know, when I wake up in the morning, I like my cup of tea in a certain way.
00;41;20;15 - 00;41;42;14
Nadhim Zahawi
If you're going to change it, you better tell me why. Otherwise, I'm going to be grumpy all-day long. Yeah. And change management is hard. But actually, if you explain to people, be clear about your strategy and what you're looking to deliver, people join you on a journey, especially if you can evidence it.
00;41;42;20 - 00;41;43;01
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;41;43;16 - 00;41;52;10
Nadhim Zahawi
Right. And actually those skill sets are equally valuable in business as they are in running government departments.
00;41;52;28 - 00;41;55;27
Jimmy McLoughlin
And did you feel it was a risk starting YouGov.
00;41;59;17 - 00;42;37;24
Nadhim Zahawi
I was single. I was a marketing director at the time, high risk to leave my job and obviously do this. I had really great support from my family and my parents but I always wanted to be an entrepreneur one day. I always thought it's something that that I wanted to do but it's not without its risks. But I've loved every minute of it.
00;42;38;17 - 00;42;57;29
Jimmy McLoughlin
I guess one of the things I try and I sort of tease out a bit is you say you want to be the secretary state for aspiration. And one of the things that I feel that we could do in more ways is a bit more risk taking. And I suppose you know, when you've left the country age 11, the age of starting a business, you know, does it does it really feel like a risk in comparison.
00;42;59;13 - 00;43;50;04
Nadhim Zahawi
Well when you put it like that I, I hear we say maybe that's the sort of the immigrant in me that you have a different risk appetite and I think you're right. I do think that, you know, we need to encourage more entrepreneurs, although I have to say that I'm seeing in my nieces and nephews and my own children, this generation is much more in tune with entrepreneurism and wanting to try out different things and being very comfortable with having, you know, multiple careers in their lifetime than even my own generation.
00;43;52;11 - 00;43;53;29
Jimmy McLoughlin
Why do you think that is?
00;43;54;23 - 00;44;36;00
Nadhim Zahawi
Why do I think what I think about what technology has done to empower young people? You know, yeah, I my my children are digital natives. I we I still remember the fax machines and that was a huge innovation. Yeah. And you see a document that's, you know, coming from the other side of the of the world. You're in almost in real time through that sort of horrible paper that then fades away so I think actually having a device in your pocket, which is a powerful computer that you open up and you basically see everything in the world.
00;44;36;00 - 00;44;58;08
Nadhim Zahawi
Yeah. Yeah. Much of it good and empowering, I think. Does it does open young minds to the idea of, you know, I can try out some of these things, which is a great thing in my view. The one thing that we've always been challenged on in the UK, we're sort of quite good at at the start up culture.
00;44;58;18 - 00;44;59;03
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yes.
00;45;00;05 - 00;45;09;25
Nadhim Zahawi
We are less good at growing businesses and then keeping businesses.
00;45;10;04 - 00;45;10;14
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;45;11;01 - 00;45;52;25
Nadhim Zahawi
You know, the British entrepreneurs will sell out and then, you know, want to play golf and do other things. The U.S. entrepreneurs will sell out and start the next one almost immediately after that. And the Germans never sell and they keep these Mittelstands and they just, you know, grow these family businesses. And I just think you know, having and this is something that I know Rishi is passionate about - having a focus on creating more management maturity in the UK economy is something that's good.
00;45;52;25 - 00;46;00;09
Nadhim Zahawi
You're having your small business men and women thinking about, you know, developing themselves.
00;46;00;09 - 00;46;00;21
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;46;00;21 - 00;46;06;20
Nadhim Zahawi
Professionally to be able to, you know, run bigger businesses and keep bigger businesses.
00;46;07;01 - 00;46;27;07
Jimmy McLoughlin
And how did you do that with YouGov in terms of that innovation side of it, you know, because as an entrepreneur, you get to 5-50 people, each of these things feels like a big milestone and it's how do you do that? How did you find the IPO process as well? Because that's a quick turnaround that you did it right, sort of founding it in 2000 IP0ing ,2004.
00;46;27;07 - 00;46;27;29
Nadhim Zahawi
Yeah, yeah.
00;46;30;12 - 00;46;34;10
Nadhim Zahawi
The IPO was one of the best things I think that we did.
00;46;34;15 - 00;46;34;23
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;46;35;04 - 00;46;36;24
Nadhim Zahawi
Certainly for our shareholders as well.
00;46;38;25 - 00;46;55;07
Nadhim Zahawi
Why? Because once you became successful, we were getting offers of, you know, borrowing money or private equity as well. But actually for us at the time, the AIM market worked incredibly well.
00;46;55;08 - 00;46;55;19
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;46;56;27 - 00;47;21;07
Nadhim Zahawi
And has continued to well. Stefan and the team who's continued to do brilliantly at YouGov. But much of it was really accidental if truth be told rather than planned entrepreneurial.
00;47;21;14 - 00;47;21;23
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;47;23;19 - 00;47;30;04
Nadhim Zahawi
But there wasn't a sort of playbook that there was there wasn't a guy that says this is what you should do.
00;47;30;06 - 00;47;30;19
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yes.
00;47;32;08 - 00;47;53;10
Nadhim Zahawi
But we found it incredibly helpful. And I think actually in many ways yeah. I go back and say to you, I think, you know, we need a culture of manager that is comfortable with growth and holding on to their business.
00;47;53;10 - 00;47;53;19
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;47;54;16 - 00;47;59;11
Nadhim Zahawi
And not selling out too early. You know, actually in many ways, they've.
00;47;59;11 - 00;48;01;14
Jimmy McLoughlin
Been a bit more ambitious, like. Absolutely.
00;48;01;14 - 00;48;39;02
Nadhim Zahawi
Absolutely. I mean, when I was doing the business role, I remember because I, I guess my part of my recovery to help pretty much most of the economy. So other than financial services and a bit of digital, I was the Minister for Foundation Industries like steel. I was Minister for construction, minister for Nuclear, Minister for Life Science. I co-chaired the Life Science with the brilliant John Bell and you know, one of his frustrations is, you know, some of our brilliant scientists would then spin out companies out of universities.
00;48;39;02 - 00;49;03;09
Nadhim Zahawi
But sell out too early. Yeah, I don’t remember the name of the business. But, you know, someone showing me in an Oxford Life Science business that sold out for half a billion, but it became part of a very large business where the product is today, a, 15 billion dollar product.
00;49;03;21 - 00;49;04;00
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;49;04;12 - 00;49;20;28
Nadhim Zahawi
And that's what I mean by creating a management culture that's more comfortable with growth and holding on to growth. Yeah. To to create the, you know, the, the giants of the industry.
00;49;21;24 - 00;49;40;07
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah. And because sometimes when you've been an entrepreneur, you know, you sort of feel like it's been by luck not design and getting comfortable with that .
I want to take you back to when we first met because I remember saying to you, what do you want to achieve in politics?
00;49;40;07 - 00;50;00;18
Jimmy McLoughlin
What do you want to do? And you said and it's really struck me that you wanted to be education secretary. And, if your colleagues thought you were up to it, you'd like to be prime minister. And it's really stuck with me. That first bit of that, you saying, if my colleagues thought I was up to it. Is it an ambition you still hold?
00;50;00;19 - 00;50;06;15
Jimmy McLoughlin
And look, we know there's no vacancy. We know the Prime Minister's doing a great job. But is it an ambition you still hold?
00;50;08;10 - 00;50;56;20
Nadhim Zahawi
I think every member of Parliament must feel that they can at some stage put themselves forward to lead their party, their country- it's a privilege. But the thing I really want is to be able to do this job and complete this journey. Why? Because we’ve been talking about it- if I can deliver the same life chances I had to every kid in the country, even those whose parents don't have the wherewithal or have no parents then I will have done something truly great as big as what I did on vaccines and I can't do that in just in the two and a half years that I've got to the next general election.
00;50;56;20 - 00;51;15;01
Nadhim Zahawi
So, I want Boris to another term and I want us to have another five years, I hope that I really scale and get to 2030 when I can say to you hopefully in another interview that I actually have completed the journey and delivered on that.
00;51;15;24 - 00;51;25;20
Jimmy McLoughlin
But it would be an amazing demonstration. Born in Iraq standing on the steps of number ten. I mean like all the things you want to achieve and I agree you've got a long way to go before.
00;51;26;01 - 00;52;01;02
Nadhim Zahawi
I pinch myself even just thinking about the I am the Secretary of State for Education in Her Majesty's Government, right? The Member of Parliament for Shakespeare. Yeah, the heart of England. All right. This is the I absolutely, passionately believe this is the greatest country on earth. Yeah. To have a constituency like Stratford to me, which is 96-97% white, affluent middle class, yet they vote for Nadhim Zahawi as their champion, as their member from the, the man they sent to Westminster to represent them.
00;52;06;17 - 00;52;20;24
Nadhim Zahawi
I can't tell you how much I appreciate the luck I've had in life, but also I really, really want to complete this journey.
00;52;20;26 - 00;52;21;05
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah.
00;52;21;15 - 00;53;00;19
Nadhim Zahawi
And, and, you know, I want your listeners to know if you're passionate about something. You need to be clear about it and to make sure people understand that passion. And I just want to do this thing right because I think I would have made it. Every week, every month that goes by where there are kids in our country who don't have a great teacher in a great classroom in a really strong, high performing school as a family of schools- for me is, you know, is it's almost like when we were doing the vaccine.
00;53;00;19 - 00;53;09;22
Nadhim Zahawi
Every day that went by, we're not vaccinating, then we're losing lives. And these are life opportunities. For these kids. And I've got to deliver. Yeah.
00;53;09;22 - 00;53;19;18
Jimmy McLoughlin
And but even when you did the vaccines, I remember speaking to you during the process. You were totally nailed on it because if you got that, then it was other things would fall into place further down the line.
00;53;19;25 - 00;53;30;05
Nadhim Zahawi
And that's, you know me well, that's my DNA. You know, I don't like leaving jobs not half completed.
00;53;30;15 - 00;53;55;11
Jimmy McLoughlin
It was genuinely I remember coming away thinking like, there's a weird thing in British politics where people are… British politics is all about ambition. So it should be. But there's this weird thing where people sort of stand back from the brink, like saying, Well, I wouldn't want to be prime minister. And I would remember thinking like, and the way you qualified it with your colleagues, like, even though I was like a 22-year-old at the time, it's stuck with me as such a kind of neat way of phrasing it.
00;53;55;11 - 00;54;16;23
Jimmy McLoughlin
And it's yeah, it's a very interesting prospect. That's as far as I'll go on that side of things.
But what's a piece content that has inspired you along the way in terms of like for those watching on YouTube, there are many books and so on, you know, is there something that you've particularly enjoyed or read lately that sticks with you?
00;54;17;19 - 00;54;29;03
Nadhim Zahawi
So when I was growing up, you mentioned earlier. Yeah, the way I tried to learn English was reading The Sun newspaper because I couldn't read the, the broadsheets because they were just too difficult.
00;54;31;05 - 00;54;59;25
Nadhim Zahawi
And actually, you know, journalists, who are able to write for Tabloids are brilliant people because they can actually, you know, deliver a story that a kid like me could actually read as well as, you know, an adult when I began to think in English, I love all of Dick Francis. Anything by Dick Francis I would read.
00;55;01;28 - 00;55;30;21
Nadhim Zahawi
And actually I met someone the other day who knew him and I loved that whole world that he created. The book that I love is slightly frightening, but it was called Perfume, which is an incredible book about this sort of psychopathic murderer. But that was incredible.
00;55;31;03 - 00;55;39;17
Jimmy McLoughlin
Any education books? Because a lot is written now, but because one of the things of education, it hasn't really been updated much in past few years or so.
00;55;39;29 - 00;55;43;21
Nadhim Zahawi
My white paper. Read it.
00;55;43;29 - 00;55;45;22
Jimmy McLoughlin
Now that really is a politician’s answer
00;55;46;08 - 00;56;03;27
Nadhim Zahawi
It is. I think we did some incredible work because we've evidenced what I think it will be that the sort of the roadmap towards, you know, my ambition. Which is to deliver that great education at the right place right time for every child I can remember.
00;56;04;09 - 00;56;06;29
Jimmy McLoughlin
Any other Bear Grylls, there are three Bear Grylls books there.
00;56;06;29 - 00;56;45;12
Nadhim Zahawi
Do you know he’s amazing because I didn't know Bear. I was at COP26 in Glasgow and he and his producer clearly saw me and he actually came up to me and he said, look, you know, I just want to help you wherever I can. And he's doing some incredible work with young minds. He's doing some incredible work, actually entering people who've come through adversity, whether in business political life, sport and sharing that there's that sort of character building stuff that he loves.
00;56;45;29 - 00;57;16;22
Nadhim Zahawi
And it's so important actually to produce a you know, a really well-rounded adult. And it's been great. I mean, it's one of the you know, if I go back to my life story, if there's a nugget which I think truly makes this country great that I picked up very early on, is if you share with people what your hopes, your aspirations, you know, what your hopes for other people, what you want to do.
00;57;16;26 - 00;57;42;18
Nadhim Zahawi
There’s plenty of people in this country that want to come and join you on that journey and help you. And I love that. And I actually yeah, bear and loads of people who would just put their hand up, say, you know what, you're right. Let's, let's do this thing. And if I do my job properly, I have done something truly great.
00;57;42;18 - 00;58;03;16
Jimmy McLoughlin
Yeah, it's been brilliant to have you on, such a fantastic kind of finish. I do think how it’s amazing you can know somebody for so long and sometimes you get a bit familiar with their story but reading it all from the, from the start. It really is kind of inspiring to lots of schoolkids and so on in terms of, you know education secretary who couldn't read English at age 11. It's great to see all the work that you're doing.
00;58;08;16 - 00;58;09;10
Nadhim Zahawi
Thank you for having me.