BUSINESS leaders grilled the city’s two MPs at a special event last week.

Mark Lancaster and Iain Stewart took questions from the Chamber of Commerce covering everything from the impending spending cuts to the value of university degrees and the expansion of Milton Keynes.

Last Friday’s ‘meet the MPs’ event began with a speech from Mr Stewart, who was later quizzed about the Government’s cuts.

He told the audience at the Ramada Encore hotel: "The public sector is having to do what every family and business has already done - taken a long hard look at what it does and see what it needs to do and what it doesn’t need to do, and see how it can do things in the most cost effective way. The silver lining in our financial cloud is that we have an opportunity to think in an innovative way."

Mr Lancaster went on to speak up for apprenticeships when asked about the value of degrees, citing the schemes at the Wolverton Railway Works.

He said: "I didn’t support the previous Government’s policy of having 50 per cent of people going to university. My own feeling is that why we have a funding problem now is that by setting an artificial target we have an academia that’s too large to fund. We should be encouraging young people that higher education isn’t necessarily the only option, it’s as valuable if not more valuable to have a relevant skills base."

The city’s manufacturing was put in the spotlight by one member of the business network, though Mr Lancaster, who is a manufacturer in his family’s firework firm, insisted that ‘manufacturing has a bright future, especially in Milton Keynes’, thanks to the Coalition Government’s policies.

Julia Upton from the Community Foundation wanted to know how the Prime Minister’s Big Society concept would affect her organisation.

Mr Lancaster said: "All too often the state takes best practice from the voluntary sector. The Big Society idea is an acceptance in Government that, do you know what, we don’t know everything."

Mr Stewart added: "In many ways Milton Keynes is a leading example of the Big Society because it’s something we already do so well and can expand upon."

He ended by making the members of the Milton Keynes and North Bucks Chamber of Commerce consider their own involvement.

"There are going to be some very painful things to do. If we want to increase the money spent on services we have to generate money to pay for them and that’s in the hands of you, the wealth creators."