A week after local Tories called for vocational training to move up the political agenda, local Liberal Democrats decide to jump on the bandwagon by writing to your paper (Letters, January 14).

The Tories' policy failures in Government will not have been forgotten by the many people who found that some of their training schemes led only to the dead end of unemployment.

As a result of Labour's New Deal, which Tories and Lib Dems both opposed, six out of ten people in Cornwall unemployed in 1997 are now working.

There is increased investment in post-16 learning through the Learning and Skills Councils, educational maintenance allowances for individuals to enable young people to continue to learn, and more strategic planning to ensure training providers are responsive to employers' needs.

The Tories seem increasingly undecided in their education policy since Michael Howard became leader. They might want to start by listening to industry leaders like CBI Chairman Digby Jones who, last week, reported that employers pay graduates £13 billion more than non-graduates, and who supports the principle of graduate repayment through the tax system.

Lib Dems would also abolish targets for HE to expand. Their supporters should wake up to the fact that it is Labour's ambition for more young people to go to university which is supporting new developments such as Cornwall's first university and medical school.

The Lib Dem suggestion that adding ten per cent to income tax for those earning £100,000 a year or more might cover the costs of new investment needed in higher education - oh, and as an afterthought vocational education too - belongs in cloud cuckoo land.

Dr Charlotte MacKenzie, 1 Cornwall Terrace, Truro