In the current political climate, it seems there is very little for people to agree on. Apart from, it seems, the college sector’s need for more funding. For a good three hours this week, MP after MP got up in Westminster and spoke passionately about the importance of FE.

Praising their local providers for the work they do under very difficult financial circumstances, they highlighted the dramatic research findings that those working in the sector have grown all to used to: around 25,000 staff have quit; the Institute For Fiscal Studies believes the FE sector has been hardest hit by cuts; adult education has been cut by 45 per cent since 2009-10; and funding for college students is £1,500 less than in secondary school.

Colleges had reached breaking point, MPs told skills minister Anne Milton, and had cut courses, increased class sizes and reduced staff numbers.

The long-term goal, and the purpose of the petition that led to the debate in the first place, is to get more funding for FE. And this lobbying would have been reasonably straightforward if there had been a minister who needed to be persuaded in attendance.

Milton stressed after the debate - and I believe her - that she cares deeply about the college sector. But I also noticed, as everyone else will have done, that she made no promises or commitments on actual, real, hard cash.

One college expert told me he believed that the debate would have been more useful had the room been full of Treasury ministers and civil servants - and he’s right. Because a room full of supporters of FE, all telling each other what a great sector it is, doesn’t solve the funding crisis.

Julia Belgutay is Tes’ deputy FE editor