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The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. It is also a pleasure to respond to this debate, which I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) on securing.
I am going to discuss three things, and I will try to deal with as many of the points that have been raised as possible. First, I want to speak about apprenticeships. Secondly, I want to talk about the careers service, information, advice and guidance, as that is what the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) and other hon. Members focused on in particular. But before I deal with those, the third thing that I want to speak about, which I will deal with first just to create a degree of excitement in my short peroration, is macro-economics.
Macro-economic strategy is critically important to the future that we want for our young people—indeed, for all our people. The Government’s emphasis on dealing with debt is an important pillar in that strategy. In that effort, the recalibration of our perspective on what government does and does not do needs to be taken into account. The silver lining, if I may put it that way, of the very tough comprehensive spending review that we have endured is that we have had to think more critically about the value for money that we get from all the taxpayer funds that we invest.
The second pillar of the macro-economic strategy, which is less often spoken of but is no less central to our ambitions, is to rethink the character of our labour force. We do so against a background, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool said, of greater uncertainty and more rapid change. In order for our economy to succeed, it must be more sustainable. That sustainability will make it better able to endure some of the challenges that we have faced in the past two years when they doubtless happen again, because as you know, Mr Bayley, economies move in cycles. That redrawing of what Britain can be and should be requires us to think about what modern economies look like. Modern economies are more advanced, more high tech and more highly skilled, and they change more rapidly. That dynamism, and indeed that high-tech work force, will be essential if we are going to develop the productivity and competitiveness that we seek, which underpins prosperity.
As Minister, my task is to implement measures that allow us to develop that high-tech, highly skilled work force fit for a high-tech, highly skilled economy. That is why I focused so heavily on apprenticeships when I became a Minister. The hon. Member for Hartlepool—I have two hon. Members shadowing me, because the Opposition know that one would not be enough—is right that the previous Government understood that, too. Indeed, he was a Minister in the previous Government. I do not, for a moment, claim that we have a unique insight into the value of apprenticeships. However, the difference between his Government and ours—where his Government got this wrong and we have got it right—was to make apprenticeships the pivot around which the rest of the skills offer moves. To do that, we transferred money from the Train to Gain budget to the apprenticeship budget, as the previous Government could and should have done. The support that the previous Government gave apprenticeships provided an important foundation, and there was trend growth in apprenticeship numbers—I want to acknowledge that clearly—but we have gone further and faster than they did or perhaps would have done. I say that with as much generosity as I can summon, which is not easy for a party politician, although it is made all the more easy by the two people who shadow me, who are diligent, studious, committed and decent.
Let us look at how the constituencies of Members currently in the Chamber are affected. Since we came to office, there has been a modest but not insignificant increase of 4% in the number of apprenticeships in the constituency of the hon. Member for Blackpool South, and a 13% increase in your constituency, Mr Bayley—all the figures are based on the latest data, which I announced to the House on my birthday only a few days ago. In my Parliamentary Private Secretary’s constituency of Bromsgrove, the increase was 16%, in Wirral West 23%, in West Lancashire 22%, in Warrington South 11%, in Liverpool, West Derby 22%, in Sefton South 27% and—
Bill Esterson
The Minister did not mention my constituency because it is called Sefton Central, not Sefton South, but I am grateful for the figure.
I mentioned young apprentices in my speech. The worrying finding in Professor Wolf’s inquiry was that most of the increased number of apprenticeships have gone to 19 to 24-year-olds. The danger is of a gap among the 16 to 18-year-olds who are not able to take up apprenticeships. How does the Minister intend to rectify that?
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. There are particular pressures on 16 to 18-year-olds, and some of those pressures are to do with the perceived and real risks for businesses taking on a young person. That is particularly true for small and medium-sized enterprises—small businesses perceive an associated risk because they have a small base—while the capacity of large organisations to absorb such risk is rather different. Nevertheless, the figures that I announced a week ago of about 114,000 more apprenticeships in total throughout the country, amount to the biggest single boost in apprenticeship numbers ever in our history, and I have no doubt that at the end of the CSR period we will have 500,000 apprentices, which is a previously undreamed-of figure. Also, when I looked closely at the figures, there has been growth for 16 to 18-year-olds, for 19 to 24-year-olds and for 25-plus, which suggests significant latent demand on the part of learners and of employers. We can talk about that at greater length when we have more time, but I suspect that we have further untapped demand, as well as some trend changes in how businesses are interfacing with the skills system and how learners are making choices about the route best suited to them.
Mr Hayes
I never have targets; I only have ambitions—it would be vulgar to describe them as targets. The hon. Gentleman is right that, at the next stage of implementation, we need to tie our skills strategy more closely to growth, so next I want to identify those parts of the economy with the biggest growth potential and where skills gaps might inhibit that potential growth. Over the coming weeks and months, I hope to look specifically at the inhibitors to growth in those areas where we can create maximum opportunities for employment, including employment for young people. He is right that, in developing the strategy that I laid out last November, we certainly need to be mindful of growth and, in particular, of sectors and subsectors where there are real skills gaps that are impacting on productivity and competitiveness. For example, I was at Ravensbourne academy today, talking about the creative industries, which have real capacity for growth but also unmet demand, and we need to address that issue of skills. Advanced manufacturing is another such example. We need to look at such challenges, and he is right to raise the issue.
I have spoken about macro-economics and apprenticeships, although I am at risk of becoming an apprenticeship bore. Suffice to say that, for the whole time that I am the Minister, which my hon. Friends throughout the Chamber hope will be for a long time, although that is down to the Prime Minister and not to me, apprenticeships will be the pivot. Shaping the skills system around apprenticeships creates a different dynamic and a different set of expectations, as well as a vocational pathway that is as navigable, progressive, seductive and rigorous as the academic route on which so many of us travelled. We need a longer vocational ladder, which is rigorous and provides opportunity for young people, and which means that those with practical and vocational tastes and talents do not see vocational learning as a cul-de-sac. For too long, people have not seen the route to higher learning in that vocational pathway, which they need to do if they are to make the right choices at the right time that are most likely to allow them to fulfil their potential.
I have said that I will discuss careers advice and guidance; it would be wrong for me not to do so. I will be making a major speech on the subject tomorrow, so the hon. Member for Hartlepool can look forward to that with bated breath. I could say more now but, in fact, I will do more than that, although my officials will shudder: I will deal with all the questions that he asked today in that speech tomorrow—it will require some redrafting, because we did not know what questions he would pose until a few moments ago—but I will ensure that I do, as I owe the hon. Gentleman that.
In summary, however, the hon. Gentleman grossly overstated my few weaknesses and understated my many strengths. I do not mind his doing that, because I like him as he likes me. I believe passionately in advice and guidance, for the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) has mentioned. She is doing such incredible work: for example, by pulling together the Wirral youth summit, in just a few days’ time, and by doing immense work promoting careers advice and guidance. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) and the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) understand the difference for social mobility of ambition and rebalancing advantage in society—as a Tory, I believe in rebalancing and redistributing advantage in society—and the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) feels the same. Therefore, we need to ensure that we give those young people who do not have access to familial networks or similar social networks the best advice, so that they get their chance of glittering prizes as well. That is why we need good advice and guidance.
So we will do three things. First, over the past year, we have done a great deal with the careers profession, which in the coming months—certainly by the autumn—will be in a position to announce an unprecedented degree of co-operation among careers professionals, leading to a new set of professional standards with linked training and accreditation. The national careers service will be founded on the expertise and professionalism of the careers sector, reprofessionalised and emerging from the dark days under the previous regime to a new era of purposeful drive, in which it is valued and its role is central to the work that we will do to foster social mobility. That will be laid out in the autumn—I always said that the national careers service would be up and running next year, not this year. The hon. Gentleman will have a chance to look at those proposals, and I think that he will be proud of the work that the Careers Profession Alliance has done following the work of the task force led by Dame Ruth Silver.
Secondly, we will change the statutory duty on schools to ensure that they secure independent professional advice—the Bill is going through the House now—which I expect them to do. For too long provision has been patchy. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby talked about the difference between the independent sector and the state sector, and he is right. Connexions did not do the job—let us be frank. Connexions did some good work, of course, and many people were dedicated to that work, but the structure itself was faulty, because it had to be a jack of all trades rather than a master of careers. We are therefore changing the statutory duty incumbent on schools, and we will deliver a tough statutory arrangement to ensure that schools live up to it.
Finally, we will provide national access to the national careers service through co-location with colleges throughout the country and Jobcentre Plus. We will lay all those proposals before the House, so the hon. Member for Hartlepool can be confident that, in every part of Britain, young people and others will be able to obtain the careers advice and guidance that they need to make the best of themselves—to be their best and to do their best. I will say more tomorrow, but I know that you, Mr Bayley, and others will leave this Chamber with a spring in your step, because you know that the Government are committed to the young people of the north-west and to all the young people of Britain.