Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)
11. What steps he is taking to promote adult and community learning.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
The Government are enthusiastically committed to adult and community learning. That is why we have protected the £210 million a year adult safeguarded budget. On 1 December we announced our intention to devolve its planning and accountability, so that local people are at the heart of deciding the learning offer. We will pilot different community learning trust models in 2012-13.
Sajid Javid
The Minister has been an excellent advocate of adult community learning. May I ask him how his pilot on community learning trusts is working at the moment? In particular, how has he engaged local communities to improve adult community learning?
Mr Hayes
We know, as W B Yeats knew, that education lights a fire that burns brightly. It certainly burns brightly in the hearts of Ministers. We have much to do in respect of adult community learning, which was derided by the last Government as mainly holiday Spanish. That was how the former Secretary of State described it. We will work with local communities. The first meeting to discuss models and timings will take place one week from today, and we intend to publish a prospectus in spring 2012. We are delivering.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Minister and I have jousted about Yeats before, and I should tell him that he did not share the Minister’s politics, which might disappoint him. There is a danger of his policy becoming a fig leaf around adult and community learning. Will he undertake to work from the centre with other ministerial colleagues, particularly for older people in care homes because of the incredible impact that adult and community learning can have on health outcomes for those older people?
Mr Hayes
One reason why I, along with the Secretary of State, have defended adult and community learning is due to its effect on things such as physical well-being, community health, mental health and so forth. It is certainly true that we will need to take those things into full account in respect of the offer. I give that answer mindful that the hon. Gentleman, who was my predecessor, was himself a champion of adult and community learning.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
12. What recent progress he has made on the Green investment bank.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
15. What steps he is taking to ensure that apprenticeships offer a route to higher-level skills.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
We are committed to expanding the proportion of apprenticeships that are at advanced and higher levels. Provisional 2010-11 data show that the number of advanced-level apprenticeships has risen by about two thirds. We have allocated some £19 million to support the development of new higher apprenticeships, which will dramatically extend the range of opportunities for apprenticeships up to degree level, and will create at least an additional 19,000 apprenticeships at the higher level.
Robert Halfon
Will the Minister support the parliamentary apprentice school which I founded with the charity New Deal of the Mind, and will he consider the similar idea of establishing a Government apprentice school using public contracts? Figures from the House of Commons Library show that if just one apprentice were hired for every £1 million public procurement, 280,000 apprenticeships would be created instantly and youth unemployment would be cut by a quarter.
Mr Hayes
I take the view that Government have a role and that procurement has a role as well. For that reason I have established a ministerial champions group for apprenticeships involving 14 Departments, we have explored the development of kitemarking for good employers who use apprenticeships and supply the public sector, and we have provided streamlined informational skills for companies that want to supply Government.
My hon. Friend has been a great champion of apprenticeships, and has even taken on an apprentice himself. Let me again urge all Members to take on their own apprentices.
Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)
16. What plans he has to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to offer apprenticeships.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
As you can see, Mr Speaker, I am irrepressible.
We have recently announced a new financial incentive of £1,500, which will help up to 40,000 small employers who have not previously engaged in the programme to take on a young apprentice. We are taking radical steps to speed up and simplify the process for employers, and to remove unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy.
Mark Lancaster
While the Minister’s talents are obvious, some of us have hidden talents. I, for instance, am a pyrotechnician, and ran the family firework company for many years. We were always keen to take on apprentices, but it was hard to keep them in a long-term skilled job, and the paperwork involved in taking them on in the first place was very extensive. What can be done to help the situation?
Mr Hayes
As my hon. Friend will know, the number of apprenticeships has risen by 70% in his constituency. That does credit to him, and, as I think he will acknowledge, still greater credit to me.
My hon. Friend asked what more we would do. We will strip out all unnecessary health and safety requirements, we will introduce those incentive payments to compensate small businesses, and I am determined to streamline every stage of the process. Tackling youth unemployment is a top priority for the Government: that is why we are focusing the apprenticeship budget on young people, which is where it can make the most difference.
George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
18. What progress his Department has made in assessing applications by further education colleges for phase 2 of the enhanced renewal grant.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
In August, I was delighted to confirm that the Government would make an extra £100 million available for a two-year college capital investment programme. The programme was launched by the Skills Funding Agency in September, applications were invited by November, and the agency is aiming to announce decisions on the enhanced renewal grant before Christmas. Speedy action, Mr Speaker: alacrity, combined with perspicacity.
George Eustice
Cornwall college in my constituency has recently used a new technique to refurbish and reclad one of the old buildings on its estate at a fraction of the cost of a rebuild, and would like to repeat the process on some of the rest of its estate. Does the Minister agree that procedures of that kind should be given priority?
Mr Hayes
My hon. Friend, who is a great champion of his local college and a great local Member of Parliament, has written to me about that very matter. I have his letter here. I am pleased to say that I have arranged to speak to him on Monday about the details of his question, and I can also tell him that as soon as I became the Minister we announced new capital funding. I do not say this with any joy—I say it more in sorrow and anger—but what a contrast with the last Government, who presided over a capital funding debacle.
Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
19. What assessment he has made of the effect on the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises of planned reductions in the level of taxation; and if he will make a statement.
Sajid Javid
May I thank the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning for visiting my constituency of Bromsgrove and opening a £3.5 million extension to North East Worcestershire college? Will he update the House on what other investment plans he has for colleges up and down the country, and how that will promote young people’s life chances?
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
I said a few moments ago that we have made £100 million available. It will be spent quickly, and that will affect colleges across the country. I should like to thank my hon. Friend for being such a generous host when I visited NEW college in his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) was in attendance as well, because the college serves both constituencies. On that occasion, I had an opportunity to ride a Harley Davidson motorbike, and like that bike, the career of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) is powerful, speedy and impressive.
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
T6. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning will agree with me not only about his own irrepressibility but also about the importance for economic growth of our meeting the training needs of businesses. What measures is he taking to reduce red tape and excessive micro-management in respect of further education colleges —a trend that so characterised the last Government—in order that they can respond to our economic needs?
Mr Hayes
The Foster report described the last Government’s policy as a galaxy of bureaucracy, oversight and inspection. By contrast, we are cutting red tape, streamlining funding systems, and giving colleges greater discretion to respond to the demands of employers and the needs of learners. I have recently published a document setting this out in detail. Copies are available in the Library of the House—and signed copies by application.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
T7. Northern Ireland is the only region where employment law is devolved, an anomaly that in the past has led to the Northern Ireland position being largely ignored in the formulation of UK policy both in the transposition of European Union employment directives and in national agreements. Will the Minister assure us that he will work with the Minister for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland to provide a framework in which Northern Ireland interests can be addressed in any future developments in this area?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The responsibility to promote adult and community learning in Northern Ireland is a devolved matter. Has the Minister considered linking with Northern Ireland’s Department for Employment and Learning to provide a strategy for the mutual benefit of both the UK mainland and Northern Ireland?