15:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 265 / Noes: 315 - Question accordingly negatived.
Tristram Hunt
My hon. Friend is furiously ambitious for his constituency and the children in it. He is exactly right. The key to that is great teaching and strong leadership, making sure that young people are focusing on their academic subjects in order to get the basics right and then pursuing other academic or vocational routes.
One of the reasons we are disappointed with the Education Secretary’s approach in her new Bill is that it seems too indicative of an exhaustive, target-driven, bureaucratic, central-command approach. It is a 20th-century answer to a 21st-century problem. In the words of Steve Hilton, a great guru for the Conservative party, this marks a backwards and “Soviet” approach to education.
Higher ambitions require more substantial reform, and I am convinced that in England that requires us to explore the merits of a 14-to-19 baccalaureate system of upper secondary education, particularly now we are raising the participation age. There is an emerging consensus on that idea, and it demands closer inspection.
Tristram Hunt
The Schools Minister says there is not, but he should listen to the CBI and leading headteachers, including those on the Headteachers’ Roundtable, and to one of the great Tory Education Secretaries, Lord Baker. There is a far broader consensus on the need to rethink the purposes of upper secondary education in the light of the continued inability of the current high-stakes, teach-to-the-test, exam-factory model in order to tackle our long tale of underperformance.
I do not expect the Government to commit to that today as a point of public policy. I accept, as we did during the election, that the short-term priority is to provide heads and teachers with a degree of curriculum stability, given the rather, shall we say, frenzied pace of recent reform. Now is the time to launch—as the CBI, the voice of business, has requested, alongside the Labour party—a broader cross-party review.
Disappointingly, prior to the election the Education Secretary walked out on the cross-party talks that the Royal Society had convened to introduce some stability to the curriculum process. Now that she is back in office, I hope she will take a slightly more mature approach and support a CBI-endorsed cross-party review to look into a more ambitious settlement for secondary education that can stretch the more able students, challenge the damaging snobbery towards creative, technical and vocational pathways, and tackle our seemingly intractable low skills problem, which so cripples our productivity.
In the light of the radical skills shift required by the industrial revolution we see all around us, with the move towards a digital society, we need to answer the deeper question of what skills, knowledge and attributes our young people now need to thrive and succeed in the 21st century. Until we have a clearer answer to that question, I fear we will not find a long-term solution to the productivity woes.
I hope the Government will give serious consideration to backing this bipartisan motion, and I commend it to the House.
The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)
This debate provides a great opportunity, in contrast to the doom-mongering of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), to set out the reforms and progress that the Government have made in the area of skills and growth. Every time he speaks, the hon. Gentleman seems to collect people whom he wishes to offend. First, it was nuns; today, he offended anyone working in the potato industry, such as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen), who runs a successful business employing many hundreds of people.
Conducting a root and branch review of 14-to-19 education of the sort the CBI advocated in its report is exactly what we have been doing for the past five years, ensuring that every young person, wherever their talents lie, has the opportunity to succeed in modern Britain. As ever, the hon. Gentleman managed to be a torrent of sound and fury—but little else, unfortunately.
Nicky Morgan
He certainly was not pithy.
The skills and qualifications of 14 to 19-year-olds should not be the subject of the hon. Gentleman’s sound and fury. I wait with bated breath for the day when he acknowledges the 2.2 million apprenticeship starts and the fact that more young people than ever are going to university, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and that over 70% more pupils are taking GCSEs in the core academic subjects that will help them to get on in life.
Andrew Gwynne
May I take the right hon. Lady back to the start of the shadow Secretary of State’s opening speech, when he asked for the definition of a coasting school? Does she recognise that coasting schools include not just schools that are underperforming at a low level, but schools at a higher level that are not pushing children as hard as they should be or as far as the children are capable of going?
Nicky Morgan
Although I do not want to cover the ground that the House will cover on Monday when we come to the Second Reading of the Education and Adoption Bill, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that coasting schools need to be challenged, including schools that do not stretch pupils of all abilities. That is why we are moving to the Progress 8 measure. I hope that he will speak on Monday, and perhaps play a full part in the Committee proceedings too.
As was clear from Question Time, nobody on the Opposition Benches wants to talk about the successes of the Government’s long-term economic plan. The most relevant of those successes to this debate is the fact that the youth unemployment count has come down by 115,000 over the past 12 months. That is a record that I am proud to defend.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
On that very point, according to records produced this morning, youth unemployment in my constituency is at its lowest level on record: only 70 young people there are claiming jobseeker’s allowance, compared with 365 young people in April 2010. The credit for that must go not only to the further education institutions and business, but to the coalition Government. Of course, there is more that we should do, so will the Secretary of State say what steps are being taken to increase the quality of apprenticeships for 16 to 24-year-olds?
Nicky Morgan
I welcome my hon. and learned Friend to the House. This is the first time I have been in the Chamber when she has spoken, and she did so eloquently. She was right to recognise the fall in youth unemployment in her constituency and across the country. I will come on to the steps that we will take to ensure that apprenticeships are highly valued by employers and give every young person the best start in life, which is what the Conservative party is all about.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady mentioned the quality of apprenticeships. The average length of stay on an apprenticeship, as described by the Government, is 10 months. Would she allow somebody with 10 months’ training to build an extension to her home?
Nicky Morgan
I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point, because there is a statutory minimum of 12 months for apprenticeships. He may well be talking about the programme-led apprenticeships that were introduced by the last Labour Government.
Let us remember what we inherited in 2010 from the Labour party: standards were falling and vocational qualifications were debased, which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central did have the grace to recognise. Indeed, at the heart of many of his problems is the fact that he agrees with an awful lot of what the Government have done. Even he has admitted that he failed to persuade his former party leader to take much interest in education during the election campaign.
Young people and students were failed by those debased vocational qualifications. Young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds were told that academic qualifications were not for them, and those who wanted a vocational qualification were sold short by qualifications that were not backed by employers and did not lead to a job. Schools in England were stagnating in the international league tables, going from seventh to 25th in reading, eighth to 28th in maths and fourth to 16th in science.
Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that, with female employment at a record high, we need to ensure that maths teaching in particular continues to improve so that we can encourage girls to follow a maths education right through their careers? I speak as a woman with a maths degree—a rare bird, I admit.
Nicky Morgan
I agree very much with my hon. Friend. I welcome her to the House; this is the first time I have heard her speak. She put her case passionately. I am delighted to hear about her maths degree. I hope she will take the opportunity presented by her position in this House to visit local schools and encourage all students, but particularly girls, to study maths to the highest possible level. We know that the higher the level at which people study maths, the greater their earning power. The subject is important in tackling issues such as the gender pay gap.
I was talking about the legacy of the Labour party on equipping young people with the skills they need to succeed. Despite the daily dose of painstaking soul-searching that the Labour party is subjecting us to, it simply has not learned its lesson when it comes to education.
Bill Esterson
When the Conservative party came to power in 2010, work experience was a common feature of the work of secondary schools and that was supported by education business partnerships. The last Government removed work experience and cut the funding for EBPs. I urge the Secretary of State to reconsider the use of EBPs and to work in co-ordination with business to get work experience back into schools, because businesses value work experience and say that it prepares young people for the world of work. Taking forward the skills agenda must be a fundamental part of our efforts to address the productivity gap.
Nicky Morgan
I know how passionately the hon. Gentleman feels about work experience. He raised it with me in the last Parliament as a member of the Education Committee. The issue is that even if something is compulsory, that does not mean it is of high quality. Young people were going on work experience weeks, but were gaining no skills at all. That is why we are focusing on high-quality, meaningful work experience post-16, the age at which students can acquire those skills. There are other ways of gaining meaningful interactions with the workplace that inspire young people before they hit the age of 16. Many employers were also reluctant to offer work experience because of the red tape surrounding it. We have taken that away.
Education gives every child the chance to reach their full potential, so it is the key to delivering true social justice. It is through good education that we can ensure that all young people are prepared for adult life and sustained employment in an increasingly global world. Good education also lies at the heart of a strong economy. Our analysis, which is backed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, shows that the increased number of pupils getting good GCSE grades since 2010 will add more than £1.3 billion to the country’s economy. Achieving five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including in the vital subjects of English and maths, adds £80,000 to a student’s earnings over their lifetime.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
In that context, I ask the Secretary of State to consider the position of disabled young people. The Government have introduced education, health and care plans, which have been widely welcomed, but there is no obvious link with the employment prospects of those young people. What will she do to ensure that the ambitions that our schools and colleges have for disabled young people relate not only to their education, but to their employment prospects?
Nicky Morgan
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I am glad to hear that there is cross-party agreement that education, health and care plans are welcome. They offer an opportunity for various services, including schools, to support young people with disabilities. At its heart, the issue is about inspiring young people about all the options, making sure that no barriers are put in place, and ensuring that nobody else makes choices for young people about what they can and cannot do. I would welcome any thoughts or suggestions that the hon. Lady has in that area, as would the Minister for Children and Families. I want all young people to fulfil their potential—and that, of course, includes anybody with disabilities.
We need to ensure that young people master the basics at primary school and go on to develop deep understanding in secondary school. Under the party of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, one in three children left primary school unable to read, write or add up properly—a figure that we have reduced to just one in five, with further still to go. Until age 16, there is a fundamental core of knowledge and skill that all young people need to access.
As I said, it is the most disadvantaged who always lose out when anyone says that a core education is not for everyone. A rigorous academic curriculum until age 16 is the best way to ensure that every child succeeds regardless of their background and allows us to be ambitious for everyone, to keep options open and horizons broad. We have revised the national curriculum to make it more rigorous and it now provides pupils with an introduction to the essential knowledge that they need to be educated citizens. It introduces pupils to the best that has been thought and said, and helps to develop an appreciation of culture, creativity and achievement.
The new curriculum sets expectations that match those in the highest-performing education jurisdictions in the world, challenging pupils to realise their potential in an increasingly competitive global market. We have reformed GCSEs, so they are more rigorous and provide a better preparation for employment and further study. GCSE students taking modern languages will now have to translate into the target language accurately, applying grammatical knowledge of language and structures in context. GCSE students in maths will have to know how to develop clear mathematical arguments and solve realistic mathematical problems. The new English literature GCSE requires students to study whole texts in detail, covering a range of literature including Shakespeare, 19th-century novels and romantic poetry. Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman’s books are not on that list.
Nicky Morgan
Well, that’s debatable. [Laughter.]
This is what the top performing countries in the world expect for their children and we should settle for nothing less. Yesterday, we announced that every child starting year 7 this year will be expected to study core academic subjects that make up the EBacc. This means studying English, maths, sciences, history or geography and a language right up to GCSE.
Tristram Hunt
There were reports in The Sunday Times and other newspapers that every child will be studying the EBacc subjects. Just to be clear, are they expected to or will they be required to?
Nicky Morgan
We want every child to be studying the EBacc subjects. There will, of course, be some children for whom that is not the right thing. There might be particular special needs, in which case there will need to be some flexibility in the system—I appreciate that. The hon. Gentleman, who wants to mandate things, will find that much harder to do with the profession. Safely for all of us, he is not on the Government Benches and is not having to work with the education sector.
There is no suggestion that arts subjects are in any way less valuable. Good schools, such as King Solomon academy, which I visited yesterday, show that there does not need to be a false choice between an academic or arts-based curriculum. Children can do them both and they can do them both well. There is time for most pupils to study other subjects in addition to the EBacc, including technical disciplines which set them up for apprenticeships or further study, but the academic core of the EBacc is something we think every school has a duty to provide and every child has a right to study.
A core curriculum needs to be backed by strong accountability. From 2016, the existing five A* to C English and maths headline measure will be replaced by Progress 8, a measure based on the progress a pupil makes from the end of primary school to the end of secondary school compared with pupils who had the same starting point. Schools with tough intakes will be rewarded for the work that they do, and schools with high-attaining intakes will—rightly, as I said earlier—be challenged to help their pupils achieve their full potential. Above all, the measure will remove the obsessive focus on the C/D borderline and instead place a premium on those schools that push every young person to reach their full potential.
Tristram Hunt
The Labour party supports the move towards Progress 8. Just so we are clear, the new expectations on EBacc will sit alongside the Progress 8 requirements. Which will have priority?
Nicky Morgan
The Progress 8 measure will come into force beforehand. What we are saying with the EBacc is that students starting year 7 in September will be taking the EBacc subjects when they reach GCSE. They will sit alongside each other. I think they are both extremely valuable.
Above all, we need great teachers. Evidence from around the world is clear that the single most important factor in determining how well pupils achieve is the quality of the teaching they receive. We are hugely fortunate to have many thousands of dedicated and hard-working professionals in classrooms throughout our country. Teaching continues to be a hugely popular career. Almost three quarters of new teachers now have an upper second or first class degree, which is 10% higher than was the case in 2010. We have a record proportion of teacher trainees and 17% with first class degrees. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I trust headteachers to hire the best teachers for their schools, rather than proposing to sack more than 17,000 of them from our classrooms.
Having mastered the basic core at 16, we then want to give young people the chance to choose the future path for them. High quality post-16 education is vital for ensuring that every young person will leave education capable of getting a good job, a place at university or an apprenticeship.
For some young people an academic path will be right. We have reformed A-levels. Giving universities a greater role in how A-levels are developed has been an important part of the Government’s plans to reform the qualifications. Their involvement will ensure that A-levels provide the appropriate foundation for degree-level study.
Nicky Morgan
I will make some progress. If I have some time towards the end I will certainly give way, but I want to allow time for Back Benchers. I do not want the Front-Bench speeches to go on and on.
We have introduced linear A-levels, of the sort the hon. Gentleman is on the record as having once supported, to make sure that young people spend less time in exams and more time learning and studying.
For other young people, professional and technical education will be the route they take. Until 2010, this critical provision was neglected for far too long. Thanks to our reforms, we are no longer selling students or employers short.
Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)
Records show that youth unemployment in Taunton Deane is today at a record low, but that is not to say that we should not still invest in the skills to get the right students coming forward. I am very pleased that there is now an emphasis on vocational qualifications, which I think my right hon. Friend will go on to talk about. I am thinking particularly about subjects I am very interested in and were sadly neglected by the Labour party: agriculture, horticulture, the environment and conservation. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is bringing this in.
Nicky Morgan
I welcome my hon. Friend to the House. It is the first time I have heard her speak. I know she will be a passionate advocate for Taunton Deane. She is absolutely right that, while it is very welcome that youth unemployment continues to fall, there are still many employers who are identifying skill shortages. There are sectors and industries that continue to need more people and a younger workforce, and she has mentioned some of them in her intervention.
Under Labour, students were encouraged to study hollow vocational qualifications that were not valued by universities or employers. It is notable that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the Wolf reforms. I am delighted. It is absolutely right to take away qualifications that were not valued by universities or employers. Young people were being asked to study qualifications and then finding they were not worth the paper they were written on. That is why Alison Wolf concluded that 350,000 young people were let down by courses that had little or no value. The flagship Tomlinson diplomas under the previous Labour Government turned out to be the greatest white elephant in the history of education—universally rejected by colleges, universities and employers.
Jo Cox (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
May I recommend the latest Manpower report to the Secretary of State? It talks about how businesses in Yorkshire are very keen to take on more staff, but are struggling from skills shortages and a worsening crisis—something that has happened on her watch. I recently visited an engineering firm in my constituency, Wakefield Acoustics. It has jobs, but is struggling to take on qualified engineers, particularly younger people. I recommend the report and I would like the Secretary of State to address this issue.
Nicky Morgan
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I will certainly look at the report. [Interruption.] I thank the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) for helpfully prompting me, but I am able to tell when I have heard female Members of Parliament from both sides of the House make excellent contributions. As I was saying, I will certainly look at the report.
The overall point that the hon. Lady makes about a skills shortage is absolutely right. Those seeking employment or looking for engineers would have started their education under the previous Labour Government, but she has made her point and she is right to identify that we need more highly skilled young people, particularly in engineering.
Ian Austin
The Secretary of State and I get on well, and she knows I have a high regard for a lot of what she does, but we have to get away from this sterile debate in which she claims that everything was terrible under the last Labour Government and that everything is brilliant now. The truth is that we did not do nearly well enough and the current Government are not doing nearly well enough either. We face a long-term crisis in the quality of education and skills, so we need to drop this ridiculous habit of dressing up relatively minor differences as huge ideological chasms. We need a royal commission so that we can agree as a country that education and skills are the No. 1 priority and to set cross-party, long-term goals enabling every child to fulfil their potential.
Nicky Morgan
The hon. Gentleman is right that we get on well. We have had some interesting conversations—I am not sure that is good for his career in the Labour party, but I do not think he is standing for anything in the upcoming Labour party elections, so perhaps it will not be too damaging. He and I agree on the importance of academies and the success they bring, so it is a great shame that, as we will probably hear on Monday, other Labour Members are rowing back from the reform introduced by a Minister in the last Labour Government. A royal commission would mean more hot air and time. We have made enormous progress in the past five years in giving young people the right skills, providing more apprenticeships and getting people into university, and I am grateful for his support for that.
I want to make some progress, because I know that other hon. Members want to contribute. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central talks about being pithy, but he did not typify that today when he spoke.
We have stripped out 3,000 poor-quality qualifications so that the only vocational qualifications are those backed by employers that lead to a job. In addition, we have put in place rigorous 16-to-19 tech levels endorsed by employers and leading to a technical baccalaureate for the most talented. Every qualification for which young people now study, be it academic or vocational, will be demanding and rigorous and provide a clear route to employment. English and maths are critical to successful progression to employment, which is why all students now have to continue studying them if they do not get a good GCSE.
The quality of apprenticeships is rising too. Every apprenticeship now needs to be a paid job in the workplace, to last 12 months and to include meaningful training on and off the job. Employers can design the standard an apprentice must reach, and the reformed funding provisions mean that the training apprentices receive follows the needs of their employers. New traineeships are helping young people who need extra work experience, as well as English and maths education, to move on to a lifetime of sustained employment. Let us not forget that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central went into the election promising to scrap level 2 apprenticeships.
It is not often I agree with the TUC, but on this occasion I wholeheartedly agree with Unionlearn that scrapping apprenticeships in key areas, such as construction and plastering, would be a disaster for the young people for whom this provides their opportunity. Young people need resilience and character to get back up in the face of adversity. If we are to have high expectations for every child, we have to create the right conditions for those high expectations—conditions in which a love for learning can flourish—so that, when young people leave school, they can bounce back from the knocks life throws at them. That is why I announced at the end of the last Parliament £3.5 million in character grants to support work to develop civic awareness, resilience and grit in schools, and it is why we will offer any young person who wants it the opportunity to participate in the National Citizen Service.
There is more to do, however. The rising participation age gives us the chance to ensure all young people are on the right path to the world of work. We will ensure that the routes are clear and that all young people have options leading to outcomes with real labour market currency. There will be no dead ends. We are developing a comprehensive plan to increase to 3 million the number of apprenticeships in this Parliament. That will include more work with large employers, more support for small businesses and a greater role for the public sector. We will put in place the right incentives and support to ensure that everyone is earning or learning, including support for young people who are not in education, employment or training or at risk of not being—I am pleased to say that the number of NEETs is already at a record low. Catch-up support will also be in place to provide a stepping stone to employment.
We want to ensure that in every area of the country there are strong institutions making available a full range of specialisms to every child, based on collaboration between different providers and institutions. University technical colleges and studio schools are unique in how they develop their education around the needs of local employers, and I would like to send my congratulations to UTC Reading on being the first to be judged “outstanding” by Ofsted.
I am proud to defend the work of the last Government on improving the knowledge, skills and life prospects of the next generation. Now, as part of our commitment to securing real social justice, we are determined to ensure that the reforms of the last Parliament—the innovation and progress we unleashed—reach every young person in every part of our country. If governing for one nation means anything, it is ensuring that the education we provide—be it academic, professional or technical—gives every student the chance to realise their full potential and to be all they can be. We will be asking the House to reject the motion this afternoon.
The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)
This has been an excellent debate. We have heard a series of remarkable maiden speeches telling the story of what we all want to see: a nation of opportunity and aspiration, and a nation in which people of every background in every part of the country are able to achieve professional success and, in the case of those hon. Members making their maiden speeches, the ultimate accolade of election to Parliament.
We heard from the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), with whom I have not exchanged words for about 25 years. We met once, many years ago.
Nick Boles
Sadly, there were other people present.
We heard from the hon. Gentleman that he had been the first person from his family to go to university, and here he is now. He is going to do his constituents proud in this Chamber. I should like to add a note of thanks for his generous tribute to his predecessor, Jo Swinson, who was probably the Conservatives’ favourite Liberal Democrat.
We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway), who will be relieved to hear that I am not going to recall a meeting of 20 years ago with her. She spoke of the idea of a nation of aspiration that had given her the opportunity, despite having had an education that had not given her great qualifications or a degree, to succeed in retail and manufacturing and then to find her way on to these green Benches. Having heard her fantastic speech, I can assure her that she will do much more than double her majority in five years’ time.
We heard from the new broom in Bradford East, the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain). His grandfather found opportunity in Bradford’s mills. How proud he would be today to see that his grandson had not only qualified as a barrister in the courts of the United Kingdom but now been elected to Parliament.
My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (David Mackintosh) spoke eloquently and with the experience of a local government leader on the role of education in regeneration and, in particular, on the project that he has spearheaded—the Northampton Alive regeneration scheme. I have no doubt that he will never give any of his constituents reason to follow the example of the assassin of one of his predecessors.
The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) spoke very well of the work of the Scottish Government on improving skills training. I have heard good reports about the Scottish apprenticeship programme from employers who provide apprenticeships in all parts of our country. I believe in learning from anyone and everyone, and I would be keen to learn from Scottish Ministers what they have found to be successful. I am planning to visit the hon. Lady’s fair city this summer, and I shall be sure to visit the area of Toryglen, even if I am the only Tory in it.
Following this debate, I wish I could report that Her Majesty’s Opposition were reflecting on the result of the election and on the messages sent to them, ever so politely, by the British public. I wish I could say that they were approaching that subject with humility and an open mind, asking themselves whether there was anything in their presentation before early May that they should perhaps revise. Sadly, however, that was not to be. We heard groundhog day of the Labour story. All we heard from Opposition Members was an endless series of increasingly hysterical attacks on cuts in public spending.
I have a lot of time for my opponent, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). I believe he is a good and thoughtful man, and that he was a good and thoughtful Minister in his time, but he can tell his colleagues why those public spending cuts were necessary.
Nick Boles
I will not give way.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spent quite a lot of the past six to eight weeks opening his breast pocket and brandishing a letter from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, in which he said that there was no money left. We never wanted to cut public spending and never wanted to impose those difficult decisions; we have done so because of the legacy that he left us and made fun of in a letter—we are living with those consequences.
Nick Boles
I will not give way, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill has had his go.
We heard barely a word from Labour Members about qualifications reform or about our apprenticeship reforms, which are putting employers in charge of developing standards and controlling Government investment in apprenticeships. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to give way, he will do so. It is not for others to tell him to give way—he is not giving way.
Nick Boles
Let me make it clear that I would be happy to give way to a Back Bencher, but I think we can all agree that we have heard quite enough from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) this week, in his not-so-pithy contributions to our debates.
We heard barely a word from Labour Members about our plans to ensure that anyone who has been failed in school and who has failed to achieve sufficient qualifications in English and maths should carry on studying them, through a further education college or whatever other route they take. That is a plan we have invested in and that we are developing.
Alex Cunningham
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He mentioned trying to give opportunities to those who fail to achieve the necessary standard in maths and English. When will the Government provide parity of funding to our colleges so that they can do that job?
Nick Boles
I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware that, unlike under the Government he supported, when sixth forms in schools received much more money per pupil than sixth-formers in other institutions, we have an absolutely equal funding system. Whether someone is in a sixth form or school, or a further education college or a sixth-form college, they will receive exactly the same amount of money per pupil, as he should know well.
We do not believe that we have a monopoly on good ideas, and we are not remotely complacent about the state of education for 14 to 19-year-olds, but we will oppose the motion because a review or, God forbid, the royal commission that one Labour Member called for would distract the Government at a time when we are making real progress. We are making progress in ensuring that everybody secures that vital passport to success which is a mastery of English and maths. We are making progress in reforming qualifications so that they are rigorous, respected and backed by employers. We are making progress with apprenticeships, not just by increasing their number to 2.2 million in the last Parliament, but by introducing reforms that got rid of programme-led apprenticeships, which the last Labour Government introduced. Those involved no employer, no job and a few months of training in a college, yet Labour dared to call them apprenticeships. We have got rid of those and our reforms will continue.
We are making progress with the introduction of university technical colleges, and I was glad to hear support for the concept from Opposition Members. We want UTCs, spearheaded by one of the greatest Education Secretaries that any Conservative Government have ever had, to be within reach of every city. But we want them to flourish too, and we will be looking to make sure that every UTC can succeed, both financially and educationally.
We are agreed on one thing at the end of this debate: we have huge ambitions for our education system, and they are not yet met. We have huge aspirations for every young person going through school and going into a further education institution in our country, and those aspirations are not yet guaranteed. We will not rest until everybody in this country, in this one nation—in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland—is able to leave school and college with qualifications that equip them for a life of work; a life that is fulfilling and rewarding and that helps to make this country one of the greatest countries on earth.
Question put.