Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Baroness Barran Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, as I rise to speak at Second Reading, I say first how much I enjoyed the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Beamish. I look forward to the insights he will bring to your Lordships’ House.

The goal of improving our skills system and meeting skills gaps is not a new one. Indeed, today, as my noble friend Lady Finn said, it is an international one. Under successive Governments, we have seen work to simplify the system, achieve parity of esteem with academic qualifications, place employers at the heart of the system and improve the quality of skills-based qualifications. In their manifesto, His Majesty’s Government committed to establishing a new body, Skills England, to deliver their skills strategy, but unfortunately this Bill merely abolishes the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and transfers its functions to the Secretary of State; in effect, absorbing them into the Department for Education. We have no details on the plans for Skills England itself, nor on how the Government’s proposed changes to the funding of skills-based qualifications will work in practice.

On these Benches, we have three main concerns. First, we do not believe that the proposed machinery of government changes are likely to make the difference that the Government hope they will. In the last 50 years, there have been no fewer than 12 skills agencies, or 13 including Skills England. If the creation of a new body was alone enough to address our challenges in this area, surely one of the earlier iterations would have been the answer. Secondly, as we have heard across the House, we believe that the powers of the Secretary of State created by this Bill are too wide-ranging, have little accountability and will risk directly damaging the status of these qualifications. Thirdly, we have real concerns that these changes will lead to harmful delays in addressing some of the most important strategic issues in skills development that the Government face and have set out.

Given that all noble Lords want the most effective approach to developing our skills system, it is important to recognise the achievements of the last Government and the key challenges that remain so that the new Government benefit from the institutional memory of this House and avoid repeating any past mistakes. The last Government delivered on a major simplification of the system in relation to T-levels, higher technical qualifications and apprenticeship standards. We raised the value of skills-based qualifications in the minds of students and employers, particularly in relation to apprenticeships, which we put on a statutory footing for the first time.

The noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, spoke eloquently about the importance and effectiveness of putting employers at the heart of the system, which IfATE brought as well as the creation of local skills improvement plans, which linked employers and providers for the first time. We improved the quality of qualifications across the board, including for the missing middle which your Lordships have referred to, and we laid the foundations for lifelong learning through the skills Act and the lifelong learning Act of 2023 so that options for training and retraining were available at every stage of a person’s career. I hope the Minister will confirm that the Government will not discard the progress of the past 14 years but build on it and focus on the key challenges of the future.

If we look at the challenges of improving our skills system, I am genuinely baffled as to why one would start by creating a new agency within the DfE and abolish IfATE. I am not sure how this helps build demand for newer and less well-established qualifications such as T-levels and HTQs. I am not sure how it addresses the workforce pressures in further education or the decline in investment in training by employers or how it will help the Government realise the potential of the lifelong learning Act. How does it quickly set out the plans for the new growth and skills levy which the Government promised in their manifesto, so that we avoid a hiatus in skills development and investment, as alluded to in their impact assessment? Can the Minister explain why the Government could not have achieved their goals of co-ordination with the industrial strategy council and the Migration Advisory Committee through IfATE rather than placing Skills England within the DfE, with all the time, cost and reorganisation that would have avoided?

If we had a blank sheet of paper—in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, perhaps a sheet of paper that was nimble, agile and other good adjectives—and had to choose between an independent, employer-led body and an internal team within a government department to create the best skills system, I am pretty sure that most people would naturally assume that the former would be more effective. It would help if the Minister could give the House examples of where such centralisation of power has actually delivered on the Government’s aspirations.

We are also really concerned about the powers of the Secretary of State and expect to come back to these in Committee. In the King’s Speech, the Government committed to creating a new body, Skills England, but as noble Lords have noted, the Bill does not do that. Far from simply replacing the institute, the Bill abolishes it, leaving the Secretary of State in control. We now understand that Skills England will not be on a statutory footing and therefore will unquestionably be less independent than IfATE.

The Bill gives the Secretary of State sweeping powers to prepare apprenticeship standards and plans, either personally or by commissioning others. Clauses 4 and 5 make it possible for the Secretary of State to bypass industry groups and employers entirely. In her opening speech, the Minister helpfully set out some examples to reassure the House about some of the limitations on how those powers might be used, but can she explain what the barrier is to putting them in the Bill if the Government are clear on what those limits are?

Secondly, we should be concerned about the potential impact on the quality of technical qualifications. Clause 6 removes the requirement for reviews of technical education qualifications, standards and apprenticeship assessment plans to be published at regular intervals. What will the arrangements be to do this in future, and why has the duty to publish been removed? This flexibility is supposedly to align qualifications with employers’ needs, but we know that without rigorous and independent oversight, standards can slip. Can the Minister tell the House how she plans to ensure that we have standards that are recognisable and high, without that regular independent review?

There is the further risk of dilution of quality via Clause 7, which removes the requirement to have a third-party examination of a standard or apprenticeship assessment plan before approval, leaving the power for the Secretary of State to appoint one if she sees fit. What should we expect from this? How often does the Minister expect this power to be used and under what circumstances? It would also help if the Minister could clarify under what circumstances the Secretary of State would use her powers set out in Clause 8 in relation to Ofqual.

Clause 9 is also of concern, as my noble friend Lady Evans of Bowes Park pointed out, quoting the Attorney-General. Through regulation made by statutory instrument, it allows for the Secretary of State to make provision that is consequential on other provisions in the Bill. This is a very broad Henry VIII power, applying to existing and future legislation passed in this Parliament. I would be grateful if the Minister could give an example of how Clause 9 would be used. Perhaps she could commit to listing the existing legislation where Clause 9 will apply.

The assumption of power by the Secretary of State reverses the reforms of the Enterprise Act 2016 and risks severely eroding the parity of esteem between academic and technical qualifications. Imagine the outcry if A-level standards were directly controlled by the Education Secretary—I hope your Lordships see the point I am making. Yet the Bill gives ministerial control over all technical qualifications, which risks undermining their credibility and status.

Leaving the specifics of the Bill, we are genuinely concerned that Skills England will not achieve its goals. The Government are actually creating not one but three new bodies with an interest in skills: Skills England in the DfE, the Labour Market Advisory Board in the DWP and the new Industrial Strategy Advisory Council. How will these three—or four, if we include the Migration Advisory Committee—potentially competing bodies work together?

This approach raises so many questions. Can the Minister reassure the House about the level of seniority the head of Skills England will have? How will Skills England, sitting in a corner of Sanctuary Buildings, have the authority to influence other government departments? How will it work with the devolved Administrations and the mayoral combined authorities? How will it interact with the Office for Students? It is of great concern and regret that the objectives and limits of the new body are not clearly set out in statute, and we will seek to gain as much clarity as possible on these points during the passage of the Bill. I ask the Minister again: where is the evidence that such an approach has ever worked in this country before and will be successful now?

My belief is that, if His Majesty’s Government were serious about progressing quickly with the urgent strategic issues around skills reform, they would build on the success of IfATE, rather than dismantling it. The real risks here are, first, that the Government will unwittingly create confusion, lower standards and erode trust in technical qualifications; and, secondly, that the time and cost involved in creating yet another overcentralised agency in the DfE delays addressing the big opportunities and challenges that need to be grasped in this area and leaves us with an unwieldy, unaccountable and ineffective approach.

The Bill threatens to undo much of the progress made under successive Conservative Governments in building a world-class apprenticeship and technical education system. I have no doubt that the Minister wants the best for our skills system and those who learn and work in it, but I have grave doubts that this Bill will deliver the system that the country needs and that she wants. I hope very much that the Minister will listen to these concerns and act to address them when the Bill reaches Committee.