Skills, Vocational Training, and Further and Higher Education

Baroness Sater Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sater (Con)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for securing this important debate. I would like to raise two points today: financial literacy and careers guidance, which are part of the same conversation and can transform lives. We want young people to be career ready, but they also need to be financially ready. Young people today are growing up in an increasingly challenging financial world, so more than ever they need the confidence to make informed decisions.

I welcome the Government’s direction of travel in strengthening financial education in the national curriculum, as these life skills are important. Although financial education is statutory in primary and secondary education, it is not statutory in post-16 years. Many are urging the Government to embed it into the post-16 pathways. This is especially important when young people are faced with immediate financial decisions, such as wages and renting, for the first time. We need the right resources, more teacher training and curriculum time to ensure that good financial education reaches every child, regardless of where they live and at the right time in their lives.

My second point is about careers guidance in schools. We all welcome the focus on the need to get more young people into further education, apprenticeships, training and employment at 16, but there is an immediate need to do more to ensure that young people know what those opportunities are, where they can lead and how to get there. Some young people already have networks around them to explain different careers, arrange work experience or introduce them to an employer, but many disadvantaged young people do not.

Good careers guidance in schools can be a great equaliser. Ofsted’s 2023 review found that a third of schools reported poor staffing levels and high staff turnover affecting careers provision, while a quarter identified funding as a barrier. Careers departments need to be better resourced, and there must not be a postcode lottery.

The Library briefing makes an important point here: employers have highlighted a lack of workplace experience, confidence and work readiness among young people. Good career guidance has the power to address many of these issues. The Government’s careers guidance, updated in June 2026, cited evidence that high-quality careers provision is associated with around an 8% reduction in the likelihood of young people becoming NEET. The evidence suggests an even greater impact in schools serving the highest proportions of disadvantaged learners. The Library briefing also highlights that among 18 to 21 year-olds there is a 12.7 percentage point gap in participation in education and apprenticeships between disadvantaged young people and their peers.

Opportunity works only if young people have the knowledge, understanding and confidence to take it. If we are serious about social mobility, we must make sure that disadvantaged young people are not disadvantaged twice: first by their circumstances, then again by lacking the support and knowledge to navigate their future. Their future should be determined by their ambition and ability, not by the circumstances into which they are born.