Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I welcome this Bill and endorse the Government’s decision to give technical education the profile and priority that it deserves.

Unlike other noble Lords contributing to today’s debate, this is not an area on which I am a policy expert, but I hope to make a relevant contribution as someone who chose a technical education at the local FE college after leaving school at 16, and who, armed with that technical training, professional pride in my skills and an aptitude and enthusiasm to keep learning on the job as I progressed in my career, became Leader of your Lordships’ House. I have had the great privilege of working for and alongside, and of being supported by, some brilliant people with high academic credentials, and together we have been an effective team. I endorse the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, not to create new divisions or false distinctions between people who are talented and gifted. I feel I must put on record that I love highly educated people. I am not looking to do anybody down here, least of all the noble Lord, Lord Willetts.

However, one of my concerns about the consequences of successive Governments prioritising university and getting a degree as pretty much the only route to an increasingly narrow definition of success is the lack of diversity in leadership roles across politics, Whitehall, the public sector more broadly, business and the media. In other words, we have the rather conflicted situation now where those in positions of real power or influence, regardless of where they may have started in life, have all followed the same university path and therefore tend to define success in their own image. Therefore, while I welcome this Bill and applaud all that the Government are doing in this area to promote skills and further education colleges, those of us who make decisions which affect everyone else still have work to do in how we think about technical education or those who do not go to university.

As we consider this legislation and look beyond it, I will highlight three big traps that we must avoid falling into. The first is seeing technical education as a consolation prize for those who, in the minds of graduates, do not have the potential to be like them. Some people learn to know; some of us learn to do. Some of us learn best by observing and absorbing rather than by studying theories. Non-graduates are often more strategic in their thinking because they rely on what they can see to understand and identify the problem that needs fixing for things to work better. Therefore, it is important that we recognise the value from this difference to achieving our collective goals if we are to see results which benefit all of us.

The second trap we need to avoid is assuming that anyone who follows a technical route is not ambitious, or to dismiss as unimportant what some people might see as modest ambition because it does not involve holding power over other people’s lives. We are all different. What is important in my mind is encouraging pride and professionalism in doing a job well, whatever it is, and showing respect for that when we see it.

The final trap is assuming that people who follow a technical route, or indeed anyone who does not have a degree, cannot become senior leaders in business, politics, the public sector or anywhere else. We have to get out of this mindset that somehow leadership is all about knowledge—it is not. It is about being able to understand and see the bigger picture and to communicate in bold strokes. That does not come from having a degree; it comes from experience, and a desire to engage and understand the world through the eyes of people who see it differently from us.

As one of your colleagues who is technically trained, who started out with modest ambitions and who has grown in confidence and ability as I have gone from job to job, I offer that perspective, with all due respect to those who have followed a different path and those who will be charged with implementing the results of this legislation. In addition to what the legislation seeks to achieve in improving technical education, I hope that through our scrutiny and debates we as parliamentarians change our perception of the potential of those for whom not going to university is the best route to their own definition of success, and that we aim to achieve much greater diversity in positions of power.