King’s Speech

Baroness Wolf of Dulwich Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the Ministers on their appointments. I agree strongly with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, in her maiden speech, that skills are central to economic growth. Skills are also central to opportunity, not just for young people but, critically, for adults. People should find it easy throughout their lives to learn and to update their skills. We are pretty good already at identifying skill needs and shortages, but if we do not improve opportunities and access then nothing good will happen to supply.

I emphasise to the Minister and the House the enormous importance of further education colleges, which did not figure in the King’s Speech—although I grant that he had only so much time. Their funding has suffered very badly recently, falling further and further behind schools on a per-head basis. This means that they are increasingly unable to provide the training we need for core shortage areas such as engineering and construction—we cannot build without builders. More generally, we are failing to realise colleges’ potential as a core part of any tertiary and higher education system geared to growth and opportunity.

North America has a lot to teach us here. In the United States, community colleges make part-time advanced adult study available across the country. Meanwhile in the UK—not just England—this has gone into disastrous decline, with ongoing falls in college-based higher education courses. In Canada, colleges supply an increasing amount of short, specific and high-level vocational training, often to recent graduates. Here, bizarrely, our higher education funding policy intentionally prevented this for decades.

Arrangements for the lifelong learning entitlement, passed into English law last year with, happily, cross-party support—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her valiant work in this House, which was not at all confined to this area—give us an opportunity to build far more flexibility and adult participation into our skills system and get rid of our crazy barriers to upskilling. It was also always intended to bring colleges and universities much closer together, in something approaching a single system. When does the Department for Education expect to reschedule and restart its consultative roadshows with the sector on the LLE? Will the Government ensure that colleges and college-based courses are fully incorporated into their planning and development?

I recommend to the Minister’s attention the Open University’s current collaboration with colleges in education cold spots. She will be aware that the creation of the Open University was one of the finest achievements—perhaps the finest—of the first Wilson Government, but she may not be aware that its original remit covered technical and refresher courses, not just degrees. If this country is serious about skills, it must look seriously beyond full degrees and not just pay lip service to a more nuanced system.

Finally, the Government have very good reason to reform the apprenticeship levy. Anyone involved with apprenticeship policy knows that the current funding system has had major unintended and undesirable consequences. Opportunities for young people have plummeted, especially in more deprived areas. Many young people who would like an apprenticeship cannot obtain one. We have been doing some research at King’s—I declare an interest as a member of its academic staff—on the way in which lower-achieving young people transition into the workplace. We are talking not about the bottom 20%, but about the 50% or 60% who do not go straight into university. We find that, for every one who gets an apprenticeship, three have tried very hard and failed to find one. The Government’s own figures show that only 20% of apprenticeship starts are in skill-shortage occupations.

I hope that the Minister can reassure the House that the review will be thorough and incorporate the needs of SMEs, young people and the entire country, and not just the desire of levy-paying employers for more ways to spend their levy.