Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

A few months ago, I was honoured to be invited back to Exeter University—my old university—to make a speech and present its first cohort of degree apprenticeship students with their degrees. I remember sitting in that same hall as a university graduate in 1991, and I looked out at so many apprentices from all walks of life who were proud of the work that they had achieved. If a traditional academic university such as Exeter—one of the best in the world—can do so much to change its culture and promote degree apprenticeships, things must really be changing in our country. I hope that the passing of this excellent Bill will see many more schools and universities embrace vocational education pathways, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will continue to do more to banish once and for all the snobbery and misunderstanding that has surrounded apprenticeships, skills and technical education and to create a broader curriculum that supports vocational learning to better prepare pupils and students for the world of work.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I reiterate the general remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) about how the Bill is welcome overall. I will support the Government in their motions to disagree with the Lords amendments, and I agree that it is important that the Bill sees its final passage so that we can get on with the important journey towards an integrated education system. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as chair of the Lifelong Education Commission, which I set up with ResPublica to look at the long-term structural issues underpinning why the United Kingdom, and England in particular, has had such a difficult, long tail of underachievement and the need, as we look at the Government’s mission to level up for the future, to place skills provision front and centre of the agenda.

About six million people—the figure hovers around that number—still have only qualifications at level 2, and there is a desperate need to give more people an opportunity to enhance their qualifications so that they can apply for the many jobs and vacancies out there. People are not refusing to do those jobs. It is partly that they do not have the skills and capabilities to engage with the process, but they are desperate to do so, and that it is why it is so vital to match their skills with their ambitions.

The Bill begins the long process of moving from a top-heavy system that focused unduly on universities and did not give the further education sector the opportunity and investment that it needed to progress. Hopefully, we will now focus on tertiary education overall instead of pitching HE against FE. However, the Bill must be just chapter one of that educational revolution. As the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) mentioned, the Bill goes only so far, and a number of caveats have yet to be addressed, particularly on financing. I am particularly interested in financing for lifelong education, as such learners are not 18-year-olds who can access loan finance—and, even if they could, they have families, and they have mortgages and other debts to pay, so simply saying, “You can apply for an additional loan” will not work. We need to look at grant financing and understand the pressures placed on individuals and the barriers that they will need to overcome to access lifelong learning.

I tabled nine amendments the other month, none of which was accepted by the Government; nor, sadly, were they taken up by the Lords. I will continue to press the Government on skills provision, the lifelong loan entitlement and the lifetime skills guarantee, which applies only to a small proportion of the overall population. I wish it could be expanded, and I hope that the Government recognise that that ambition should be realised, particularly for individuals who have received qualifications at levels 3 to 5—or even levels 6 or 7— and need to retrain. They may have taken a degree 20 years ago, but they cannot access the opportunities to do that retraining.

The opportunities for lifelong learning and skills provision need to be more inclusive in the future. At the moment, the Bill addresses only a small segment of society—it is a segment that must be addressed and tackled—but let us look at chapters two, three and four and begin the journey of levelling up for everyone in this country, not just the immediate priority on which we are focused today.

[Alex Burghart]

It is a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friends the Members for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), who both have great expertise in the field. On what my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood said, we are interested in building up the offer for people already in the workplace. We see a great many people taking apprenticeships to reboot their careers. The Prime Minister’s lifetime skills guarantee is offering people who did not get level 3 technical qualifications at school or college the chance to do so later in life. Of course, we also have the LLE, which is championed by the Minister for Higher and Further Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan).

We are about giving everyone, whatever stage they are at in life, the chance to step forward and build their careers with new opportunities. The Bill is central to that. I have heard the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) criticise the Bill at various stages for not mentioning apprenticeships. They are obviously extraordinarily important to what we are doing, and I am delighted to report that, in the first quarter of the academic year, 164,000 people started apprenticeships, which is up 34% from last year and—crucially—up 6% from the pre-pandemic period. He often likes to quote figures of yesteryear, and I must remind him—not for the first time—that the change in the number of starts was not down to the creation of the apprenticeship levy but because, in 2017, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was in a more junior job in the Department for Education, he started to reform apprenticeships to ensure that our 640 standards reflected the needs of employers. That golden thread has run through all our reforms over the past 10 years, building from the report written by Baroness Wolf in 2011 through to the Sainsbury review in 2016.

To hear those on the Opposition Benches say, “Slow down, you’re going too fast” is somewhat reminiscent of the Locomotive Act 1865, which recommended that the speed limit in town should be 2 mph and that somebody with a red flag should walk ahead of the vehicle as it made its progress. We have waited long enough and students have waited long enough for high-quality technical qualifications that are designed with employers to give the economy the skills that it needs and to give students the skills they need to prosper in that economy.

The hon. Member for Chesterfield also referred to the number of people on BTEC courses and the number of people expected to do T-levels. I remind him again that we are not in the process of defunding all BTECs: BTECs will survive where they do not overlap with T-levels. Just as now, there will be some people who do not study level 3 at age 16 to 19, and those people will have an enhanced offer at level 2, off the back of our level 2 reforms that are currently out to consultation.

I was delighted that at the beginning of last week 69 T-level providers from throughout the country—from north to south and east to west—came to the Department for Education and talked to us about their experiences in the first two years. A great many students came with them, and the level of enthusiasm for the qualifications and the level of excitement about the opportunities that the reforms are going to provide for the next generation was tangible. It therefore gives me great pleasure to commend the Bill to the House and sit down.

Question put.

Higher Education Reform

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

As part of our £900 million investment, we will look at how we continue to support our brilliant creative industries, but it is not the only way to support them through our higher education reforms. I visited Pinewood Shepperton studios a few weeks ago, which is about to deliver 3.5 million square feet of studio and creative space to be used for many decades to come, and it has already been taken by the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Disney. They have been recruiting kickstarters and apprentices, and they are doing a brilliant job. I recommend that the hon. Lady visits to see the incredible enthusiasm of businesses and education institutions for working together.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

As the Universities Minister who oversaw the publication of the Augar review 1,001 days ago, I welcome the Government’s considered response and the Secretary of State’s marked change of tone and attitude towards higher education, which is much appreciated by the sector.

Minimum entry requirements have now shifted to become minimum eligibility requirements, but perhaps the Secretary of State will consider minimum exit requirements. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) said, universities would welcome the opportunity to take young students who, like the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), do not have a maths GCSE and to work with them on their functional skills. If it is about outcomes, we should tell universities that it is their responsibility to deliver the basic functional skills of GCSE English and maths as part of their degree programmes.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I commend my right hon. Friend for his excellent work on the Augar panel. He is a passionate advocate for the sector.

With your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, I remind the House that, of every four international students, the United States take two, the United Kingdom takes one and the rest of the world shares one. That is how successful our higher education institutions are and have been. My right hon. Friend raises an important point, and this is a real consultation. I will take on board his suggestions and take a proper look at them.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We need to start the wind-ups at a quarter to nine, so if everybody could take about six minutes— interestingly, the last speaker’s contribution was exactly six minutes—we should all be able to get in, and I will not have to introduce a time limit.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I will do my best, Madam Deputy Speaker, to squeeze my remarks on the 12 amendments in my name into six minutes, but I apologise in advance if I run slightly over.

To echo the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), we are all here to make a good Bill better—to make it the best possible Bill—and I hope that the Minister will reflect on my amendments, which I do not intend to press to a Division, so that we can continue the dialogue and make sure that the Bill truly shines by the end of this democratic process.

My new clause 4 would require the Secretary of State to publish a green skills strategy. This has been recommended by the Institute for Government and the Confederation of British Industry, and has been backed by several Members from across the House. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Education have already commissioned a report from the new green jobs taskforce, which laid out several recommendations on how to deliver on the Government’s green jobs target in the “Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution”. That included publishing a net-zero strategy to promote good green jobs, yet we know that the UK will need 170,000 more workers to qualify each year in home insulation, renewable energy and electric vehicle manufacturing, and infrastructure upgrades if we are to meet our net-zero targets. The think-tank Onward has predicted that approximately 1.7 million jobs will need to be created in the net-zero industries by 2030, of which 1.3 million are in occupations that require strong, low and medium-level technical qualifications, which are in critically short supply. It is a no-brainer: the Government should make the concession at the Dispatch Box, either in this House or the other place, that we should, although perhaps not in this Bill, look at publishing a green skills strategy. That is vital for the joined-up thinking and whole-of-Government approach that is needed for net zero.

I will seek to bundle up the next series of amendments, appropriately enough, into mini amendment modules, but I first declare an interest: I tabled these amendments as chair of the Lifelong Education Commission, which I established in lockdown; having been reshuffled out of Government, I decided, with time on my hands, that I would set up this commission. I have received administrative support from the think-tank ResPublica, which has helped me prepare the amendments and a number of reports.

New clause 6 would require the Secretary of State to publish an annual report on overall skills levels and economic output across England and Wales. It can be taken with amendments 7 and 8, which would require careers advisers to hold a level 4 qualification, and which would give local authorities oversight of the provision of careers guidance for the purposes of ensuring consistency and quality. If the Bill is to succeed, there needs to be a better joined-up effort to monitor changes in the UK’s skills provision and how that is reflected in the economy. An annual report would allow data sets to be created that would provide information at national and local levels, so that areas of success and concern could be identified for targeted support. That should cover all qualifications from entry level to level 8, and details should be given on the size and composition of each cohort.

To help local authorities better craft their local skills improvement plans, such a review should include relevant information about local labour markets, and data on job retention, labour market turnover, and different measures of labour productivity. That is important for transparency, but we should be mindful of the need to balance that against data burdens on institutions, including education providers. An annual report should therefore build on existing work carried out in market intelligence on post-16 skills and education data.

On careers advice, the level 4 qualification requirement that I set out in amendment 7 should apply to all school, college and university career advisors. The Government should also take steps to ensure that mandatory registration with the Career Development Institute is not needlessly burdensome or expensive. That means crafting a national careers strategy at the same time, and working closely with further education colleges, who are best placed to design and deliver dedicated careers advisory courses.

I turn to new clause 7, which I will consider with amendment 3. The new clause would place the Government’s lifetime skills guarantee on a statutory footing, ensuring that those without an A-level or equivalent qualification, or those who hold such a qualification but would benefit from reskilling, can study a fully funded approved course. Retraining or reskilling sometimes means gaining a qualification a lower level than others that we have already reached in our learning trajectory, and anyone who wants to gain an equivalent or lower qualification should be able to access Government funding for that.

The ELQ rules should be explicitly removed as a condition for claiming a lifelong loan entitlement. Neither the lifetime skills guarantee nor the lifelong loan entitlement are truly lifelong if people who already have a level 3 to level 6 qualification are excluded from obtaining any more funding. The programme needs to be as broad and simple as possible to encourage—not discourage—participation, and should cover all provision up to level 3, irrespective of whether learners are taking a full qualification or taking one for the first time. That means removing all barriers, including any limits on repeating level 3 qualifications.

Amendment 3 would expand financial support for higher and further education courses to include means-tested grants for the purposes of ensuring that financial hardship is not a barrier to reskilling. The Bill still has limited detail about the exact structure of the LLE and how it will operate, such as the minimum credit level required to access it. In the light of that, I welcome the launch of a panel under the Minister for Higher and Further Education to review the structure and purpose of the LLE. As long as the LLE relies on a system of loans rather than grants, it will be difficult to encourage uptake in adult skills improvement among young people without assets, savings or other reserves to serve as a financial cushion. The LLE therefore risks becoming a clear clause of inequity between age groups in the education system. An 18-year-old choosing which education path to go down will have a different perspective on loan debt from someone in their 30s, 40s or 50s. As we advance through our careers, we accumulate more financial commitments, such as rent or mortgage payments and the costs of family care and support, and that makes career jumps much harder to undertake than career starts. A proper commitment to lifelong learning needs an explicit national decision about what we are prepared to fully fund. We need a national system of means-tested grants, targeted at the most disadvantaged.

I turn to new clause 8, which I will consider with new clause 9. New clause 8 would require the Secretary of State to publish a national strategy for integrated education. It would set out a plan for developing courses that had a mixture of academic and vocational content at levels 4 to 8, and would support the creation and expansion of institutions offering such courses. New clause 9 would require the Secretary of State to set out a framework of national guidelines for the unbundling, stacking and transfer of modular course credits between institutions. It would also set out a role for Ofqual, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to ensure that such a framework operates effectively. I will not go into further details on that; needless to say, such flexibilities need to be worked out at a far more granular level, and any credit system will need to be more sophisticated than just letting learners accrue a certain number of points.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

Let me start by thanking the Secretary of State for what I thought was a rather conciliatory speech. Hopefully, it will set the tone for this evening’s debate on a Bill that has already gone through the other place. We have seen a number of amendments tabled, not least the one on essay mills—I am very grateful to the Government for adding it to the Bill. That was the result of a cross-party effort, involving not just myself, but Lord Storey who has led the charge in the other place, I think, for the past five years. I hope that, in this place, we can try to build some cross-party consensus in order to improve the Bill, as the Lords have done.

In that spirit of cross-party consensus, I would like to reflect on the words of the Opposition Front Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who set out very clearly the challenge with the lifetime skills guarantee. At present, it is not a guarantee for all those who need lifetime skills. As the Secretary of State clearly set out in his speech, 80% of the adult population in 2030 are already in work. If we wish to grip the challenges that climate change presents and grip the challenges of the systems-based approach that will lead to net zero across all parts of this country, we will need new forms of skills, reskilling and upskilling in green technologies, in retrofitting boilers and in all those things that, at the moment, we struggle to be able to do. We will need those reskilling and retraining opportunities. Those will come only if we take this moment to expand the lifetime skills guarantee and, importantly, as the Secretary of State said, the lifetime loan entitlement, because nothing flows without the finance. We need to ensure that that is available to those who have a level 3 qualification or above. We must look to abolish the so-called equivalent, or lower, qualification rule.

I want to declare my interest as having established a new Lifelong Education Commission with ResPublica. I am not paid for doing it, but I want to make sure that it is on the record that I have this interest in running the commission. The commission has published its first report, which looks in particular at what is needed when it comes to the frameworks. It is very easy to announce the lifetime skills guarantee—it sounds great. It is very easy to talk about a lifelong loan entitlement—it sounds marvellous—but unless we get the partnerships right in order to be able to deliver and implement this locally, they are just words. They are just a framework. I desperately want this to succeed.

I have been in this place for 11 years and, if I am honest, one of the greatest failures of my Government has been the decline in adult and part-time learning due to a lack of funding. We now have an opportunity to learn a lot of lessons from what went wrong there.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a very good speech. Would he consider and welcome the improved approach to collaboration that the Treasury Bench has taken this evening, with the involvement of metro Mayors and combined authorities? Does he also agree that if we want to have a truly locally driven skills agenda, we need to involve local enterprise partnerships? They are often a much better voice for local employers than the chambers of commerce, which can be quite variable— not in the case of Suffolk, I hasten to add, but more generally.

[Chris Skidmore]

My hon. Friend’s intervention brings me to my second point, which is about the need to take a truly place-based approach to these reforms, if they are to succeed. We cannot necessarily legislate, top-down, and expect the reforms somehow to be successful. We have to involve local communities, because they know what will work in their local ecosystems. Many points have been made today about the role of employers. I would also say that universities are missing from the local skills improvement plans. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), made a point about the involvement of universities; they should be written into the Bill as part of the local skills improvement partnerships.

I know that we have had a review of the form and function of local enterprise partnerships. It may be that the levelling up White Paper brings further light on their role. There is enormous variability in the actual skills base of local enterprise partnerships to understand what is needed when it comes to delivering local skills. If we are going to level up, we want to ensure that we level up the capacity and capability of local actors to deliver on the ground, so ensuring that we get the correct place-based approach is important. I do not mind which actors locally are involved in the partnerships. I just think that it should be up to local communities to help forge the approach.

Let us look at what is happening in the Health and Care Bill, for which I have sat on the Bill Committee. We have seen that local approach with integrated care boards and integrated care partnerships. The Government are trusting them to come up with their own membership; it is not prescriptive. We have to try to demonstrate the same level of trust in education at a local level as we are doing with health through that Bill.

[Margaret Greenwood]

The right hon. Member is talking about the Health and Care Bill and trusting that this will all be okay; it is as if fingers have to be crossed and things are devolved down to a local level. Given the very high number of Members of Parliament with financial interests in private health, this is a dangerous road to go down. Will he revisit the view that he has just expressed? That Bill is a privatising Bill that is going to make it harder for people to get healthcare. It will open up the whole thing to the private sector in a way that we really need to object to.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before you respond to that, Mr Skidmore, the time limit will be four minutes after you have finished your contribution.

[Chris Skidmore]

It is not an amendment for this Bill so I am simply not going to respond to that point.

I will finish by reflecting on the wider tone in which we take this debate forward. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire, talked about the need for partnerships between universities and further education colleges, and about ensuring that we do not pitch one against the other. That is absolutely right. This is a tertiary education Bill that is meant to be uniting, not divisive.

The Education Secretary, in his opening remarks, talked about President Harry Truman’s comment that it does not matter who takes the credit, as long as something is delivered successfully. I would like to quote another US President, Abraham Lincoln, who said:

“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.”

I think that that applies when we look at the role of universities and further education colleges. We need them to work together in a sustainable ecosystem. We cannot allow the Bill to divide and rule, or somehow to allow for FE colleges to be compared unfavourably or favourably against universities.

We need higher technical education to succeed. To do that, we need flexible pathways that will allow the individual learner to move between FE and higher education—and sometimes back again—across the country. We will only ensure that those flexibilities exist if we support every part of the education sector and every institution. It is the institutions and their strengths that will deliver success in this vital Bill.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

There is now a four-minute limit.

STEM Subjects: Science and Discovery Centres

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con) [V]]

I will be brief. If hon. Members can hear any background noise, it is because I have a 16-month-old baby in a high chair next to me watching “Paw Patrol”. I am hoping she will be okay. I want to make some comments both as a former Science Minister who recognises the importance of science and discovery centres and as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on museums. We have seen the impact of the culture recovery fund and what that has meant for keeping museums afloat over the past year. Science and discovery centres have been unable to access the culture recovery fund. I wrote to the Minister about that, but it was not possible to achieve change.

I want to talk about We The Curious, the science and discovery centre in Bristol. I remember it as the Exploratory from when I was growing up, and I have vivid memories of the wonderful experience I had visiting it several times. I would be taking my children to We The Curious if it were open now. Before covid, it had 300,000 visitors a year, of which 70,000 were school visits, so Bristol schoolchildren had huge opportunities to visit this centre right in Bristol city centre. However, it has lost £2.7 million of revenue since the pandemic began. It has had to restructure, making 46% of its education team redundant. The restructuring of staff has led to £1.1 million-worth of savings, but it is in dire straits.

We need to recognise that there were 60 science and discovery centres in the national network across the country. There have been several closures as a result of covid, but they had 25 million visitors a year, 11 million of whom were schoolchildren. Of those 11 million visits, 20% were organised through the STEM curriculum directly delivering lesson plans in science, physics and chemistry. We have seen an enormous loss over the past year, and we have to make sure that this loss is not compounded by the closure of centres, which means that children in local areas will miss out on the potential for science and discovery centres to enrich their curriculum and inspire the next generation of scientists.

Some will be unable to access the cultural recovery fund. I say to the Minister that this is the year of COP26 and this is the generation that is going to actually deliver on net zero. I have young children—a five-year-old and a six-year-old—and they have talked about the coronavirus and are acutely aware of science on the back of the pandemic. We have an opportunity to train the next generation of scientists. Science and discovery centres must play a key role in that, but they cannot do so when they are on their knees. The Government need to support these centres. Perhaps this year alone we could set them a specific mission with regards to COP26. It would help plug a funding shortfall if we were able to task the centres with local missions to engage young people on the back of an educational recovery plan that is needed for schools.

Whether it is the Department for Education, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport or the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, I urge the Government to look at the opportunities that COP26 provides for sustainability. Ultimately, science and discovery centres are well placed to teach the lessons and the science of sustainability, and to train up a future generation of new scientists and responsible citizens who will take the future of the planet incredibly seriously. Science and discovery centres can help them achieve that.

Education Route Map: Covid-19

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con) [V]]

As Members have already stated, the education road map needs to be a long-term plan, because the educational impact of the pandemic will likely last for the entirety of this decade. The challenge is therefore to think long and proactively, and not to take short-term reactive decisions. This means taking a multi-annual strategic approach, not a tactical one that covers only 2021. We need to take a strategic approach that is wide in its vision. After all, we do not have an education system—we have an education ecosystem, for which a holistic approach is needed. We need an approach that prioritises outcomes, not outputs, and that recognises not just schools and colleges—although I know that is the subject of the debate today—but universities and beyond, into adult and lifelong learning, especially given the enormous potential that reskilling and upskilling can bring to a workforce that will be confronting change in this post-covid decade.

If we recognise that a long-term approach must be strategic in its values, we must also recognise that, in its implementation, we must be prepared for adverse reactions to any new policies. Today’s announcements on teacher assessment for exams, for instance, is entirely under-standable, but it must also take into account the reactions that the policy will have in relation to university admissions later in the year and, indeed, what it will mean for grade inflation. We must be careful that one person’s solution does not become another’s problem.

This brings me to the delivery of the road map. A long-term plan can be delivered, and can succeed, only if it is driven by a process that leads to specific outcomes that are set and then measured. Words simply are not enough. An ecosystem can thrive only under the protection of rules and when it is maintained by standards. This is particularly true of education, yet I believe that the framework of assessment, and therefore the outcomes and the independent standards that drive them, hang in the balance. We cannot afford to go backwards. Let us not throw away the importance of listening to evidence-based practice and the data-driven process. That will need new metrics, which will be essential.

I believe that, in the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), we need to be positive and, if we do all of this, we can seize the opportunity to learn back better and to shape an opportunity from this crisis. Ultimately, if the national education recovery plan is to succeed, it must, above all, bring hope for a better future.

Remote Education and Free School Meals

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con) [V]]

I would like to focus my remarks specifically on remote and online learning.

I would like to express my incredible admiration for all teachers who have managed to turn around at such fast pace and such short notice a fantastic programme of online support. I am the father of a six-year-old girl, a four-year-old son, and, in addition, a 14-month-old baby screaming in the background. I have just managed to wrestle this laptop away from their learning today. The level of support in what I have seen has been wonderful. Regardless of my ability to have access to a laptop, a number of people who are both working parents struggle to provide these three hours. I hold my hand up and say that I struggle to do the home schooling to the best of what I would like to be my ability. After this pandemic has ceased, we will need a national education recovery plan to look at all children’s ability and see where they need to recover. That covers not just the disadvantaged but every single pupil who will have fallen behind on the track. I know that my children are not receiving the experience that they deserve with being present in school, but I would never think to suggest that the money that is being invested in schools should be returned for not providing that level of support, because what they are providing digitally is the best they can do in difficult circumstances. I am sure that that view is shared by millions of parents across the country.

Why, then, should it be any different for other learning arenas—in particular, our universities? Thousands of lecturers have gone above and beyond to provide additional online resourcing materials, and yet these lecturers, who are sometimes paid less than primary school teachers, are supposedly providing an inferior service. The other day, one Labour MP talked about degrees being conducted by Zoom as if that was some kind of substandard process. It is not. Universities have invested more money than ever before in online procedures in just the same way that schools have. It costs more to provide online resources at university. To suggest that there should be a reduction in the fees level would simply lead to increased redundancies in universities. We need our universities, just as we need our schools, to be there to help students to recover when this pandemic ends. It is right, therefore, to support all educational settings and to fight for the fact that we need them for the future and must not put any of them under particular under attack.

Secondary School Provision: Lyde Green

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

In the past 10 years that I have been fortunate to be the Member of Parliament for Kingswood, I have been proud to have campaigned for and helped to deliver several new schools in my constituency, including King’s Oak Academy primary school, the Digitech Studio School on the site of the former Grange School, a new special school for Kingswood that is due to open shortly and a new primary school for Lyde Green. In addition, since 2010 many more schools have received funding to expand their premises, including Barley Close Community Primary School, Mangotsfield Primary School and Beacon Rise Primary School.

These new schools and this new investment would not have been possible without the funding and support from the Department for Education and the Minister for School Standards, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), who is in his place today. He knows well my commitment to securing the good school places needed in my local area in order to meet demand and raise standards. He has met me and delegations that I have brought from South Gloucestershire Council on many occasions over the past decade. He has even come to visit local schools in my constituency. I thank him dearly again for the commitment that he has shown.

Tonight I wish to raise with the Minister yet another campaign for a new school—this time, new co-located primary and secondary schools. It is the largest school investment project that I have ever called for. I am incredibly excited to be supporting this proposal for a school to be situated in and at the heart of the newly built Lyde Green community. I have been running this campaign with my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall), because Lyde Green straddles both our constituencies. I assure the Minister that my hon. Friend is as committed and passionate about delivering this project as I am, and I am delighted that he has been able to attend this debate. I congratulate him on his recent appointment as Minister of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Given his new role, he is unable to speak in this debate—it is important that our constituents recognise that—but that does not diminish the fact that he has been championing this project behind the scenes with me. Just the other week, we both visited the location of the site where the potential new school might be built.

Over the past 10 years, my constituency—like many others, including that of my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate—has seen growth in new housing. This has taken place primarily in the entirely new village of Lyde Green, which, when complete, will number around 2,500 houses, many of which are family homes. The Minister gave permission for the £5.7 million Lyde Green Primary School following a previous campaign I ran, way back in October 2014. The funding resulted in the new primary school being delivered within a year and fully open within two, which is testament to the speed and efficiency of South Gloucestershire Council and the educational trusts in our area in meeting the commitments that they have signed and agreed. Indeed, South Gloucestershire Council has secured land and the financial contributions for 15 new primary schools and two new secondary schools, which are being delivered over a 10-year period. To date, the council is able to evidence the successful delivery of five new primary schools and their phases since 2013. I pay tribute to and acknowledge the fantastic leadership of Councillor Erica Williams, Councillor Toby Savage and Councillor Jon Hunt, who, as executive members for education on the council during that period, have spearheaded some truly vital work across the district. I also take this opportunity to recognise the campaigning efforts of many Conservative councillors in South Gloucestershire, most notably that of Councillor Colin Hunt, who has campaigned vigilantly and vigorously over the past 20 years for a secondary school to be delivered as part of this new and flourishing Lyde Green community.

To meet this rising demand and in particular the demand for school places in Lyde Green—principally as the first pupils who have been educated at the fantastic £5.7 million Lyde Green Primary School will move to a secondary setting in September 2022—we need to act now to provide the secondary school that Lyde Green deserves and, indeed, was promised as part of the section 106 agreement with the developers of the Lyde Green site.

In addition, further primary school places are needed to meet the demand of the community. Again, those places were agreed as part of the development’s initial planning permission. In particular, to meet demand in Lyde Green, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate and I are campaigning first for a 420-place primary school to be delivered by September ’22. That school will provide for children aged between four and 11. Secondly, we are campaigning for a new 900-place secondary school to be open by September ’22. That would be made up of 450 places required to mitigate the impact of new housing that I have spoken about, and also 450 places to meet basic need growth for the whole area of south Gloucestershire. Basic need refers to the growth of the existing secondary school age population, which at the moment exceeds the current number of places in south Gloucestershire secondary schools.

As I am sure the Minister is aware, South Gloucestershire Council is seeking to commission the new secondary school via the Department for Education’s ongoing wave 14 free schools programme. As part of that programme—the bid that is now open is wave 14—South Gloucestershire and Stroud Academy Trust, the delivery partners, known as SGSAT, has submitted a bid for a new secondary school at Lyde Green to meet the demand for 900 places for the 11-to-16 age range. That bid has been shortlisted by the Department, and SGSAT attended an interview as part of the process.

Following the interview round, I understand that the Department will determine which free school projects nationally will receive formal approval, which I hope will happen, to use ministerial phraseology, to which I am accustomed—I should probably put on record that I have been a Minister in the Department for Education not once, but twice, I enjoyed it so much—“in due course”.

I want to use this debate tonight to highlight my determination about this individual bid for a new secondary school at Lyde Green. It is essential not only for the Lyde Green community, but for the wider south Gloucestershire area if the local authority is to meet its statutory duty to place all pupils in secondary school provision, given the demographic uplift in demand locally.

I put on record also, in advance of the outcome of the wave 14 free school bid process, that time is tight and time is getting tighter. As I have mentioned, September ’22 is the end date to deliver the new school buildings and, as a result, South Gloucestershire Council has already developed an outline design and submitted that for planning approval. In advance of any potential wave 14 successful bid—God willing—I want to reassure the Minister that, as a result of previous agreement with developers, so many of the important milestones have already been reached and are already in place. The council has already secured 2.83 hectares of land for the second primary school and new secondary school provision. The land designation for the new school was reflected in the original masterplan for the development site. Following site investigations of the land, the council has identified some very specific site constraints and, in order to overcome those constraints, the council has renegotiated the school site boundaries. Drawings of the revised school site have been prepared by the development consortium, Emersons Green Urban Village, which I would be happy to share with the Minister and his free schools team overseeing the wave 14 bid process. The plan shows a revised school site location and infrastructure road layout, and the amalgamation of two previously separate potential school sites, including an amendment to the local centre land to provide for part of the revised full school site. It also demonstrates indicative school buildings within the new school site, as well as adjacent residential parcels and how they are being planned within the revised masterplan layout.

The council is in a strong position to deliver new school provision for September 2022, which is reflected in the following considerations. Working with sponsor trusts, the council has developed an outline design and submitted it for planning approval. That means that the scheme will be ready for contractor selection next month, in October. Planning permission will be in place by November 2020, and construction could commence from June 2021. At every stage of the initial process, there has been positive engagement with the local community, and current year 5 children attending Lyde Green Primary School anticipate that they will be able to express a preference for the new Lyde Green secondary school at secondary transfer in September 2022. No contentious issues have been raised in response to the design proposals.

That is significant progress in developing the scheme and reflects the relatively short period of time in which to design, procure and build the new school ready for September 2022. It is for this reason that I have called today’s debate: to highlight to the Minister that we are shovel-ready, as it were—ready and more than willing to get going on a new secondary school, along with a primary school, co-located on the same site, which is more than much needed by the growing Lyde Green community. As the local Member of Parliament, I would be honoured if he and his Department considered this wave 14 bid as quickly as possible. It is a strong bid, a desperately needed bid, and a bid that will help to transform secondary school provision in my local area. I place my faith in the Minister. He has delivered for me many times before, transforming the lives of young people across my constituency, for which I thank him. I hope that he can deliver once more.

Awarding of Qualifications: Role of Ministers

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

This is the first time I have made a speech in this Chamber since leaving the Government and I want to speak today to put on record my confidence in my former ministerial colleagues, with whom I had the pleasure of working closely. I know that my hon. Friends would have sought to ensure that, in this year that no one could have predicted, the replacement assessments were as rigorous, and held to the same standards, as previous exams.

If we are to have confidence in our exam system, its credibility needs to be maintained not just in a single year, but across decades. The UK’s A-level qualification system is internationally renowned for precisely that reason—it has been maintained as a gold standard, providing confidence to pupils, teachers and society alike. It simply is too easy to judge in hindsight what course should have been taken. Hindsight can be a friend to us all, but in reality we must caution that, in the height of uncertainty in the global pandemic, any alternative could equally have come unstuck.

What we need now is recognition of the fact that we need solutions to issues that have resulted from the grading that has now been adopted. Some of these issues are good problems to have. We now have record numbers of young people progressing to higher education. We have record numbers of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds entering university. Now these students have been enrolled in these institutions, I believe that we have a duty to ensure that their welfare is protected. Travelling to perhaps an unknown city or leaving home for the first time during the pandemic, many students will be anxious and nervous about their future. I know that universities have made extensive plans in advance of students returning to campus, but amid the scientific focus on preventing outbreaks of the virus, we must never forget that students can be vulnerable young adults whose pastoral care is paramount.

That duty, however, should not be limited to as long as the pandemic lasts. Many students, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, will struggle to adapt to their new environment and new forms of learning, having missed valuable time at school. Allowances must be made to ensure that students do not fall through the net and drop out.

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government’s priority has been children’s education? That is demonstrated by the delivery of the £1 billion covid catch-up plan to make up for lost teaching time as well as by the £650 million for children who have fallen behind.

[Chris Skidmore]

My hon. Friend is correct to highlight what is being done now. I raised this during questions to the Department for Education earlier in the week with regards to South Gloucestershire Council’s recovery curriculum. We must also maintain a focus on future intakes. Next year’s intake needs reassurance that they will not be penalised by any restriction in place due to deferrals that are being made this year.

Some issues have taught us valuable lessons that need to be heeded. One, I believe, is that our entire admissions system to university should now be reformed. Both main parties have already spoken of a desire to investigate what a post-qualification admissions system might look like. The Office for Students and Universities UK are doing important ongoing work, which was commissioned when I was Universities Minister, into what future measures could be considered. We know, however, that neither predicted grades nor A-level grades can solely be an accurate measure of future success at university.

Too many students, including those with health or mental health conditions, students facing the stress of a care or caregiver background, and those from homes that can never provide the learning environment needed for effective study or revision, will never achieve their actual ability while at school. They should not be written off simply because they have not achieved the grades, which after all measure performance at school, and not future potential. Of course universities are select institutions, but selection should be far more finely tuned to merit than simple grade boundaries. An admission system that uses post-qualification offers would help empower students to choose courses in the full knowledge of their results, whether based on qualifications or university assessment. That would end the process of clearing, which no matter how smooth it has become, has always struck me as no way to decide the future of—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman has reached the end of his time. He also took an intervention, so he has already had extra time and taken time away from others who may want to speak later.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to help children and young people catch up on the education they missed during the previous school year as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to help children and young people catch up on the education they missed during the previous school year as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Gavin Williamson)]

The Government have announced a catch-up package worth £1 billion, including a catch-up premium worth a total of £650 million, to support schools to make up for lost teaching time. That is in addition to the national tutoring programme, which is targeted at those children who are most disadvantaged in all our constituencies.

[Gavin Williamson]

I very much point to the work of the Education Endowment Foundation, which we issued with our guidance. It has undertaken evidence-based work to ensure that, while schools will make the assessment of the individual needs of children and what help and intervention can be put in place for them, there is clear guidance on what works in the classroom environment. That might mean extending the school day for some; it might mean Saturday classes for others. There are so many different interventions that can deliver significant results in terms of helping youngsters catch up on the learning they have lost.

[Chris Skidmore]

My local authority, South Gloucestershire Council, was the first in the country to implement a recovery curriculum to support schools, working with experts from a range of fields and taking in international examples to get children back into the classroom. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating South Gloucestershire Council and all the teachers on their hard work to provide vital support for local pupils, and encourage his Department and other local authorities to consider this model as potential best practice?

[Gavin Williamson]

I very much join my right hon. Friend in congratulating South Gloucestershire Council on the work that it has been doing and rolling out across schools in its area. I would be delighted to look at that work and maybe to meet my right hon. Friend and colleagues from South Gloucestershire Council to understand some of the work that has been undertaken and what we can use from that to roll out in different parts of the country.