Technical and Further Education Bill

Earl of Liverpool Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, Clause 38 is about information reported to the Secretary of State about further education. We are proposing to add these additional lines because of concerns that any changes to the further education sector should be monitored. This is to ensure that the changes are not having an adverse impact either on the quality of courses provided or on people accessing further education. We need to ensure that no groups are particularly adversely impacted.

In 2015, the Independent reported on concerns that a,

“crisis in education funding could see the closure of as many as four in ten sixth-form and further education colleges, according to a new financial analysis”.

In 2014, Sixth Form Colleges Association research showed that the quality of courses was clearly under threat. Its key findings were that over two-thirds of colleges have had to drop courses this year as a result of budget cuts, 15% more than the previous year, and over one-third have dropped sought-after modern language courses. Modern languages will be even more important if we are to continue to communicate with our near neighbours post-Brexit, as well as keeping up trade and good relationships with countries further afield.

More than one-fifth of colleges have apparently lost courses in science, technology, engineering and maths. We are all aware of the shortage of STEM skills. What folly it would be to lose any provision in these subjects. Almost all the colleges in the research, 95%, say they have had to reduce staffing levels; more than two-thirds are teaching students in larger classes; and almost three-quarters say they have had to reduce or remove extracurricular activities such as sport and music. This situation is not healthy for the country, nor for individuals. The amendment would ensure that we were not walking blindly into an irretrievable position, with the loss of valuable educational provision.

I have also added my name to Amendment 62, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Liverpool, who spoke on this point at Second Reading. There is so much in the Bill about insolvency that we are in danger of losing sight of the institute. Amendment 62 suggests that the institute should promote soft skills. Particularly for disadvantaged young people but actually for any number of other young people, soft skills are important in getting access to jobs and future opportunities. Surely this could profitably be part of the institute’s role. I beg to move Amendment 59.

[The Earl of Liverpool (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, for referring to my amendment and adding her name to it. She is quite right that I referred to this point at Second Reading. I also referred to the House of Lords report entitled Youth Unemployment in the EU: A Scarred Generation?, prepared by the EU Committee’s Sub-Committee B. My noble friend Lady Buscombe recently reminded me that for a time, we both served on that committee. As I believe she will respond to this group of amendments on behalf of the Government, I very much look forward to hearing what she has to say.

I make no apology for going back to that sub-committee report because I want to pray in aid paragraph 91 on page 41, which makes the case for my amendment. I should like to read the relevant paragraph, headed “Skills”, into the record:

“Employers suggested that one of the key issues in the area of unemployment was that young people did not have the basic skills to take the available jobs. Marks and Spencer said, ‘we are seeing … school leavers lacking basic employability skills, such as communication, self-esteem, confidence’. It said that this created a vicious circle where young people were unable to get jobs due to their lack of skills, which then further damaged their confidence. WORKing for YOUth said that ‘employers tell us in no uncertain terms that it is the soft skills—the communicative skills, the social skills—that they find most lacking by the time people leave school to come to them’”.


I am sure I am not alone in finding that many of my friends in commerce and industry fully endorse this point.

I do not wish to criticise the youth of today, who in some respects are better qualified than ever before, but it is this area of soft skills—or a lack of them—which can let them down when attending job interviews. It is not their fault; since the advent of smart phones, tablets, Facebook and many other apps and games, the young have become almost addicted to looking at their screens and not interacting with others face to face. Indeed, I read an article in a national newspaper at the weekend saying that young people spend an average of five hours a day looking at their screens, so it is little wonder that some communicative and interpersonal skills are to be found wanting.

Surely, the main purpose of this legislation is to seek to provide the youth of today and tomorrow with the broadest set of skills possible to prepare them for full-time employment. This is a golden opportunity to write this amendment or something similar into the Bill. I look forward to hearing what my noble friend the Minister and other noble Lords have to say.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Earl of Liverpool Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Liverpool (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. In his 19 years in the House, this is the first chance I have had to sit in the same debate. He always champions the causes of the young and I commend him for it. As the 18th speaker on the list, and the last before the Front-Bench speakers, I think it falls to me to do the scoring. My noble friend will be delighted to know that I have it down so far as 17 for, and none against, and it will soon be 18 for, and none against.

I should like to join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend the Minister for outlining so clearly what this Bill sets out to achieve. I wholeheartedly support it and, when enacted, I believe it will give the youth of this country real cause for optimism as they approach the need to consider what profession or career path they wish to follow. This is a very big decision for 16 to 18 year-olds, and like many other noble Lords who have spoken, I have felt for some time that advice and support in this field were sadly lacking.

Some two years ago, when I was a Member of EU Sub-Committee B under the able chairmanship of my noble friend Lady O’Cathain, we set about preparing a report to the House entitled Youth Unemployment in the EU: A Scarred Generation?, which was printed in April 2014. One section related to careers advice, or perhaps I should say, the lack of it; we heard from a number of contributors that there were shortcomings in this area. Indeed, Ofsted said that the young people it had surveyed in schools had a very narrow perspective of the opportunities available to them, and went on to say that,

“this lack of knowledge about possible careers was a reflection of the poor careers advice available to young people in schools”.

A number of noble Lords have already commented on this.

I believe this Bill, with the setting up of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, and its interaction with schools and colleges, will go a long way to rectifying this problem. I was delighted to read what my honourable friend the Minister in another place said on Report:

“We are spending £90 million, which includes the work of the Careers & Enterprise Company. A separate £77 million is being spent on National Careers Service Guidance just this year. I am going further. I am looking at a careers strategy from the beginning to ensure that we address our skills needs, and to look at how we can help the most disadvantaged”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/1/17; col. 86.]


This is all very encouraging and it seems that that part of our report struck a chord somewhere.

We also heard from a number of employers who told us that they frequently found the soft skills lacking in young people applying for jobs. One international company told us that it had to establish an in-house course where these skills were taught to otherwise qualified applicants. They are such an important part of the overall set of skills young people need as they start to look for jobs and attend interviews, and I believe they should be included as part of the education curriculum. I hope the institute will take note of this need. I should be most grateful if my noble friend could say whether that might be possible.

As we know, the Government plan to create 3 million apprenticeships or technical courses by the end of this Parliament and I applaud them for setting this ambitious target. I am delighted that some flexibility will be built into the scheme allowing students a chance to change their course model mid-term should they or their mentors feel the need to do so. It can be very difficult for the youth of today to decide where to direct their energies and they will not always make the right choice first time.

Over the years, I have become very enthusiastic about the beneficial and constructive role apprenticeships can play in the pathway to employment and I should like to share with your Lordships two different approaches that I know about. The first is the model adopted by the London School of Architecture which was set up some three years ago by Will Hunter. He recognised that it was a challenge for students to pay tuition fees, so he established a support network composed of 50 leading London-based architects and they provide every student with a paid 12-month apprenticeship which more than offsets the fees. He had 30 students in year one, and a second cohort of 30 was added in year two. A further 40 are planned for 2017. So far all his students have benefited in this way and every student has passed. He believes that this is the first cost-neutral course in the UK and, I must say, this appealed to me, as I am sure it does to his graduates. I am very grateful to my noble friend for sparing the time last week to allow me to mention the LSA to him, and particularly that it may be possible to arrange a meeting between his officials and the founder, which I hope will be mutually beneficial.

I do not want to test the patience of your Lordships too long, but I would like to mention a second organisation I know about, as a result of a lifelong friendship with the co-founder, David Lloyd, and his family. It is called the Intern Group, and was established in 2011. It specialises in finding bespoke internships both in this country and overseas, and it now has offices and specialist representatives in nine international locations. Part of the Intern Group’s mission statement is that it will find successful applicants a suitable internship in the location of their choice, among those nine locations abroad, and—here is the interesting part—it also undertakes to provide a comprehensive service, which includes accommodation, individual mentoring, group activities and social support. The group has appeared in both Forbes Magazine and Time magazine, and more than 1,500 interns have so far benefited from its courses. I know that this is perhaps straying a little off the pathway of the Bill, but this is a company on the move and I thought that it might be of interest to the institute to know that this entrepreneurial company exists. Some cross-fertilisation of ideas might be worth considering.

Returning to the Bill, I have some concerns about the willingness of SMEs to offer apprenticeships, as several noble Lords have also mentioned. This will be important going forward, because SMEs provide employment for some 14.4 million people—that equates to about 60% of the entire private sector workforce—and it is a route into employment that many apprentices may wish to emulate. It has been suggested that SMEs might be reluctant to enrol on the apprenticeship programme for a number of reasons, whether that be a lack of dedicated personnel to mentor the apprentice or a reluctance to add to red tape and get involved in excessive form-filling, reporting and so on. I was pleased to have the opportunity to raise that point with my honourable friend the Minister, Robert Halfon, at a briefing session earlier this week. He reassured me that, as far as paperwork and red tape are concerned, the institute will provide specific back-up and financial support to minimise this. Nevertheless, there may still be some residual reluctance, and I should be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could give any further reassurance on this point.

There may be bumps along the way, but I am very encouraged that this Bill has broad cross-party support, and I look forward to the later stages and its speedy passage on to the statute book.