Adult Skills and Lifelong Learning

Debate between Gillian Keegan and Christina Rees

Thursday 15th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Gillian Keegan)]

It is truly a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing this important debate. I know he cares very deeply about adult skills, both in his role as Chair of the Education Committee and as a former Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills. I follow in his footsteps to a great degree.

The Government welcome the Education Committee’s report on adult skills and lifelong learning and have responded to all the Committee’s recommendations. I thank all members of the Committee for all the work they do in this area. We may not agree on every detail, but we are all passionate about changing the lives of the people who need skills to get on in life. In our response, we set out what we are going to do to address the challenges presented by covid-19, as well as our longer-term strategy for ensuring that we have the skills that the future economy needs. I want to touch upon these two things today because they are vitally important, as many Members have said.

I agree with what many hon. Members have said. The pandemic has had a huge impact on the lives of many individuals and the topic of adult skills and lifelong learning has never been more important. We know from the 2008 economic downturn that for some people, especially young people and those in low-skilled and low-paid jobs, economic scarring can have a lifelong detrimental effect on future prospects. I reassure the Committee that the Government are acutely aware of that and we are doing everything we can to avoid that. We have learnt the lessons of 2008. The Government have taken some quick action to support those affected by covid-19, but we are always looking to see what we can do to rebuild, to build back better, to recover our economy and so on. Adult skills will be a key part of that.

At the beginning of the pandemic, in April 2020, the Department for Education introduced the skills toolkit. It was there as something that was useful for people to do when we first went into lockdown and on furlough. Providers included the Open University, Google, Amazon, FutureLearn and many others. They are delivering online courses, from practical maths to computer science and coding courses, to help people stay in work or to use the time they had to take up new opportunities. That offer was expanded last September to more than 70 courses. As of February this year, less than a year after it started, there had been an estimated 176,800 course registrations—only one of them was mine—and 33,600 course completions, and one of them was mine, too.

The Chancellor’s plan for jobs is also protecting, supporting and creating jobs across the country. We want to help people across the country, whether they are starting out on their career, thinking of updating their skills or considering changing their career. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) mentioned the challenges in the industrial strategy. “Build Back Better: our plan for growth” contains many of the Government’s plans. There is also the levelling up fund, which has some excellent uses to help level up and ensure that we genuinely build back better.

We have increased our investment in the National Careers Service. We are enabling more careers advisers to provide personalised careers advice for more people whose jobs or learning have been impacted by covid. We have doubled the number of work coaches for those who are going into the jobcentre. We are getting prepared to make sure that we are there to help people, however they access services and whatever help they need.

For those aged 16 to 24 and facing barriers to entering work or an apprenticeship, we are increasing the number of traineeships to give more personalised training, including in English and maths—many hon. Members mentioned additional support required in those areas—and work experience to help people progress. We are investing an additional £126 million in traineeships in the 2021-22 academic year.

Traineeships and pre-apprenticeships provide work-based learning focused on improving a young person’s abilities, including how to look and apply for a job, how to prepare and how to be successful in the workplace. They allow a young person to achieve the level 1 or 2 qualifications they may have missed out on. Digital skills are essential, and they are included, if the person did not do well in those subjects at school. There is also a vocational and occupational element of learning and, if required, qualifications aligned to a sectoral occupation.

The programme includes, vitally, work experience and a placement that lasts anywhere between two and eight weeks. At the end, we hope that all those young people will be offered a job or an apprenticeship. Businesses have a vital role to play, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) said, alongside business representative organisations, colleges, training providers, other local organisations, councils, LEPs and mayoral combined authorities. This is part of the local working together.

In terms of businesses, a lot is happening already. I mentioned traineeships, and Specsavers is a large employer engaged in a traineeship programme as a way of recruiting apprentices. It now has a 100% success rate of progressing young people who have completed a traineeship into an apprenticeship, and we want more of these models. Smaller businesses as well have engaged—Nexus Accountants has supported traineeships—enabling young people to access higher level apprenticeships and nurturing them along the way.

We have sector-based work academies also helping to make sure that we have a sector-based offer for employability training, work experience and so on that lasts up to six weeks. Many Members mentioned essential digital skills. We have updated them and they were available from August last year. On community learning, we have 259 providers in multiple centres across the country, and we have been working closely with the Department for Work and Pensions to make sure that more unemployed people can take advantage of the lifetime skills guarantee. We are piloting an extension to the length of time that they can receive universal credit while doing work-focused study from later this month. We are delighted about that, because it means that universal credit claimants will now be able to train full time for up to 12 weeks, or 16 weeks if they are on a full-time skills bootcamp in England, while receiving universal credit to support their living costs. This will give them many more options and they will get the opportunity to improve the productivity of the country by using the time to ensure that they get more skills, become more valuable and secure their work future.

Through the national skills fund, we have the potential to deliver opportunities to generations of adults who previously have been left behind. We will do more than nurse things back to health. We will make sure that we invest £2.5 billion—£3 billion including Barnett funding for the devolved Administrations. It is a significant investment and we want to make sure it changes lives.

Available since 1 April, we are fully funding any adult aged 24 and over who wants to achieve their first A-level equivalent qualification. They will be able to access more than 400 valuable courses as part of the lifetime skills guarantee. The free courses for jobs offer is backed by £95 million from the national skills fund in year one, which removes the barrier to training for millions of adults and gives them the chance to get really valuable training. The list is not static. The courses can change. In fact, we have added more courses already, so it is not set in stone. We will adapt as required.

The qualifications on offer are already fantastic. Adults can take them up, boost their career prospects and wages, and help fill the skills gap. For example, from a diploma in engineering technology, they can progress on to roles in maintenance and manufacturing engineering. There is electrical installation, adult care, and all of the areas where we have skills shortages. This is an important part of our offer.

The second part of the lifetime skills guarantee is bootcamps. The first ones started in the west midlands, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Liverpool City Region. They are absolutely brilliant. Members should go and see them. I would be happy to go with members of the Committee when we can. There is the School of Code bootcamp. We have heard brilliant stories about changing lives. A print production manager for 15 years was made redundant from his job. He was looking for a change, something different to do, and he said, “The School of Code has truly changed my life. I have the skills and confidence to change careers and do something I truly love.” He has now launched as a junior software engineer at Wyze. There are so many examples: photonics, electronics, electrical engineering. Many companies are involved and we are looking to spread them all across the country.

Many Members have mentioned apprentices and apprenticeships. There are obviously incentives. They are so important and we have 130 level 6 and 7 standards now. I am a huge fan. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow said, I am the only degree apprentice in the House. The White Paper is a huge opportunity. Many mentioned flexible modular provision. We will make sure that that is included, and we will simplify funding.

In conclusion, timing is everything, as my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) mentioned. We will now make sure that this does not collect dust on the shelf. The White Paper delivers on that technical revolution—the biggest in 60 years—and we are committed to ensuring that we have a skills system that will offer individuals all they need to be successful in life, and will enable our economy to build back better as a nation.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I thank the Opposition spokesperson and the Minister for speaking on through the bells, which is not easy; I appreciate it. Robert Halfon, would you like a couple of minutes to wind up?