Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Aberdare and Lord Brougham and Vaux

Committee stage
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, this broad group covers many of the crucial features of the lifelong learning entitlement. I will confine my remarks to Amendments 92 and 95, covering the availability of the entitlement and learners’ eligibility for it. The lifelong loan entitlement and the lifetime skills guarantee are absolutely at the heart of this Bill and the framework it seeks to create. To achieve the more highly skilled, productive and ambitious nation that we seek, people—not just some people, but all people—need to know that there are great opportunities available to them, whether they desire new skills, higher skills or refreshed skills, and they need to know how to find out how to pursue them. That is where careers information and guidance come in and why they need to be properly covered in the Bill.

People also need to know that the training and educational routes to acquiring the skills to grasp those opportunities are realistically open to them, without undue or unreasonable restrictions or conditions. That is what will generate the enthusiasm and the actual take-up, so that the skills policy and the ambitions behind the Bill achieve the outcomes they deserve. Both the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, have mentioned incentivising learners to encourage them to take part, which may not need to be in the Bill itself but needs to be a central part of the strategy.

If I have always nursed the desire to retrain as a bookbinder—or perhaps as a graphic designer, as in the example of the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, also a classicist—but I find that loans are available only for specific skills not including bookbinding, or that they do not apply to my age group, or do not include any allowance for living expenses I might need, or are not available to me because I already have an equivalent-level qualification, or are ruled out for other reasons, I may well decide to drop the whole idea as an unrealisable or impractical aspiration. If I get the impression from the outset that there are likely to be such barriers or limitations to accessing the entitlement, I will probably not pursue it at all. But if the lifelong loan entitlement actually means what it says, it could unleash a wave of energy and creativity, as people embrace it to expand their skills and pursue their goals—and indeed their dreams. The suggestion of noble Lord, Lord Johnson, of a proper economic assessment, with that in mind, of the ELQ requirement and the limitations on creative and arts funding, would be very welcome.

The lifelong loan entitlement and the lifetime skills guarantee—LLE and LSG—should be the twin banners for a skills revolution, or a skills crusade, not just sets of rules, regulations and legislation setting limits on training availability. So I enthusiastically endorse Amendment 92 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, and the somewhat similar Amendment 95 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and, again, the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, in their aims to establish a truly all-embracing and inspiring entitlement with a minimum of limitations, driven, above all, by learner aspiration, enthusiasm and desire. The LLE and the LSG together offer a real chance to make education and skills exciting and exhilarating, as they should be. I hope the Government will take that chance, even if not by accepting these amendments.

I wish the Government every success in making progress with this important Bill and with the strategy underlying it. Since this will be my last contribution in Committee, I would like to commend both Ministers—the noble Baronesses, Lady Berridge and Lady Penn—on their contribution to this Committee. I wish them an enjoyable and, I hope, restful—though possibly not, in the case of the noble Baroness, Lady Penn—and very happy recess before we get to grips with the Bill again.