Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Adonis and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Committee stage
Monday 19th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Watson has made a compelling argument for enhanced, nationally recognised and organised credit transfer arrangements. I do not want to repeat the points he made except to note that, in the context of the move towards more degree-level apprenticeships, the issue of credit transfer becomes particularly important because many, indeed, probably the generality of students starting out on apprenticeship programmes leading to degree-level qualifications will start in further education colleges.

Many of these have not conventionally offered higher education but are good apprenticeship education providers and will start providing the level 3 and 4 education which can lead to degree-level apprenticeship programmes. If we want to encourage more students through the apprenticeship route and for them to regard this as something they can progress to degree level, the issue of credit transfer is going to become a still more significant one in the education system in future years. The points my noble friend made are especially compelling.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment seems such a good thing, but I really doubt whether all the administration it involves is actually necessary or desirable. Governments are not always very keen on looking at what happened in the past, whether it succeeded and the reasons why not if it did not. Of course, that is never a reason not to try again, but it does seem pointless to spend time and money re-enacting things for which the criteria have not changed. This is one of the reasons I deplore the crash introduction of T-levels with no regard for other vocational initiatives—I am thinking of diplomas in particular— that were introduced unsuccessfully without consideration of past mistakes. I am afraid I do have quite a long memory of such things.

In the olden days of polytechnics, all accreditation was carried out by CNAA, the Council for National Academic Awards. In theory it should have been a very simple matter for students to transfer credits between organisations, as obviously there was a level playing field for credits. In practice, very few students ever transferred from one institution to another, and the mechanisms for doing so were by no means straightforward.

In 1992, polytechnics disappeared and were reincarnated as universities. For some this was not a great advantage: Oxford and Hatfield polytechnics, for instance, had tremendous names and becoming universities was certainly not initially a help to their well-earned reputations.

I was working for City & Guilds in the early days of national vocational qualifications in the 1980s. The Government gave permission for a large number of awarding organisations—some with pretty dubious credentials—to award NVQs. All awarding organisations had to agree to recognise any units awarded by any awarding organisation. City & Guilds, as the premier vocational awarding organisation, was not delighted by this, but conformed by spending a great deal of time and money ensuring that its highly protected accreditation mechanisms could accommodate units from another organisation. In practice, this arduous work proved largely unnecessary. There were few, if any, requests to transfer between awarding bodies.

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[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, this issue goes back some time. When I was a Minister, there was an issue about whether voluntary-aided schools—of which a high proportion are Catholic, as my noble friend says—could maintain the protections afforded to them in terms of their designated religious character and appointment of governors with a religious background and associations, and so on, as they transfer to academy status. The case he makes is overwhelmingly powerful. At the time there was also the issue of whether we would allow sixth-form academies at all because, in the original academy conception, until there was a change in the law, that was not possible. Now sixth-form academies are possible and, as my noble friend said, there are quite a few of them. Indeed, there is one just 200 yards from your Lordships’ House, Harris Westminster, a sixth-form academy sponsored by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Peckham, and Westminster School. It is an outstandingly successful institution, right by St James’s Park station. Noble Lords will see the students going backwards and forwards every day. It is excellent and exactly the kind of institution that we want to encourage more of, so it seems perverse that it is not possible for a Catholic promotor, including promoters of existing sixth-form colleges, to take advantage of the status.

As my noble friend says, encouraging sixth-form colleges—both the Catholic Church and the Church of England have their own sixth-form colleges; the Church of England is of course a major educational promoter in its own right—to become part of multi-academy trusts seems a very worthwhile step. This seems a straightforwardly technical issue, which perhaps the Minister can resolve with the stroke of a pen.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I briefly add my support to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, which would ensure that any conversion to academy does not mean abandoning the religious affiliation of any colleges. As the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, this issue goes back a long way. He mentions only Catholic schools, but I presume this would apply to other faith groups as well.

If we were starting from scratch, we might well decide to divorce education from religion, as many other countries do—the French seem to manage this quite successfully—but that is not where we are. Churches and other faith organisations have long played a very significant part in the lives of our students, to the very great advantage of young people and the country.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I have not received any request to speak after the Minister. Does anyone in the Chamber wish to speak? Lord Adonis.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to say that matters have been considered in this way in the past but that does not make it satisfactory. He said that the Hansard account was available at 5.30 pm. That was one hour and 40 minutes ago and most of us were not even aware of that fact. I did watch the House of Commons proceedings on replay and had to note down by hand all that had been said several times, so that I could get the wording correct. No ordinary member of the public would think that these proceedings are satisfactory, and the Procedure Committee should look at them with a view to improving them. Huge issues are at stake here and they should not be rushed and railroaded through in this way. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Baroness Garden of Frognal

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 29th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis [V]]

I have nothing to add to what my noble friend has said.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Lord Naseby? Do we have Lord Naseby? Is Lord Naseby not available? In that case we will go to the Minister.