Lord Baker of Dorking
Main Page: Lord Baker of Dorking (Conservative - Life peer)
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, this is something of a patchwork Bill, in which the Government have produced a variety of proposals which, they hope, collectively will make our society more enterprising. The dubiety of that has already been expressed by the Labour and Liberal spokesmen.
I should like to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London and talk about Clauses 18 and 19 on apprenticeships. The Government have set great store by transforming the whole apprenticeship movement and developing what has happened before, and they have set a target of 3 million by 2020. I think that that will be very challenging if we are to have high-quality apprenticeships, because the apprenticeship movement has been much abused in the past. I remember that about two years ago I went round an FE college and met two youngsters in the corridor. One was carrying a brush and the other a mop and bucket. I said, “Hello, what are you doing?”. They said, “We are apprentices”. I would not have thought that mastering a brush and a mop and bucket required a one-year or a two-year apprenticeship, and I doubt very much that they were doing the subjects which should be done when studying building maintenance via electronic engineering, making quite sure that computer systems and ventilation systems work. I do not think that they touched on those things at all; it was a racket. Some company—I do not know whether it was in the public or the private sector—was paying them a salary to do this. Maybe the FE college itself was paying them a salary because it would benefit from doing the training. However, I hope that the Minister will take this home to BIS and make sure that we do not have apprentices like that in the future.
There are four important levels of apprenticeships. Level 2 is taken at the age of 16, but industry and commerce look upon those as semi-skilled—they are not demanding enough. The next level is A-level or level 3, which is much more important and is a demanding level of achievement. For this, a two or three-year apprenticeship is needed. Then there is level 4, which is the old HNC and diploma level; and then the foundation degree level or level 5. We are now beginning to see, very slowly, some foundation degree apprenticeships—the noble Baroness is nodding, but I can assure her that it is only a tiny handful.
Last week, a report from the Sutton Trust on apprenticeships and their comparison with positions across the world shared a very interesting statistic. Someone who does a high-level apprenticeship—at levels 4 or 5, such as I have been talking about—will, over their working life, be likely to earn £50,000 more than a university undergraduate, apart from, of course, those attending the very best universities. We have to get it across to many young people that an apprenticeship is not a second-class pathway to success. It can, in fact, be infinitely better than a university degree, because the English education system is now cursed by only one target: three A-levels and a university. That has resulted in a very large increase in graduate unemployment at the moment.
We have to create new pathways to success. But how are we going to go about doing that? Take someone leaving an ordinary comprehensive school at the age of 16. Today, that student will have been doing mainly academic subjects—the famous three A-levels and a university. Technical subjects are being squeezed out in schools for those below the age of 16. Design and technology is a very good technical subject that I introduced into the curriculum in 1988. Already, in the last five years, the numbers taking it at GCSE and A-level have declined quite regularly because it does not appear in the league tables or get students to the magic three A-levels and a university. Someone aged 16 who has done only academic subjects and wants to be an apprentice will, quite frankly, be very hard pushed to find any company to employ him. Take those between the ages of 16 and 18. Again, fewer technical subjects are being taken at A-level. We then come to foundation degrees—the pinnacle of this pathway to success—and they also fell last year.
This is a really rather depressing position. We have a very substantial skills gap in our country. The Royal Academy of Engineering estimates that the skills gap in graduates in STEM subjects is 45,000 a year for each of the next five years. At the moment, it will be very difficult to get anywhere near filling that gap in the choice of students going into universities. When it comes to technicians, the figures are very much larger. At degree level, the gap is 830,000; at technician levels 3 and 4, we will need 450,000 over the next four or five years. I do not believe that the present education system in schools, FE colleges or universities will get anywhere near matching that gap.
The other thing I would say is that we should really have a look at how Germany has done it. In Germany, by the age of 18, almost 75% or 80% of students will have experienced a form of technical education. We are at 30%. Last year, over 500,000 apprentices in Germany finished their course, while we had about 200,000. This is a huge gap indeed.
I am now quite convinced that, if we are going to try to fill the skills gap, starting technical subjects at the age of 16 is too late and starting at the age of 11 is too early. I believe that students in our schools should start technical education at the age of 14. That is why, over the last six years, I have been promoting university technical colleges, because they take students from the ages of 14 to 18. The noble Lord, Lord Bhattacharyya, is in the House. He knows about this, because he supported a very successful one that opened in Coventry, supported by Jaguar—he is nodding. It is very popular and doing very well. It means that a student starts at the age of 14 and by 16 has a level 2 qualification. They are then just employable, and so it is much better for them to stay on and get a level 3 qualification and go on to a level 4 and level 5. That is why we need in our education system a clear and definite pathway for technical subjects for students between the ages of 14 and 18. The CBI has now called for the Government to establish this, as have the chambers of commerce. I hope that we will move towards it.
Certainly, the university technical colleges that are operating at the moment—we have 39 open and another 20 preparing to open—all very much subscribe to the phrase that the right reverend Prelate used: they all involve the dignity of making. For 40% of the curriculum below 16—that is, for two days of the week—the youngsters are making and designing things with their hands, in various types of metal, wood and other materials, and doing advanced computing. They are therefore very suited to providing apprentices. The JCB UTC in Uttoxeter in Staffordshire has 50 apprentices this term. They will be there for two years; they will be employed by companies in the area; and they will go to the college for two days a week to improve their basic education. That is very rare. An ordinary comprehensive could not possibly do that because no company would employ its students unless they had some technical skills.
Another UTC, at Reading, which was rated as outstanding by Ofsted this year—it is remarkable for a new school which has been open for only two years and is pioneering a new type of education to get such a rating—specialises in advanced computing. When I went to see Charlie Mayfield, the chief executive of John Lewis, I wanted to talk to him about food processing, because one of the UTCs wanted to do it and there is a shortage of hundreds of thousands of technicians in that industry, but he said, “No, I want to talk to you about the lack of computer scientists. I cannot get enough computer scientists of a sufficient quality to run what is a very difficult logistical operation of a large retail group”. So he has to employ from abroad. I then put him in touch with the Reading UTC, and I am glad to say that it is providing apprenticeships for Waitrose next year.
This is an entirely appropriate cause for the Government to be committed to. Huge sums of money are involved—the spending on apprentices this year will be £1.5 billion, or slightly more than that—but they must get it right. They must focus on the high quality of apprenticeships, because that is where we need it most. If you are going to have a really enterprising economy, you will have to have many more technicians in it, inventing and designing things. That should be our target in our apprenticeship policy.