Skills for Jobs White Paper

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am very disappointed that university technical colleges are not mentioned at all in the White Paper for 16 to 18. We fulfil the very first sentence of the White Paper, which reads:

“Putting employers at the heart of the system so that education and training leads to jobs that can improve productivity and fill skills gaps.”


We are supported by over 500 companies. Employers come in and teach, and they produce projects for students to work on in teams. There are 48 university technical colleges with 16,000 students, and we have the lowest level of youth unemployment of any schools in the country. To fulfil the hopes of this White Paper, we need more university technical colleges.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I hope my noble friend Lord Baker will think that this answer is sweet for him. We as a Government support a strong cadre of university technical colleges. Indeed, one opened with the full support of the sector and the local authority in Doncaster in September. There are UTCs that Ofsted has rated as outstanding, such as the Ron Dearing UTC, and obviously that forms part of the name of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust. When there are further free school applications, we look forward to any applications that are put forward for UTCs. We want to see a strong cadre of UTCs.