Education and Skills Reform

Lord Johnson of Marylebone Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

It is precisely in order to equip children to respond to the changing needs in the labour market that we are making some of these changes, but those build, of course, on the introduction by this Government of Skills England. I hope that my noble friend will have seen some of the important work that Skills England has done on the way in which AI skills will be necessary for the future workforce, and how they are likely to change the nature of the skills that young people and, in fact, adults need. The Government have responded to that through additional skills training to support not just young people but people throughout their lives to develop those AI skills. I agree that this is a wide-ranging challenge to both the labour market and our education system and that more work needs to be done, but we have certainly made an important start.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interest with respect to Access Creative College. Only last month, the Government implemented substantial reforms to the apprenticeship levy by transforming it into the growth and skills levy, increasing the amount that employers must contribute to adult apprenticeships and reducing the amount of time they have to use their levy funds. We read in the FT recently, though, that the Government’s own reviewer is minded to recommend the abolition of the apprenticeship levy. Are the Government minded to go down such a path? If so, how do they plan to backfill the £4 billion or so that the apprenticeship levy, now the growth and skills levy, brings into our training and skills system?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord knows as well as any of us that you cannot necessarily believe everything that you read in the newspapers. As I suggested to the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, there may well be further changes to the growth and skills levy, but we have been clear that we want to pivot it to young people to put right the 40% fall in them starting apprenticeships that we saw in the last 10 years. We also understand the role of apprenticeships, and of skills training more widely, in supporting people who are currently in work. I ask the noble Lord to wait, for example, until the final publication of Alan Milburn’s recommendations and the Government’s response to them.

Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Lord Johnson of Marylebone Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

I do—I do not doubt it at all. Certainly, bits are devolved, but just looking at education in Wales and education here, we have to say that there are improvements already happening in England, and areas where Wales wants to catch up. People will have to be very careful. I am absolutely in favour of devolution, so do not misunderstand me, but looking at what is happening to England, you would not want it to happen in Wales, although the matter is devolved. It simply talks about improving. Would you not want to learn? Would you not want to know? The good thing is, as Donne said,

“No man is an island,

Entire of itself;”

Nor is Wales, entire of itself.

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, proposed new paragraph (c) in this amendment touches on the Bill’s purpose of removing barriers to opportunity. It raises my concern about the Bill in general that, as my noble friend Lord Young said in his excellent remarks, we are being encouraged to consider this legislation somewhat blind and flying in the dark. That is because we have not yet had either the full final report of the Becky Francis review into curriculum and qualifications or the Government’s response to it. This is essential for a fair and full consideration of this legislation. This review is not just another consultation or call for evidence but the Government’s flagship review of curriculum and qualifications which is examining exactly this matter of how we remove barriers to opportunity in our system.

We already know, however, that the relentless narrowing of options at age 16 is clearly not helping learners in this transition to level 3 study. Some 5% of 16 to 17 year-olds are NEET, up from 3.9% in 2015. This is an exceptionally worrying trend, and the Department for Education’s relentless quest to further narrow options through the defunding of applied general qualifications such as BTECs will not help matters at all. T-levels, while well intentioned, are not proving suitable for most learners. Just 2% of the cohort are enrolled on T-levels, compared to almost 20% pursuing applied general qualifications such as BTECs. By pressing ahead with the further defunding of those remaining BTECs after 2027, the Government will increase the number of young people who feel that there is no place for them in our system.

For us to do our job properly, this Bill and the curriculum review running alongside it must be seen together. We need to ensure that they work in concert so that all young people, not just the most academic, have an ambitious and achievable path forward at 16.

[Baroness Cass (CB)]

My Lords, as we have discussed at length, this is a multifaceted Bill, so I would welcome our achieving greater clarity of purpose. Without purpose, there is no focus, and we can get very lost in complexity. As we progress through Committee, I ask noble Lords to consider the opportunities offered in this Bill to improve well-being through healthier young lives. Let us not lose sight of health, because without good, healthy young people there is no opportunity for learning or well-being. I am talking about both physical and mental health.

When I was president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health between 2012 and 2015, we had slipped over the preceding 15 years to being one of the worst-performing countries in Europe for infant and child mortality. Mortality, in particular infant mortality, is used globally as a sensitive indicator of the health of a nation. It is the canary in the coal mine for how we are looking after children and young people; it signals alarm if that is not going well. Since then, we have seen infant mortality rise among infants born to poor families while it continues to fall among the wealthy. We are looking at a variety of public health issues that should give us pause for thought, including poorer vaccine uptake and worsening health inequalities more generally, in particular obesity. Between 2014 and 2019, teenage mortality edged up rather than down, and noble Lords are well aware that teen mental health is deteriorating.

In relation to the Bill, it is important that we think carefully about how we are using the public health workforce, such as school nurses and others, and give careful consideration to the multiple pulls on their time and how different parts of the Bill differentially pull on those resources. Equally, we must consider how significant system change is going to impact designated doctors and nurses, whose carefully worked out roles are, at best, stretched, so that those do not become further stretched by the changes in the systems.

During the passage of the Bill, we should consider carefully exactly what is going to happen to that precious workforce, which we should use to maximal effect. I hope the Minister can give us her thoughts on how care will be given to that aspect.