Social Workers (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2022

Lord Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

These changes are necessary to support the regulator to deliver improved public protection. I hope the House will approve the measures and I beg to move.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to the regulations, and the department for the helpful Explanatory Memorandum, notwithstanding that for the uninitiated the notes are at times unnecessarily dense.

Paragraph 2.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum talks about Social Work England. Is it appointed by Ministers? How many are on the board? Who is the chair? I presume that members obtain some payment. What is the remuneration of the chair?

Concerning paragraph 7.3, will the Minister elaborate on the Disclosure and Barring Service and the reference to “local policing bodies”? What is the extent of the interface with the police? The same might be asked about NHS trusts. The Minister might admit that Regulation 7 is somewhat complicated. How often does barring take place? Are there figures for that? With reference to paragraph 7.4, are there figures for how many people have been struck off, say, over the last three years? At paragraph 7.5, the Explanatory Memorandum mentions registration and removal from the register. Can the Minister say how many were removed last year?

I will conclude, as time is of the essence, but we should instance the hard work and professionalism of social workers—certainly those whom I know of. Social workers are hugely important to all of us, particularly to the lives of our children. It must be very difficult for professionals to negotiate the legislative thickets and potential booby traps amid great social change, political correctness and, if I may say, wokery. Surely we do need the social worker.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we welcome this SI. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jones, that it is nice to have a policy background that is concise, well written and easily understandable to those who are not particularly knowledgeable in all social service matters. I also preface my remarks by welcoming and highlighting the incredible work and professionalism of social workers in our country, as he rightly said.

As the Minister rightly said, it is important that the public always have confidence in public workers, whether teachers, police officers or indeed social workers. This SI goes some way to strengthen and enhance their professionalism. It is right and proper that public workers can be removed from their role where they do something that is not acceptable. I like the notion of a voluntary opportunity to take that action but, of course, there will be occasions where a voluntary action is not appropriate and a harsher response is needed.

I do not quite understand the DBS in terms of social workers, so perhaps the Minister could elaborate. I understand that all social workers must have DBS clearance; my only question is how often that is renewed. Is it the same length of time as for teachers?

Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2022

Lord Jones Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, as the Committee will no doubt appreciate, the construction sector is broad and a significant part of the UK economy. It is responsible for delivering infrastructure and large construction, including transport, energy, social infrastructure and commercial buildings. It is also responsible for delivering new housebuilding and for the repair, maintenance and improvement work needed for existing buildings and the built environment.

The traditional image of the industry and its workers is shifting. New technologies are enabling more efficient and modern methods of construction. We recognise the role that construction plays in reaching the UK’s net-zero targets, which the House passed into legislation in 2019.

This is a broad sector, as I said, and it is a large and growing one. It is valuable to our economy, currently contributing £155 billion, which represents 9% of our national gross value added. It is also valuable economically due to the large number and wide range of employment opportunities that it provides, many of them well-paid, highly-skilled roles offering excellent progression opportunities. It is valuable to the individual too; it employs 3.1 million workers, 813,000 of whom are self-employed.

In research conducted by the Construction Industry Training Board, known as the CITB, the Construction Skills Network forecast indicates that the sector will grow at an average rate of 4.4% across 2021-25. Skills interventions will be critical in meeting existing and future construction labour market demands and addressing skills deficits. New and existing workers will require interventions to retain, retrain and upskill as new regulations and technologies are introduced.

It is a broad, growing, and valuable sector, but it is a fragmented one too. Small and medium-sized enterprises make up more than 99% of all businesses, of which the majority are micro-businesses. It relies heavily on subcontracting and self-employment. This fragmentation creates long-held disincentives for employers to train and develop their construction workforce. This goes to the heart of what the CITB was created to do.

Established in 1964, the CITB is, at its core, industry led, and it exists to encourage the provision of construction training. It has a clearly defined role in identifying construction skills needs and plays a part, with others, in addressing them. It provides targeted training spend, as well as grants to employers, to encourage and enable workers to access and operate safely on construction sites, drive up skills levels and incentivise training that would otherwise not take place. It supports strategic initiatives to help to maintain and develop vital skills in the industry and to create a pipeline of skilled workers. It is developing occupational standards and recognised qualifications so that skills are transferable and increase productivity.

In all activity, the CITB is working in ways that will support the construction sector to develop an environmentally sustainable future, supporting the Government’s ambitions towards net zero. Over the coming three-year levy period, the CITB expects to raise around £502.2 million to invest in construction skills.

The recent 2021 levy order was for one year, not the usual three years. That order was more unusual still, as the levy rates that it prescribed were reduced to 50% of those prescribed by the three-year 2018 order. This was to accommodate the CITB’s decision to allow levy payers a payment holiday in response to cash flow pressures the industry was facing during the first Covid lockdown.

I now turn to the details of the draft order, and I thank the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for considering this draft legislation. This three-year 2022 order returns to the levy rates prescribed by the three-year 2018 order—0.35% of the earnings paid by employers to directly employed workers and 1.25% of contract payments for indirectly employed workers—for businesses liable to pay the levy. However, the industry, having been consulted on the CITB’s delivery strategy and levy rate, supported the retention of the higher exemption and reduction thresholds for small employers contained in the 2021 order. Construction employers with an annual wage bill of up to £119,999—previously £79,999 in the 2018 order—will not pay any levy, while still having full access to CITB support.

It is projected that approximately 62% of all employers in scope of the levy will be exempt from paying it. Employers with a wage bill between £120,000—previously £80,000 in the 2018 order—and £399,999 will receive a 50% reduction on their levy liability while also receiving full access to CITB services. Approximately 14% of all employers in scope of the levy will receive a 50% reduction. Maintaining the increased exemption and reduction thresholds seeks to acknowledge and ease the budgetary pressures on SMEs.

The CITB has consulted industry on the levy proposals via the consensus process required under the Industrial Training Act 1982. Consensus is achieved by satisfying two requirements: that both the majority of employers likely to pay the levy, and employers that together are likely to pay more than half the aggregate levy raised, consider that the proposals are necessary to encourage adequate training. Both requirements were satisfied, with 66.5% of likely levy payers in the industry, which between them are likely to pay 63.2% of the aggregate levy, supportive of the CITB’s proposals.

This order will enable the CITB to continue to carry out its vital training responsibilities, and I beg to move.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her helpful and informative introduction to a welcome order of importance to our national economy and, indeed, to our future. I also acknowledge the ever-present commitment, conscientiousness and insight of my noble friend Lord Watson. I declare my interest in the register as president of the Engineering Education Scheme Wales, the EESW.

Page 2 of the order refers to consultation with Scottish Ministers, and I ask how and when consultations with Welsh Assembly Ministers took place. In the Explanatory Memorandum in paragraph 10.1, reference is made to a small group of employers that advised on the 2022 to 2024 levy orders. Will the Minister name the employers in the small group and describe the process? If the answer is not immediately forthcoming, perhaps she might write. Where in all this was there a place for trade unions? Was the TUC considered in any way?

Will the Minister expand on the role of technical colleges in the training of apprentices? Concerning apprentices, what role does a Minister play in relation to college trusts and boards? Surely these colleges have a huge and beneficial role. I have in mind here paragraphs 7.2 and 7.3 of the very helpful Explanatory Memorandum.

At paragraph 7.4 there is a more serious statement, which I will quote:

“The construction industry contributes 8.6% of the UK’s gross domestic product, employing over 2.5 million people. However, there remains a serious and distinct market failure in the development and maintenance of skills in the construction industry: the trading conditions, incentives and culture do not lead to a sufficient level of investment in skills by employers.”


I thought it was very helpful to see that paragraph in our papers, and surely it is to the credit of the Government that it was put in. It is of huge importance, and I am sure the Minister will respond.

What special and urgent initiatives is the Minister undertaking on the basis of that serious paragraph? What policy stimuli are under way? Are not engineering apprentices of great national importance—for example, in our aerospace industry and the Ministry of Defence? How does a Minister liaise cross-departmentally to seek ever more and ever better apprenticeships?

I note the 21 November impact assessment and its self-evident helpfulness. Look, for example, at the figurative illustrations—figures 5 and 6—at paragraph 36. First, figure 5 shows the estimated CITB levy payable by employers in England, Scotland and Wales in 2018 versus 2022—that is, the changes. In this, general building, civil engineering and housebuilding come out on top, with £20 million for housebuilding. Why are the Government not pushing harder for housebuilding?

Secondly, figure 5 shows the levy paid by nations in 2022: some £149 million in England, £13.6 million in Scotland, but only, I note, £4.8 million in Wales. Will the Minister tell us what is going on in Wales? For certain, the Welsh Assembly and Government have a good record; all my compatriots are good payers, as I am sure the Minister would agree. Will she please comment and explain? Is it simply that the money that Wales pays is based on population only? But why so little?

Thirdly, in figure 6, it is good to see the brickie and the pointer itemised. The pointer puts the icing on the brick cake. Is the Minister prepared to agree? What are the Government doing to get more brickies and pointers? They are absolutely vital in housebuilding and they are in very short supply, which leads to bottlenecks. The Government want, in the most positive way, more housing built, but here is a bottleneck around the brickie and the pointer. We need many more in the industry, so how hard are the Government negotiating with the employers? Do they pressurise the chief executive officer of the CITB for more brickies and pointers?

Further Education Bodies (Insolvency) Regulations 2018

Lord Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for introducing the regulations. It is always somewhat frustrating that discussion of regulations offers no chance to amend, but of course it gives us an opportunity to challenge and seek clarification from the Government on rationale, detail or implementation.

We on these Benches found the Technical and Further Education Act a deeply depressing piece of legislation. Our further education sector makes an enormous contribution to education and the economy but continues to be overtasked, underfunded and underappreciated. The Bill was largely about potential insolvency in further education—hardly a resounding message of support. Of course, it introduced the baffling T-levels, which were not sought by the sector and continue to be baffling months after their inception. They risk undermining the highly regarded vocational qualifications that have served this country well for generations, but we will keep the perplexities of T-levels for another debate.

I declare an interest as a vice-president of City & Guilds, an organisation I worked with for some 20 years. For more than 140 years, it has been an immense source of employment skills for the nation. City & Guilds has always worked with FE colleges, which play a crucial part in delivering world-class qualifications that are highly regarded in the UK and overseas by employers across the whole range of work-related skills.

We note that a number of FE colleges have fallen into financial difficulties. Can the Minister tell us how many of them have actually become insolvent? I note that the Explanatory Memorandum indicates that,

“in reality we expect that FE colleges entering insolvency would be a very rare event”.

One wonders why, in that case, so much of the Act was devoted to such insolvency. We gather too that:

“The Department will publish two sets of guidance before the instrument comes into force”.


Will the Minister say when we can expect these sets of guidance? Apparently there is to be no monitoring to assess whether there are,

“any unexpected burdens or tensions within the FE sector”.

Any legislation that imposes additional burdens and tensions on an overburdened sector should surely be dismissed instantly. Would it not be prudent to have some sort of review?

Will the Minister also say what part in those financial difficulties has been played by the unwelcome and damaging burden of providing GCSE resits in maths and English? If ever a policy was designed to reinforce failure in learners, these resits are that policy. Young people who may have brilliant workplace skills are forced into taking exams again and again which have little, if any, relevance to the work they wish to do, and they fail time and again. This is hardly encouragement for the future. Colleges have been tasked with this depressing and resource-intensive duty. When will the Government realise the negative and counterproductive impact of their obsession with academic qualifications, regardless of the talents of young people or the relevance of those qualifications to the things that young people actually want to do? Can the Minister say if and when the Government have plans to review the GCSE resit policy?

I share the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, over the drop in funding for FE, which is surely unacceptable with all the pressures put on it.

Can the Minister say what provision has been made for private providers? What progress has been made in developing comparable safeguards for apprentices and other learners who are with private providers, especially in view of the collapse of 3aaa? What about the looming collapse of learndirect? Do these regulations have any implications for protecting learners if there are subcontracting arrangements, for instance? We know that colleges and private providers are entangled in highly complex subcontractors. The Minister may have an answer on this, but if he does not, perhaps he could write to me.

We do not seek to challenge these regulations, but we express again our deep concerns over government policies towards vocational, or even technical, education. We hope that wise heads will appreciate that it is in the national interest, and in the interest of learners, to give every possible support and status to those who seek to acquire the work skills the country so desperately needs. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his cogent introduction and my noble friend for his eloquent steer in a debate such as this. My remarks will be very brief. The regulations refer to Section 124A of the Insolvency Act, which is headed “Petition for winding up on grounds of public interest”. Will the Minister expand on how he perceives the public interest in the context of this sphere of education? The matter is complicated, and obviously the provision is necessary, but can he give a recent instance of where a specific further education establishment has been perceived to be insolvent? Has that happened? Does he know of a sixth-form college that has been wound up? Has that happened?

Paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Memorandum on the policy background is helpful. Does the Minister know whether exceptional financial support has been given to one of these institutions? Like others in this debate, I think the further education sector is crucial to the future of Britain’s economy. In particular, FE colleges might help us save what remains of our manufacturing base.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I preface my remarks by saying that we value further education. It will go through a renaissance and the need for vocational courses, skills development and apprenticeships will help it to blossom. This instrument is technical but it is absolutely right that we should agree it.

However, I have a number of concerns. We have had the area reviews, of course, but why do we allow a further education or sixth-form college to become insolvent? One would think that further down the line we would take strong and robust action to ensure that that does not happen. If a college closes down the effect on the local community and economy can be devastating. If we allowed a further education college in, say, Northumberland to close down because we had not kept our finger on the pulse, imagine the effect that that would have in a predominantly rural area.

It is important that we understand the mechanisms for ensuring that this does not happen. I see in the document that 37 further education colleges published notices to improve financial health. What do the Government do to make sure that that support is given?

I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about cuts, but it is not always about cuts; it is about management as well. An institution might not have all the resources it needs but it might be so well managed that it thrives nevertheless. It is about the management of the college as well as its finances.

I have three further questions. First, the Minister said that insolvency will not always mean closure. Will he expand on that and say what other actions can be taken? Secondly, do these regulations apply to university technical colleges? Thirdly, if we want to create the level playing that the Minister talked about, should we not ensure that all sixth-form colleges are treated equally and that those that have to pay VAT will no longer have to do so? Will he perhaps explain why sixth-form colleges that are not in a multi-academy trust have to pay VAT?

Cadet Units in Schools

Lord Jones Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, in a very long public life, most of it in these two Houses, I have not encountered better provision for youth than that proffered by the nation’s cadet force associations. From my own observations, I can say that what is done by the Army for young women and men is magnificent. They are provided with excellent opportunities, facilities, training and mentoring. There are many successes and Wales is a determined partner in this success. I attend cadet camps throughout the length and breadth of England and see these achievements. The Committee owes the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, a debt of gratitude for securing this debate. I sincerely support him wholeheartedly. He has made the case for cadet units in our schools and defended them. I thank him for his insightful, loyal and committed remarks.

I also acknowledge the professionalism of Brigadier David Short, the ACFA chief executive officer, for his élan, vigour, experience and enthusiasm. I do not say that for nothing, as he commanded Apache attack helicopters in British squadrons. We are in good hands.

I declare my interests as president of the Army Cadet Forces Association Wales, as president of the training ship “Tuscan”, and my very long-standing association with 2247 Squadron ATC, both of the latter in Flintshire. I have seen a lot of them.

In Wales we have a leadership team dedicated to the best interests of the cadets. I offer praise to Colonel Commandant AV Jones in Clwyd and Gwynedd, covering the communities of the Snowdonian massif and industrial north-east Wales. I also praise Colonel Commandant David Hammond, a very distinguished professional soldier, who leads over the seascapes of Dyfed and the city of Swansea, and Colonel Commandant Rob Hughes, who copes with the vast interior of Powys and the eastern valleys of Gwent. Our splendid chairman is Colonel John Brunt, himself a former commandant. The colonel of cadets is the ubiquitous Colonel Mike Mullis. We recently welcomed our new secretary, Colonel Naysmith, saying goodbye to a wonderful secretary of 10 years—Major John Carter, to whom I owe a great deal. This team faces up very boldly to the constant challenges of distance, climate and topography. We are a very varied people in Wales with distinctive approaches, but I think that the movement is a splendid success in my homeland.

I place on record my thanks to the right honourable Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith for receiving my deputation concerning the outreach programme. He also commanded his civil service unit to be present. Outreach is a generous gift from the Army. It reaches out to the young underprivileged and offers a way forward to boys and girls in our high schools, who, for example, may have encountered the police and the magistrates’ youth court. They then do very well on the course. Time is of the essence, so I shall sit down.

Education: English Baccalaureate

Lord Jones Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they propose that all young people will be able to study for the new English baccalaureate certificate.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, we expect that everyone who now sits a GCSE should be able to sit the new English baccalaureate certificate. Although it will be more challenging than the current GCSEs, we believe that all children with a good education should be able to achieve it. We have also moved to strengthen vocational qualifications, increase the number of UTCs and studio schools and set an expectation that young people who are not secure in English or maths at the age of 16 will continue to study towards that qualification post-16.