School Accountability and Intervention

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness will know from her experience that the ability to academise a school does not depend on a duty in every case, and nor did it do so under the last Government. The 2RI policy was a power for academisation to happen in those cases, not a duty. I am not sure I would characterise the department in quite the way she did; nevertheless, it comes back to this point: what is the most appropriate range of interventions that can be used to ensure that the improvement we see in the schools that need it is as speedy, well supported and appropriate as possible? For example, the distinction between schools that have the leadership capacity to improve themselves, and those that do not, is an important one. The RISE teams, with their targeted interventions for schools that need it, and their broader universal offer to direct schools looking to improve in the right areas, are an important addition to ensure that all our schools are improving quickly.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

I remind noble Lords of my entry in the register of interests as the chair of the multi-academy trust E-ACT. My noble friend will know that some argue that the Secretary of State has oversteered back towards a model of school improvement based on fear. What reassurance can she give that Ofsted will go further to ensure that inspections are more consistent and more supportive, and when can we expect much-needed universal inspections of MATs, with a move to more risk-based inspections, as suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Importantly, as a result of the Big Listen, Ofsted is also publishing as part of the consultation considerably more information on how schools will be assessed. For example, publication of toolkits and the consultations gives schools much more of an opportunity to know the basis on which they are going to be inspected, and more of an idea about what counts as good and where improvement might be needed. My noble friend is right: that will be an important way of ensuring that balance between challenge and an appropriate way for schools to understand what needs to happen in order to improve. We are committed to introducing MATs inspections, and we will engage with the sector and bring forward legislation when time allows. This is an important area, like the Ofsted consultation and the department’s consultation, and we are genuinely open to ensuring that this works appropriately, gets the balance right and ensures that children’s education is being improved.

Lifelong Learning

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

To move that this House takes note of the social, economic and personal value of lifelong learning.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to introduce this timely debate. I am very much looking forward to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Curran.

I must remind the House of my education interests in the register, including chairing Century Tech and advising Pearson, both of which have products used for lifelong learning. I also co-chair the All-Party Group on the Future of Work.

This debate is timely. It is timely because the new Government are getting on with the establishment of Skills England, and reintegrating it with regional and national industrial strategies as part of the essential growth ambitions for the country. It is timely because the Government are remodelling the apprenticeship levy to a more flexible employer-responsive growth and skills levy, and implementing the lifelong learning entitlement. It is timely because of some profound shifts in society caused by ageing and technological change.

These last big shifts point to the need for a significant focus on lifelong learning by this Government after years of neglect. In thinking about this, I am informed by the work of Professors Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott and their prize-winning 2016 book The 100-Year Life; by a lecture given three months ago by Professor Lily Kong, president of the Singapore Management University; and by Professor Christopher Pissarides’s review into the future of work and well-being, which published its report just last week.

The 100-Year Life discusses the implications of more of us living to 100. Across the western world, we are seeing falling birth rates and rising life expectancy. Although that is not equitably spread, the trend is clear. If you want a reasonable pension, a lifespan of 100 requires working into your 80s; although that may be a regular reality in your Lordships’ House, a 60-year working life has wider implications, particularly the inevitability of multiple careers. As AI and other technology rapidly disrupts work, it is also not credible that knowledge and skills obtained into your mid-20s will maintain labour market value for a further six decades. A life of multiple careers needs an education system designed for lifelong learning. We need to move on from the three-phase life of education, then work, then retirement. We need a system that allows all of us to learn in work, to re-enrol in education institutions, to have our learning certificated and recognised as we go, and to navigate successfully through many new directions.

This is most important for our university sector. One of the legacies inherited by this Government from the previous one is an HE sector in financial crisis. The previous Government prevented student fees from rising with inflation, and, as a result, domestic students have become a loss leader and universities have hiked foreign nationals’ fees in response. We need to reverse this trend and protect the massive soft power benefit of these education exports. I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on her leadership in allowing universities to raise fees.

However, the levels of debt that young people carry as they start out in work remains a problem for as long as we stick to the three-phase life. What if university was something we kept returning to throughout our working lives to enable us to pivot our careers? What if we then had a business model more like subscribing to membership of a university over many years, rather than a debt-financed, one-off degree front-loading a long working life? Part of necessary HE reform has to include new financial models based on lifelong learning that allow us to escape the burden of debt that is putting people off going to our great universities.

Beyond HE, our rigid educational system is matched by rigid funding and an education department that is motivated more by qualification outcomes than by people outcomes. The lifelong learning entitlement and the skills and growth levy are opportunities to change that. The Pissarides review argues for a revised and expanded lifelong learning entitlement to reflect the social right to learn, with wider and more flexible access to learning opportunities. Revision of the LLE is also called for by the Open University to make part-time learning easier; by the Learning and Work Institute; and by the QAA, which wants the funding threshold lowered from 30 credits and an opening up of eligibility to microcredentials and short courses.

The LLE has the potential to enable the interweaving of learning and earning throughout our lives. We also then need to add a strand of learning for leisure, so that we can enjoy a later stage of life, with some work alongside a healthy old age. Lifelong learning must not be solely about skills for growth; it must also be for family learning and for physical and mental health. It must include the arts and humanities, passion-based learning, sports and craft skills.

As lifelong learners, we need better metacognition to understand how we best learn, and thereby be better self-directed learners. This, in turn, goes to core intrapersonal skills of reflection and self-modulation. These are often best taught through the arts, sports and humanities. Resilience skills can be taught and should be nurtured from schools, through FE and HE, and into adult learning. As we all get old, the same skills will help us be healthier and care for ourselves longer, but we will also need to be better at caring for each other. We need these intangible assets of learning as much as the tangible assets of finance and qualifications.

Evermore capable machines are fast emerging, as robotics and generative AI imminently combine to create intelligent agile cyborgs. The competitive threat of these machines will be met only by being better humans. AI is great at what we assess in education, but it really struggles with basic human abilities such as physical perception and social interaction. These are the behaviours that we all have without thinking and that we recognise in others subconsciously. Studying the humanities teaches us about how humans behave and organise themselves. Studying the arts allows us to reflect on how we feel. Therefore, although the STEM subjects are vital in helping us understand what works and what we need, the arts and humanities are essential in understanding why we need and will use them. All this points to the need for more interdisciplinary depth in lifelong learning.

The UK and China are particularly stuck on a craving for narrow disciplinary and specialist knowledge. Our school curriculum is knowledge rich and organised by subject silos. This is further narrowed with A-levels as a reflection of how our universities organise themselves. But, as the Pissarides review says, skills diversity—that is, combining social and technical skills—

“is increasing across the board”

in work, including within “high-tech/digital roles”.

Most subject disciplines have existed for only the last 100 years or so and they do not reflect how we innovate or work. Nobel Prize-winning science tends to come from insights connecting across silos, not so much deep within them. Is it not time for our universities and further education colleges to have more flexible, modular courses, like the US system? Should a lifelong learning system not by design give parity to multidisciplinary learning alongside single disciplinary specialism?

This would be eased by more breadth in the 16 to 19 phase of secondary education and the adoption of digital portfolios to capture achievement as recorded by institutions, employers and awarding bodies. Digital credentials can be held by the individual and shared with whoever they give consent to. That consent allows digital access for prospective employers or admissions offices to drill into what a person can do and has done in a way that will give so much more insight than a paper certificate. Such a system can then live with a person as their ongoing record of lifelong learning and employment. AI tools would be able to match it to labour market opportunities and skills training that could, in turn, transform an individual’s potential to take experience from one career into the next.

Clearly, this all circles back to how the lifelong learning entitlement is rolled out, and the stakes are high. If lifelong learning does not become ingrained in more than the current 50% who take advantage of adult learning, and if it is not enabled by government and employers, we will see technology deskill people who do not have the capacity or confidence to reskill. Those not currently participating in lifelong learning are, of course, the least educated and those who need it the most. The result is enduring productivity issues, unaffordable numbers on long-term sickness benefit and widespread dissatisfaction: a belief that working hard, doing the right thing and trusting traditional democratic government is no longer worth while. That leads to toxic populism, and the vaccination against that poison is lifelong learning.

An education system that is lifelong by design will focus on more than just cognitive intelligence by nurturing more human qualities and interdisciplinary learning, and by integrating learners at whatever age with each other. What does that mean for each stage of our education system? For schools, it means a shift in accountability to value equally sport, the arts and applied learning, such as design and technology, alongside the abstract knowledge valued in the EBacc and Progress 8. Post-16, it requires a much bigger push on project-based qualifications, such as the EPQ, as part of the mix, incentivising voluntary work and more breadth than we currently get from three A-levels.

FE must be positioned as a more universal service for adults both young and old. Colleges should be at the heart of our communities and our local and regional economies. In many ways, we should see them as the platform from which to access a range of learning from the college itself, but also family learning, the University of the Third Age, the OU, other HE in hybrid form, the Workers’ Educational Association and so on. FE could also be the entry point for most businesses. We organise our skills system to meet the needs of large employers, yet less than a fifth of us work for these big businesses. FE should be where most businesses go to help them develop the talent pipelines that they need to compete and flourish.

Apprenticeships and T-levels have a key role to play in this future, but so do other qualifications. If I am right about digital portfolios, these could include certificated courses that are more agile than most regulated qualifications. If such courses are recognised by employers, that ought to be good enough for the rest of us.

Future skills are likely to be higher level. Future growth will predominantly come from technology that craves the excellent graduates from the likes of Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial—the golden triangle. However, as I have set out, the opportunities for new business models off the back of modularisation and a lifelong relationship with universities should be encouraged.

Adult skills are usually neglected in this context. The funding is meagre, and the stakes are now high. I am told that the DfE has warned combined authorities to expect cuts to adult education budgets next year. Deskilling will accelerate. Employers must be incentivised to invest in the ongoing learning of staff to develop them for new roles as old roles disappear. Individuals should feel empowered by the adult skills system to trust and not fear the new technology because it is creating as many opportunities for them as it has closed others down, and some of those opportunities will make it easier for them to pursue passions and build mental resilience through the arts and humanities.

This is a big part of the challenge for Skills England and the new growth and skills levy. The levy is the key: it is the opportunity for the new body to engage employers and show them that Skills England is an advance on IfATE. I urge my noble friend to resist any official push that the levy should fund only a narrow set of regulated qualifications. It must be highly responsive to the needs of employers of all sizes in a fast-moving labour market.

If the Treasury is listening—I emphasise “if”—it too will need to work hard on this agenda, especially for FE and adult skills. The price of underfunding will come back to bite through rising spending by the DWP and the economic uncertainty created by swathes of workers checking out and embracing populist politics.

This is critical for the future of our economy and to give individuals hope for their future. We are living at a time when uncertainty is the only certainty, and there has never been a more important time to promote and resource lifelong learning. As Kofi Annan said:

“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family”.


I beg to move.

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[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all the speakers in this excellent debate, who were expertly responded to by my noble friend the Minister. I am grateful for the kind words that some have said to me about my speech. I love the passion for lifelong learning that we heard all around the Chamber, and the sense of the widespread returns on investment—to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, focused on the key question of how we get to the hardest to reach. He has modelled taking the plunge and the risk of learning to do something new by getting on with it, and he pulled it off very well. Perhaps the answer to his question lies in taking the learning to where people are. My noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lord Monks reminded us that taking it into the workplace is one of the ways to achieve that. I am interested in what the DWP is trying to do with regard to how it can define job centres as a place where people can access skills and learning too.

I want to finish—and let those who have not already done so catch their trains—with my noble friend Lady Curran. She said that the measure of politics is lives changed. If the Government get this right, they can, in her words, release reservoirs of ability and energy into the economy and society.

Motion agreed.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I offer my apologies for not being able to be present at the first day in Committee, but I have read the Hansard of that day.

My amendment is very similar to lots of others in the various groups, and I think they all point to the same thing, really. The Minister talked about the “narrow IfATE model”. I would have thought an executive agency within her department is a very tight model, and I can perhaps see why from her point of view, whereas on these Benches we would prefer a wider, more inclusive model. Having said that, I understand and can see the driving force behind what the Minister wants to achieve from the comments she has made. She said that the Government want

“to move away from the current, narrow IfATE model. Creating any further requirement for parliamentary approval before Skills England operates fully would frustrate the intentions of the Bill to enable a smooth transfer and the delegation of functions to Skills England”.—[Official Report, 21/11/24; col. GC 96.]

I suppose we are all anxious for progress in this area. The skills shortages are frightening. You have only to look at any particular industry. I have spoken to the construction industry, and the number of job vacancies and areas where it just cannot get skilled labour are holding back not just that industry but the country.

Given that we are where we are, and that I, no doubt like my colleagues, trotted along to the Bill office and said, “I’d like to put an amendment down on this”, to be told, “Oh no, it’s not in the scope of the Bill”—the Bill is very tightly written, so we are frustrated in that we cannot talk about or suggest for improvement some of the things in the area of skills that we wanted to—mine is a simple amendment. It simply says that the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament at regular intervals how they have used the powers transferred to them. It is a supportive and helpful amendment because you do not want, in 12 months’ or two years’ time, to say, “Do you know what? I’ve been let down by my executive agency. It has not delivered”. But if you are able to report to Parliament on a regular basis—it does not specify a time—then we can share those successes and concerns and maybe, from time to time, we can make some helpful suggestions.

I should add that I added my name to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Knight, which I also support. I beg to move.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, this is part of a range of amendments all essentially about reporting and, as he accurately described, any number of us were wrestling with how to get something that looks like Skills England into the Bill. A way involved a reporting requirement— I was not allowed to mention Skills England in my amendment—in which I lifted some of the detail in paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d) from statements that the Government have made about Skills England and what they want it to be able to focus on and achieve. Hence the amendment lists:

“identification of skills gaps … the provision and funding of training to meet the skills needs of employers; … the development of occupational standards; …work with regional and local bodies to improve the skills of the workforce in England”.

I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for managing to get in something around the green skills agenda, which I tried to get in in my amendment but failed to draft it as skilfully as he clearly was able to do in order to get that in. I also support having a specific mention of the responsibilities in climate legislation and its relationship to green skills.

As I understand it, IfATE has a requirement to report to Parliament annually. It does so well and has shown its success, so the capacity is there, assuming that IfATE’s capacity will successfully transfer into the executive agency. So I do not see this as onerous, and it is important that we as Parliament should receive a report on the additional things that IfATE does not currently cover that would be covered by Skills England.

It is, incidentally, important for Parliament to have an opportunity to scrutinise the really important work that Skills England will be able to do. The annual report is a common mechanism that we all use when we are trying to get a little more traction for Parliament, but I think it is merited in this case. I hope that, reflecting on this group and the next, which is also about reporting in slightly different ways, the Minister will be able to give some consideration as to whether this is a relatively straightforward crumb of comfort to give some of us who have been slightly anxious about the absence of Skills England in the legislation.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 35 in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran, to which I have added my support. Although we have only just started this debate, the range of reporting requirements set out in amendments in the group and mentioned in the speeches we have already heard is because we are all concerned about the lack of detail and statutory underpinning for Skills England currently in the Bill. We share concern that there needs to be greater clarity and purpose for the organisation in the legislation. It is certainly that lack of detail about the way the Government will decide their strategic priorities and create new technical qualifications, where IfATE has previously acted independently and consulted with employers and businesses, that is the rationale behind the amendment I am speaking to now.

The amendment is an attempt to understand how the Government will make these decisions and mandate Skills England to publish the process it intends to follow. I hope that, in her reply, the Minister can provide some further detail and reassurance to the many in the sector who are rightly concerned by the uncertainty that the Bill is creating—about the lack of detail, in particular, on what were previously established and well-understood processes. In order for Skills England to have the effect that we all hope, the decision-making process it undertakes and uses to decide which sectors will receive new technical education qualifications needs to be transparent, robust and retain the confidence of employers, training providers and, of course, the students themselves.

I hope that, in addition to Amendment 35, the Minister will give careful consideration to Amendments 23, 31 and 36 in this group, which, if adopted as a whole, would bring some much needed further clarification and credibility to the work of Skills England from the outset and, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, just said, provide a suitable opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny of its work.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 21st November 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I consider myself encouragée. We on these Benches have some sympathy with these wrecking amendments. We have never supported taking decision-making out of the hands of experts and into the hands of a Secretary of State, whoever he or she may be and however informed and enthusiastic he or she may be about colleges, further education, and technical and vocational qualifications. As I said at Second Reading—I do not apologise for repeating it—politicians are almost always university-educated and may have little understanding of or enthusiasm for the world of skills. I exempt our Minister from this because I know that she cares but, of course, there is no guarantee that she will not be replaced—not for some time, I hope—by a “here today, gone tomorrow” Minister with no knowledge of this sector. These posts do not last, as we all know.

I speak with some knowledge. In the coalition Government, I was appointed Minister for the Olympics and Sport, having never had any interest in sport in my life. At school, I was a fat little bespectacled nerd who was always chosen last for any team. But, given the portfolio, I spent days and weeks of my life learning all there was to know about rugby league—thanks to my noble friend Lord Addington—cricket, hockey and other unmentionables in order to give educated answers to questions. But that is not the same as having a lifelong enthusiasm, and, because Ministers have almost always been educated—surprisingly enough—and can display an astonishing academic superiority, they may look down on practical achievement, as I discovered when I worked in Michael Gove’s team.

We are disappointed, as we always thought of Labour as a party supportive of education in all its guises, yet it has brought forward the damaging VAT on independent schools Bill, which would make us the first country in the world, I believe, to tax education—shame on them—and now this damaging Bill to attack practical education. It is a sad day indeed. We are also bemused that this apparently is the skills Bill, yet there is no mention of skills in it. It might as well have been the flying fish Bill because there is no mention of flying fish either. Some of the amendments in this group try to remedy this, including Amendments 32 and 33 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which we broadly support.

I will speak to Amendment 21 in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Storey, who much regrets that he cannot be here today, to which I added my name. We are spelling out what is missing from the Bill—namely, the establishment of a new executive agency to be called Skills England. Our amendment sets out the conditions for Skills England to be established and the need for both Houses to agree proposals. Other, linked amendments have been regrouped for some reason—I had some work today to try to work out where the groupings have changed since yesterday; I am not quite sure why they were—but we still have the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which seeks to keep some of the duties of IfATE alongside the new body. As IfATE contains many real experts and champions, we feel this is a sensible move and we support it.

We have very strong objections to the power grab by politicians over the experts who really care. We will seek to change this and to convince the Government of the harm that could be done to enhancing the much-needed skills of the country if this goes through unamended. I hope that our listening Minister will appreciate how much is at stake in the Bill and will take note of the very well-intentioned and well-informed amendments that have been tabled.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by reminding the Committee of my educational interests, in particular that I serve on Pearson’s qualification committee, which includes its oversight of BTEC and other technical and T-level qualifications. I apologise that I was not present at Second Reading, but I had to be elsewhere. I have a number of noble friends who would have liked to have been here today but unfortunately are unable to be, particularly my noble friends Lord Blunkett, Lord Watson and Lady Morris.

I listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, with all the considerable respect that I afford her and was reminded of the ill-fated Schools Bill. She is playing the same game that some of us played at her, with the stand part notices and trying to wipe clauses out, which we did successfully in the case of the Schools Bill. It is interesting to reflect on that, because there are a few lessons that the department perhaps needs to learn about introducing controversial Bills in the Lords. There is controversy, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, who spoke more fruitily than I might have expected.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

I am sorry.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

Well, not fruity—more forthrightly than I would have expected. Is that better? There is some reflection to be had on that because if a House of Lords starter gets significantly amended, it is difficult to undo that anywhere else.

I also think some learning from the Schools Bill is necessary in respect of the Secretary of State taking on significant powers without really consulting or properly engaging and not having time to do that. In the case of the Schools Bill it was a trio of ex-Ministers—the noble Lords, Lord Nash, Lord Agnew and Lord Baker—who did for it. We do not have a trio of ex-Ministers trying to do for this Bill, so I hope that is a relief to my noble friend the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

Skills England’s framework document will be introduced as soon as practicable, in line with HM Treasury’s published guidance. Obviously, the framework document will be cleared through all relevant approvals. I hear the concern of noble Lords and will try to ensure that we are able to provide, if not the final framework document, more information to provide reassurance about the status, accountability and governance of Skills England.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend’s flow, but is it likely that this framework document will address that issue of the Secretary of State becoming, in effect, the awarding body for T-levels? Does she have any reflection on how precarious that makes the Minister if things go wrong with being an awarding body, which they do? Sometimes that becomes a resignation matter.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Perhaps I could write to my noble friend with more details on that point. Currently, IfATE controls the licensing of T-levels, which is awarded to awarding organisations for them to develop and deliver. IfATE is not an awarding organisation but the contractor; that responsibility will transfer to the Secretary of State. It is the certification of T-levels that is delivered by the department. As I say, I will respond to my noble friend with a bit more detail on T-levels.

I was attempting to provide noble Lords with some assurance about the governance of Skills England through its framework agreement. On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, about internal governance, Skills England will be run by a permanent CEO within a clear governance and accountability framework, and with a robust management structure at all levels. The CEO will be supported and challenged by an independent chair and a strong board with the experience and knowledge to support Skills England’s delivery. Once appointed, the chair and the board will help set the direction of the organisation, establish key relationships and provide important expertise on matters related to Skills England’s strategic aims and core functions. We are currently recruiting for these positions; we have received a large volume of very high-quality applications. In the meantime, I put on record my gratitude for the work of Richard Pennycook, who has been working as the interim chair of Skills England to support the creation of the new body.

I understand the noble Baroness’s specific point in relation to the governance and the reporting arrangements of the CEO, and I accept her point about the reporting arrangements and the role of the board. Perhaps I could come back to her with more clarity on her point about the advert for the CEO and where we see that accountability going.

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[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to the two amendments in this group in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, to which I have added my name. More broadly, I want to speak to the general thrust of the group. I think that our joint amendment was not specific enough. It is not so much that we need criteria; we need to know that employers will be there and who else will be there. It is not just that we would like some criteria published.

It is important that some of this is publicly and legislatively specified because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, alluded to a little, things start very well, people know exactly what they are doing and then they slide. It might seem inconceivable to anybody involved in setting up Skills England that apprenticeship standards would, in the future, be written without really consulting employers. All I can say is, “I wish”.

I have been looking back at the history of skills policy and implementation in this country, as I do periodically when I decide to write something, and it has reminded me how easy it is for harassed and busy civil servants to just get things through and for powers given to a department, which do not require them to go out beyond the department, to be used by it. It is not that anybody means badly, but that is sort of how it goes. That is why, on repeated occasions, we have ended up with disastrous skills policies and approaches, in essence, for which there is equal-opportunity guilt across the parties. They became just a small group—harassed, busy, pulling very few people in—not putting down the infrastructure to ensure that what you get reaches out into whole economy. We need to do that.

I was staggered when I was working as an expert adviser in government to discover, for example, that most people in the apprenticeship division in the DfE had been in their jobs for only a couple of years. There were some wonderful people, but there was no real collective memory of why things had gone wrong before. That is why you have to make it clear in legislation that, as Skills England goes forward and as, particularly in this context, its apprenticeship functions go forward, it has to involve everybody, even though it takes longer, it is awkward and sometimes it does not work out well.

IfATE has not been perfect. I think more than 700 standards is mad, actually, and when I was involved in the Sainsbury review, I expressly asked that there should be fewer of them. It is not that what we have is perfect, but we have to be aware of the lessons that come from previous mistakes. It is very risky to put everything inside the department without anything that, in effect, says, “You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do that. You’ve got to talk to employers and the key organisations”. Yes, it takes longer, it is awkward and you do not always think they are very good, but it has to be there. The general feeling coming out of these amendments is that we need Skills England to be better than what we have at the moment and not be set up such that the institutional structures invite a repeat of the things that went wrong in previous decades.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, on the importance of consulting employers and that 700 standards might be a little “mad”. I reinforce the sense that it is important to consult not just large employers as, for small and medium-sized employers, that granularity is really challenging.

I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, in his place, because he and I did a little work with EngineeringUK looking at apprenticeship take-up. We heard quite strongly from the SME community that it needs more sectoral standards, with more modularity for the specificity that you see in the 700. There is an opportunity attached to more modularity which could address the problem of English and maths requirements within apprenticeships, as it would then be more possible to think about sector-specific English and maths at level 2 and 3, as appropriate, so that the relevance of the learning to the English and maths content could be made much clearer and much easier for those learners. In that context, I support what the noble Baroness and most noble Lords have said. I listened very closely to the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith, and my noble friend Lord Blunkett.

King’s Speech

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, let me start by congratulating my noble friend Lady Smith on her maiden speech. It was great, and I am absolutely delighted that is she is back; we have missed her. I am also excited to see my great and noble friend Lady Merron in office, and look forward to supporting her on the mental health Bill. I want to take a moment also to pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for her diligent work as a Minister. She modelled the behaviours of public service that we now want to see across the new Government.

I should remind the House of my education interests in the register: in the context of this debate, my membership of the Pearson qualifications committee and chairing the board of STEM Learning are particularly relevant. I want to focus today on skills more than schools.

I am excited, if a little daunted, by the scale and ambition of this legislative programme in the King’s Speech, particularly in the context of the opportunity mission. Some believe that we create opportunity by keeping government out of people’s way. We now have a Government with a lived experience who know that swathes of people are denied opportunity by obstacles that government must actively address and then support people to get on. This is government more as a gardener planting seeds and supporting growth rather than as an absentee landlord.

This is how I see Skills England. Economic growth is dependent on more private enterprise, investors, products and consumers, but we cannot just leave them to it and hope that something turns up. The volume of skills-shortage vacancies doubled in the five years to 2022. We need a new, powerful organisation that brings together employers and unions, combined authorities and national government to ensure that the economy has the skills we need to grow, and in the places and sectors we most need, using the new, more flexible growth and skills levy.

How else, for example, will we develop the skills to fuel green growth? Young people, especially girls, care deeply about green issues, but, according to Prince’s Trust research, are turned off by green jobs, so we need to start in schools with shifting perception and experience of STEM subjects and skills, and then creating coherent pathways from there.

Thirty years ago, 90% of children studied design and technology to 16. This is the subject in the national curriculum to excite young people about applied learning from science and maths, yet we now have less than a fifth studying it in key stage 4. Many schools no longer have the teachers or the facilities for D&T. This has to change if we are to give young people opportunities in the future economy.

I urge my noble friend the Minister to urgently review both T-levels and apprenticeships, and in the meantime fund current qualifications such as BTECs, which more than 150,000 young people are studying with success. My noble friend started the development of 14-19 diplomas. I took over from her and was appalled that they were then cancelled in 2010. We should not do the same to T-levels, but, at present, they are bloated to study and assess, and need trimming before they will be taken up at scale.

For adults, we must build on the delegation of skills funding to combined mayoral authorities so that they can work on their more local industrial strategies with confidence. But that must all be in the context of national standards, growth plans and qualifications set by Skills England.

Finally, I want briefly to touch on issues of workforce and technology. In both health and education, we have systems that are broken but have been sustained by the commitment and dedication of wonderful professional staff. On Monday, I checked with my wife’s oncologist on how she felt when the Secretary of State was quoted as saying the NHS was broken. She replied that it was difficult. We must ensure that the change that people voted for on 4 July reflects the values of the public sector workforce, carries them with us and is at a manageable pace.

Staff can also be helped by technology—despite what is going on today with the Windows update. My wife is through the curative and now in the preventive treatment for breast cancer. Her whole patient experience is shared on an app, but while the data is shared with us, it is not shared with her GP or the local A&E at Lewisham. Our experience at the local hospital when my wife had sepsis was the most scared I have ever been. The danger she was in could have been largely prevented if our NHS systems talked to each other at a basic level of data sharing.

The same is true in education. The measures in the children’s well-being Bill will help, but so will the measures in the digital information and smart data Bill to allow better integration of public service data so that teachers can get a clearer picture of the complexity of the lives of the children they serve.

I am excited by the new Government, who face a daunting task. This legislative programme is ambitious, but I am excited for us to get stuck into it and help rebuild our public services, funded by a growing economy.