Education Bill

Lord Layard Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

My Lords, I, too, have put my name to Amendment 89ZZA. I welcome the opportunity to extend the congratulations that my noble friend Lord Young extended to the noble Baroness. I am sure she will be an asset to the team.

I just want to add to more or less everything that my noble friend said in the context of apprenticeships. What surprises me is the semi-reluctant manner in which the Bill is worded. It does not reflect at all the ambitions that the Government talk about in the goals that they have set to achieve apprenticeships or, perhaps more importantly, the way employers constantly remind the Government of the importance of apprenticeships. I know that my noble friend Lord Young referred to employers who still feel that apprenticeships are a burden. However, there are hundreds of employers who see them as an advantage to their businesses and have a real commitment to them. They feel that the Government may be saying one thing but doing another. That is, to say the least, very unfortunate, since apprentices are the core of major businesses.

My own experience is in the engineering sector, as noble Lords will know. Outside that sector, apprentices are now becoming much more important to the hospitality sector and others. Therefore, it surprises me that mixed messages are going out, the result of which is very confusing. I welcome what the noble Baroness said in responding to my noble friend. However, stronger language could be used in the drafting of the Bill—words such as “encourage” rather than “take note of” or other such phrases that are used in the Bill. Anything that can strengthen the enthusiasm that is out there is important.

My noble friend made particular reference to and emphasised the young apprentices who are coming in. There are major issues around young people not being able to engage with apprenticeships, although there are lots of schemes. I am certainly involved in one—the SEMTA Sector Skills Council, through its academy—that encourages young people to come off the unemployment register and works with SMEs to place those young people in businesses. There is a quid pro quo relationship in how that might be funded to give those young individuals a start in life. All the stuff that we hear about—the disruption that is often attributed to young people, and to which they contribute—really can be helped by individuals having a purpose. One of the things that I have found, as I am sure other noble Lords have, is that when you talk to young people who are on apprenticeships, they are absolutely delighted. When they come through them, they are even more thrilled. This is not about attracting a certain type of young person; it is about opening it up to everybody, because it is an opportunity. It is also an ambition for a lot of people. The country, as well as employers, needs these people,

I want to make a couple of quick comments about the other amendments in this section and about the procurements issue in particular. My noble friend referred to our Government’s intentions on this. Employers say to me and to people I work with, “You never see the Government doing this, yet we are being encouraged to do it”. If you consider the relationship between the SMEs and prime businesses, you would consider those people to be part of the procurement process; they buy from them and prime companies demand that SMEs have apprentice-trained people inside their businesses to ensure the quality of the product that they are producing on their behalf. We need some matching up of words—I was going to say rhetoric, but that is probably too harsh, given the way the noble Baroness has come back to us—to ensure that we are talking the same language and, more importantly, that these people have that opportunity. It is the Government’s policy to increase apprentices. We should be knocking at an open door when we have this discussion, rather than feeling that we are challenging them. I am delighted to be part of tabling this amendment.

[Lord Layard]

My Lords, I warmly welcome the government amendments that have been proposed, and I think the same goes for the noble Lords, Lord Wakeham, Lord Willis and Lord Sutherland, with whom I tabled a related amendment in Committee. Our aim was very simple; it was to ensure that there was a clear route to skill via an apprenticeship for young people who did not want to go down the academic route and, for this to become a well understood reality, that the National Apprenticeship Service had a clear duty to make reasonable efforts to ensure that the provision was there for all who wanted to take advantage of it. That is what this amendment now proposes.

I would have preferred a stronger duty on the National Apprenticeship Service, like the noble Lords who spoke earlier. However, I believe that this government amendment is a major step forward, and I pay a warm tribute to John Hayes, the Minister in the other place who is responsible for this, for his passionate commitment to apprenticeships and his vision in proposing this new clause. It is a major improvement in the Bill and it will be a major improvement in our whole educational system for 16 to 19 year-olds, although an even better one would be that proposed by my noble friends.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I support particularly Amendment 89ZZB in the name of my noble friend Lord Hill. I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Layard, who has done a remarkable job in seeing this all the way through Committee and Report, and I compliment the Minister, and indeed his friend in the other place, John Hayes, for the way in which they have listened to the arguments. To have had an education Bill that did not actually mention apprenticeships was a mistake. It is always good when a sinner repents and comes forward with a confession. This is a confession that is worth noting. The Minister will go home happy tonight in that knowledge.

The whole move back towards an apprenticeship service is something that the previous Government should rightly be proud of. It was supported on all sides of the House, but it was an initiative that was long overdue. The fact that this week we have seen such a dramatic rise in the number of apprenticeships, despite the fact that we have a severe downturn in the economy—I will not say recession—is something that again we should welcome very strongly indeed. Apprenticeships are very much here to stay. I am delighted to be going up to Newcastle on 22 November to open a new apprenticeship centre organised by Siemens, which is trying to work with other employers in the north-east. That is the next step.