Education Bill

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, perhaps I might be allowed to draw the Committee’s attention to Amendment 144C, which stands in my name. I hope that what I am about to say is not taken as cutting across the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Layard and Lord Wakeham. This is inspired by a practice that has become apparent to me. It comes from a group of dyslexics who have discovered that as they cannot pass the English test, they are being removed from the apprenticeships process. I have raised this on the floor of the House, and I have raised it with the relevant Ministers. On every occasion I have received, shall we say, the general approval of your Lordships’ House, and the approval of the Ministers. What is effectively happening is that you are saying to a dyslexic, “You can’t pass a written English test—you can’t get an apprenticeship”.

Nick Gibb recently said in private to me before a meeting that a successful apprenticeship is as economically beneficial to you as a degree. Dyslexics cannot do this, but they can go to university. We have an established path. Indeed, I think I was one of the first people involved in it, actually going as a right. When you start to talk about yourself as part of a historical precedent—well, perhaps I am now a true Member of the House of Lords. It is an established path now. I have interests, both non-paid and pecuniary, in people who now provide these services.

Apprenticeships are probably more appropriate in helping many people who are dyslexic to actually get a job and maintain it, than, shall we say, an arts degree would be. They are more directly applicable. Fewer steps have to be gone through. However, because the English skills test here is one that you cannot pass, dyslexics are told, “No”. The thing is, we thought we had cracked it. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is here; we had discussions about this when the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act was a Bill, and we thought we had an answer.

What has happened is that the Ministers had a private meeting. I agreed with the Minister, John Hayes, that I could use this in a previous speech, and as I referred to it then I think I am safe to do so now. We had a meeting, and the National Apprenticeship Service was told by the Minister, “Sort it out—this is ridiculous”. The representatives were told to come to me, because they did not know what was going on about dyslexia and I would put them in touch with the relevant people. It did not happen, and in subsequent conversations I found myself talking to a person who said, “Our lawyers have told us that we don’t have to do it, so we won’t”. Maybe we—the noble Lord, Lord Young, and I—are at fault because we did not pin this down hard enough. But something has gone fundamentally wrong. It may be corrected over time, but I hereby give the noble Lord, Lord Henley, the chance here to tell us exactly what is going to happen about this in the immediate future, and what is planned.

I apologise for not having spoken at Second Reading and coming here today, but I hope that the Committee will understand why I have done this now, and why I suggest it is important that the Government give a definitive example of what they think should happen, given that I think we have unanimous support for the argument that dyslexics—10 per cent of the population—should not be excluded from getting a qualification that gives them a way of earning a living.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I would like to follow on from the noble Lord, Lord Addington, to make one very brief point. On my way to my brief point I will say that I very much support apprenticeships and the apprenticeships programme, and what this Government are doing to ramp that up, so I very much support the amendment that has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Layard.

I do not know quite how the Government intend to respond to that, but the brief point I will make is to express the hope that if the Government are on the way to resisting or qualifying the amendment in any way, I hope that they will not do anything that will detract from the priority category status of the apprenticeship offer, which is in legislation, for students with learning difficulties and disabilities in the age group 19 to 24. I think that the Government have recognised that members of this group sometimes take a little longer to reach the point when they can appropriately embark on an apprenticeship. With that in view, they have accepted that it is appropriate to make a priority offer to this group in a somewhat later age category. I hope that they will be able to give assurances that the offer to that age group of students is still in place.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I, too, have a great deal of sympathy with this set of amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Young, spoke to us about the unemployment statistics and the difficulties that young people in particular have in gaining apprenticeships at the moment. We have seen an extremely satisfactory increase in the number of apprenticeships over the past few years, but they have predominantly been in the older, 19-plus category. There is considerable difficulty for younger people. Employers are less anxious to take on young people. Indeed, those who go into apprenticeships are, on the whole, those who have already been employed by the same people—they move into an apprenticeship with the firm that they are already with.

We have had some discussion of the Select Committee report that was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham. I think I remember that report saying that apprenticeship is the most satisfactory route into a career for a young person who does not go through university. It is an extremely satisfying and satisfactory way of teaching young people, and for them to learn not only a skill but about jobs and living, and the world of work. It is therefore very important indeed that we should support the apprenticeships. In the current situation with the recession, can my noble friend Lord Henley tell us what the Government’s response is to the Wolf report’s suggestions that there should be some incentive to employers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, in taking on young apprentices? We talk about it being demand-led but in some circumstances demand needs a little nudging. Are the Government inclined to nudge demand in this way?