Post-18 Review of Education and Funding

Lord O'Shaughnessy Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Yes, I take note of the feedback from the noble Baroness and I am sure it will be passed back to the department. I totally agree with her that bringing further and higher education together is a very good thing. As I said in the Statement, it is the first time since 1963, in the Robbins report, that they have been looked at together, and that is very important indeed.

The noble Baroness also made a very good point about the importance of research, the university sector and joined-up thinking. I reassure her that this is very much at the forefront of the Government’s thinking. It goes back to what I was saying earlier about the importance of the UK remaining competitive in a global world and of upskilling and reskilling, as she said, to have the right skills to meet needs looking well ahead—not just five or 10 years, but 20 or 30 years. Through the industrial strategy we committed £406 million of investment into education and skills. In addition, through last year’s Autumn Budget the Government invested over £1 billion to support students through their education. I hope the noble Baroness is reassured that this is very important for our economy.

[Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)]

My Lords, despite declaring an interest as a visiting professor at one university and as a former visiting fellow at another, I am delighted that the debate in this House has focused so much on further education. I agree that in some ways these are the most radical parts of the report. For me, the most shocking statement in the report is in the principles, which shows that even while access to university has increased dramatically,

“the total number of people involved in post-18 education has in fact declined”.

That is because of a decline in further education. I am in no doubt that this dreadful state of affairs is one of the key reasons behind our poor productivity as a nation. I encourage my noble friend to take back to the department, the Secretary of State and whoever will be our next leader that they should have the courage of their convictions and follow Philip Augar’s very sensible advice to shift public subsidy away from low-value degrees into high-quality technical education that will deliver much better economic growth, productivity and social mobility.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

Again, I am happy to take the message back, but I am not in a position to make any commitments—which, admittedly, my noble friend did not ask me to do. I say again that it is so important both horizontally and vertically to have a system whereby individuals’ careers are managed from a pretty early stage and that the right guidance is given to them on whether to go up through the academic route—through university, for example—or through the vocational, technical route, using T-levels or apprenticeships. My point is that it is all joined-up thinking. It must be, because vertically, through the career path, and horizontally, in what you can actually offer, it is very important that we get it right. That is all part of our thinking. The Augar review is extremely informative to our thinking.