Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill

Lord Sewell of Sanderstead Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 19th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sewell of Sanderstead (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I thank you all for the opportunity to give my maiden speech during this debate on lifelong learning.

Before I start, I must confess that my wife and daughter have warned me severely that I should not tell any jokes, because they claim you will not find me funny—a bit like dad dancing—so I shall try to refrain. I was also told to refrain from any football metaphors. That said, I am sure that many of you have been curious about this new signing: will he freeze in the penalty box or will he be the new Erling Haaland, able to deliver 50 goals a season and help my party to victory? As my mother would say, only time will tell.

I start by thanking noble Lords across the Chamber for taking me in in my first few weeks. I know many of you smiled as I pretended to know where I was going. I give a special call-out to the doorkeepers, who have been particularly friendly to me, with a great sense of humour—especially the ones from south London. I am also grateful to my noble friends Lord Godson and Lord Mendoza for introducing me to the House and for their continual mentorship, which has been really helpful.

My parents came here in the 1950s, as part of a group of Caribbean pioneers hoping to make some money then go back home. They did not, as a false myth would have you believe, come here to help build back Britain. They were not on some noble mission to save the mother country. However, like many, they stayed on, and soon owned their own home outright while supporting their relatives back in Jamaica and their own children here in the UK. If my parents were alive today, they would be proud of my achievements so far.

The idea of lifelong learning is appropriate, given my long-standing work in education. I am a trained teacher, a teacher trainer, an education researcher and a consultant. In 2002, I was lucky to be part of the board of the Learning Trust in Hackney, the body that took over the miserably failing Hackney education authority; I would like to link these comments with my friends Mike Tomlinson and Alan Wood. At the time, we faced an authority that was deemed not only the worst in Britain but the worst in Europe. Led by those two—as I said, I was grateful to be part of that team—we turned it around within five years. It became, as noble Lords know, one of the best authorities in the country, with the authority’s flagship Mossbourne Academy, which led to the academy movement that we know today. I am really proud to have been part of that movement.

STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—subjects are key to the country’s development. Back in 2004, I had the foresight to create a pipeline programme, starting with 12 year-olds and developing them during the school holidays into a new generation of talent. I called that charity Generating Genius. It led to thousands of young people from poor and black backgrounds studying STEM subjects at university. In fact, when I visit Oxford colleges and hear a south London accent and wonder where it is from, it is often a student from our programme. It is encouraging to know that and to see their fruition—and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, spoke a minute ago about starting early and building up.

The other key aspect of the programme is that we give young people fantastic career development by exposing them to a range of opportunities that their schools would never have the capacity to do. We have recently made the decision to share the programme across all income groups, across the country, from Hastings to Hartlepool.

In 2021, I chaired the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. Using data from the Office for National Statistics, the commission disrupted the usual narrative and showed that many of the disparities in education, employment, crime, policing and health were founded on multiple and complex factors based on class, geography, family structure, and individual and group agency. I am happy to say that the Government accepted all our recommendations and produced an excellent policy document, Inclusive Britain. Racism persists on all levels; I am proud that the recommendations are delivering sensible solutions.

I now see my work as helping to champion a group that has been marginalised, misunderstood and maligned. I am talking about the British small farmer. As a fledgling farmer myself, I must declare my interest. We need to ensure that farming is linked to our developments in science, particularly in hydroponics, and the other green technologies that we in this country are at the forefront of developing. We need to make farming a real skill and aspiration for a new generation.

I am also interested in the need for skills development in young people. In the past, the cry was, “Education, education, education”—I daresay that it occurred across the House. The cry that we are all embracing now is, “Skills, skills, skills”. What emerged from my so-called race report was a recommendation for the Office for Students, the university regulator, to stop universities offering poor-quality courses or face tough regulatory action. We need more students doing vocational-related degrees, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds.

As a farmer, an innovator, a developer of STEM skills and a change manager, I hope to make some humble contributions to the work of the House. I look forward to working with all noble Lords in this great Chamber of revision and scrutiny.