Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to take part in this debate. I will address principally Amendment 81 but also the general points raised by my noble friend Lord Lucas, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden.

The Bill basically focuses on education for 16 to 19 year-olds, but it cannot be looked at just as a separate section; it depends on what has happened between 11 and 16. If you have made a mess of 11 to 16, you cannot compensate for it by this Bill. I believe that, since 2010, we have made a mess of 11 to 16 education. This is really what is behind the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker; she is talking about disadvantaged children. The proportion of disadvantaged children today—you are usually considered to be disadvantaged if you do not get level 4 in English and maths—is between 30% and 35%. That is not a small minority—it is over 2 million students who failed, after 14 years of free state education, to acquire a basic literacy and numeracy qualification. It is a huge indictment of the English education system and what has been imposed upon it since 2010.

In 2010, Michael Gove imposed his curriculum on schools, without any consultation whatever. His curriculum, known as EBacc or Progress 8, consists of eight academic subjects: two English, one maths, three science, one foreign language and either history or geography. That is a grammar school curriculum; it is an academic curriculum. It excludes any sort of technical training, computer training, design training or cultural studies. Since 2010, there has been no fall in the number of disadvantaged children: the number then was roughly the same as it is now, at 30% to 35%. It was the same in 2015, when the Conservatives took control; there has been no significant improvement. I fear that there is absolutely no doubt that the attainment gap between the brightest and the less bright students will have grown substantially during Covid.

The victims of this policy are the disadvantaged and the unemployed. No one has mentioned the level of unemployment. Youth unemployment is now at 14.8%, which is very high—three times the national average—but there has been no mention at all of that. Nor has there been mention, so far, of students in the Bill; they have been left out like the mayors mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis—they are not mentioned at all. I see no measure in the Bill that will prove a significant change in dealing with the skills gaps in our country.

The other matter that I am concerned about is that the Bill should have been a wonderful opportunity to create a combination of academic and technical education but, in fact, it makes the division even greater. The Bill is saying that if you stay on at school in the sixth form, that is the best way to get to university. When it is passed, the heads of every secondary school will say to their students, “Don’t go down that technical route, you’ll never get to university. Stay with us.” So all the rest will go down this technical route, and that is a real divide.

In Clause 4, the Bill actually says that schools and 16 to 19 academies will not be allowed to teach technical education. It says it in statute. I never thought that I would see that particular definition in an English law—least of all brought back by a Conservative Government, I may say. That is a complete bifurcation: there is an academic route and a less academic route. This is not really what should happen. The schools that I have established over the last 12 years include both academic and technical education and we have magnificent results, but the Bill really does not have that role in it whatever. It is educational apartheid—I do not use that word lightly, but that is what this is; there are two clear routes in future. Where is the parity of esteem, when the secondary head can say to his children, “Stay with me and you will get to university, because I will do those eight academic subjects, and we will get you through your A-levels as well”?

I am afraid that there is no real advantage in the Bill for the disadvantaged students, and I regret that very much indeed. When we talk about disadvantaged children, just remember that in every child there is a bit of flint. Sometimes you have to dig very deep for it, but that is the purpose of education—to find that bit of flint and create a spark, or, as Shakespeare said:

“The fire i’th’ flint


Shows not till it be struck.”


That flint has to be found long before 16; it has to be found at primary level and at secondary level and this is what we are failing to do as a country.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I ought first to declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I looked at these amendments and found myself agreeing with every single one. I looked back and remembered when we had the technical education Bill and, when we were in Committee in the Moses Room, I think there were probably about eight to 10 of us. How wonderful it is now to see how people have realised the importance of technical and vocational education—we have a proper Committee for a further education/vocational education/skills Bill.

I do not have a problem with local skills improvement plans—does anyone? It seems eminently sensible that you look at the needs of each locality in terms of business, job creation and development, and put that plan together. It is not something where you say, “Nationally, we will all do this”; you look at each local area. I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, talk about Cumbria. He will be pleased to know that I spent a week in Keswick and, as we walked around, virtually every single restaurant, hotel and shop had an advert pleading for people to work in the hospitality industry. Clearly, that is a skill that is needed in that area. It is obviously brought about because of Brexit, but that was a problem even when we were in the EU—there were not enough people in the hospitality industry.

I look at my own city of Liverpool, and back in the 1960s and 1970s we were the poorest region in Europe and, as a result, we qualified for what was called Objective 1 money—nearly €1 billion, I think. We got that twice; we got two tranches because our GDP was among the lowest in Europe. Why did we get a second tranche? Because the first time we failed completely to use the money effectively. We did not draw up a plan; we did not say, “What skills do we need? How can we turn the economy around?” We just sort of threw the money about. For example, FE colleges were booming with hairdressing and beauty treatment courses, so we gave them money to develop those courses. Yet there was a shortage at the time of engineers and of people in the construction industry, but there was no plan to say, “This is how we should be doing it.” So the notion of a local skills improvement plan seems eminently sensible.

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Moved by

[Lord Storey]

5: Clause 1, page 1, line 14, leave out subsections (3) and (4) and insert—
“(3) The employer representative body and relevant providers in a specified area must co-operate to develop a skills improvement plan for submission to the Secretary of State for approval and publication.(4) The employer representative body and relevant providers in a specified area must co-operate to—(a) keep the plan under review, and(b) where appropriate, develop a replacement plan for submission to the Secretary of State for approval and publication.(4A) The relevant provider must have regard to the plan so far as it is relevant to any decision that the relevant provider is making in relation to the provision of post-16 technical education or training that may be relevant to the skills, capabilities or expertise that are, or may in the future be, required in that area.(4B) In developing a new or replacement plan, the employer representative body and relevant providers must consult with such persons as they consider appropriate in the specified area, including—(a) local authorities,(b) mayoral combined authorities,(c) trade unions, and(d) students’ unions.”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that establishment of the LSIPs involves colleges as joint partners and involves the input of the wider community.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, it is important for the development of these local skills improvement plans that the partners involved are working together. The notion of divorcing, if you like, the employers from those providing the education seems to me to be wrong. The two key players to make a success of this are obviously the employers, who know their needs and can identify the skills that are short, and the colleges that provide the training and education. I do not like the notion that we should separate those two or that, as the Minister’s letter said, we might consider what they say. My Amendment 5 seeks to understand whether the colleges will be joint partners in this venture and make that point.

I say that for other reasons as well, not just in terms of developing the local skills improvement plans but because it helps the colleges themselves. It helps them to work with the employers in their locality at a really close level. It will improve the ethos and standing of colleges in the community, making employers realise what colleges are about and what happens in them: they will be properly engaged with them on a regular basis, not think of them as “some sort of building over there”. That dialogue and, dare I say it, teamwork will bring about genuine and effective plans. This is not an attempt to create more bureaucracy or paperwork; it is about saying that—I reiterate—these two key players must be locked together to make this happen.

My other amendment in this group, Amendment 38, is again about

“effective partnership working between employer representative bodies and local authorities and Mayoral Combined Authorities”.

We now have nine different mayoral authorities in England, and these nine city regions account for 41% of the country’s population and 43% of our economic output. The notion that they are sort of over there and may just be consulted seems wrong; they should be clearly involved in not just the final decisions but the day-to-day decision-making on these plans.

They already have emerging powers in relation to adult education and funding for FE, skills training and learners above the age of 19, so they are already important players in this area of work. In fact, as I said earlier, Liverpool was given a £41.1 million grant of local growth money to support skills and capital investment, and is currently working on a budget of £18 million for this year to make it available. I notice that other noble Lords also have amendments in this group. In particular the noble Lord, Lord Watson, is equally calling for working bodies to work closely together on this.

At the beginning of my contribution, I used the term “teamwork”. We only have to see how this has produced the successful run so far of the England team, which is not about separating a manager from players, and whatever else, but working together as a team. I hope that this amendment will be considered and that the Minister will ensure that there are not just considered but effective working arrangements.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Lexden) (Con)]

My Lords, I must inform the Committee that if Amendment 5 is agreed to, I will not be able to call Amendment 6 by reason of pre-emption.

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[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

Yes, as I have said, in the process of bidding for the trailblazers, we have allowed local geographic areas to define themselves as the economic area. So, it could be the mayoral combined authority for Greater Manchester, or it might be that parts of the north of that area decide that they are going to be in an area with somewhere else. We have not prescribed that. We have allowed that local decision-making, and we are not dictating from the centre. We would be criticised if we were to do that. It is up to that geography to define itself. I will have to come back to my noble friend on a model plan. We will be publishing the trailblazer plans during that pilot, but I will write to my noble friend about any other model plan.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all Members for their wise contributions and the Minister for her very detailed replies. I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, really put her finger on it when she said, “I am not confident we’ve got the relationships right.” This is not—and I look directly at the Minister—about those pesky politicians or those pushy colleges wanting to get their hands on the levers of provision. This is about making sure this works. We support the Bill, we want the Bill to be successful, and we want these plans to work. All the contributions that noble Lords have made indicate that we have reservations about the way these plans are going to be drawn up. I was taken with my noble friend Lady Garden’s comment about when she was at City and Guilds. It was trying to get employers to come forward and was asking, “What skills do you want?” They did not have a clue. If you think “We will just give a sop to consultation”, people will feel that they are not properly involved. At the beginning, we heard the noble Lord, Lord Patel, say it gives too much power to a small group. That feeling will be there, and people will not feel engaged and will not want this to be success. So, I hope that in Committee and on Report, the Minister will consider the wise words of Members and we can have a system—if that is the right phrase—that will deliver what we all want. That is really important, as is, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, said, that we have those proper checks and balances.

To finish, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, will be pleased that business and politicians can work together. Liverpool gave the freedom of the city to Terry Leahy. There you go: an arch-capitalist being lauded by the Lib Dem council at the time. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 5 withdrawn.