Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 8th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I too very strongly support this group of amendments. I share the very great concern expressed around the House, particularly at the thought of blackening the names of a number of our universities, on which we depend so very much for all sorts of reasons. The criticisms made around the House are compelling as to the obvious deficiencies of the present scheme.

One hopes that this is not the case, but if at the end of this debate the Government remain disinclined to change the approach of using gold and silver stars, ratings and that sort of thing, I urge that universities at least—there are a group of clauses in the Bill which specify what an institution has to do to justify that title—should be spared from the nonsense involved in the scheme as presently envisaged. They should not have to do this. They are already assessed through more sophisticated, nuanced approaches, and they should not have to be ranked in the way that this absurd scheme proposes.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for listening and in some respects changing some of the issues. I was pleased to receive the briefing pack before coming into the Chamber, which was emailed to me as well. I want to talk about two issues: teaching and information.

I do not really get it. Quite simply, if you want to improve the quality of teaching, you do that not through ranking but through the individual who is teaching. We certainly expect a lecturer, professor or other member of staff at a university to have the academic ability and qualifications, or the renown, but we also expect them to be able to teach the subject. How do you do that? Presumably, it is not beyond the wit of universities to perhaps devise their own crash course in teaching. It was considered for FE—City & Guilds—so why could it not happen in universities? Why are we suggesting that a TEF will make an individual lecturer or professor a good teacher? It will not. Teaching skills, and the ability to teach, are not the same as having academic capabilities. This has to be about both, and if we want to improve teaching—which we need to do in our universities—then it will be through some form of teaching qualification.

Of course information should be available: the more information, the better, because in this day and age, particularly with social media, students look at the information to decide which university they go to. They also visit those universities, often with their parents, to decide which is the place for them. Your Lordships would be surprised by some of the considerations that they decide on—I have to say that whether the accommodation has en-suite facilities ranks very highly. I guess that it is increasingly through social media that students tell other prospective students what the place is like: whether the lectures are suddenly cancelled; whether assignments and dissertations are handed in on time and marked correctly; the numbers in lectures; the numbers in tutorials; and how competent and supportive personal tutors are.

Then we come to the issue of ranking. I like the analogy the noble Lord, Lord Smith, made with theatre and cinema stars. The difference is that there are different stars in different publications: one might give it three stars and one might give it one star. We cannot do that with these rankings: once you are a bronze, you are a bronze. I want the Government to understand why we oppose this. It is for a number of reasons. University teachers—lecturers—will want to teach at gold universities. That is human nature. They will not want to say, “I am at a bronze university”. It will affect social mobility. Students do not want to say, “My university was a bronze university”. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, who said that praise is far better than wielding a stick.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich]

My Lords, I reiterate my support for the government amendment to which I have put my name because this is actually a big move forward in clarifying in the Bill what is needed to ensure that, as the sector grows, we have really high quality. However, something more is needed. The Bill sets forth the whole environment for the sector, possibly for decades to come. Over the years we have moved to a situation where most people do not understand what is going on. I know that this sounds very strange but it is true. People do not understand—and I include myself in this much of the time—how degree-awarding powers can be given, where powers lie, and what can and cannot be varied.

My Amendment 116A is intended to complement and add to the improvements that the Government are proposing by modifying somewhat and clarifying the process by which new institutions may receive degree-awarding powers, ensuring that these are clearly understood—because they are in the Bill—and to further reduce, to a very low level indeed, any remaining risk that students may end up with degrees from institutions that failed early in their existence and are therefore effectively devalued in the labour market. I do not think that a degree awarded by the Office for Students is likely to be understood or valued, and we should be thinking about two clear alternatives, which are set out in my amendment. These are that,

“the provider has been established for a minimum of four years with satisfactory validation arrangements in place, or … the Quality Assessment Committee is assured that the provider is fully able to maintain”—

from day one—

“the required standard expected for the granting of a United Kingdom degree … and may therefore be authorised to grant taught awards or research awards … and has reported to the Secretary of State”.

I will come back to why I think that is important. The OfS should also be assured,

“that the provider operated in the public interest and in the interest of students”.

There are a few points that I want to underline. First, thinking in terms of four years is really quite important. I would like to see that in the Bill for institutions that come through the validating requirements. The reason for that is, as the Government have frequently said, we want to know whether or not an institution works and is deserving of degree-awarding powers. That means that it needs to have gone through the process of educating people and giving them degrees and those people need to go out into the labour market. We need to see whether their degrees are robust and still stand up and bring them labour market recognition and labour market power. My sense is that four years is actually a pretty good number and that is why we have had it up to now. We should recognise that it is a number that has worked and put it in the legislation and have done with it. One thing I have discovered is that there is an extraordinary ability to vary things through guidance, and my sense is that the four-year figure really matters.

The other change is in giving degree-awarding powers without a validation period. There are cases where this is clear and important, but it should involve the Secretary of State. The reason is that, again, having degree-awarding powers is a really valuable thing. That is why private companies buy and sell universities; they think that they can do very well out of them. If you move to being able to do this straightaway, then you need to be quite secure that it can be done. I would not argue that everybody should have to have a validation process. That is not the case in the statute at the moment and certainly was not the case when many of our best younger universities moved straight to being universities, as many people including the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, pointed out in Committee.

One of the more informal questions that often comes up is: supposing that MIT wanted to set up here? I do not think that MIT probably would want to, but one day, if my dreams come true, the Government might want to create the equivalent of Caltech here—something really new, exciting and very different, which could become a university straightaway. If we were asked whether we wanted to validate anybody like that who came along, there would be a competitive, fighting queue around the block. If future Governments realise that their higher education policy needs to be more active and in some ways more interventionist about meeting the needs of the future, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, pointed out on Monday, then they will need to be able to do that.

Why do I also suggest that the Secretary of State has to come into this? As I said, creating something which can go straight out and give degrees to students is a big thing. The Secretary of State is the accountable one. A regulator is not accountable, or the same thing as an elected politician. If you made sure that this was happening, most of the time it will be fine—of course it will—but the reality is that, a few years from now, the caravan will have moved on and people will not be looking at things with the same clarity. If there is this possibility, any new institution coming about in this way must be of very high quality. We need to be absolutely sure of that, and it seems not unreasonable to suggest that the elected, accountable Secretary of State should be involved in some way in that decision.

I have added my amendment to the government amendments, which are excellent, as I said, because this is an opportunity to have a clear set of rules and possibilities for the next few decades, and we still need to tidy some of this up. I also consider that the deletion of Clause 48, which suggests that the OfS can put itself on the register and award degrees, is consequential to this amendment. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether this is the case.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I too thank the Government for their amendments, which are much needed and beneficial. I have put my name to Amendment 116A because the four-year period is absolutely right. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, has said, it would enable students to go through a cycle of university education and into the labour market. There would then be feedback and we could see clearly whether any issues needed ironing out before that awarding status is given. Feedback should also include things such as facilities: for example, the quality of the library and, dare I say it, perhaps the quality of teaching as well.

I apologise for just throwing this out—it may be that I have missed it—but perhaps I may take the liberty of asking the Minister this. If a private provider gets degree-awarding status and, goodness forbid, that provider goes into liquidation, what happens to the student loans that have been taken out? Will the Government guarantee that they can get those loans back, so that they can pay for the course somewhere else?

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

My Lords, I briefly intervene in this debate to welcome the proposals that the Government have now brought before us. There is, as we recognised in debates at earlier stages, always a balance to be struck. On the one hand is protecting the interests of students, which must be paramount, and the reputation of British higher education as a whole. On the other hand, the fact is that most of the innovation and advances in higher education in England have occurred as a result of new providers coming in and doing things differently. The history of the growth in, and success of, higher education in our country has been that doing things differently from the start is easier than changing an existing body. The arrangements in the new clause today get that balance right.

If anything, the process will now be more rigorous and defined than the kind of process that we had when decisions on degree-awarding powers and university title were taken by, among other bodies, the Privy Council on advice. This is superior to what went before. I feel a bit wary of referring to the 1960s now that the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, has referred to them. But the fact is that one of the most exciting experiments in the growth of higher education in this country in the 1960s was when universities got their title and degree-awarding powers from the very beginning. We should not be far more restrictive than we were then.

Careers Advice and Guidance

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I have already referred to Inspiring Women, the Stimulating Physics Network and the Further Mathematics Support Programme, which are particularly focused on encouraging women into STEM. Of course, schools should be organised to encourage their female pupils, in particular, to see a wide range of career opportunities and to support them further to make sure that they are encouraged to go on visits and trips, which, as we know, are sometimes not easy.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we all wait for this comprehensive strategy with great anticipation. Does the Minister agree that the comprehensive strategy should ensure, first, that there are properly trained people to give face-to-face advice and secondly, that the importance of careers, jobs and enterprise are recognised at primary school level?

[Lord Nash]

I agree that careers advice should start at an early age. It depends precisely how you pitch it, but certainly all schools should be identifying their children’s passions, interests and aptitudes. What the noble Lord says about face-to-face careers advice is interesting. There is clear evidence that if that is all one relies on it is a very ineffective strategy. Most studies have concluded that the best careers advice comes through activities with employers, and there is evidence that five or more employer engagements during secondary school means that students are seven times less likely to be NEET.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Monday 6th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly address Amendments 2 and 8, which talk about part-time, adult and distance learning. When I am presiding over degree ceremonies as chancellor of the University of Birmingham, it gives me such pleasure when we have not just mature students but really mature students—students in their 60s—coming up to graduate. Whatever we do in this Bill, we must encourage lifelong learning and adult education. From 2005 to 2010, I was the youngest university chancellor in the country, as chancellor of Thames Valley University, which is now the University of West London. There, we had a motto: “further and higher”. The Bill must encourage progression, so that once people are exposed to higher education, they have the opportunity to go further. Quite often, it is just a question of experiencing it.

Finally, Amendment 87 is about access and participation, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, has spoken about. It is crucial that this is reported on and acknowledged fundamentally in the Bill. I have seen this first hand at the University of Cambridge, where the GEEMA programme brings to a summer school ethnic minority students who have no background of university education in their families. When they attend this course, they are exposed to Cambridge—somewhere they probably would never have even considered. The reality is that the majority end up going to university, and quite a few of them end up going to Cambridge. This must be encouraged, and it is crucial that it is part of the Bill.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly to my amendment on mental health and also support the comments that have been made on young people with dyslexia or disabilities. I preface my remarks by reminding us all how much progress has been made on mental health over the past decade or so. In fact, this Government, like the previous one, recognise the issue and have done an incredible amount of work.

We have had various debates on this, and I am sure that all noble Lords who have declared an interest as a chancellor would want to ensure that when young people go to their universities, they are given all the support that they need. For many young people, it is a huge step to go to university. You would therefore expect that while they are away at university, that support would be there for them. In schools, teachers are in loco parentis. Of course, it is young adults who attend university, but many of them still need the support that they would get at home. As parents, therefore, we would be devastated if that support was not available when there was a mental health problem. This simple amendment to say that mental health support should be available and that students should know of it is therefore vital.

Many universities provide incredible support and do stunning work for young people. However, there are many that do not. In Committee, I gave a personal example of a family friend with two girls at two separate universities. Their father very suddenly and tragically died. One university gave no support at all to that young girl, who was going through anguish and mental trauma—she was not even seen by her personal tutor. The other university could not do enough to help. That is the reason for this amendment: we must make sure that that support is there for all students and it is not just left to the university itself.

Of course this is not just about students, it is about the staff as well. We put great pressure on the people working in higher education and, therefore, support for them should be in place. Perhaps personal tutors could be trained to identify when there are mental health problems and are able to advise the student where to go. So I hope that, in his reply, the Minister will make some positive sounds about this important issue.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to appear in the Committee. I have been present on various occasions during the first two sittings, but I have not been able to find an issue on which I wanted to speak; therefore I come with my powder dry.

We have no argument of substance on this part of the Bill, because we understand what is happening. It is essentially a good housekeeping measure, rather than a threat to any existing or future institutions. It arises from two sources. First, there is a proper and appropriate sense of wanting to ensure that in any default situation, such as liquidation or insolvency, a process is in place and all the major players know what happens and how. It also comes from a wider consideration of how public services are procured and delivered.

In the good old days, as some might say—I say it in heavy quotes—public provision of such services as further education, but including utilities more generally, would always have the underlying assumption that the Government of the day would carry any debts incurred. Of course, that does not happen under privatisation—there is no particular reason why it should—but the responsibility for continuing work that is in the public interest still has to be resolved. That is why, over the past 25 to 30 years, there has been a growth in special regimes for insolvency. They are not unusual. They are broadly all of the same pattern. That is unsurprising as they come from one cutting shop: the Insolvency Service. They carry a common approach: they are instituted to ensure that, where it is appropriate and necessary, it is possible to intervene in the ordinary processes of insolvency or voluntary liquidation to the extent to which it is thought proper that the purposes for which the service exists are maintained, to ensure that those who are relying on it or have made it part of their lives in good faith are not let down by any cost-cutting arrangement.

Having said all that, we have tabled some probing amendments, to which I hope that we will get good responses on the record. Nothing will be unexpected—much of it came up in the other place—but we have learned a bit more about how the system operates, so there may be a slightly sharper focus.

I move Amendment 37 and speak to Amendments 38 and 39. This first group focuses on the education administrator, who is the person to be appointed by the court—the courts can act only on the request of the Secretary of State in England or Wales, depending on which territory they are in—and, if appointed, has responsibilities which will be set out both in the Bill and the broader range of insolvency legislation alluded to in the primary legislation; I expect that regulations to follow will fill in any gaps. We are not at variance with the Government in proposing that the system applies, although there will be things that we want to probe later.

The purpose of these three amendments, taken together, is on the question of whether we have got the right person to do this work. We have not seen many colleges go into liquidation or insolvency, which is a good thing. We were reassured in another place—so we do not expect it—that nothing in the Bill should be read as taken to imply that the Government have in mind a raft of closures. On the other hand it is fair to ask the Minister, when he comes to respond, to help us a little about what the context is for this.

The figures provided by the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills in the other place were slightly obscure. He said that,

“80% of colleges are either good or outstanding”,


and that some,

“59% of institutions are in good financial health and 52% are operating with a surplus”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/11/16; col. 80.]

One can of course read that the other way round: you could say that 48% are not operating with a surplus and that a situation may therefore arise which we are not fully apprised of. The Minister might wish to comment on that. I do not necessarily see that as an issue and, if he wishes to take time to write to us, we would be happy with that.

The context is also a little more complex, in the sense that we are well aware that there is a more general decline in further education. The ongoing work of the area reviews may or may not lead to closure as a result of mergers. Mergers cannot be imposed on the system but if the system wanted to do that and if a particular college was weaker, we may find this issue in front of us in a relatively short time. The procedures therefore obviously need to be right but, if the Minister could say a little more in that context about his perception from the centre of whether a number of closures will arise from the area reviews, that would obviously be interesting. We do not know of any and are aware that work is going on but some sense of that, if not the actual detailed numbers, would be helpful.

In the other place, the Minister was pressed a little about the context of what I have been saying. He came out with a nice rubric when he said that Part 2 of the Bill was,

“about protection, insurance, prudence and caution”.—[Official Report, Commons, Technical and Further Education Bill Committee, 29/11/16; col. 166.]

He was not picked up about that list of words. It does not quite have the ring of an aphorism about it but it is an interesting list. Would the Minister like to reflect on whether that is his reading of the situation? I take it slightly differently: I think this is a prudent, sensible and cautionary approach, as I do not see any red lights arising from it and gleaming in the dark that would cause us to have difficulty, and that the issues are appropriate. Those are the general questions.

On the questions raised by the amendments, Amendment 37 questions whether we are right in assuming that, at present, the Bill tends to focus the attention in relation to colleges and their continuation on a systemic approach. That was slightly picked up by the area reviews as well, in looking at the holistic approach to an area, although from the bottom up—in other words, from the locality—FE colleges are often seen as important bulwarks of local community activity. Particularly in rural areas and areas of lower density, they can provide a centre not just of education and training but for other activities, so there is a wider context for this. Amendment 37 asks that the education administration system, particularly the education administrator, should, in addition to the list in the Bill, take in the need to,

“minimise the risk to a local community of a long-term loss of technical and further education provision”.

That will be an important issue for many areas and I will be interested to see the response.

Amendment 38 would give more detail than is currently in the Bill about the consultations, discussions and debates that must take place before the education administrator takes forward the proposals that may come to it. We will obviously come to a wider view about this in the next group. This would include the “quality of education provided”, the capacity of other bodies or institutions and,

“the infrastructure of the local area”—

again, the reference is to local rather than national issues. An issue that came up strongly in discussions in the other place was of how students, many of whom will be relatively young, will function if they have to add a significant transport arrangement to their other education requirements. How exactly does that fit in with some of the overarching issues we will come on to, in relation to the balance between maintaining a provision in a place and the need to provide local services and community support in that area, as opposed to the needs of the students in terms of the qualifications they are trying to obtain, which might be better dealt with in another college, perhaps a couple of hours’ travel away? One can see the impact that would have in terms of community, and on the individual. A slightly more detailed list, as in Amendment 38, may be overprescriptive but the intention is to make sure that wider consideration than a simple binary question—open or shut—should face the education administrator.

Thirdly, on Amendment 39, the question is of who should be consulted. There is obviously an expectation, and comforting words were given in the other place when this issue was discussed. However, we have tabled an amendment that specifies that the students in particular—they are often omitted in these considerations —should be consulted, and that staff and recognised unions at the body concerned should also be included.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

Given that insolvency is a major part of the Bill, many of us were concerned that there might be something hidden that we did not appreciate or understand, which is perhaps unusual. I thank the civil servants. I hate that term. They are civil; they should not be servants. My noble friend Lady Garden and I met them yesterday to talk about insolvency, and I came away very reassured. Actually, I almost did an about-turn and felt that further education was protected in many respects.

The amendments are right. I do not foresee FE colleges becoming insolvent, because the new measures protect them in a more robust way than currently. During the area reviews, there has been a safety blanket. When they are finished and the new regime comes into place, it will be a much better landscape for FE to operate in. Having said that, in the 0.001% where something happens, it is right to point out that students need to be considered, as do the community and the staff. That is particularly so in rural areas. If a college goes in a rural area, the loss of it and its courses can be devastating to its students.

I will go along with it but I am never quite sure about “consultation”. Of course one can consult. If in the new landscape a college is on the road to insolvency, presumably we would pick that up pretty early on. It would not be a case of its suddenly being insolvent—“By the way, we’re closing down and we’d better consult students and staff”. We would see the process happening gradually. Any well-managed system would of course consult those bodies. When I see “consultation”, I always ask how we will consult. Is it a tick-box exercise, or a letter to everybody? When we have done the consultation what do we do with that information, or is it just, “It looks good so we’ll say it”? I understand the thought behind the amendment, however.

These amendments are okay. I am just beginning to understand the Government’s desire—I am pleased about it—that, under the new combined authorities regime, combined authorities will be involved in the adult education part of further education. I do not yet understand how that happens in practice as well as principle. I have been involved in a couple of emails about that, but I would like to understand it before Report. Having said that, I am happy with the amendments and I guess we will support them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, I was hoping to have a short breather while we discussed other important matters, but unfortunately that has not happened. We move on to Amendment 47, which refers back to some of the issues that we have been dealing with regarding process, particularly what happens to assets. Clearly much of the work of the special administration scheme will be the ability to bring forward and, if necessary, sell—in other words, dispose of—assets that would otherwise not be there that could be used to repay the creditors, and I suppose might in part be used to maintain the operation of the college that is under liquidation.

To stand back a little from the issue, the interesting thing is that much of what we are trying to achieve in this special educational administration is more akin to the Chapter 11 processes in American bankruptcy law than to those here. We have the same basic elements: a court-driven procedure, the protection measure in place in order to make sure that the institution is kept as a going concern, and a commitment that is well expressed in terms of the special purposes of the education administrator to take it through. The question is whether or not that follows through all the way.

The amendment is probing, but it builds on one or two issues regarding which we want to get responses from the Minister on the record. In the first place, it would be helpful if we clarified that, as has been explained by the Ministers in their responses, this is unlikely to be a regular occurrence and will not be precipitated by the Bill, but it might happen and therefore we should walk through it and understand it. If we have a situation where a college is going insolvent, either the system can then operate on existing measures or the Secretary of State can apply for and obtain an order to establish the special administration, and then we are into the process that we have talked about at length and do not need to go back to.

However, it may arise that funds coming into the college to maintain it as a going concern are difficult to sustain. There may be changes in government policy or other changes in external funding that mean that it will not remain a going concern. So we are talking about maintaining the services and facilities for the students for as long as possible but in the certain knowledge that the institution is going to close down. At that point, I am sure it will be in the mind of the special administrator that some assets could be sold so that money could be obtained. Depending on the rules laid down for them, it would probably be rather difficult for that person not to engage with that possibility. However much we may wish to have the assets and the buildings maintained in case there is an uplift and the funds come back, the cruel reality of the situation will probably kick in and mean that the assets will be sold.

If the institution were a charity, as many of these bodies are, the question would not arise because, under charity law, charitable bodies holding assets are not allowed to dispose of them to third parties—in fact there is a prohibition that they must dispose of them to charities of similar nature and purpose so that the charitable purpose under which they were originally established may be maintained. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that is the Government’s understanding of the issue. Where special systems or incorporation arrangements are in place, I assume that that will also apply, but charitable status is the main area here, so we are talking about a relatively small group of places where the natural process would be perhaps to squeeze the college down to a smaller area and get rid of buildings, equipment and so on.

The problem then arises that funding was almost certainly originally provided from local authorities but, since then, certainly from central government, so there is an investment issue about whether the funding that has been provided should not be better retained in the sector, even if it cannot be retained within the existing body as a going concern. So the amendment poses this question: in the relatively unlikely event of this happening where the college is not a charity, what happens to freeheld assets that could be disposed of where those assets were originally funded from the public purse? Is there not at least a moral obligation to ensure that they are retained within the sector? I beg to move.

[Lord Storey]

I have always been concerned when public money has been used to purchase a facility—let us say that it has been used to purchase an FE college and that FE college then sells off land, for example a playing field. That playing field may often have a dual use: perhaps the local community uses it for activities, for example, which is good for the FE college and for the local community. So when it sells it off, public money is being lost to that community.

As we said under the first group of amendments, the likelihood of insolvency is remote. With this amendment, I get the point that public money bought the facilities but, presumably, you could have local authorities—I have seen it quite often—saying, “We’ll have the facilities”, but then selling them off to the private sector to get that money in for other things for the community. Is that the point that the noble Lord is making?

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

No, it is not actually—although that is a scary prospect. In my scenario, we are in a liquidation situation in which decisions have been reached that the college is going to decline, because it cannot be made secure. It has been superseded by the court order now in the hands of the special administrator, and a decision has to be made about what happens to the residue. That may take time, but at the end of the day there will be a blank wall and the car will hit it. At that point, what happens to those assets? It is not that they could not be sold for benefit—the noble Lord’s point about land is absolutely right. I think it is pretty unlikely, but there could be land associated with FE colleges that, if sold, could realise development potential which could pay off all the creditors, and that could be seen to be a good thing. But if that money was originally provided for the education—not for a charity, because that is protected—what is the right way to go forward?

[Lord Storey]

In that case, there is merit in considering the amendment.

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico]

I support what I think the amendment is about. There is a worrying set of complications, in my mind. Someone has provided the money to keep the FE college going while the special administrator decides that actually it cannot be kept going. Where does the person who provided the money rank among the creditors? We are talking about selling assets at the end of this. For a start, the bank might have a charge on those assets, in which case I guess that is the answer, but somebody has put money in to keep the business going. I have done this on behalf of the Department of Industry—we took back the money that we had put in to keep it going. What is the order of batting in relation to the local authority, or whoever it is, who put the money in to keep the institution going, and the rest of the creditors?

--- Later in debate ---

I appreciate that the Minister cannot give a detailed response to these issues today—I do not expect that—but I trust that he will acknowledge that the problem exists and that the Bill is impacting in advance of Royal Assent. I invite him to write to me with his understanding of the issues, setting out what, if anything, he feels able to do to assist colleges caught up in them through no fault of their own. On the basis of what he says, we shall consider whether to revisit this topic at Report. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I support this important amendment. As we said at the beginning and keep underlining, the insolvency regime is highly unlikely to happen, but that does not mean that we cannot give comfort to staff working in further education, particularly at a time when all the changes, area reviews and, indeed, the Bill have created uncertainty when they need certainty. As we have heard, often through no fault of their own, they could be in a poorer financial place. When we have just heard that BHS staff are to get their full pension entitlements, would it not be nice if the Minister would agree the amendment?

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico]

I raise another worry that has come to me, which is the reverse. If a public or private company is in danger of takeover, one very good way to prevent that is to introduce a poison pill. The quick way to do it is usually through a very generous pension scheme, or a pay-off scheme for your senior staff. If I were a threatened institution, I might be tempted to consider either of those. It is a hard life, but do we have any means of dealing with threatened institutions which introduce financial measures which will make it much more difficult if they need to be closed or otherwise dealt with?

--- Later in debate ---

Of course, this is a way in which to discuss governance. The Minister made sympathetic comments on initiatives that are being taken. It particularly relates back to ensuring that good quality governors are appointed, and I applaud the Government’s efforts in this. But somehow a stronger governance structure has to be built to make sure that these institutions are well governed in what has become a very difficult climate. None of us should underestimate the difficult climate in which FE colleges have to operate. I want to make sure that they have the strongest possible governance. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I support the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has spoken wise words. In local government, the quality of officers advising elected members is hugely important—the independence of those officers and their ability to challenge and scrutinise with neither fear nor favour. In further education, we are talking about multimillion pound budgets. You have only to flick through the pages of the further education press to see some of the horrendous accounts of what has gone on in the past. I do not want to go into those lurid details; I shall leave it to people to have a look at them if they so desire.

What that suggests to me is that the governing body of those institutes has to be of the best possible calibre; it cannot be a friend of a friend, not wanting to offend the principal. It is often difficult to attract calibre governors, so the role of the clerk cannot be some sort of part-time lesser role; they have to be people who are confident in themselves. Those three words—“scrutiny, challenge, transparency”—are really important. This is the tail-end of Committee, but to get the Bill right is important. The points that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has made are also important. I hope that between now and Report we can look at this in a little more detail, because it is crucial.

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico]

I support the amendment. I am new to the business of voluntary governorship in state-funded institutions. I have been fortunate for most of my working life to have been in organisations that had admirable company secretaries, who had the equally difficult task of standing up to chairmen and chief executives—but these were well-trained, qualified and well-paid people. The problem in all education is, of course, that anything that is not a teacher reads like an unmerited overhead.

I am not quite certain what I should propose as a remedy, but this point is key. Many of the messes that schools and further education institutions get into have to do with governance, and that has to do with a clerk who is not actually qualified and probably not properly paid.

Secondary Schools: Funding

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

There is no evidence that the take-up in GCSE art subjects has declined as a result of the EBacc. In fact, the New Schools Network found that the number of art GCSEs taken by pupils has gone up since the introduction of the EBacc. We have to remember always that when we started in 2010, sadly, only one in five pupils in state schools were studying a core suite of academic subjects. That is why we focused on the EBacc and have doubled the number of pupils who have these academic subjects, which are particularly important for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister says that his Government have protected the main core school budget, but would he not accept that on-costs which schools have to pay, such as national insurance, have ensured that schools have not got the money? In fact, the IFS yesterday reported that, for the first time, there is a real cut in school budgets. Would this account for the fact that there has been a 10.6% decrease in the number of hours given over to creative art teaching?

[Lord Nash]

The IFS pointed out that over the 20 years from 2000 to 2020, schools will have a 50% per pupil increase in real terms. As I said, we believe that there is considerable scope for savings in schools’ efficiency. We are already on course to save £250 million in academies by next year alone with our RPA scheme substituting insurance costs. We believe that our buying strategy can save £1 billion out of £10 billion a year of non-staff spending.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I wholly support what the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, while equally recognising that benefits are not directly a matter for the Department for Education.

There are anomalies in the way in which we treat young people. For those in approved education or approved training, child benefit continues until the child 20 years-old. Reading the list of what counts as that, it seems even more incongruous that apprenticeships are not included. For instance, it includes A-levels, Scottish Highers, NVQs up to level 3—which, of course, can be closely linked to apprenticeships—a place on the access to apprenticeships scheme, foundation apprenticeships for traineeships in Wales, the Employability Fund programmes and places on Training for Success. There is a whole raft of education and training courses on which young people continue to get their benefits, but they lose them for apprenticeships.

We know that only 10% of apprenticeships are taken up by young people on free school meals, which is surely an indicator that that is a disincentive, particularly for families, because they will lose out on additional benefits when a child goes into an apprenticeship. An apprenticeship salary on minimum wage may be barely over £3 an hour, so the loss of child benefit and tax credits may be a significant penalty for that family to bear.

The National Union of Students said:

“If apprenticeships are going to be the silver bullet to create a high-skilled economy for the future, the government has to go further than rhetoric and genuinely support apprentices financially to succeed”.


We urge the Minister, in the interests of joined-up government, to talk to his colleagues in the benefits department to see whether something can be done to ensure that disadvantaged young people do not feel that this is a major disincentive to taking up apprenticeships.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I spoke on this issue at Second Reading, so I just reiterate what my colleagues have said. It seems strange that benefits are available to young people until the age of 18, so we can have a university student who has a couple of lectures and a couple of tutorials a week, if they are lucky, who gets the benefit, and a young person doing an apprenticeship, where 20% of the time should be for training, who loses that money. As we heard from my noble friend Lady Garden, only 10%—let us underline that—of apprentices come from those entitled to free school meals. If we really believe in social mobility, we should be asking why it is only 10% and whether finance is a handicap.

The National Society of Apprentices said in its written evidence:

“It seems incongruous to us that structural barriers exist to disincentivise the most disadvantaged from taking up an apprenticeship”.


We need to take those comments on board. I realise this is slightly beyond the scope of the Bill, but it would be helpful if, in his reply, the Minister could suggest that we meet his colleagues outside the Committee and talk about this issue because if there is a resolution, it would really help those people in society whom we must support.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the points that have been made. I shall speak on one narrow issue. I was surprised to learn that an apprenticeship is not an approved form of learning. I assume that, when the Institute for Apprenticeships recognises these apprenticeships, they will automatically be an approved form of learning along with all the others. I hope that when the Minister replies, he will cover whether an apprenticeship is an approved form of learning and whether, when the Institute for Apprenticeships recognises the range of apprenticeships, they will come into that category.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I will focus on just one area because, as I understand it, the various bodies set out in the amendment each have a different role. When we debated this on the first day in Committee, the Minister told us that the body that was going to look at the quality of apprenticeships was Ofsted and that it was going to work on a risk-based approach. I told him that I understood the approach but would welcome some clarification of how it is going to apply. He said that he would get back to us on that. As far as I am concerned, there are two things here. I support the thrust of the amendment, in that we need to be clear about the roles and responsibilities, but my overall concern is ensuring that we deliver quality apprenticeships so that the brand has a good reputation among teachers, potential apprentices and parents. If the Minister has replied to this point, I have not yet seen it. Is he in a position to tell us how this risk-based approach will apply to apprenticeships?

Given that we are looking to drive up the number of SMEs involved, the risk will not be with the larger organisations with well-established reputations, such as Rolls-Royce, BT, British Aerospace and a whole host of others that have been mentioned before. We know that people who go into those organisations will get a quality apprenticeship. That is not the problem. The problem will be in small and medium-sized concerns. Given that the success of this enterprise in driving up significantly the number of apprenticeships will depend on ensuring that we embrace more of those organisations in providing apprenticeships, a lot more than currently do, this is not an insignificant issue.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, this is a very important amendment. The Government have set an ambitious target of 3 million apprentices, and it is good to have a target to work towards. However, as we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Young, those have to be quality apprenticeships. In a sense, I would rather have 2.5 million apprentices, knowing that there was real quality in the education and training.

I went to look at the apprenticeship scheme run by the BBC. I was struck by the diversity of the apprentices and the quality of the training and education component of the scheme. Young people deserve quality education and training. It is not enough to say, “Here are some books—go and sit in that corner. Here is a day off—go and learn that”. Somebody has to direct the training and education. If a scheme is to work, we need to make sure that somebody is responsible for that quality.

I hope the Minister will not mind me saying that, when we met before the Bill, I raised this question with him. He said then that Ofsted would be “sampling” some of the providers. To me, that is not good enough. We have to be absolutely sure that every apprentice gets only the best.

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico]

I support the amendment. I feel that, in all this, there is tension between what the Bill would like to see and what the Bill will be able to achieve. I keep looking for measures of enforcement, and not just because I am a native head girl or predisposed to police-type solutions. The history of apprenticeships in this country shows that they have mostly failed because of the employers. Indeed, why would it not be because of the employers? They are in charge; they are the ones with the power.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of points on these amendments. First, as I said at Second Reading, I very much welcome the desire and requirement to have learners themselves represented in the governance of the institute. I welcome also the fact that the Government have announced an apprentice panel for the institute, but I think it would be good if that was a statutory requirement in the Bill.

Secondly, it is important we ensure that the bodies creating the standards are employer-led but, at the same time, represent a cross-section of organisations. However, there is a further point to make on that. Yes, we should have SME representation, but that is easier said than done. Most SMEs find it hard to devote the time, resource and energy to being involved in these quite complicated standard development processes. I am very interested to hear the Government’s thinking on how the views of SMEs—which, after all, deliver more than half of all apprenticeships—can be represented in a way that is comparable to the others that will be represented.

I very much agree that independent training providers need to be subject to accountability and scrutiny, and that learners need to know who they can complain to. However, at the same time, I believe that independent training providers deliver a very substantial proportion of the training needed for apprenticeships, and we should be rather careful that we are not killing that golden-egg-laying goose. It is very important to have the right balance. Again as I said at Second Reading, I have a feeling that the role of independent training providers, including commercial training providers, is not very well reflected in the Bill as it stands. It is a key role and we should make sure we understand how it is going to be delivered in a way that meets suitable standards and scrutiny.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I support the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. FE Week seems to be getting quite a few mentions. I came across a piece on training providers by Peter Cobrin, who runs the Apprenticeships England Community Interest Company, which is important to highlight. He says that training providers feel,

“vulnerable, unrepresented, unsupported, unprotected, exploited and undervalued”.

Let us not forget that there are some very good training providers, just as in higher education there are some very good private providers and colleges. However, quite frankly, some need examining carefully. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said, it is important to remember that many of the people who go to these private providers take out big loans, and if that private provider collapses or reforms, they are left. That is not good enough. The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said it is important that accountability catches up with them. I hope that, following her wise words, we might look more carefully at this area between now and Report.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support these amendments and the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. Equally, I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and my noble friend Lord Storey say about getting the balance of this right. That is important.

I have one small thing to say on Amendment 18. I agree that it is almost impossible to get SMEs to participate meaningfully in these sorts of activities, however much you wish them to do so. The federation can sometimes be helpful in providing for somebody to speak, but individual SMEs very seldom have the time or interest to take part. In Amendment 18, proposed new paragraph (b) refers to, as well as employers,

“at least one person engaged in delivering relevant education linked to the standard being assessed”.

It is important that this group of people includes trainers and awarding bodies, who bring a dimension to these affairs. To have a broad range of people within this group would be particularly important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that I am a patron of an awarding body, ASDAN. Also, as a Minister, I spent three years building a clear, recognised qualification in the form of diplomas, which then got killed off after a huge amount of time, effort and money were spent trying to develop them, although some of them certainly seemed to be well received—engineering comes to mind.

I paid close attention to what the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said. I respect the work that she and the Sainsbury commission did. I certainly agree that we need these to be clearly recognised qualifications, but there are a number of ways to get to that point. I remember well the SATS marking crisis through which I had to navigate as a Minister. We had a problem with the company carrying out the marking. We ended up having to dismiss it from the contract and had to re-let the contract. We found that there was only one awarding body with the capacity to do that work. Edexcel effectively had us over a barrel. Happily, it was a responsible organisation and did not want to exploit the monopoly position in which it found itself, but it is really dangerous if you find yourself without the competitive capacity for different people to respond as and when circumstances change.

I welcome what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has done by raising this issue and giving us an opportunity to explore it. Clearly, there will be general capacity if different awarding bodies are awarded the contracts for different groups, but there would remain issues about their specialism in the subjects attached to each of those groups. My instinct is that the Sainsbury review might have got it wrong in this case. It may be that I just do not understand well enough what the department has in mind in terms of the model. I may not understand the extent to which it wants to specify the inputs into the qualification, how much it is concerned with the outcomes, how detailed it wants to be, how much it wants to specify the pedagogy, or whether it is thinking that these are wrappers in which you could put other qualifications, so that there is a single overarching contract-awarding body. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten me in his response or in some other way.

As the Committee has discussed, we must put quality first. As I keep saying, we must ensure that we have agility. The time it takes to develop qualifications reduces agility, and a seven-year contract makes me very anxious about how that agility can be preserved as skills needs change in the economy. I am particularly keen that we embed in the design the potential for innovation in assessment and awarding. I see innovative practice going on around the world, particularly by employers using digital badges that can have wrappers put around them to keep up-to-date with skills and the value of an employers’ own qualification, with a meta-qualification on top through the wrapper mechanism. It is crucial that we allow for that. The notion of a single contract for these qualifications, thereby reducing competition, makes me worry profoundly about innovation. I find myself, as a Labour Peer, arguing with a Conservative Government that we want competition. I hope that the Minister will revert to instinct, listen and agree competition is good to improve delivery and agility in the system.

[Lord Storey]

I remember that my nursery nurses were terribly upset when their NNEB qualifications went and they became NVQ level 3. They were devastated, so there is something in a name and perhaps in a bit of tradition. I am a bit torn. I understand the Sainsbury review and the Government saying: let us create and agree a standard for the different pathways and maintain it. That is the qualification we will have so, presumably, various organisations can bid for it and, if they win the contract, the Government will ensure that they maintain the quality and standard.

However, as has been said, there is something about having competition. You have to look only at GCSEs, where the Secretary of State at the time wanted to have a single provider. There was a sort of rebellion against that and it did not come to pass. Schools and young people themselves can choose which awarding body to go for. Different awarding bodies suit pupils for different reasons—the content may match their study. We must think carefully about this. It is important for parents, young people and employers. Getting the name right is important but sometimes people also like letters after the name—there is a later amendment from my noble friend Lady Garden about that. I am caught on this, but I hope that we can explore the best way forward.

[Baroness Cohen of Pimlico]

I am responsible for 2,000 degree-level apprentices and about the same number of others. At the moment, we do what the employer wants. If the employer arrives and says: “I would like the formal training to have these outcomes”, we say, “Right”, then we discuss it and bid for it. I had been assuming that we could adjust to the new regime. If the Institute for Apprenticeships stated the outcomes that it wanted, we could teach to those outcomes because that is what we do. We would be able, in essence, to do a wraparound to suit a particular employer, which would include the vital bits that the Institute for Apprenticeships wanted. I am a little puzzled if we are to be told that we all have to teach the same thing on, say, the finance course by the bit of the Institute for Apprenticeships that is working out finance training. At the moment, let us say that KPMG tells us how it wants us to do finance training. We would do that but if someone else wanted it to be slightly different, our competitive advantage over the years has been built on adjusting to do a different sort of finance training.

I am not quite sure where I am going with this, but are we providers still to be allowed variation in any way if an employer asks us to do it slightly differently, provided we include a certain number of outcomes and standards, as set out by the institute? To take an example from my experience, with our graduate law course we made our name by introducing a City law course that the City wanted. “Wait”, we said, “we’ll do that”. Of course, it is all the same law but it was specialist. We did that and not some other bits of law. I can imagine that being the outcome still: some City firms want varieties of law taught that nobody else cares about, as in shipping law, and some accountants want things that nobody else much cares about taught, as in shipping finance. Are we to end up with an agreed set of standards to which we must adhere, but around which we can wrap something that employers might want, or not? I am arguing for a setting of outcomes and standards by the institute but with a little deviation allowed, provided those apprenticeships include the basic standards and outcomes. Will the Minister tell me about that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I support the amendments and shall speak specifically to Amendment 20. When I ask employers what they value most about young apprentices, the qualities are what I often hear referred to here as soft skills, but they are not, really they are essential skills. They are the skills of being able to turn up on time regularly, work as part of a team, show enthusiasm and so on. Often, ironically, the complaints that you get from employers are about those who are technically well-qualified but lack those essential skills. This amendment is about creating flexibility and recognising that there are young people who will, for a variety of reasons explained today, find it difficult, as my noble friend Lord Hunt said, to go through the demoralising impact of resits for qualifications that will not assess their innate capabilities, as my noble friend Lady Cohen described. I hope that we will get a constructive response.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I add my support to Amendment 20. Yes, it is absolutely right that we do all in our power to ensure that young people are numerate and literate. It seems reasonable to say that we want them to get to a certain level in mathematics, but that should not be a barrier to everything else. Special needs have not been mentioned. Are we to insist that children who have particular special needs or an aversion to numbers are to be included? We would not expect children who are dyslexic to get to certain standards in literacy because of the severity of their dyslexia.

We have heard about Travellers and immigrants, but there are young people for whom the system—perhaps poor teaching—has not helped them to get it. We then have this whole re-sit culture, and they get more and more fearful of failing and we do not want to label people as failures. I enjoyed the argument and think the word “flexibility” is so important. I know young people who have been taken on by employers, and the employer has said: “Well, they’ve got problems with numeracy and literacy, but they really sparked at this particular job”. Some of them have gone on to take some qualifications later. Let us not label people, let us have flexibility and do all we can to make sure that young people get to a certain level—“C”—in mathematics, but that should not be the be all and end all.

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for the amendments and welcome the opportunity to debate them. I fully understand why the noble Lords, Lord Watson, and Lord Hunt, are supporting Amendment 20. Having a sound grasp of English, maths and digital skills is fundamental to getting ahead in work and life. Raising literacy and numeracy levels at all stages of education, including post-16, is essential and remains an absolute priority.

We recognise that current requirements are still low by international standards, and we believe that individuals should have higher aspirations. In the longer term, as the quality of pre and post-16 English and maths teaching and associated learner outcomes improve, the Government should raise maths and English requirements to reflect those of higher-performing international technical education systems.

Since we made it a condition of funding, all 16 to 19 year-olds beginning a study programme who have not achieved an A* to C GCSE in English and maths must continue to study these subjects until they do so, unless specific special educational needs or disabilities prevent them. I will repeat that to underline it: unless specific special educational needs or disabilities prevent them from doing so, so there are exceptions. This has resulted in thousands more students securing these GCSEs by the age of 19. The OECD has commended us on our reforms and, working with schools, colleges and employers, we will build on them.

We will do so by implementing the Sainsbury panel’s recommendations on English and maths. We have accepted the panel’s recommendation that there should be a single set of English and maths exit requirements governing college-based technical education and apprenticeships, and we will continue to require all 16 to18 year-olds to study English and maths if they have yet to achieve GCSE A* to C in these subjects.

The Government consider that English and maths requirements should be included as steps towards occupational competence. As well as good literacy and numeracy, everyone needs an essential set of digital skills to succeed in the modern workplace. Digital skills requirements should be tailored and groups of persons will be in the lead to specify digital skills that are required for entry into particular groups of skilled occupations.

We believe that there should be a minimum level of English or maths which all individuals must achieve ahead of securing technical education certification, as is already the case for apprentices. We will work with the institute to ensure that occupation-specific English and maths requirements are incorporated into each route.

Before I turn to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, I repeat the point about exceptions. We are talking about people with special needs and so on, where it may be just too difficult. The noble Lord spoke about the resit culture, and we absolutely understand that. However, in an environment where we are offering young people the opportunity through apprenticeships for genuine employment in the world of work, there is a hope and desire that those people should understand that basic core skills in English, maths and digital skills will be essential for their future. That is not least because we all know that, in the current world of work, people change jobs a lot and are not necessarily going to follow the same role for ever. Therefore, they need that basic requirement to support themselves into their future.

[Lord Storey]

I am grateful for the Minister’s reply, but how will these exceptions be decided? Will they have to have an education healthcare plan or will they be notified by the school? What will be the mechanism for exceptions?

[Baroness Buscombe]

The noble Lord raises a good question. I do not know the answer, so I will write to him on that.

[Baroness Buscombe]

I hope that I can help the noble Lord, Lord Young. That would not be a barrier to an apprenticeship. We are saying that they would have to continue to study through the apprenticeship and stay in that process in order to receive their certification.

[Lord Storey]

That is very helpful. So it is not a barrier to them doing an apprenticeship but they would be studying for their GCSE maths at the same time. Would the family then be entitled to tax credits because the young person is studying maths?

[Baroness Buscombe]

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, makes an interesting point, but I certainly would not want to commit on that. Let me clarify: they would study and do these resits, as we have been calling them, through the apprenticeship process—they would do them at the same time.

I want to attempt to reply to my noble friend Lord Lucas, who asked what would happen if awarding organisations have business overseas. The answer is that the institute can grant a licence back to the awarding organisation for use of the qualification documents—in other words, for use abroad. If there is an existing qualification for an awarding organisation that is out of the institute’s scope then the institute holds no copyright on that.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, for tabling Amendments 21 and 25. I appreciate why she has put forward these amendments, which would allow awarding organisations to retain ownership of the copyright of documents under the new reforms. However, with respect, I cannot agree to them for the following reasons.

First, the qualification is to be approved by the institute, so it is right that the institute is the ultimate owner of the copyright. This will ensure that it can carry out its functions, including awarding licences for the delivery of the qualifications. Also, as there are likely to be multiple contributors to each qualification, the amendments are likely to make it impractical for the institute to carry out its functions to approve the new qualification. All contributors are likely to want a say in matters that relate to their particular part of the qualification. The institute should have the final say if the qualification is to be approved by it.

Secondly, the amendments would be likely to stifle competition once the licence comes to an end. Those awarding organisations whose documents have been approved by the institute would be in a far stronger position than those who were unsuccessful to rebid for a licence. Of course, the authors of documents that make up a technical education qualification should decide whether to give their consent to the copyright being transferred to the institute before the qualification is approved. If they do not, the institute can remove that document from the qualification. That is provided for in the Bill: I draw the noble Baroness’s attention to the provisions in new Section A2DA which provide safeguards for both the institute and the awarding organisations.

Furthermore, awarding organisations do not have to submit a bid to the institute for the new approved qualifications if they do not like the arrangements offered. Under the reforms, it is expected that awarding organisations will go through a comprehensive procurement process before being granted a licence to deliver a qualification for an occupation or group.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Grand Committee

On the implementation of this clause, it is important that noble Lords should note that the Government will be publishing statutory guidance to which schools must have regard. This is a strong incentive and schools will have to follow what the Government have decreed. That guidance will be published when the Bill has gone through its final stages. The Government will work with Ofsted to monitor compliance with the duty. However, the measure also includes a regulation-making power so that in the event of a large number of schools failing to comply, the Secretary of State may make further provision. For example, she might specify in law who should be given access to pupils and when. This change will be fully supported by the department, and I think that it will be highly beneficial to our education system. It will improve the life chances of thousands more of our young people.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak generally to this group of amendments and specifically to Amendments 11 and 61. It is important that students’ eyes are wide open and they know exactly what their options are. I could not put it any better than a DfE spokeswoman who, when commenting on Ofsted’s report on careers education, said:

“Every child deserves an excellent education and schools have a statutory duty to provide high-quality careers advice as part of that”.


That is perhaps the most important thing that parents and society want for children and young people. When they go to school, we want excellent teaching and opportunities, but we also want excellent careers education. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to Connexions. Connexions was good but some of it was pretty ropey. I do not think there has ever been a time when we have had really outstanding, first-rate, quality careers education. I think I have said this before but, interestingly, if you talk to professionals they say that the best careers regime was at the time of John Major’s premiership.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, also asked how we can ensure that careers education is of a high quality. It is no good just providing a scheme, a strategy, books and prospectuses, or visitors to schools. How do we ensure that quality careers education is embedded in schools and colleges? The answer is in Amendment 61. The only way we can ensure quality is through Ofsted. It is strange that we do not get Ofsted to say, “Yes, this school or college has quality careers education”. Amendment 61 says that for a school to be good or outstanding it has to have good careers education. I was asked why I tabled this amendment in relation to colleges. We are not talking about careers education in schools, but I hope that if we get significant changes to the quality of careers education in colleges, it will permeate through to schools.

In a sense, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, should not have had to table his amendment. It is bizarre that schools do not invite different providers in, but he gave the answer. First, society has a view that we should go down an academic route. In my children’s school, they said, “Yes, they will do very well in their GCSEs. They will do very well in the sixth form. Yes, they’ll get a university place”. My cousin lives in Switzerland, with two children, where there is a wholly different approach: what is better for the child? The school of one of her children said, “Actually, it is a vocational route”. He went into an apprenticeship and has gone back to university.

We have this tramline approach in this country that there is only one route to go down. We need to break free of that, which is why the amendment is so important. It is also about changing parents’ perceptions. For some reason, parents think that unless their child has gone to a good secondary school, sixth form and university, somehow they have failed education. Is that not sad? We need to make real changes.

We should not have to table an amendment saying that, but of course for head teachers, each child, pupil or young person is a sum of money. Again, we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, that if a maintained school or an academy loses pupils to other providers, whether FE colleges, UTCs or studio schools, it will lose that money. That then blinkers schools’ approach to what is best for the child. Sometimes they will look at the viability of sixth-form groups and say, for example, “Susan would be better going to a UTC or an FE college, but she is quite good at history and the group is struggling a bit at A-level and if we don’t get the right numbers, we’ll lose that group”. So the school pushes pupils down that route. That is the wrong way. Slightly pushing the door open and getting other providers in to make parents aware of what is available and making pupils and young people themselves aware is hugely important.

I mentioned the Ofsted report of last year into careers education, which was pretty concerning. It referred to, for example, chaotic careers education hampering the economy and the lack of an overarching government strategy. I will not go through it all. The DfE responded, and we know that the Careers & Enterprise Company has been established. I hear good reports about that. The Minister will no doubt tell us how the huge £20 million investment is turning things around. However, it is not turning things around for every school or indeed college. I hope that we will not fail our children but will realise that we need good-quality careers education, which is inspected. We also need other opportunities, providers and routes—whether they be academic, vocational or technical—to be part of a young person’s choice in their future education and career.

[Lord Aberdare]

My Lords, as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Apprenticeships, I meet a lot of apprentices and am constantly surprised and shocked at how few have either heard about or been directed towards the apprenticeships that they are on through their schools or any formal careers education. As we have heard, schools have an in-built bias towards promoting the academic route and I do not need to say any more about that.

However, with the best will in the world, teachers and parents may have only a limited understanding of the sorts of jobs and careers available in today’s job market, the opportunities they offer and the routes available to access them. Again, as we have heard, the careers education system, if one can call it that, has been at best patchy and at worst shockingly poor. Some good initiatives are beginning to emerge. The National Careers Service offers a valuable central online resource; the Gatsby benchmarks have defined what good careers education looks like, which is important; and, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, has said, the Careers & Enterprise Company in particular is creating a vital network of enterprise advisers and co-ordinators to support schools.

However, all those initiatives need to be properly linked, and the gaps that even they allow in provision need to be identified, measurement systems need to be put in place and we need a strategy driven by government. Indeed, I am delighted that the Government are committed to producing a strategy later this year. However, there is real value in including a provision for that in the Bill. Part of that strategy, as we have heard, should be a much better, UCAS-like system for identifying and applying for technical education and apprenticeship opportunities. I am delighted that that is promised in the industrial strategy but support the idea of it being incorporated in the Bill through Amendment 9.

I also support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Baker. The careers system provides a bit of supply push but unless there is some demand pull, and unless schools want or are required to allow those systems to work, and young people and their parents are aware of them, the system is not going to work.

Finally, I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, reminded me of my visit to the Skills Show some years ago because that was one of the most inspiring ways in which to promote apprenticeships and technical education that I have come across. There was a real buzz about it; there should be skills shows all over the place. There needs to be an incentive to ensure that schools do what we need them to do. I therefore support Amendment 61 to ensure that only colleges with good careers education can get good or outstanding Ofsted ratings.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I support these amendments. We had extensive discussions on these issues during the passage of the Higher Education and Research Bill, and they are no less relevant to further education colleges. Institutional autonomy is as important for colleges, where the people who work in them really know what works for their pupils and students, and academic staff having the freedom to question and test received wisdom is just as important for colleges as it is for universities. So is freedom of speech and preventing unlawful speech, which seems an increasing aspect of student life these days. In a way, it is almost more relevant for colleges as they have such a wide variety of students under their roofs. Both these amendments are entirely relevant to this Bill.

[Lord Storey]

I feel quite strongly about this at both levels. Looking back 10 or 20 years, we would never have thought that we would be debating the need for academic freedom and freedom of speech in 2017. If something is against the law of the land, that person should not be allowed to propagate it in any way, but the notion that students no-platform particular speakers is totally wrong. We should say loudly and clearly that it must not happen. I just want to add my voice to these two very important amendments.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, turning first to Amendment 3, I think we can all agree that academic freedom and institutional autonomy are important considerations. I am sympathetic to the spirit behind the noble Lord’s amendment. The principle of institutional autonomy and academic freedom is already well entrenched in the Bill and in the existing legislation covering further education corporations. In practical terms, the principle is also very much reflected in how the Government support and work with the sector on a wide range of issues and activities.

Further education college corporations are charitable, statutory bodies under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. Under the Act, colleges are conducted by statutory corporations, which enjoy many freedoms and powers. For example, Ministers have no powers to issue directions in respect of the administration or management of the college, whether regarding employment matters or the content of courses, except in the very restricted circumstances in which the college is failing. As charities, colleges and their governing boards must also be independent from government. The changes introduced through the Education Act 2011 strengthened this independence, for example by removing the power of Ministers to make changes to the instrument of government and articles of a corporation, which was contained in the original 1992 legislation.

The Secretary of State’s powers are therefore extremely limited. As the principal regulator of college corporations, the Secretary of State has a duty to promote compliance with charity law. In clear cases of failure, the intervention powers under the 1992 Act allow the Secretary of State to remove or appoint members of, or issue directions to, the governing body of the institution. But those are powers of last resort, where it is not possible to address failure through other means and there remains a very strong public interest in doing so. In practice, they have never been used. Indeed, outside legislation, the way in which the Government work with the further education sector more generally demonstrates full respect for the principle of autonomy.

For example, the programme of local area reviews which will draw to a close soon is based on the principle that the governing bodies of colleges are the decision-makers when considering the future organisation of provision in their local areas. The Government have established the reviews to facilitate that decision-making, working in partnership with the sector, but have not sought to impose decisions. Similarly, although professional development activities for teaching staff are supported through government funding they are delivered through a sector-owned body, the Education and Training Foundation, reflecting the independent status of colleges and other providers. The legislative framework and the day-to-day relationship with the sector already reflect these principles and there is no need to legislate further. I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

I move on to the second amendment in this group, Amendment 7. I thank noble Lords for raising the important issues of freedom of speech and unlawful speech in our further education system. I agree entirely that free speech within the law is a key principle of further education in the UK. We want students to be exposed in the course of their studies to a wide range of ideas and opinions, and to learn the skills to debate and challenge them effectively. There is an existing duty placed on further education providers to take reasonably practicable steps to secure freedom of speech within the law. That duty was introduced in the Education (No.2) Act 1986; it is taken seriously by FE providers and they have raised no issues or concerns with us in relation to its practice.

The requirement in this amendment would place an additional freedom of speech duty on providers so that they must “ensure” that staff, students and invited speakers are able to practise free speech on the premises of the providers, or in forums and events. I am sympathetic to the intention behind this amendment—championing free speech must be central to our further education sector—but it is not clear what such an additional requirement would mean in practice, nor how we would expect providers to change their policies and practices to meet the new standard. I fear the new threshold in this amendment unreasonably and unnecessarily imposes an additional and disproportionate burden on providers, in particular the duty to “ensure” freedom of speech without any caveats. To move away from a standard of taking reasonably practicable measures may well require FE providers to address matters that are simply outside their control. We should be wary of creating cases where a duty to ensure free speech could come into conflict with other, important considerations, such as the security of attendees at a particular event.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Lord Storey Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome this thin Bill. I have always been concerned about how we regard technical and vocational education in this country; we are obsessed with young people having to fulfil an academic route. It is almost akin to failure if you do not succeed academically. I am not keen on the word “vocational”, and I do not think parents understand what it means. It is like saying, “I am doing it for love, not money”. Teaching was a vocation. I am pleased that the word is not being used.

If we are to develop a country which provides first-class skills, we need to enhance the status of technical education. Like the noble Lord, Lord Watson, I reflected—a word that was apparently much in use during the Higher Education and Research Bill—that we had 69 speakers at Second Reading for that Bill, while for the Technical and Further Education Bill we have 20. Does that not say something about our regard for this subject?

The Secretary of State said at Second Reading—this is important—that,

“half—last year, most—of our young people, often those from disadvantaged backgrounds will choose not to go to university, but to follow a less purely less academic route, or perhaps one that plays to individual strengths, talents and interests”.—[Official Report, 14/11/16; col. 41.]

The key to all this is not only providing a first-class academic, technical or further education but ensuring that young people know what the routes are, what they can do and what careers they might choose. Mike Tomlinson said at a recent Edge Foundation meeting on the EBacc that careers education is at best “pretty b….. awful”, and he is absolutely right. We pretend that we do careers education, but we do not: “There is a cupboard with some books in”, “Here is the latest government initiative”, and “here is what work we might do”. These are young people whose futures are in our hands so we have a responsibility to make sure that first-class technical education is available to them. If we want technical and further education to work, we must have effective careers guidance.

I understand that the Government are shortly going to announce their strategy. That is good, but any strategy, policy or provision is effective only if there is some regulatory support behind it, whether that is through Ofsted inspections, accreditation or a kitemark; nothing less will do. My own view is that a school, whether it is an academy, a maintained or a free school, should be described as “outstanding” or “good” only if its careers education is up to scratch.

The other problem we face with careers education is financial. The head teachers of maintained schools, academies and free schools are anxious to hold on to their students. They want them to move on into the sixth form because they are each worth a sum of money. They do not want them to go off to one of the UTCs of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, or an FE college because they will then be lost. Even if students are struggling academically the cry is, “Keep them in the sixth form. Let them repeat a subject and try again”. That is no way to deal with young people. We need to think outside the box about this. Why, for example, cannot UTCs and FE colleges have the right to go into schools and show students what is on offer? If schools are not prepared to do this in terms of careers advice, the colleges and UTCs should do it themselves.

Some people have referred to this legislation rather sarcastically as the “insolvency Bill”. I do not particularly go along with that, but there are issues with insolvency, some of which we will no doubt come to in various amendments. Again as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, has just said, if, God forbid, an establishment becomes insolvent, we need to make sure that protections are in place in terms of the real estate and the property, as well as for students and for courses. If a student in Northumberland is travelling 20 or 30 miles to their further education college—there is in this an issue about transport costs, and so on—and the course suddenly stops because of insolvency, what is the student to do, for goodness’ sake? We need to make sure that students and courses are supported and protected. Some colleges are already having difficulties regarding the banks’ willingness to lend to them and pension funds tightening their regulations because they are worried, so we need to make sure that those issues are addressed.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, said in her excellent report, Review of Vocational Education, that at least 350,000 young people have been let down by courses which have,

“little or no labour market value”.

Young people are taking courses that are of little or no value in the labour market. I can remember when we got objective 1 funding in my own city of Liverpool. We filled the FE colleges with courses that were not relevant to our skills needs, such as hairdressing and beautician work. Both were fantastic, but actually they did not help the economy of the city one iota. However, the college was able to attract students because for some reason there was a certain cachet about taking a hairdressing or beautician’s course. As the Wolf report says, we need to make sure that the courses on offer are relevant.

We welcome the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and we are delighted that the Government have listened and included FE in the institute’s role. I had not realised, and was quite surprised to learn, that we have already announced the membership of the institute. I thought we would have had to wait for the Bill to pass. I am not sure how this happens. I am delighted that we have included two people from further education.

That is good news. The Minister looks puzzled, but I was told this by someone this morning. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, indicates that I am right. Although I might be puzzled as to why this has been set up ahead of the Bill, I do not mind because we have included two people from the further education sector. That is good. I hope that that same principle will apply to the implementation routes and that we will include the FE sector in those as well. We need to understand how bridging between routes will be achieved. No doubt we will also want to understand in Committee how the transition year will work in practice, and where work experience might fit into this.

We constantly talk about social mobility—rightly so. We have talked about our world-class education system. Our Prime Minister has talked about a country that works for everyone. If a student goes into higher education between the ages of 18 and 21, their family gets tax credits. They get free prescriptions, free dental care, free eye tests, et cetera. When a young person— often from a disadvantaged background—takes an apprenticeship, which will of course include an element of training so in a sense they are still learning, the family loses out on tax credits. That is often a major disincentive for young people, particularly those from deprived backgrounds, to take up the apprenticeship. I hope the Minister will look at how we can support those families. We are talking about people we really want to attract. We want to get them on the road to employment.

The needs of the Cornish economy are different from those of Liverpool’s, so I welcome the fact that we are devolving some of the authority to a local level. Part 3 includes a measure to amend existing legislation to ensure that we devolve further education functions and adult education budgets to the combined authorities, if and when they are established. But as the National Audit Office reported, there is a growing financial crisis in further education. Indeed, it was its report that recommended the creation of an insolvency regime. We need another “I”—investment.

Another issue that we will explore in Committee is that if a young person is training on the job—doing their apprenticeships and getting their training at the same time, at their place of work—we need to ensure the quality of the training provided. From speaking to the Government about that, we have been told that Ofsted will probably do sample inspections. We need to be careful that this is absolutely right.

To conclude, I quote again the Secretary of State for Education, who said at Commons Second Reading:

“The Government want to build on what exists in the further and technical education sector and steadily create a gold standard of technical education … that students can be confident that … they will be building towards a successful career”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/11/16; col. 43.]


I think we all say “Hear, hear” to that, but it requires the Government to listen and to commitment the resources.

Schools: Access to Defibrillators

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Storey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that all schools and public buildings are equipped with defibrillators.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government know how important swift access to defibrillators can be in cases of cardiac arrest. That is why we are encouraging schools to purchase a defibrillator as part of their first-aid equipment, and we have negotiated a deal to offer defibrillators to schools at a reduced cost. Since the scheme was launched, more than 1,800 defibrillators have been purchased through this route. The Government also continue to provide funding to make defibrillators more widely available in communities across the country.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his reply and for his work during the coalition Government and this Government. The Minister will be aware that today, 82 people will experience a sudden cardiac arrest and only eight of them will survive. He will also be aware of the work of the Oliver King Foundation, which was set up after the tragic death of a 12 year-old boy in a swimming pool in Liverpool, and which has campaigned ceaselessly for this provision. Is the Minister prepared to meet the foundation to discuss further ways in which it can be taken forward?

[Lord Nash]

I am very much aware of the work of this marvellous foundation, which I know works tirelessly to place defibrillators and raise awareness of sudden cardiac arrest. When I met Mark King nearly three years ago, we had a good conversation about our deal to purchase defibrillators and I would be delighted to meet him again.

School Milk

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend raises a very interesting point. I shall ensure that officials are aware of it and of all the implications to which he referred. The Government recommend that children should be given whole milk and dairy products until they are two years old because they may not get the calories or essential vitamins they need from lower-fat milks. After the age of two, children should gradually move to semi-skimmed milk, as long as they have a varied, balanced diet and are growing well. In England, whole milk can be provided up to the end of the school year in which children reach five, but after that, as I have said, school milk must be low-fat or lactose reduced.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the problems of tooth decay, which in the north-west—my area—have reached worrying levels. Up to 35% of young people there have tooth decay. The Minister will be aware that in many schools, pupils are offered dental milk. Parents have a choice: they can choose ordinary milk or dental milk. This option to choose dental milk has been very helpful in dealing with tooth decay. Do the Government have any plans to further promote the drinking of dental milk?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord raises a very good point and I know he is very experienced in the area of primary schools. I am aware of a depressing number of children having their teeth removed because they have rotted at a very young age, and of many schools having things such as tooth-brushing schemes, et cetera. I shall certainly look more at what we are doing in the area he mentioned.