Young People: Skills (Youth Unemployment Committee Report)

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the Youth Unemployment Committee for their endeavours, which have revealed much detail on the subject and resulted in a most comprehensive report. It is unfortunate that we have had to wait a full year for your Lordships to be able to debate its many positive recommendations.

The headline figures for youth unemployment have improved slightly since the report was published, but they still make grim reading. Some 634,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were economically inactive and not in full-time education in July to September this year. Youth unemployment overall may have gone down, but this has not affected the long-standing issue of disabled young people struggling to move successfully from education into work, with little impact on the disability employment gap.

I will dedicate much of my contribution to a major factor hindering a response to the problem of youth unemployment: too many young people are not receiving appropriate guidance at school on what a career can offer and what path needs to be followed to get there. The Careers and Enterprise Company has done much good work in extending the number of secondary schools delivering the Gatsby benchmarks, but I have long believed that careers education and guidance should begin in primary school. I was pleased to note that the committee reached the same conclusion.

Not nearly enough notice is taken by the DfE of the excellent and pioneering work done by a charitable organisation called Primary Futures. Developed with teachers, it connects primary schools with diverse workplace volunteers to take part in aspiration activities and talk with children about their jobs. Even allowing for the disproportionate number of 10 year-olds who want to be footballers, pop stars or YouTubers, many primary school children develop at least an outline of the career they would like to aim for. Why wait until they reach secondary school to begin that journey?

The Gatsby benchmarks were developed by Sir John Holman, whom I think the noble Lord, Lord Baker, referred to. Last year, the Government appointed him as a strategic adviser on careers guidance to Ministers in the DfE; this was necessary because one in five schools in England does not meet any of the eight Gatsby benchmarks. Only 37% of schools meet at least half of them; on average, schools meet just three. There is a serious lack of careers education, advice and guidance in schools, which disproportionately hits disadvantaged young people and those with disabilities.

The Minister will recall that, during the passage of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, I and other noble Lords sought to increase the Government’s proposal for the number of times schools should grant access to employers, further education colleges and others under the so-called Baker clause. She resisted that, as she did our proposal for Ofsted to withhold an “outstanding” grade from schools which restricted access to the provision of information on technical education routes. The Act has now given legal clout to provide that access. I very much hope that will see action taken against recalcitrant headteachers and MATs that think the law does not apply to them. This is about young people’s futures; they must be allowed as much diversity as possible in the options open to them.

The Minister and her officials will be aware of the report published last month by Labour’s council of skills advisers, led by my noble friend Lord Blunkett. The report called for a complete shake-up of the careers service, from school through to adult careers guidance, which should ensure that a trained careers leader is embedded in every school with responsibility for the career guidance programme, supported by and accountable to the senior leadership team. I heartily endorse that recommendation.

Apprenticeships are also a key aspect of tackling youth unemployment, because they can change lives. They also offer huge returns on investment for individuals and employers; the Centre for Social Justice showed in a 2020 report that for every £1 invested in level 3 apprenticeships, there is a £28 return to the wider economy. If used properly, they could help to plug the skills gaps our country is facing and support young people into work. The demand for apprenticeships from young people is at an all-time high, but the current apprenticeship levy system favours older learners—those over 25—by a ratio of two to one. Polling by the Centre for Social Justice found that one in six levy-paying employers uses levy funds to rebadge existing training or to accredit skills employees already have. That is not the purpose of the levy.

As recommended by the committee in its report, the Government should require employers to use the apprenticeship system to focus on young people. The incentives for employers to take on apprentices over the pandemic proved effective in boosting opportunities for young people because three-quarters of apprentices who started under this scheme were aged between 16 and 24. This scheme should be reintroduced and financed using some of the levy underspend. Since the levy was introduced in 2017, in excess of £2 billion has been returned to the Treasury. What is the point of that? A Labour Government would also use some of the unspent levy to fund other types of training, which would also benefit young people by offering modular courses and the development of functional skills to tackle key skills gaps.

I agree with the Social Market Foundation’s call for all apprenticeship opportunities to be listed on the UCAS system, perhaps by establishing and integrating local platforms. This would meet the often referenced but rarely implemented parity of esteem between the academic and technical routes open to young people. The lifetime skills guarantee is an important step towards restoring a funded entitlement for level 3 study. However, as many noble Lords emphasised during the debates on the skills Bill, there is no recognition of the value of qualifications below level 3 in creating progression pathways for young people, which is another issue highlighted in the committee report. A DfE report published last year revealed the return on investment of these qualifications and concluded that the net present value of qualifications below level 2 is higher than for level 3. Why have the Government ignored their own evidence?

In his Statement last week, the Chancellor said that

“Being pro-education is being pro-growth.”—[Official Report, Commons, 17/11/22; col. 849.]


Yet despite an extra £2.3 billion annually being announced for schools, there was no extra funding for further education. Colleges are vital providers of skills for young people entering work, yet FE funding compares extremely unfavourably with both university and school funding after a decade of funding cuts. The committee report calls for the Government to devise a new method of funding for FE, determined by student demand. I hope that the Minister will have something to say on that in her response.

Kinship Care

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

At the risk of sounding like a cracked record, the Government are considering all the review’s recommendations. More broadly on the noble Lord’s point, the variability in the use of kinship care across different local authorities is also very striking. For some local authorities it is as low as 2%; for others it is over a quarter.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I know the Minister has a firm grasp of issues across her portfolio, so she will be aware that the charity Kinship’s annual report found that over a third of kinship carers have stated that they are unlikely to be able to continue in that role in the next year. I echo the points that other noble Lords have made and I hear what the Minister said about cracked records, but even cracked records have good music at their centre. Will she accept the need for kinship carers to be provided with the same support as foster carers to enable them to continue to provide that role? As other noble Lords have said, the cost of not doing so will be much greater, should those children have to be taken into local authority care.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are considering all these issues. I have made it clear that we see kinship care as an incredibly valuable part of the fabric of support for children who, for whatever reason, can no longer live with their birth parents. We are looking at all aspects—not just financial but the information, support and guidance that prospective carers and local authorities receive.

Schools: Resources

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what resources they plan to make available to schools in England to ensure that they can remain operational for five days a week.

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

My Lords, we will always support schools so they can stay open five days a week. Alongside the additional £4 billion that we are investing in schools’ core funding in this financial year, the energy bill relief scheme will protect schools from high energy costs over the winter. There is further support available in cases of serious financial difficulty, and we encourage schools that are struggling to come forward to the department to discuss this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a major failure of government support for children’s learning that some schools are even considering closing for one day a week to save on crippling costs. The Minister mentioned the £4 billion already committed for this year, but that is not enough: a recent survey by the National Association of Head Teachers found that 90% of schools expected to run out of money by the beginning of the next academic year. Will the Minister commit that she and her fellow DfE Ministers will fight their corner with the Treasury to ensure that sufficient funding goes to schools to enable them to at least maintain current levels of provision?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I will respond to the noble Lord in two ways. He is well aware that as a nation we face incredibly difficult decisions over our public expenditure and the fiscal challenges we face, but as a department we are always on the side of children and teachers. We do everything, and use evidence in every way we can, to make our case.

Times Education Commission Report

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for facilitating this debate and to the Times for establishing the commission, which has produced such an impressive report. It is fair to say that the report has been widely welcomed, first as a means of shining a light on the problems currently facing the education system, which the commission damningly found to be “failing on every measure”.

Secondly, the report offers a raft of proposals that would help reshape education in this country and guide it to a place where it can not just adapt to the needs of the 21st century but thrive on the challenges that the rapidly changing demands of the economy require.

The noble Lord, Lord Baker, has just said that he felt chapters 3 and 4 of the report were the most important. They certainly contain important recommendations. But, to be frank, almost everything necessary to lay the foundations for the future of education, the future of the economy and, by extension, the future of the country is contained in chapter 2 of the commission’s report, entitled “Social mobility and levelling up”.

I have said to noble Lords before that I dislike the term “social mobility”. It is restrictive because it seems to imply that if just a few people improve their learning and subsequent status, that is progress. To a certain extent, that may well be true, but I prefer the term “social justice”, which casts the net much wider and seeks to make improvements based on raising the standard of living, including education, for everyone in disadvantaged categories.

Chapter 2 concerns early years, with a number of very necessary proposals, not least in the short term bringing the early years pupil premium—currently £302—into line with the primary school rate of £1,345. As with most of the commission’s proposals, this is costed: at £130 million a year it would represent a tiny fraction of the overall DfE budget of around £45 billion.

It is critical that we invest in the early years to avoid costs later in a child’s life. This would have a major impact on children with special educational needs and disabilities. Some young children undoubtedly need more support than others, but to reach them we need high-quality services for all.

The commission’s call for the eight programmes that support childcare being managed by the DfE is certainly laudable, but I believe it is undeliverable. The silo mentality that operates within government departments would never allow that to happen. Too often, the cross-cutting approach on delivery that is essential is lacking, leading to many of the most vulnerable children falling into the gaps between public service provision and in many cases becoming invisible. The complex and disjointed system of services—national and local—often overwhelms the most disadvantaged families, particularly if they have complex needs or a disabled child.

This stems, in part, from significant underfunding, but also results from the failure to use existing resources as effectively as possible. Children and families need services that offer coherent, relevant and familiar support based on local strengths and relationships. There is limited and inconsistent communication and collaboration between different agencies, which means that families often waste time providing them all with the same information. That point was made forcibly by the Public Services Committee of your Lordships’ House in its report of November 2020.

Total public spending on early education is around £5.5 billion, yet costs for families are among the highest in the OECD, according to the Education Policy Institute’s 2020 annual report. Serious concerns have also been raised by the Institute for Fiscal Studies about how we prioritise that spending. It demonstrated that support for low-income workers fell from 45% of total childcare spending in 2007 to just 17% 10 years later.

The Government should fundamentally overhaul the early years funding model and replace it with a new formula that focuses more effectively on the child. That revised funding settlement should prioritise quality of care and access for the most disadvantaged children, and should aim to tackle educational inequalities, to ensure that children are school-ready.

The pandemic has highlighted many of the failings in the education system but, of course, it did not create them. Disadvantaged pupils are now more than 18 months behind their better-off peers at 16 and 40% of that gap is evident when they first arrive at school.

Rethinking our approach to early years education is therefore vital and urgent. I agree with my noble friend Lord Knight that there is much to commend a British baccalaureate, as proposed by the commission in chapter 4—one that mixes academic and vocational qualifications. The UK is an outlier in requiring students to specialise so much at 16. As the report states pungently:

“No other developed country’s teenagers sit as many high-stakes tests as ours do and the focus on academic attainment has unbalanced the system”.


The commission’s report identifies the problems with the current system and notes the concerns about change. Students currently study a narrower range of subjects at A-level than in 2010, which reduces their resilience to fluctuations in future employment needs.

This is a direct consequence of the Government’s obsession with the English baccalaureate, which narrows students’ choices. The Royal Society supports the proposal to broaden education up to the age of 18 and advocates a wider range of study options that would mean more young people could try more subjects for longer, helping them to develop a broader range of skills. The British baccalaureate would be a customised version of the international baccalaureate, which has almost 2 million students around the world—including around 4,500 in this country already. It would cost around £1 billion a year, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, but would also remove what it says is an historic anomaly in the funding mechanism that dates to the time when the school-leaving age was 16.

The commission identifies low morale in the teaching profession. After 12 years of Conservative Governments, I am sorry to say that we have a demoralised and underpaid workforce, often overpoliced by Ofsted. The noble Lord, Lord Lexden, referred to Disraeli. Without going quite as far back as that in the mists of time, I am reminded of a quote from a Cabinet Minister more than 100 years ago—not a Labour one, as we were still six years away from that, but a name that may be familiar to noble Lords on the Liberal Democrats Benches: HAL Fisher, then a Liberal MP and president of the Board of Education. He is perhaps best known for formulating the Education Act 1918, which made school attendance compulsory up to the age of 14. He was also responsible for another Act in the same year that introduced pension provision for all teachers. He stated:

“Elementary teachers are miserably paid, and a discontented teaching class is a social danger.”


Today we have discontented teachers. Unlike in 1918, the Government prefer Ofsted accountability to winning the hearts and minds of teachers to help in developing the school system.

To return to the curriculum, in Committee stage on the Schools Bill—whatever became of that, I wonder?—an issue on which I spoke was oracy, which facilitates the development of numeracy and literacy skills. More than 60% of primary school teachers say that they lack confidence in their ability to develop the speech and language skills of their pupils. A new hub system, similar to those in existence for maths and English, would build that confidence and, ultimately, standards of speech and language skills development on a national scale. I hope I might make some progress with the Minister on this, even if it does not find favour with her when the Bill returns to your Lordships’ House.

The final chapter of the Times Education Commission’s report speaks highly of the lifelong loan entitlement, introduced in the Skills and Post-16 Education Act, but key questions remain on the future of the LLE. Can the Minister provide more detail on how it will support adult learners in particular to follow more flexible ways to upskill and reskill? Will it, as suggested in the report and advocated by the Labour Party, include maintenance provision? Will that be available to all learners, regardless of study mode? I raise that point as those studying through part-time distance learning are currently not able to access maintenance support in England.

Another issue on which the Minister might be able to update noble Lords is the minimum eligibility requirements for access to university. That was a policy position advocated two or three Secretaries of State back—although that time covers a mere four months, I think. Can she say whether it will be taken forward by the current Secretary of State? Nothing has been heard since the DfE consultation on higher education reform, which closed in May, and an update is certainly overdue. Can the Minister confirm that the exemption for part-time provision, as proposed in the consultation, will remain if the policy is enacted?

The Open University was founded on the principle of full inclusion and open entry and has been supported by every UK Government since. However, in general these are problematic times for higher education. The Government—at least, the previous one, as we have yet to hear where the latest version stands on these issues—seemed to think that too many young people go on to higher education, and they too often sought confrontation with universities on issues such as the value, in the narrowest sense, of certain types of degrees to society.

We await the Government’s response to the consultation on the reintroduction of student number caps and minimum eligibility requirements, both of which, if introduced, would disproportionately affect those from disadvantaged backgrounds. From the policymaker perspective, widening access and driving forward social justice must be at the heart of what we try to achieve with education reform.

At one point, the Times Education Commission report states that the focus of higher education policy in Britain

“can be more about who is excluded than who is included.”

No Government should allow such an approach, and I pay tribute to the work of the National Education Opportunities Network, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary. It co-ordinates the widening of access to higher education and its success can be measured by the fact that, in 2021-22, almost 80% of entrants to higher education from low-participation neighbourhoods went to NEON-member higher education providers. More encouragement is needed from other providers to encourage young people to be ambitious and not conclude that certain types of study, or certain institutions, are “not for me”.

I do not agree with all the recommendations in the commission’s report—for instance, on the creation of “career academies” and the establishment of satellite university campuses in cold-spot communities. The aims of both are already delivered by further education colleges, which already have an established reach into their communities to promote lifelong learning. Developments along that route would be more profitable and avoid reinventing the wheel. However, the commission deserves much credit for its work, and I hope that the Government will do more than “take note” of the recommendations, which very largely map out a positive route to funding education at all levels to prepare the skills needed for the workforce of the future, while delivering greater social justice.

Schools: Financial Education

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is right in that we can do more to embed financial education in the curriculum. The webinars that I referred to will build on the financial education guidance for schools published by the Money and Pensions Service last year. It highlights the links between financial education and the curriculum, and how primary and secondary schools can improve the financial education that they deliver.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

The Money and Pensions Service, to which the Minister just referred, states that money habits are formed from the age of seven, well before young people arrive at secondary school, yet only about 25% of primary schoolchildren in England receive any form of financial education. Last year, a report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Financial Education for Young People called on the Department for Education to introduce financial education to the national curriculum in primary schools, and to set a target of ensuring that every primary school pupil has access to it by 2030. What progress has the Minister’s department made towards that target?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that the Government made a commitment to make no changes to the national curriculum during the life of this Parliament, and that remains the case. Although citizenship is not compulsory in primary schools, as we know, many schools choose to teach it as part of their commitment to delivering a broad and balanced curriculum. The Money and Pensions Service has clear goals to ensure that 2 million more children and young people get meaningful financial education by 2030 and we are very supportive of its work in that.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

171J: After Clause 65, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to report on spoken language and communicationThe Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament each year during the period of five years beginning with the day on which this Act is passed, setting out—(a) the overall level of school pupils’ spoken language and communication ability in academies, independent educational institutions and maintained schools;(b) the provision available to develop pupils’ spoken language and communication skills in academies, independent educational institutions and maintained schools;(c) the provision available to support pupils with speech, language and communication needs in academies, independent educational institutions and maintained schools.”

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking to Amendments 171J and 171 K in my name, and I should declare an interest as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Oracy. I want to acknowledge the support I have received from I CAN, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and Voice 21, just three of the 39 organisations which have circulated a comprehensive briefing on these amendments to noble Lords.

These are probing amendments to clarify how the Government intend to ensure that children are adequately supported in schools to develop proficiency in spoken language, or “oracy”. In framing these amendments, the aim was to ask questions of the Minister, specifically on how the Government will raise the status of spoken language in the education system to reflect its importance to children and young people’s outcomes in education, as per evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation, how they will support schools to address the ongoing impact of school closures on children’s spoken language across all ages, and how they will ensure that every teacher is equipped to understand how to develop children’s spoken language skills and ability and are trained to identify those who struggle with their speech, language and communication and are thus in need of further support.

--- Later in debate ---

With that, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Watson, will withdraw his amendment and that other noble Lords will not move theirs.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this group. Before I come specifically to the two amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Blower I would just like to say, on the amendments in the names of my noble friend Lady Whitaker and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that bullying is one of those issues that if you do not measure it, you cannot improve it. The Minister has just said that Ofsted has issued guidance on schools recording bullying. That is all right for those schools which are doing that, but the point is that it is guidance. What about those instances where it is not recorded, for whatever reason—the school may wish to protect its reputation or whatever?

The noble Baroness talked about local authorities having a register. I think it is important to go beyond the individual school. We are moving away from a situation in this Bill where we thought academies were a law unto themselves; we are now finding that perhaps that is not the case after all. I think it is important to broaden that.

I will give some examples of bullying. Noble Lords have highlighted issues, and I would like to mention some more. One is that it is not just those you might think are obvious targets for bullying. Children who are adopted often suffer very badly from being bullied, if the fact that they are adopted becomes known. Noble Lords may remember that, following the MacAlister report on the children’s social care review, a day of action was organised here on Wednesday last week by a number of children’s charities. They brought along a lot of children in care and, in speaking to them, I was very disappointed to hear some of them say that they are stigmatised in school because they are in care. They said that some teachers will ask, “What do your mum and dad think of this?” Of course, a child in care can find that most distressing. That is not bullying—I am not suggesting that teachers bully—but it allows it to emerge, and children can then be subject to bullying by their peers. It takes so many forms and it has to be more carefully recorded, and schools held to account if they are not acting appropriately.

On Amendments 171J and 171K, I acknowledge the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, about young people with dyslexia and dyspraxia. I should at least have referred to the fact that the amendment was as broad as possible and covered all children who, for whatever reason, need assistance with developing their speech and communication skills.

I hear what the Minister said about the guidance that is available. Again, the point is the same as with bullying: it is guidance. For those schools that abide by it, fine; but those that do not are the problem, and these are the areas where it has to be strengthened. That is why I think that a statutory position is necessary.

The Minister contradicted herself, because she said at one point, “We cannot really have statutory assessment at this stage”, in relation to the need to check on spoken and communication skills because, post-pandemic, that would put undue stress on teachers and school staff. That is basically saying, “It is a good idea, but this is not the time to do it”. If we say that, that means that the older children—the ones who will have moved on in three or four years, or however long it takes for us to be in a proper post-pandemic situation—have not benefited. Then the Minister said, in relation to my noble friend Lady Chapman’s amendment, that we need to concentrate funding now because the older pupils will have moved on by the time the funding reaches them. I understand her point about needing to make sure that older pupils get that consideration, but you cannot on the one hand say, “We cannot do it now” for one reason, but then say that older pupils have to get that consideration now in terms of the funding. I do not think it is an either/or situation.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I apologise if I was not clear. What I was saying was that to introduce an additional assessment early on would put greater resource strain on the system. What I was saying in relation to investment in older children was not about assessment; it was just making sure that we prioritise them for greater funding because they have less time left in school, so we want to give them as much support as possible.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that clarification. I accept what she says about the differences as well, but I was drawing attention to the fact that older children, by definition, do not have much longer in school, so we need to ensure that they get every support that we can give them, either financial or through encouragement to improve their speaking skills. I also note what the Minister says about the current situation, so I invite her to bring forward an amendment on Report which might have a time-limited introduction of the sort of resources necessary for the suggestion I made in Amendment 171J.

I hope I have covered the points. I am not suggesting that the Minister is not taking these issues seriously—I know her well enough to know that she is and does—but there has to be some kind of step change, because the views and surveys I referred to earlier have pointed out that, however well meant things are, there are too many children who are not getting the assistance they need to make sure they have the skills that we discussed for many hours on the skills Bill not so long ago. To bring young people on to the jobs market, they need these skills—that is the key. There is no point in having a bit of paper that says “So-and-so has passed this qualification” if he or she is not really able to make the most of it by articulating in a way that helps them to do that job effectively. With those remarks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 171J withdrawn.

Disabled Children: Support Services

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As my noble friend knows, my right honourable friend is a great fan of data and transparency. We have commissioned an independent process and an early outcome evaluation of the first year of delivery to assess the impact of the scheme. It will obviously seek the views of parents and children who are in receipt of the support, as well as those of local authorities and other delivery partners. The evaluation will assess the feasibility of conducting a robust impact assessment of the type my noble friend outlined, for years two and three of delivery.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I must press the Minister in respect of the answer she gave to my noble friend Lady Uddin a few moments ago. Surveys by the Disabled Children’s Partnership found that three-quarters of parent carers had suffered a deterioration in mental health due to the fight they were required to undertake to get the right services for their children. In the light of that, can the Minister say how the Government intend to use the SEND Green Paper to reduce the burden of admin and advocacy that currently rests on the shoulders of parents with disabled children?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think I mentioned our starting point in response to the original Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, which is that part of our challenge is building up trust with parents who have children with a disability. We believe that by having much clearer bandings around provision, so that we reduce some of the regional inconsistencies in the system, and by requiring mediation as part of this, we will reduce confrontation. That is absolutely our intention, but we do not have a closed mind on this. We have held more than 153 consultation events and they are growing all the time. We are very keen to hear from parents on what they think will work.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part two
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, the graveyard slot on the Back Benches inevitably leaves next to nothing new to say, and I do not think I am going to break that mould this evening. As almost every noble Lord has said, the overriding theme of the Bill is to further centralise control over the school system and give the DfE greater powers in relation to academies, school funding allocations, home education and attendance and illegal schools. I have few concerns about the latter two subjects, but on the first two I have many.

Part 1 of the Bill highlights the Government’s enduring obsession with academies and the aim of making all schools academies by 2030, despite the absence of independent evidence to support such an aim. There are many good academy schools and I am not anti-academy, although I do not believe they should have the right to set their own curriculum; I have always believed that a national curriculum should be just that. However, Ofsted ratings of local authority maintained schools and those in MATs show that schools that join MATs are less likely to improve their next Ofsted rating, and in fact are more likely to see a regression in that rating.

That is supported by research published by the Local Government Association as recently as this month, which showed that as of January 92% of maintained schools were regarded as outstanding by Ofsted, compared to 85% of academies graded since they converted. That research, which looked at school ratings between 2018 and this year, found that only 45% of academies were able to improve from inadequate or “requires improvement” to good or outstanding during that period, compared to 56% of maintained schools. What does that prove? You may say that statistics can prove anything, but it shows that there is no reason to think that whatever the problem is, academies are the answer; they simply are not. If the Minister has not already done so, she would do well to study that Local Government Association report closely because it will challenge the department’s mistaken view that one size fits all. Evidence rather than ideology should surely underpin legislation.

As my noble friends Lord Blunkett and Lady Morris said, the Bill’s proposals on academies represent a dramatic shift from the current arrangements and are a far cry from the days when academies were introduced with the promise of less regulation and more freedom to innovate. I listened closely, as I always do, to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and although he was a bit more sanguine than I had expected regarding the proposals in Part 1, we could tell that he is certainly not happy with them.

On that point, my noble friend Lady Chapman mentioned that the Bill gives local authorities the power to request an academy order for any or all of their maintained schools. Although it is not entirely clear, it seems that they can do so even if a school objects. Can the Minister provide clarity on this important matter? The Bill also gives regional schools commissioners the task of allocating to MATs schools converted in this way via local authorities, and it appears that this could lead to schools being allocated to a MAT outwith their local authority. I hope the Minister will confirm that this will not be allowed to happen.

Part 2, on national funding allocations, represents another power grab by the Secretary of State. The national funding formula, which I believe was introduced in 2018, sees local authorities receive a total entitlement for their schools but they can allocate money in line with the local formula, with strict limits and the agreement of the local schools forum. According to the Bill, the local authority stage is to be scrapped and the DfE will determine the funding allocation for every one of the—according to the DfE website—24,413 state schools in England. What could possibly go wrong?

In her opening remarks, the Minister stated that these changes are being proposed specifically because local authorities were deciding on their own funding priorities. Well, quite. That is quite appropriate because allocating funding requires sensitivity to the circumstances of individual schools. Local factors matter. When problems arise, as they surely will, schools will not have local officers to help to resolve them and every appeal will have to go to the DfE, which will be judge and jury. That is a seriously retrograde proposal and, I hope, one that will not survive the consultation that we have been told will take place, as I have read, before summer 2022—which according to my calendar leaves about eight days.

Part 3, on school attendance, is overdue and to be welcomed. I join many noble Lords in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Soley and the noble Lord, Lord Storey. My noble friend’s 2017 Private Member’s Bill called for the establishment of a register of children not in school, and I am pleased to say his tireless efforts now have their reward in Clause 48 of the Bill.

As the noble Lord, Lord Nash, said, elective home education is a right established by the Education Act 1996. For two years, he and I faced each other at the Dispatch Box on education matters and rarely agreed—I hope we disagreed in relatively good terms—but I absolutely agreed with what he said on this important matter. When supported by parents who have an understanding of the educational needs of their children and the ability to ensure that these needs are met, home schooling is appropriate and usually beneficial. Such out-of-school settings do not present a problem, as he said; it is the others which are a problem. The problem which has to be addressed is that children either never presented to school or subsequently withdrawn do not enjoy such a benign experience.

Some parents are ideologically opposed to formal education and to providing the authorities information about their children—some of them were in the Public Gallery today. I acknowledge their right to hold those views, but it is not realistic to expect that the wishes of a minority of parents should be permitted to override issues of child safety and protection. The issue of most concern is that nobody—certainly not the DfE—knows how many children in England are being home educated, because no records are kept. Thus, children not in school can be entirely invisible to the authorities. That must end; the rights of the child are more important than the rights of the parent.

In conclusion, I shall say something on the gaps in the Bill, some of which my noble friend Lord Triesman has just forcefully outlined; I am thoroughly in agreement with him. There is nothing on careers or skills. How will the Bill link with the Skills and Post-16 Education Act? There is nothing on a number of issues included in the White Paper, such as organising and closing schools, schools changing MATs, admissions, exclusions, and responses to well-being and mental health issues regarding pupils. How will the Bill link with what emerges from the SEND Green Paper or the proposals set out today in the independent review of children’s social care? As with most legislation drafted by this Government, the Bill contains many more questions than answers. Noble Lords made significant improvements to the then skills Bill; it will be necessary to repeat that with the Schools Bill.

Industrial Training Levy (Construction Industry Training Board) Order 2022

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Monday 25th April 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jones, for that tour de force, and, having spent the week in Anglesey, we have a Welsh connection.

As the Minister rightly said, the construction industry is hugely important to the economy of the UK. She also referenced the need for a pipeline of skilled workers. What she did not talk about was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jones, that there is a national crisis in the shortage of construction workers, which could hamper the many infrastructure schemes that we have—not just big infrastructure schemes, but local and small ones. If my noble friend Lord Stunell was here, he would tell the Minister in no uncertain terms, which I think he has already done, about the dire consequences of not ensuring that those brickies and pointers, as the noble Lord, Lord Jones, said, are recruited as quickly they should be. I have also wondered why more women are not involved in the construction industry.

The Construction Industry Training Board undertakes a large number of activities, and the Minister spelled them out in some detail, but this is perhaps a time to question what has been going on. I wonder whether the CITB would be considered by Jacob Rees-Mogg as part of his bonfire of the quangos. I hope not, but I hope that it will be reformed and refocused, because there are real concerns. You have only to listen to the National Federation of Builders, which is calling for a fundamental restructuring of the CITB, including an end to its levy-raising powers. It states that the majority of construction employers asked do not see the CITB as adding value to the industry and do not believe that it meets the labour market or industry needs, and that they cannot access the training they need when they need it. That is quite a concern.

Employers in the construction industry are facing many issues, post Covid. Is it fair that the academic institutions receive so much more; should not the levy go directly to levy-paying employers? The levy returns can sometimes be challenging and time-consuming for employers, generating additional administrative costs. Importantly, there needs to be an easier and quicker way to complete the required documentation without further record-keeping. As I have said before, a business must focus on the job of the business, making a profit and securing jobs. When the bureaucracy gets in the way, that often causes real problems for the business.

I hope that the Minister will listen to the comments made and answer them. I too had scribbled down that it would be useful to know, on a regular basis, the names of the small group who advised: let us name them and see who they represent. I had also scribbled a note asking whether the TUC was involved.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to the order, which it is fair to say is not controversial. It states that

“the Secretary of State is satisfied that the industrial training levy proposals are necessary to encourage adequate training in the industry”,


and we concur. For that reason, I do not propose to say much at all about the levy itself, which will continue much as before. Rather, I shall focus on the CITB and its role in assisting the construction industry to address some of the issues of recruitment and training it currently faces.

In a previous life, further back than I care to remember, I was a full-time official with a trade union in the engineering sector, and I recall dealing with several industry training boards on a number of different issues. Indeed, from memory, there were more than 20 in the 1980s, until the number was significantly reduced by the Industrial Training Act 1982. It is to be regretted that, apart from those in the film sector, only the Construction Industry Training Board and the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board are still in place today. The last two are non-departmental public bodies, and thus accountable to Parliament and, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, possibly within the sights of the Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency—a quaint name, without a department behind it.

The order we are considering today runs to six pages, but its impact assessment is five times that length. That is to be welcomed, because it contains much interesting—in some cases, fascinating—information and statistics about the levy, the board and the construction industry itself. From it, we learn that the industry has had a levy and grant arrangement for 58 years. The impact assessment says that it currently employs more than 2.5 million people—the Minister said 3.1 million, so I am glad to hear it is growing—contributes 8.6% to GDP, and, if I caught it correctly, 9% of gross value added, which, as an economist, I think is a productivity metric. Both demonstrate the importance of the industry.

The CITB exists to ensure that the construction workforce has the right skills for now and the future, based on three strategic priorities: careers, standards and qualifications, and training and development. As is made plain in the impact assessment:

“There remains a serious and distinct market failure in the development … of skills in the construction industry”.


It is stated that this is because

“the trading conditions, incentives and culture do not lead to a sufficient level of investment in skills by employers.”

Unfortunately, this malaise is not restricted to the construction sector. UK employers in many sectors have long been unwilling to recognise the need for upskilling and to pay for it, and that is a major factor in the low productivity levels from which our economy suffers. The introduction of the apprenticeship levy five years ago was a clear sign of the Government’s acceptance that employers will not in sufficient numbers invest of their own volition in skills development, and thus require a firm hand on their collective shoulder to encourage them to do so.

The training levy plays a key role in equipping the construction industry with the skilled and flexible workforce it needs. In the post-EU world in which we find ourselves, and given the large number of EU nationals who have traditionally worked in the construction industry in this country, it is not just important but absolutely vital that the industry is in a position to train, and continually retrain, its workforce for the challenges facing the economy.

Indeed, to quote the Explanatory Memorandum:

“It is essential, now more than ever, that employers have access to the support needed to upskill existing workers and adequately attract and train new talent, as industry seeks to fully recover from the impacts of the pandemic.”


Absolutely. This order will raise more than £0.5 billion between now and 2024 to invest in training skills, which is why employers have always strongly supported the levy and value the payback they get from their contributions.

However, as the Minister will have noted from the impact assessment, the consultation among employers on the CITB’s proposals for this levy produced a figure of 66.5% in support. That should cause some concern, because not only does it mean that a third of employers were not in favour of the levy—for reasons unknown, or at least not listed in the impact assessment—but the 66.5% figure was down from 76.9% when the vote was last held, in 2017. Perhaps the Minister can say whether DfE officials and/or Ministers have asked the CITB for its explanation of that reduction and what action, if any, the board will be asked to undertake to ensure it does not fall further in three years. More positive is the survey on the final page of the impact assessment, which shows that, when asked whether the statutory levy, grant and funding system should continue, 75% of employers said that it should.

The CITB has had an awkward few years recently, with more than its fair share of criticism from within the sector. The board was forcefully led by Sarah Beale from 2017 until her departure last year, and now has Tim Balcon as its CEO. Ms Beale oversaw a restructuring that saw its workforce cut by two-thirds as it returned to its core business, but that has not assuaged all in the sector. One of its largest participants, Build UK, recently called for fundamental changes, stating that there remains

“widespread frustration with the performance of CITB”.

Mr Balcon deserves the chance to make his influence felt, but are the Minister and her officials aware of the discontent with the board felt by some of the employers it exists to assist? If so, can she share any information as to what support—I am not talking about financial terms—might be offered to the board?

One of those areas should be the need for much greater diversity within the construction industry. The CITB itself deserves credit for becoming, under Sarah Beale, a female-led organisation in a male-dominated industry. One of the potential benefits of that was that it allowed the CITB to push boundaries and promote change, but much more remains to be done. ONS data shows that the construction industry’s 16% female workforce—a point referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Storey—compares with 23% in transportation and 25% in water supply and manufacturing, the other worst sectors.

The 2011 census showed that 13% of the UK population identified as black, Asian or minority ethnic, yet ONS data found that the percentage employed at that time in UK construction was just 7.5%. More worryingly, in a 2015 survey of its own, the CITB found that the actual figure could have been closer to 5%. We should be told what the current figures are, so that the board can begin to plot a course towards increasing the number substantially. As Kay Jarvis of the global infrastructure company blu-3 reported in 2020:

“The 2018 OutNext/PwC Out to Succeed survey also found construction had the third-worst image of all industries as an LGBT+ employer.”


A recent study by recruitment analytics specialist Hays discovered that, of those black people

“who managed to break into the construction sector”—

that term is perhaps of some importance—no less than

“78% claimed they had experienced career restrictions due to their race or other demographic factors such as sexuality and age.”

Whether this is down to structural prejudice or unconscious bias, it highlights the significant and clear challenge of discrimination in the hiring and promotion process, which surely must be addressed. The CITB is well positioned to do so; I hope that the Government will offer it every encouragement, perhaps by setting a baseline and then measuring year-on-year progress against it in respect of equality and diversity in various forms in construction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to the debate. I will attempt to cover the questions asked but I will of course write on any that I cannot answer at the Dispatch Box.

Before I go any further, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, highlighted the difference between the 2.5 million employees cited in the Explanatory Memorandum and the 3.1 million that I referred to in my opening remarks. The figure of 3.1 million comes from the Office for National Statistics and represents a wider definition of construction that includes the built environment and manufacturing. The figure in the Explanatory Memorandum is an estimate of the CITB-relevant part of the total. I hope that clarifies it for the noble Lord.

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, shared his deep expertise in the sector and asked a number of questions in relation to Wales. In line with the requirements of Section 88 of the Scotland Act 1988, we consulted Scottish Ministers—the noble Lord pointed this out—who confirmed that they are content with the levy order. The Welsh Assembly has also confirmed its support for the order.

The noble Lord asked why the contribution for Wales appears to be so small. The levy is charged to in-scope employers based on their wage bill, so it is possible that there are fewer or smaller such employers in Wales and this is reflected in those figures. The noble Lord also asked how much of the levy will be distributed in Scotland and Wales. The split in income and expenditure between England, Scotland and Wales is not something that the CITB generally measures or reports on.

The noble Lord asked about engagement with the unions. Obviously, it is up to the CITB as to who it engages with. It is the legislation that controls who can actually vote on the levy proposals.

The noble Lords, Lord Jones and Lord Storey, challenged whether the Government are doing enough with our investment in training, qualifications and skills in this area. We have already put in place a wide range of opportunities for adults to gain the skills that they need for employment and are ensuring that people have opportunities to study by delivering on the Prime Minister’s lifetime skills guarantee. The provision of skills, in construction in particular, is supported through a number of routes, including courses available through further education colleges and independent learning providers, with funding of more than £1.3 billion from the adult education budget. Noble Lords will be aware that we introduced construction T-levels in 2020, as an alternative vocational route into the sector, and are continuing to develop skills boot camps, which offer free and flexible courses of up to 16 weeks, funded through the national skills fund.

As noble Lords observed, apprenticeships remain a key route into this industry. There are currently over 640 high-quality, industry-designed standards available, and we aim to continue to improve and grow apprenticeships, so that more employers and individuals can benefit from them.

The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, rightly focused on the lack of diversity in the construction workforce. Obviously the CITB is not responsible for the construction workforce, but it has an important role in facilitating skills opportunities to help the industry strive towards a workforce that reflects today’s society. It undertakes a wide range of initiatives and activities; it works with industry and other partners to try to attract a diverse pool of new entrants into the industry and to promote construction careers. I share the hope of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that in three years, when we debate this instrument again, the make-up of the sector will look very different from where it is today.

The CITB is funding the training of industry construction ambassadors on fairness, inclusion and respect, who contribute to a dedicated industry project which creates resources for employers to promote and celebrate best practice across the sector. It is also funding a digital resilience hub, which is a free and accessible tool that brings together mental health resources for those working in the construction industry. Finally, it is funding the on-site hubs that support individuals to become employment-ready and site-ready to take up opportunities in construction. Their target is to support underrepresented groups, including women and those from black, Asian and other minority-ethnic backgrounds, to secure sustainable job outcomes. It is fair to say that representation from those groups remains disproportionately low. The CITB continues to work with partners to try to address that.

The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, questioned the value of the CITB and raised some of the criticisms that have been lodged against it, and asked whether there would be an alternative model for funding skills development in the construction industry. The Government seek to evaluate the rationale for and effectiveness of its arm’s-length bodies through a programme of regular reviews, and that includes the ITBs. In 2017, the review of ITBs confirmed that there remains an ongoing need for a central skills body and recommended that the CITB should make stronger efforts to address the skills gap and market failure within the industry. That included the requirement for the CITB to lead on emerging needs, such as supporting the Government’s ambitions for housing.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I mentioned earlier that the impact assessment shows that 75% of employers, when asked, said that they wanted the current scheme to continue. Is it not unthinkable that, with that kind of backing, the Government might move away from the current model?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously I cannot predict the future. I can only repeat what the review of 2017 said, on which basis the Government are moving forward. The review showed that there is an ongoing need for a central skills body and, as the noble Lord says, employers support it.

Following that review, the CITB’s implementation of its three-year transformation process, Vision 2020, has helped to make it a more focused and more agile partner to industry, and, as a result of the initiative, the CITB has implemented new governance structures so that industry voices are at the heart of decision-making, has launched new funding systems to allow employers to have easier access to support—the noble Lord, Lord Storey, referred to bureaucracy being a barrier to accessing support—and has moved to an investment model based on strategic commissioning. As I noted, the industry has expressed concerns about the performance of the CITB, but we are confident that it has worked hard to increase industry involvement in its strategic planning to address those concerns.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about the funding model and exactly what it pays for. The levy provides an investment in skills through a redistributive and collective fund, and it provides value through strategic initiatives that benefit the whole industry—I have referred to some of them already—such as attracting new entrants, identifying common standards and common training solutions, encouraging the transferability of skills, quality control of training provision, leadership and project management development, and collaborative behavioural training programmes.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about the relationship between the amount of levy that is paid and the grants that an employer might receive. We believe that employers receive value for money, but they do not expect to receive a direct financial return via the training grants that is equal to the levy that is paid. As I mentioned, the levy is an investment in skills through a redistributive and collective fund that benefits all employers.

The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked about our housebuilding targets. One of the priorities from the DfE to the CITB for 2022-23 is providing support to the industry to meet our ambition to build 300,000 homes each year.

There continues to be the collective view across the sector that training should be funded through a statutory levy system and that that system should be used to contribute to a pool of skilled labour, now and in the future, for this critical sector. There is a firm belief that without the levy there would be a serious deterioration in the quality and quantity of training in the construction industry, leading to a deficiency in skills levels and in capacity. That would create particular challenges in the current economic environment, when skilled workers are needed to deliver the infrastructure projects required to meet the environmental challenge of reducing the UK’s carbon emissions to zero by 2050, as well as all the other ambitions that we have referred to in relation to other infrastructure and housebuilding projects.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 7th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Con)]

My Lords, as at previous stages, I draw attention to my interests in the register.

I echo the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and others in welcoming that we are no longer planning to move straight to a binary world of A-levels and T-levels. I was glad to see that the Secretary of State, in his letter to Peers today, said that BTECs and similar qualifications will have a continuing and important role alongside T-levels and A-levels.

Can the Minister please reassure us on two further points? First, will the Government seek parity of esteem for all quality technical and academic options, so that there is no hierarchy between A-levels, T-levels, BTECs and similarly applied general qualifications? This would mean that the Government would cease to refer to T-levels as the best option and the best technical route. Secondly, can she address the continuing issue of the blight that hangs over the provision of BTECs and other applied general qualifications during this extended reform process, so that it does not deter providers from offering these important and valued technical options and discourage students from embarking on them out of concern that these qualifications will be disparaged by the Government in the process of the reforms and lose their value over time?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a long and winding road with this Bill, stretching back over 10 months from the position that we find ourselves in today. There is very little to add to what noble Lords have said in the last 20 minutes or so, but of course that does not mean that I will not make an attempt at it.

It is very pleasing that we have reached this position because, when the Bill arrived here, it was skeletal in form and many noble Lords made the point that it would be fleshed out only through secondary legislation. I do not think that many find that an acceptable means of legislating, given the restrictions on scrutiny that it entails. But we have had some fleshing out. We have the lifetime skills guarantee—albeit from only level 3 upwards—which will be introduced in 2024. We have the lifelong loan entitlement, which we know a bit more about and which is out for consultation at the moment; it will not come into play until 2025. There are also other consultations ongoing on level 2 and level 3 qualifications, so there is still quite a lot out in the ether and what will finally emerge is for the future.

I echo the points of noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord Blunkett, about the discussions into which the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, and officials entered with us in the last few days. They have been productive.

I was slightly disappointed to get a message this morning from someone in the higher education sector who said that they were disappointed that the fight against BTECs being defunded, had fizzled out. Being a fairly forthright Scot, I replied that this was, shall we say, not quite the case. I have also had messages about the extension to 2024 and the clarity that will be provided in the documents that the Minister referred to—the Secretary of State’s letter and the table. I am not sure whether the table has yet been distributed to noble Lords, but it will be. It sets out the defunding process. The main point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, mentioned, is that when this started, it was said that only a small range of BTECs would survive. We have now come not quite full circle but some considerable distance, with only a small range of BTECs facing defunding and in certain circumstances, as the Minister outlined. That is very much progress, and we welcome it.

To echo the noble Lord, Lord Baker, T-levels will ultimately be a success—we want them to be and they will be; it is a question of time. In our discussions earlier in the week, the Government’s target was 100,000 T-level starts in 2024. That is quite ambitious, given that we have only 5,000 at the moment, but I wish them well. Equally, I welcome that for those young and not so young people for whom T-levels are not appropriate for whatever reason—there are many reasons why that might be the case—there are other options remaining open to them, not least the route into higher education, which has been, as many noble Lords have said, very important. I am pleased that we have got to this. As my noble friend Lord Blunkett said, the Minister has been very helpful in that regard.

The noble Lord, Lord Baker, deserves considerable credit. Through his efforts, the clause bearing his name from the 2017 Act has been beefed up and will carry much more weight and be much more effective than it has hitherto been, with the ability of providers to be brought into schools. There will be much less likelihood of head teachers saying, “No, no, we don’t need that actually. Most of our young people are going to university, we don’t really need to hear about apprenticeships or any form of technical education”. That is wrong in any situation and is now much less likely.

The question of careers education is important. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, mentioned it, and I am very proud to say that there is a young man—my son Thomas—sitting on the steps of the Throne who is about to enter senior school. By the time he reaches 16, I hope that these reforms will have bedded in and he will have many options open to him and his cohort, enabling them to make informed decisions on how their lives will pan out, whether through further education, higher education, apprenticeships or whatever. I very much hope that that will be the case.

I do not really have anything else to say, other than that the Bill is in a much better state than it was when it arrived here. Many noble Lords have played an important role in getting us here, and I have to say that the Government have been willing to listen and act. It is important that this Bill is a success. The futures of many young and not so young people depend on it, and the future economy of this country depends on it. I hope it will succeed.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, this Bill has been with us for a while and I know that noble Lords are keen to start their Easter break, I hope with their families. I thank noble Lords for their very generous words on the work that we have done in government, with officials and with many of your Lordships to get the Bill to where it is now. I hope that it will deliver on all our shared aspirations in this area.

I shall try to respond briefly to the questions from my noble friend Lord Johnson regarding parity of esteem. Without wanting to play with words, we are aiming for clarity of esteem—although I am not sure whether that exists. We want to have a range of high-quality options for young people. We want them to be absolutely clear which ones work for them, which are suitable and which offer the right path forward. Of course, that is underpinned by parity, but we need clarity as well, because that has been lacking in the past. In relation to his second point, we also need absolute clarity for providers. There is an enormous job still to be done to communicate the value of all the different options that young people will be offered.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Watson’s correspondent, and the fight against BTECs fizzling out, I think we could agree that the fight for quality is certainly not fizzling out in any way. I am not sure there ever was a fight—but anyway.

Before closing, I thank all noble Lords here today, many of whom have contributed to debates throughout the passage of the Bill. I pay particular tribute to the Front Benches, to the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock, Lady Wilcox and Lady Garden. I say two things to the son of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, who is sitting on the steps of the Throne. I share the aspirations of the noble Lord that our reforms are bedded in, and I hope that his son and all his classmates will have a great range of opportunities. I also remind him that what he sees in this House today is the tip of the iceberg of the work that the noble Lord and his colleagues have being doing over the last few months to get this Bill to where it is.

I also thank the many former Education Ministers and Secretaries of State in this House whose insights we have benefited from—my noble friends Lady Morgan, Lord Willetts, Lord Baker and Lord Johnson, my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke and the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I also say special thanks to my noble friend Lady McGregor-Smith. She has been a great mentor and helped me to understand how this Bill will work in practice.

I also thank my noble friends Lady Penn and Lady Chisholm for their support. I thank the Bill team officials who have worked on the Bill—Kady Billington-Murphy, Ellie-May Morris, Emma Sisk, Lois Clement, Georgia Scoot-Morrissey, Charlotte Rushworth, Katrina Leonard-Johnson, Catherine James and Stephen Wan. I especially thank Jessica Clark in my private office, who has been an exemplar of calmness under pressure.