Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill
Debate between Lyn Brown and Andrew Gwynne(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Gwynne
Were that to succeed, then yes, but the hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that some Government Departments, public bodies and local authorities would still be saying “We cannot do this.” Introducing legislation giving them the power to ask to be allowed to do it, if it is what they want to do, will make the position clear to all. The Bill is not prescriptive; it does not compel those bodies to act. On the contrary, it empowers them.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
When I read the Bill, I thought to myself “This is a wonderful Bill. It is all motherhood and apple pie. It is fabulous.” Now I am struggling to understand why there is so much Conservative resistance to a Bill that will simply give our young people a decent start in life. What can possibly be wrong with that?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. I am confident that by the end of my speech and those of other Labour Members, the sceptics sitting opposite me will be won over to the cause of young people in their constituencies, which is equal to that of young people in Newham, Tameside, Salford, Hull, Newcastle, Liverpool, Birmingham, Scunthorpe and Scotland.
Andrew Gwynne
For a young person. That can be carried out in a variety of ways, one of which the hon. Gentleman outlined. Of course, however, it would be incumbent on that company or group of companies to explain what it is doing as part of the bid process. It would then be down to the public body to determine whether that meets its aims and ambitions for its local economy, but he is right in what he says.
Through the Tameside apprenticeships scheme, the local council has committed to helping small companies such as the ones the hon. Gentleman mentioned to take on apprentices, in response to feedback received about the difficulties they may experience. Those difficulties relate particularly to the construction sector, and some other sectors, where an employer cannot guarantee that contracts will last for the full 12 months or more of the apprenticeship. Tameside apprenticeships, a partnership between Tameside council, Tameside college, New Charter housing trust and the Tameside learning provider network has set a target to achieve 100 additional apprenticeships in the borough in the next 12 months.
If the employer has to withdraw from the agreement, the council has undertaken to pay the apprentices’ wages for a month while a replacement employer is found. As I have already said, the 50:50 scheme set up by Tameside council also provides up to 50 apprenticeship grants of £1,000 each to employers who take on 16, 17 or 18-year-old Tameside residents. It has been a huge success.
Good apprenticeship opportunities are also offered by the local housing association, New Charter housing trust. During apprentice week this year, it showed its continued support for apprentices with a pledge to take on at least 20 people from April, doubling the number of apprentices from the previous year. The trust has apprentices in a range of roles across the company including in administration, domestic gas engineering, painting and decorating and plastering—all good apprenticeships that can offer a ladder to a future career. New Charter has also taken on a role as lead partner in a new housing apprenticeship scheme for Greater Manchester called “Foundations in Housing”, working with other housing associations across the county.
In the Stockport part of my constituency, there is the 100 apprenticeships in 100 days initiative. Stockport council, which, incidentally, is Liberal Democrat controlled—I do not often have good words to say about the Liberal Democrats but today I will break the habit of a lifetime, even though it is noticeable that no Liberal Democrats have turned up to support the Bill—has worked with local employers to get them to take on more apprentices. Within the 100 days, the scheme’s target of 100 apprentices was soon reached and the campaign will now run until mid-November. It has been such a success that it has secured about 152 extra apprentices so far.
I also want to consider some of the good work being done by central Government. We know that since July 2011, the Department of Work and Pensions has been operating its apprenticeships and skills requirement contract schedule, which requires:
“The Contractor shall and shall procure that its Sub-contractors shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that 5% of their employees are on a formal apprenticeship programme.”
We can see from that initiative how the same formula could be applied directly elsewhere and in other Government Departments beside the DWP. Many more apprenticeship places could be created if the Government really wanted to expand apprenticeships in the public sector and through public procurement. I believe that my Bill can help the Government to facilitate that.
What better spur to action can there be for the two thirds of businesses that still do not offer apprenticeships than the knowledge that they are crucial to the Government and to working with the Government? Government, whether local or national, realises that it must be the responsibility of public procurement to do all it can to give young people a chance to get experience as an apprentice. Having an hands-off approach is simply not good enough and I commend the Government for recognising that in at least one of their Departments.
As I said in my opening remarks, all Members of this House celebrate the value of apprenticeships in providing opportunities and developing the skills of our work force and our future work force. We need to have more quality apprenticeship opportunities, however, particularly for young people at a time when nearly 1 million young people are out of work. I believe that my Bill would be useful and helpful to the Government in promoting that. It is common sense that the Government and public authorities are uniquely placed to use the leverage of the money that they already spend on procurement of public services to promote skills training and to provide new apprenticeship opportunities. That should be part of the procurement process.
The Bill is a relatively simple idea. Every supplier winning public contracts worth more than £1 million may be required to offer apprenticeship opportunities if that is the desire of the relevant public body. The Bill is not prescriptive and it does not compel, but it does empower. It would mean that companies applying for certain public procurement projects could be asked to include and offer quality apprenticeships as part of their bid if the public body wants that. My Bill would ensure that all apprenticeships offered as part of a public procurement contract would have to be advertised to all local workers, ensuring that those looking for a job would have a chance to apply and to be successful.
My Bill focuses on advanced and higher level apprenticeships, at levels 3 and 4, to ensure that we have apprenticeships that can rival university degrees. We should consider that point, given that in my constituency 68% of young people—and no doubt a similar proportion in the constituencies of other right hon. and hon. Members—or 50% of young people across the country do not have the opportunity to obtain a higher education qualification.
Lyn Brown
My hon. Friend is most generous in giving way. In my constituency, a firm called Kesslers has an amazing apprenticeship programme. It takes young people from the local area and trains them up to a high level. Its biggest problem is that it cannot get the higher education sector to hear its needs so that it can take its apprenticeships even further up the educational tree. Does my hon. Friend agree that higher education has a part to play in apprenticeships and we must encourage the providers to supply the courses that are needed to allow our young people to go as far as they possibly can?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the consequences of the provisions in my Bill will be a snowball effect. If public bodies, in particular, demand higher and advanced level qualifications as part of the apprenticeship deal more often, the greater the likelihood that higher education institutions will offer the qualifications that are relevant to the industries concerned. I think that from small things big things will grow. I am encouraged that my hon. Friend is in the Chamber today, because she speaks passionately about the job and work opportunities for her constituents. Like me, she represents a deprived community where educational opportunities are often the best route out of poverty. We know that in our communities public procurement is often the big spender. Using that money more wisely to help lift the job opportunities, skills and ambitions of young people in Newham and in Denton and Reddish is the best way of giving them opportunities for the future and of boosting the local economy.
As I said, many local authorities are already leading the way in their use of procurement to boost apprenticeship numbers. Not only my council, Tameside, but Knowsley, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and many others are developing strategies to use procurement contracts to create local apprenticeship opportunities for young people. Other authorities such as Plymouth, Bury—the authority of the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) —Reading and Stockport are engaging actively with local employers to boost apprenticeship opportunities more generally.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) on introducing such a Bill. I have never been so lucky as to be successful in the ballot, but perhaps if I am here for another year or so I might finally get the success that has eluded me.
My hon. Friend has also been lucky in the Minister who is on the Front Bench today—the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd)—as he is a decent and good man. He and I sat here for many Friday mornings putting the Sustainable Communities Bill through the House. I hesitate to suggest, because I realise that I might be damning his career badly by this, that he truly does understand this kind of soft regeneration issue. If one took the Sustainable Communities Bill down to its last detail, one could have argued that it was not necessary because we could have done all the things in it without having to pass legislation. However, it was an empowering Bill and it meant a lot to the third sector. So my argument is that not only is this Bill a good one in its own right, but it follows the trajectory taken by the Minister in his own private Member’s Bill that was passed under the previous Government. I therefore have a lot of faith that his response will be hopeful and positive, and will allow this Bill to progress to the next stages, to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—I hope I may call him that—to table his amendments. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish would welcome him on the Committee.
I wish to draw on the experience of the London Legacy Development Corporation, which is undertaking excellent work in my constituency and neighbouring constituencies to transform the legacy of the Olympic games into an enduring benefit for local people. I hope that that legacy will endure for generations to come. Since October 2012, the LLDC has been delivering a large programme of construction works at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic park to clear the games-time overlay, including temporary venues, walkways and roads. It is connecting the park with the new roads, cycle paths and pedestrian paths that criss-cross over the site, connecting it to the surrounding area. It is also completing permanent venues, bridges and parklands for their legacy use.
The scheme is a £229 million transformation programme and it has presented the LLDC with its first opportunity to deliver against its strategic aim of being a catalyst for regeneration and convergence in east London and its public commitment in terms of the employment and skills benefit during post-games construction.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is making a compelling case about how public procurement can lever in those skills and training opportunities for young people in quite a deprived part of the country, but is it not the case that too few public bodies in her constituency in east London are making use of those opportunities? Would my Bill not help to lever in those extra training opportunities as an enabling power for those public bodies?
Lyn Brown
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The reason I so want to talk about the LLDC is that it has an innovative way of delivery, which might help him in his arguments with our friend on the Government Benches about the issue of small companies not being able to deliver on this scale. We are talking about a new vehicle to achieve my hon. Friend’s aims.
May I say to my hon. Friend that I think he has missed an opportunity, but I am hoping he will correct that as we go on this afternoon, which is to draw attention to the wonderful Minister and encourage him, through our warm words and congratulations, and the heartfelt faith that we have in his abilities, to support the Bill today?
Andrew Gwynne
I do not wish to pile even more praise on the Minister, but I have every confidence that he shares our ambition to raise the skills and job opportunities of people in places such as Newham and Denton and Reddish and I am confident that when he comes to the Dispatch Box he will have lots of nice things to say about the Bill. We are not too far apart and what differences we have can be ironed out in Committee.
Lyn Brown
Indeed they can, and the Minister knows just how exciting such a Committee can be, having been through that process himself.
The LLDC’s focus has been on the creation of job and apprenticeship opportunities in legacy for local people, especially for young people and underrepresented groups who face significant barriers to entering or returning to the labour market. The principal vehicle for delivering those benefits has been embedding them as a requirement in procurement.
Through its social and economic policy, the legacy corporation has developed an approach that uses its procurement processes to assess a bidder’s track records and proposals for securing local social and economic benefits. I remind hon. Members that the LLDC is not some socialist organisation capturing the regeneration opportunities in east London. It is, in fact, a vehicle of the Mayor of London, who would not wish, I think, to be called “one of these outrageous socialist types”. He might possibly rail against such an accusation. It is his programme that has determined that the LLDC will use its procurement in this way.
One of the arguments made by the hon. Member for Shipley, who, sadly, is no longer in his place—I know that he has not left the Chamber because I am speaking—was that it would take too long to go through an assessment process for each of the preferred contractors to prefer the contractors who delivered on the apprenticeships. The gentleman who runs London obviously disagrees, because his processes are clearly about assessing a bidder’s track record and proposals for securing economic benefits and determining a contract based on those assessments. He also wishes to embed those commitments contractually and works in partnership with the contractors, operators, tenants and development partners to deliver them.
Andrew Gwynne
I do not wish to take the name of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) in vain as he is not in his place—although he has left his presence in the Chamber in the shape of a lone copy of the Daily Mail. So let me ask my hon. Friend: is she aware whether the Mayor of London has had any problems with the European Commission as regards public procurement?
Lyn Brown
I am not. I would assume that we would have heard if there had been any particular difficulties with said establishment and the procurement processes for London.
As the Bill is not, as my hon. Friend said, about forcing people to do things, the important point is that the Mayor and his offices are working with contractors to develop and deliver his aims. It is not about forcing, but about enabling and empowering.
The Mayor also wants to focus on early intervention with contractors, so that they understand their requirements and co-ordinate delivery. That makes perfect sense to me.
Andrew Gwynne
Is it not a good thing that my Bill would give the Mayor of London the ability to say to those contractors, “As Mayor of London, I expect a certain proportion of the apprenticeships that you are providing to be of a higher or an advanced level”?
Lyn Brown
It is indeed, but the dialogue with the contractors is clearly what is essential in this process, and my hon. Friend’s Bill provides the Mayor of London and others with a vehicle to say to them, “See? It is here in black and white. It is law. I am entitled to do this. This is something I am enabled to do by Parliament, but I would like to work with you as a contractor, to get the best from you and from the programme.”
The Mayor also delivers and develops interventions with the borough partners, so all the London boroughs are enabled to be in partnership with the programme. He works with Jobcentre Plus—let us face it, that can only be a good thing—and he works with the Greater London authority to embed best practice and partnership working to support contractors in fulfilling their obligations. How can that be a bad thing? The Bill provides the Mayor of London and his organisations with the opportunity to show contractors that they are not acting illegally by undertaking this process.
Andrew Gwynne
Does my hon. Friend think it is a good or a bad thing that her constituents in West Ham will have access to job adverts in their local jobcentre, rather than having to guess where such opportunities are advertised?
Lyn Brown
I absolutely do think it is important that we are working with jobcentres. In Newham we have an excellent programme called Workplace, in which local employers work with the local council and Jobcentre Plus to advertise local positions locally before they are advertised regionally or nationally. That can only be a good thing in an area with the deprivation indices that we have. It is one way of embedding into the area an economic and social legacy for the people that I represent.
The other good thing about what the LLDC is doing is that it adds value and avoids duplication with the existing employment and skills provision of the London boroughs. We are not talking about something that becomes unwieldy, or that is not welcomed by the other host boroughs. When we are recreating infrastructure and targeting delivery according to the needs of the park, we ensure that it is done in the most cost-effective way.
The LLDC is tailoring its approach to the specific needs of the contracts in the programme. We are not asking employers to take on apprenticeships and to have apprenticeships that are not consistent with what they are contracted to undertake. That is another good thing. The Bill would not require the LLDC to change its modus operandi at all; it gives a platform on which the LLDC can base its apprenticeship programme. Obviously, it promotes best practice in recruitment and promotes the London living wage or the construction working board agreements—whichever is higher. I am sure that every Member in the Chamber would applaud that.
There is a strong client commitment to delivering jobs and apprenticeships, which means ensuring that these elements are sufficiently weighted in the pre-qualification questionnaire and invitation-to-tender evaluations. The Bill sends an important message to bidders about the importance of this agenda to the LLDC. The need for apprenticeships is there. It is in the pre-qualification questionnaire. If you want to—I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; I know that you will not want to qualify as a contractor at the LLDC, although you could should you wish to, of course.
Any company that wishes to qualify to take a contract with the LLDC has to submit a completed questionnaire. One of the questions in it is, “Are you prepared to offer apprenticeships?” If the company is not prepared to do so, it might get a bit cross. It might think to itself, “Why should I have to?” The Bill will point to the fact that the LLDC is entitled to place that requirement in its pre-tender questionnaire.
The LLDC makes sure that contractors are aware of everything in its procurement pipeline, and uses the principle of relevancy to identify appropriate evaluation questions and weighting. Externally, the LLDC ensures that bidders are clear about the regeneration aims and objectives of the LLDC—convergence and so on. I know that we all understand what that means.
Crucially, the LLDC provides contractors with enough information to know what kind of commitment they are making. It specifies the commitment that companies will have to make in order to get the contract. It is clear that companies will be monitored, evaluated and held to account for what they deliver or fail to deliver. The Bill will make sure that those companies understand that the LLDC is not asking anything of them that it is not entitled to do.
The LLDC asks bidders to set targets for apprenticeships for under-represented groups such as black and minority ethnic communities, disabled people, previously unemployed people, people who have been unemployed for a very long time, and women. I hope you do not mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I digress for a moment and say that one of the things that I liked about the apprenticeship programme for the building of the Olympic sites was how it encouraged women into construction industries.
One of the things I learned from sitting in a digger truck and trying to excavate the earth at the Olympic park was that employers liked women using their equipment, because we are gentler on it and the equipment lasts longer if women are employed to use it. I know this from my own experience of driving a car and using the clutch, but my husband disagrees somewhat.
Lyn Brown
Indeed they do.
The LLDC also seeks a firm commitment to this approach in the procurement by its contractors, so not only is the LLDC looking at its own people, but at the secondary chain. The expectation of apprenticeships goes further than just the one tier. We know that a big contract is let to a contractor, who lets to subcontractors. The LLDC has ensured that procurement for apprenticeships goes further down the line than the initial contract. In future, should anybody ever query its right to do so, the LLDC will be able to point to the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish to show that it is quite entitled to ask for that commitment.
The LLDC will also evaluate its contractors on the proposals for working with boroughs to make sure that they are getting the most from those apprenticeships. I, like most hon. Members present, have an active third sector in the provision of training opportunities for young people. Community Links in my constituency is continually involved in finding young people who have become particularly disaffected at school or thereafter, helping to put them back on track. It will be able to refer to the LLDC a young person whom they think is right for an apprenticeship. That kind of partnership has real ramifications for our communities. If we ramp them up properly and use procurement in this way, and if we demonstrate by law that we, the LLDC and public bodies are entitled to use procurement in this very socially acceptable and socially manipulative way, we can see—
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is making a superb contribution today. I commend to her the work of Stockport Engineering Training Association Ltd in my constituency, a training company that has been established by industries in the north-west, mainly engineering, railway and nuclear industries, to provide training and apprenticeship opportunities for young people. It is concerned that the number of schemes coming through its centre has fallen in recent years. Should we not address that through public procurement?
Lyn Brown
I agree with my hon. Friend. Giving local authorities and procurement authorities the confidence that they can use procurement in this way to create apprenticeships and use it for the benefit and betterment of our communities can only be a good thing. I am sure that the Minister will not close his ears to our entreaties to allow the Bill to continue into Committee.
Surely it is in everybody’s interests that contractors deliver jobs and apprenticeships and make the commitment to them, as the LLDC has, as a key partner in east London, bringing significant locally based employment and skills infrastructure to support recruitment needs. It encourages an open and regular conversation with contractors and their supply chains, beginning immediately upon the contract being signed. As we know, it begins before that, because that is what good relationships are about, but, make no mistake, when the contract is signed, it is expected that the companies will deliver and honour the commitments that they have made to the apprenticeships in those local areas.
We need to ensure that the changing trends in the construction industry, such as the higher levels of subcontracting and shorter construction programmes, have made it difficult for some firms to offer traditional apprenticeships. In response to that issue, and to ensure delivery on the public commitments, the legacy corporation has commissioned REDS10. I want hon. Members to remember that name. I do not want any Government Members to have palpitations; this is not a socialist programme. REDS does not refer to the colour of its politics—
Andrew Gwynne
The more my hon. Friend goes on, the more I warm towards the Mayor of London.
Lyn Brown
I am afraid that my hon. Friend is encouraging me to sit down, but I will continue.
REDS10 is a National Apprenticeship Service-approved apprenticeship training agency—isn’t that a mouthful? It is contracted to work with prime and subcontractors to broker apprenticeships and job opportunities for local people in the Olympic park transformation programme. REDS10 takes on the apprentices, pays their wages, provides their training and then places them with the subcontractors, allowing them to complete their training across different projects and under the guidance of multiple firms. Therefore, we do not need to disadvantage firms in a supply chain that are unable to provide a full-scale apprenticeship. Instead, they can contract their part of an apprenticeship scheme from REDS10 and make a contribution, which is agreed in the contract with LLDC. Smaller firms are then enabled to participate in the supply chain. Is that not a great idea? Yes.
Lyn Brown
I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that the LLDC has reported that its targets for BME communities, women and people who have been unemployed for a long period have all been met. It did say that employment for disabled people had been slightly under target, mainly due to non-declaration at the point of induction; people are not recorded as disabled in an apprenticeship because they do not self-identify at the point of application. The LLDC has done a sterling job.
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend is making a compelling point. Apprenticeships are not a silver bullet in respect of employment; there is no guarantee of a job at the end of them. However, the real benefit is that upskilling the work force, giving them experience, skills and more advanced qualifications, opens so many more doors for them.
Lyn Brown
That is absolutely true, as many of us will know from people we meet in our surgeries and at our tea and coffee mornings. We also know it from the history of our own families. That has become of great relevance to me since I began to research my family tree following the speech I made in this place about the match-women’s strike. I was absolutely convinced that my mother must have had personal knowledge of the strike through oral history given the amount of detail she gave about it. I am still trying to get there, but I am absolutely sure that I am going to find that one of my family had at least a connection with those amazing and heroic women. So yes, I do agree that, as we know from our own experience in our own families, apprenticeships can be the essential first step on the rung of a ladder to a successful career.
In July 2013, the LLDC carried out an on-site survey that asked over half the work force—780 people out of 1,555—what their length of residency in the borough was, and 85% said that they lived in the London borough of Newham and had been for over a year. Even if they had come to the host borough only to participate in the games, to find a job through the games or because they had got a job or an apprenticeship at the games, they were still there a year later. I realise that a year is not a massive commitment to a community. I have traced my family back to the 1880s, and they have been resident in my constituency since then; I have to say that that is not bad. I am not expecting that of the trained apprentices who came through the LLDC, but their being there for a year indicates some kind of commitment to living in the area in which they were trained and given an opportunity.
Using this model of procurement to support and sustain good-quality apprenticeships strikes me as an absolutely excellent and commendable example for other public bodies to follow. This Bill is very much needed in order for the bodies involved to be able to be confident in their interaction with their supply chain. I am so grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing it to us today.
I urge the Government—the really decent Minister on the Front Bench and other hon. Members—to support the Bill and ensure that we can provide more opportunities, more training and more apprenticeships, and get more companies involved in the regeneration of our communities. That is what we are being asked to do today, and I ask the Government please to listen. I know the Minister may have been given a brief that tells him that he should not support a Bill such as this. We went through this with his Sustainable Communities Bill. If he had followed such advice, his Bill would not have got through. I urge him to be brave: support the Bill, support apprentices, and let us do the decent thing.