Post-18 Review of Education and Funding
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Young of Old Scone
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My noble friend is absolutely right. He will know that we are working very hard on improving careers guidance, not least in schools, and we have the National Careers Service. The quality and spread of advice is also important, particularly in disadvantaged areas. He will know that, through the Baker clause, there is now a legal obligation on secondary schools to include careers guidance to pupils. As for character development and all that, that is really left up to head teachers to decide upon. More usually than not—I do not have any statistics on me—that comes under the heading of PSHE.
Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as chancellor of one university and chairman-elect of another, and commend the report for one thing—I am quite critical of many of the issues raised in it—which is the bringing together of further and higher education into one system and thinking about them together. I think that is absolutely important, but the risk is that this is a zero-sum game: if there is no further funding to bring forward that increase in priority for further education, will that reduce the funding for higher education, with catastrophic impacts not only on teaching but especially on research, as a result of the quite substantial cross-subsidy that exists between different funding and spending streams within each university? How does the Minister see that fitting with the Government’s commitment to increase research funding to 2.4% of GDP, if universities are to be constrained in their very important role of taking that research increase forward?
One other issue has not yet been touched upon. Dr Philip Augar’s report talks about apprenticeships for the future, and the Statement stressed the Government’s consciousness of the need for reskilling and upskilling. That is particularly true of people who are mid-career. As skills and jobs change dramatically at the moment, mid-career people need upskilling just as much as others, yet the report recommends that apprenticeships at postgraduate level should not be allowed for someone who has already had a publicly funded degree qualification. I hope that the Government will reject that proposal.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
Yes, I take note of the feedback from the noble Baroness and I am sure it will be passed back to the department. I totally agree with her that bringing further and higher education together is a very good thing. As I said in the Statement, it is the first time since 1963, in the Robbins report, that they have been looked at together, and that is very important indeed.
The noble Baroness also made a very good point about the importance of research, the university sector and joined-up thinking. I reassure her that this is very much at the forefront of the Government’s thinking. It goes back to what I was saying earlier about the importance of the UK remaining competitive in a global world and of upskilling and reskilling, as she said, to have the right skills to meet needs looking well ahead—not just five or 10 years, but 20 or 30 years. Through the industrial strategy we committed £406 million of investment into education and skills. In addition, through last year’s Autumn Budget the Government invested over £1 billion to support students through their education. I hope the noble Baroness is reassured that this is very important for our economy.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Young of Old Scone
Lord Beecham
It is not about how the Government reached that figure but what, in their eyes, would be an acceptable increase in cost to provide the result the amendment seeks to achieve. If £3,000 is too much, what would be acceptable?
Baroness Young of Old Scone
I wonder whether the Minister might clear up a confusion that is arising in my mind. It strikes me that we are not talking about a cost that falls upon the builders of these homes, because it will be reflected in their price. The point we are making is that, if an additional cost of £3,500 would genuinely be passed on to the purchaser of the home, within a period of less than three years they would have recouped that amount and be in profit thereafter, for however long they stayed in that home. It is not about an undue burden on the builders, but about trying to remove an undue burden on the purchasers and residents of those homes in perpetuity.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
It does depend on where in the country we are talking about. Prices, as we know, can go up or down. However, with the same theme in mind, I would like to address a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and the evidence he produced. We have strong evidence from the Federation of Master Builders, which represents small builders—a broad and very important sector in terms of building the houses we need to build. The federation welcomed the decision last July not to proceed with zero-carbon homes, saying that it will boost the supply of housing via this very sector—small and medium-sized housebuilders. I will quote its press release, because it is relevant to this debate. It said that the policy would have “held back” small builders’ ability to build more new homes and that,
“over recent years it has been these smaller firms which have been hit disproportionately hard by the rapid pace of change”.
Hence our view that the breathing space is there; it is not that it will never happen. I reiterate the point I made at the beginning of debate: we are reviewing this and we want to have carbon-neutral homes.
Energy Bill [HL]
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Young of Old Scone(9 years ago)
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Baroness Young of Old Scone
The noble Lord is probably going to move on to it being conducive to falling arches and making children more delinquent. We are talking about correcting an administrative lash-up. Yesterday, I looked briefly at the words that the Government put forth on the consultation on the renewables obligation cessation and the transfer to contracts for difference. That was aimed at making a smooth, seam-free transition between the two subsidy schemes. What we are talking about here is the fact that the transition that came as a result of earlier closure is far from seam-free and smooth; that is all that we are talking about.
On the other hand, I cannot, while on my feet, not challenge the noble Lord on his assertions that any of the environmental or carbon reduction measures are the primary cause of a lack of competitiveness in some of our energy-intensive industries. Our energy-intensive industries have been helped, quite rightly, with the burden that has been placed on them by carbon reduction measures. However, if one looks at the range of factors that makes us competitive in the world compared with other countries, particularly the emerging economies, one will see that labour costs by far and away outweigh any impact that carbon reduction could have.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I am ready to reply to the noble Baroness’s speech, but I believe that that was an intervention on another speech.