Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords]

Adam Thompson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

I am pleased to speak in support of the Bill, unamended, which I believe is crucial to delivering growth and ensuring that we have a highly trained workforce that is fit for the future. As some in the Chamber will know, my job before coming to this place was teaching degree-level apprenticeships in electro-mechanical engineering. I saw at first hand the transformative power of apprenticeships in delivering high quality education while providing real world experience.

Like all apprenticeships, degree-level apprenticeships are a tripartite partnership between apprentice, university and employer—a model that has proved highly effective. Our employers frequently reported back to us that apprentices were better prepared for their professional roles than their counterparts with traditional degrees, and degree-level apprenticeship programmes have widened participation, attracting more students from deprived backgrounds, and more students with learning differences who may have struggled within the traditional university system.

As a Member of Parliament, I weave my background in education, advanced manufacturing, and apprenticeships into everything I do in this role. I recently visited WEBS Furniture Training, which trains apprentices in bespoke furniture manufacturing—a proper, old-school, artisan skill that they can carry with them and make a career from all their lives. Long Eaton and Ilkeston, the principal towns in my constituency, have a long and proud history of furniture manufacturing and lace making respectively. Both towns are what they are today firmly as products of the industrial revolution, and although the economy has changed since the Victorian era, bespoke furniture manufacturing, done by highly skilled, irreplaceable artisans, survives.

IKEA, robots, and giant factories in China cannot replicate the product of the honed, learned artistry that remains the backbone of our British manufacturing, and to survive now in this changing world, those are the kinds of skills that Britain must foster. Such skills are also an incredible means of spurring economic growth and resilience outside London and the greater south-east, and indeed outside the great cities of the north and midlands. Ilkeston and Long Eaton are post-industrial towns in the east midlands, and if we get this right, we can protect and enhance their world-beating lace making and furniture manufacturing industries long into the future.

If we are to build the 1.5 million homes that the Government have promised in the next five years, and hopefully many more long after that, and if we are to build the new towns, railway lines, reservoirs, prisons—all the things that this country has failed to invest in for so long—we will need the electricians, carpenters, joiners, builders, welders and plumbers that apprenticeship providers are training across our country.

I would like to present a case study about my good friend and colleague, Councillor Harry Atkinson. Harry was one of the many new young councillors elected in Erewash when Labour took control of the borough council in 2023. Next year, he will be Erewash’s youngest ever mayor, aged 25. Harry is also a highly skilled engineer. Leaving school at a time when about half of his cohort were going to university, Harry instead got an apprenticeship at Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station, which looms across the skyline of my constituency. Until last autumn, it was the last operational coal-fired power station in Britain. Harry has worked at Ratcliffe for nearly a decade. He has become so skilled that he has been promoted to managerial level and he is now a key trouble-shooter when things go wrong. While Ratcliffe is now in its decommissioning phase, Harry can be assured in his future because there is ample demand for the skills he learned in his apprenticeship, both locally and across the country.

Harry’s story represents the power of an apprenticeship —the conversion of hard work into real skills, an assured career and good pay. It is those kinds of jobs that we need to create for our young people. It is on us—this Government—to build a future where this kind of apprenticeship success story is the norm, not the exception, and where an apprenticeship holds every bit as much value as a degree, is every bit as desirable for children and parents, and is every bit as much a cornerstone of our growing economy.

Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters

Adam Thompson Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. The need for action is urgent. We know that far too many children are not achieving all that they can, and are held back by virtue of their backgrounds. We are determined to turn that around, and the announcement I have made today shows the determination of this Labour Government to ensure that background is no barrier to success. I am delighted that we have made such rapid progress, with more than 750 early adopters from April.

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

I welcome the statement, and I am very glad that Chaucer infant and nursery school in my constituency signed up to the early adopters scheme. When I had the great privilege of visiting the school recently, Miss Dawley gave me an excellent tour and I had a fantastic discussion with the smart school council about its priorities for our community. Free breakfast clubs will provide a real financial boost for families in my constituency, who have struggled greatly as a result of the cost of living crisis. Will the Secretary of State say more about how they will improve the opportunities available to children in Erewash?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I send my best wishes to Miss Dawley and to the whole school community. They are clearly doing fantastic work to support children in my hon. Friend’s area. Of course breakfast clubs in primary schools bring benefits to parents at the start of the school day, giving them choices and flexibility at work, but, critically, this is about boosting children’s life chances. The evidence is very clear about the impact on attendance, behaviour and attainment. This is a crucial part of ensuring that background is no barrier to getting on in life.

Higher Education Regulatory Approach

Adam Thompson Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

I give my hon. Friend that assurance. That is also why, as one of the measures that I intend to return to, we must look again at the board and executive appointments to the Office for Students. It is right that concerns have been raised that there could be the suspicion of political interference given that, rather unusually for that kind of appointment, it involves a political appointee. People might regard that as fine if they agree with the views of the Government of the day, but I do not think that is a good principle on which we enshrine in law very important positions that are central to how we uphold academic freedom and freedom of speech in this country.

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and particularly in regard to the removal of the tort from the existing legislation. That will allow our universities to ensure that funds get spent on students and not on complex legal issues.

As the Secretary of State has said repeatedly today, the Government take the need to expose students to a wide range of issues seriously. As a former academic, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether she agrees with me that our universities must remain centres of robust, rigorous debate always?

[Bridget Phillipson]

Yes, that is crucial. We know that the chance to study at university is life changing for so many students. That is of course the case for younger students—those who have what might be considered the more traditional experience of going to university at 18—but it is also about having the chance throughout life to return to education and training. That is what I have seen across so many institutions in our country. They put in place fantastic opportunities for upskilling and retraining later on in life, as people think again about how they want to go about things. I praise those institutions’ fantastic work in driving growth and innovation, and in the months to come, we will work with them to ensure they can do more.

Higher Education Reform

Adam Thompson Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

I remain slightly bewildered by the right hon. Gentleman’s approach. He has clearly learned nothing from the election campaign we have just been through and clearly was not listening when he heard time and again about the £22 billion black hole his party left behind and the difficult decisions it ducked year after year. That is the Conservatives’ record, and he should reflect on it.

[Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)]

Through a 10-year career in the higher education sector and now as chair of the all-party parliamentary university group, two things have become abundantly clear to me: first, the Conservative party left the sector in utterly dire straits when it left office, and secondly, today’s measures are absolutely necessary for our universities to avoid bankruptcy. What steps is the Secretary of State taking with universities, students and campus unions to develop a new financial model—one that delivers excellence and value for students, and stability and security for university staff and management?

[Bridget Phillipson]

My hon. Friend brings real expertise on these matters to the House. While the Government ensure that we play our part in securing financial sustainability, I have been clear with the sector that it too must do more. That involves playing an expanded role in driving economic growth, including in towns and cities across the country. The sector ought to be considering how it can do more, including working with further education providers to look at different ways of delivering provision, especially for adult learners, who often need a different approach in order to upskill, retrain and take on new opportunities. I have seen some great examples of that and some fantastic practice around the country, but there is more that the sector should be doing.