Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Alex Burghart Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Alex Burghart)]

As someone who has spent the majority of his life in education or education policy, it is a real honour to be presenting this Bill on Second Reading. The Bill forms a cornerstone of some historic reforms that we are bringing to the skills agenda in our country: reforms that will help us more closely align skills training with the needs of employers; reforms that will help us to help all students, at all ages and stages, find more reliable routes to employment; and reforms that will help us level up our country and build back better.

This has been a long journey, and I want to thank some of the people who have been involved in it: not least, in the other place, Lord Sainsbury and Baroness Wolf, who have done enormous work to get us here, but also my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), the former Secretary of State, who gave such an impressive speech, and my hon. and glamorous Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), the former Minister for apprenticeships and skills. I also feel the need to mention another noble Lord in the other place who wrote a report for the Government in 2012—Lord Lingfield, who is genuinely one of the unsung heroes of education reform over the past 30 years. I put on record my debt to him and to his thinking. All of their work—the cross-party work that we have heard so much about tonight—has shown us the importance of building a skills system that can work for everyone.

There have been some powerful speeches, many delivered at high speed, and some important arguments made. I will try to deal with as many as I can in the time I have available. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said at the outset, our reform agenda is about both local prosperity and global competitiveness. It is about the needs of labour market and the needs of the student, and it is about our collective need for a more prosperous future. That is why this Government are putting the money down to get the job done: £3.8 billion more for FE and skills over the Parliament, the biggest increase in over a decade; £1.6 billion more for education at 16 to 19; £554 million for adult skills, a 29% increase in real terms over four years; and £2.7 billion for apprenticeships by the end of this spending review period—all this and more, to give people the skills the economy needs.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the Chair of the Education Committee, said that skills had often been the Cinderella service; well, tonight it continues its journey to the ball. But if it is Cinderella, I wonder who the fairy godmother is. Is it my right hon. Friend himself, is it the Secretary of State, or is it the Chancellor, who provided this money? The Opposition have talked about the state of funding over time. I taught history for quite a long time, and one of the things we learn when we study history is that the left loves to rewrite it—when it is not destroying it. Some Conservative Members remember why there was a need for austerity in 2010. Indeed, in a powerful speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) talked about a time when the Opposition were in power and things were not quite so rosy as they seem to remember.

[Kate Green]

This is not rewriting history but merely to point out to the Minister, who may not remember, that when Labour left office in 2010 the economy was growing, and what happened then was that it was thrown into reverse by the Government of the time’s austerity policies.

[Alex Burghart]

Rewriting history yet again: everybody knows that the last Labour Government left the economy of this country in the gutter and it required a Conservative Government to pick it up and to create the jobs miracle that we saw before the pandemic.

We want the skills system to become more responsive to the needs and knowledge of employers, creating dialogue between skills providers and industry. That is why the Bill establishes the employer representative bodies and local skills improvement plans.[Official Report, 19 November 2021, Vol. 703, c. 6MC.] Employer representative bodies will hold the ring locally on the needs of local employers, finding out what skills they are looking for and working with colleges to make sure that those skills are built up. For the first time, employers in an area will know exactly who to go to when they want providers to respond to that need. That is what I have heard when I have gone around the country in my first few weeks in this job. The other day I went to Doncaster and heard the people who are masterminding the first LSIP say that for the first time people know to come to them in order to speak to providers and get skills put on the table.

Using that sort of intelligence, ERBs will produce local skills improvement plans to nudge local learning in the right direction. An ERB is a body with a plan to help the next gigafactory, the next offshore wind farm, the next nuclear plant and the next electric vehicle factory to find the workers with the skills they need; a body to help the retrofitters, the digital networkers and the constructors of HS2 to get the skills that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) talked about in terms of the green revolution and our net zero plans; and a plan to help local areas get the skills they need to harness the talents of the people to build the infrastructure of tomorrow, led by employers, supported by Government and driven forward by our excellent further education colleges.

However, our work to align the needs of the economy with the desire of students for modern skills does not stop there. To do all this, we need technical qualifications that meet the needs of employers. T-levels—the new gold-standard qualification at level 3—have been drawn up with the input and expertise of more than 250 employers to ensure that they provide students with the right skills for the workplace—skills that will be relevant and recognised in the real world. This, we must remember, was done following the recommendations of the Labour peer, Lord Sainsbury, to whom I again pay tribute.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali) spoke—I refer to him because my father-in-law was from Birmingham, Hall Green— powerfully and movingly about his experience and his son’s. I have no doubt that he and his son would have been able to do a BTEC in engineering, flourished through it and been able to enjoy some of the great advantages I have seen when I have visited colleges in south Essex, Walsall and south London, where students are studying T-levels and thriving.[Official Report, 19 November 2021, Vol. 703, c. 6MC.]

The hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) made a very good speech. Putney does not have T-levels yet, but she should visit one of her neighbours that does. She will see teachers and students who are inspired, working with employers, getting excellent work placements and seeing their destination as work. These are high-quality qualifications that will meet the needs of the local community.

I was pleased to hear the Opposition support our changes on level 2 English and maths as an exit requirement for T-levels, because we want these new gold-standard qualifications to be open to as many people as possible. What we see emerging is a new pathway to work for everyone at 16-19. For students at level 3, there will be world-class qualifications designed with employers leading to degree-level apprenticeships, work and, yes, higher education, because more than 50 universities already accept our T-levels. For students who are at level 2 at 16-19, there will be, thanks to our forthcoming consultation on level 2 and below, world-class qualifications designed with employers leading to traineeships, apprenticeships or work, or, indeed, the opportunity to take up the Prime Minister’s lifetime skills guarantee at level 3 and get the skills they want, that they might not have had the chance to gain at school.

I say to the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) that there will be choices for everybody and opportunities for everyone to progress towards work. Skilling up will not end when someone leaves college. We have bootcamps of the type I have seen in Salford and Doncaster. We have the multiply programme for numeracy skills—the great half-a-billion-pound project initiated by the Chancellor at the spending review. For literacy, which was understandably raised by a number of Members, I remind the House that full funding for adults who do not already have a GCSE pass is already available. We also intend to help people who have level 3 to progress. That is why the Bill lays the foundations for the lifelong loan entitlement, which gives adults who want to get a higher technical qualification the opportunity to invest in their future, to retrain and upskill.

This is a landmark Bill that will further the cause of skills in this country. It will give students the skills they need and that the economy wants, and I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] (Programme)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 7 December 2021.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Steve Double.)

Question agreed to.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] (Money)

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:

(1) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State; and

(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Nadhim Zahawi.)

Question agreed to.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] (Ways and Means)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the charging of fees under the Act.—(Nadhim Zahawi.)

Question agreed to.