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

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd December 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

We have to legislate for the worst case scenarios as well as for the best case scenarios. Given that there is little democratic oversight, particularly outside areas with metro Mayors, in this whole process, does my hon. Friend think that we perhaps need parliamentary scrutiny of any decision that the Secretary of State makes in respect of who the representative bodies are and are not at any one particular time?

[Mr Perkins]

That is an important point. Obviously part of my hon. Friend’s constituency comes within the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. He and his colleagues in the Greater Manchester area have a very strong sense of the priorities for their local area. They might have worked very closely with an employer representative body and come up with a plan that they liked. However, the Secretary of State might not like that plan and might decide, “Well, I’m overruling that”’; the Secretary of State is sat there in Stratford-on-Avon, but he thinks he knows better than my hon. Friend what Greater Manchester needs. Some kind of process that just explains on what basis the Secretary of State will make these decisions would be very valuable.

This reminds me of what was happening around the time of the second coronavirus lockdown, when we know that the Government and the Secretary of State were very angry with Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, for not complying with their strict demands and edicts. If it was an employer representative body that was angering the Secretary of State, goodness knows whether or not he would cite this clause and say, “Well, we’ll have to get rid of you, because you haven’t done what we said”.

When the Secretary of State awards himself such powers—and we understand that there is a need to put in place a clause to replace ERBs, on occasion—some kind of parliamentary scrutiny is needed of those concerns and the desire to remove the designation.

It would be useful to hear more from the Minister about how that process will take place. Who will be able to make representations around the replacement of an ERB? What weight will be given to the representations of alternative employer representative bodies, FE colleges and independent training providers? The worry is that the plans may mean that independent providers that play an important role in individual sectors are overlooked and are not seen within the employer representative bodies or the local skills improvements plans. Who will be able to make representations on all that, and what level of scrutiny will there be? Those are important questions, and we look forward to the Minister assuring us on those matters.

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[Mr Perkins]

I beg to move amendment 32, in clause 6, page 7, line 23, at end insert—

“(2A) The Institute shall perform a review of the operation of the apprenticeship levy, paying particular regard to ensuring that sufficient apprenticeships at level 3 and below are available.”.

This amendment would require the Institute to perform a review of the operation of the apprenticeship levy, and would require the Institute to pay particular regard to ensuring that sufficient apprenticeships at level 3 and below are available.

The debate on this amendment is the only opportunity that the Committee will get to talk about apprenticeships in the skills Bill, and that is pretty remarkable. The amendment would require the institute to perform a review of the operation of the apprenticeship levy and to pay particular regard to ensuring that sufficient apprenticeships at level 3 and below are available. Apprenticeships are the gold standard in vocational opportunity. Every single one of us is aware of apprenticeship providers and employers that have excellent apprenticeship programmes in our constituencies, and we have met people whose lives have been changed by their apprenticeships. However, we also know that for many of our constituents—particularly our younger constituents—apprenticeships remain elusive. There are far fewer apprenticeship opportunities than there should be.

A Labour Government will be committed to increasing the number of apprenticeship opportunities and addressing the calamitous collapse in new apprenticeship starts at levels 2 and 3. We will promote apprenticeships as the No. 1 vocational opportunity for young people who are not attending university, and we will seek funding for them ahead of schemes such as kickstart, which is more costly and less well defined, demands less commitment from employers and makes less impact on learners. It is a vivid demonstration of the Government’s complete failure to address key issues that while they preside over their failure on apprenticeships, they introduce a skills Bill that almost entirely fails to touch on the reform needed to salvage these crucial career opportunities.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important point, because it is, quite frankly, flabbergasting that in a skills Bill there is very little mention—in fact, almost none—of apprenticeships. For so many, apprenticeships could be the route to developing the skills for the jobs of the future. When I talk to local employers, they now appear to be using the apprenticeship levy funding to upskill their own workforces, rather than using the money to skill up the next generation.

[Mr Perkins]

Absolutely, and that speaks to the heart of the amendment. The apprenticeship levy has, remarkably, led to a steep decline in those aged under 25 taking on entry-level apprenticeships. In fact, it must be the first policy—well, that is probably not true, but certainly it is one policy—that set out with a particular objective, only to achieve the polar opposite. We have an apprenticeship policy that has drastically reduced the number of apprenticeship opportunities, and it is worth reflecting for a moment on the scale of that failure.

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[Mr Perkins]

Absolutely: construction is a great example. As I have said, there are 217,000 too few construction workers. Anyone who has tried to get serious construction work done at their house—an extension or similar—will know how tough it is to find a builder who has time to do it. Our country is losing huge amounts of growth and we are also facing a housing and homelessness crisis, because we simply do not have enough workers in the construction industry. It is incredibly important that these issues are addressed.

We would have liked to propose more specific reforms to the apprenticeship levy. More specific amendments would have sought to rectify years of neglect by this Government, particularly of SMEs and sectors that are crying out for a pipeline of apprenticeships. However, we were told that such reforms were outside the scope of the Bill. Nevertheless, we are proposing that the IATE introduces a review of the current operation of the levy, particularly in relation to ensuring that sufficient opportunities are available at level 3 and below. That is essential to ensuring that opportunities exist for young people who are seeking to step on to the first rung on the ladder, as well as adults who are seeking to retrain, particularly in sectors such as care and others that I have referred to. It is vital that levy funds are used to train up the next generation.

Within the scope of what already exists, the Government are attempting to do things that I think are positive, supporting businesses that pay the levy to allow their supply chain to use those funds, thereby benefiting more small businesses. However, this is still about trying to correct a wrong that was there in the first place: a better apprenticeship reform would be about making sure that more of that funding actually goes to small businesses and is used in every single community in the land. It would be about more people doing level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships, more opportunities for 16 to 19-year-olds, and the careers regime that my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington referred to, which would give young people opportunities early in their school career to follow the apprenticeship path. It would allow young people to go into a level 2 apprenticeship at the age of 16 and to work their way through to a degree at 25 or 26, after having been paid all the way there. That is the kind of future that a Labour Government would get us to.

[Andrew Gwynne]

It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I rise to support the Opposition amendment—a modest amendment that simply asks for a review of the apprenticeship levy, paying particular regard to ensuring that sufficient apprenticeships at level 3 and below are available. This is really important. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield has set out in great detail why we believe the apprenticeship levy is not working in the way in which the Government promised. The intention of the apprenticeship levy is a good one, but the practice of it in our constituencies is not working. We can see that in all the data and all the facts that my hon. Friend has laid out. The professional bodies responsible for training also support that view.

If the Minister has not already read the House of Lords Youth Unemployment Committee report, I encourage him to do so because it is very clear about the failings of the levy and the negative impact it has had on apprenticeship opportunities for younger people. It acknowledges that there has been an increase in higher-level apprenticeships, which is good, but drilling down into the data we see what the Opposition have already outlined—employers ensuring that their existing workforce are trained up to higher levels. That is good, and continuous improvement in the workplace is something we should support, but I do not believe the apprenticeship levy should pay for something that has always been paid for by employers. It goes against the ethos of the apprenticeship levy. Why do I speak so passionately about apprenticeships? I want to take the Committee back to 1990 when we had a Tory Government. We were in the 11th year of Baroness Thatcher’s premiership.

[Alex Burghart]

Hear, hear.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I know how to warm up a Committee. It was also the year that 16-year-old Andrew Gwynne left Egerton Park High School in Denton with a clutch of good GCSEs, but I did not know what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I did not want to go to college, so I took the rather unusual decision, given how it was painted at the time, of applying to go on youth training, the successor to the old YTS—the youth training scheme. I was very fortunate in the opportunity that youth training gave me. As I say, I had a clutch of good GCSEs and could have gone on to study A-levels, but I did not want to do that. I wanted to go down the vocational route.

I had to have a job interview at ICL—International Computers Ltd, now part of Fujitsu—in West Gorton in Manchester. I got my new suit from Burton and got on the 210 bus, nervous as anything. I had my job interview and got the two-year placement. When I think of the real responsibilities that they gave that 16 to 18-year-old, I look back in horror because I am not sure that I would have given 16 to 18-year-old Andrew Gwynne those opportunities—[Interruption.] I can see you staring at me from the Chair, Mr Efford—I do not think you would have given 16 to 18-year-old Andrew Gwynne those responsibilities either.