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

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Perkins]

The clause addresses the lifetime skills guarantee and the provision of opportunities for education and skills development. Subsection (1) says:

“Any person of any age has the right to free education on an approved course up to Level 3 supplied by an approved provider of further or technical education, if he or she has not already studied at that level.”

Amendment 53 would simply remove the final eleven words of the sentence. It is a probing amendment to test the reasons why the Government are seeking effectively to remove the word “guarantee” from the lifetime skills guarantee, and instead offer a significant limitation on the number of people who are able to study under it.

We think it is vital that people in low-paid employment have the chance to take additional level 3 qualifications to support them into better paid work or into new sectors. We also think it is crucial that people in industries or sectors that are diminishing have the opportunity to retrain. Substantial financial barriers would prevent them from accessing those courses.

When the Prime Minister made his speech announcing the lifetime skills guarantee in Exeter, he seemed to understand that point. The speech was all about the need for people to retrain and to be able to move from one sector where there were not going to be jobs in the future to jobs in other sectors. He wanted them to seize those opportunities. Unfortunately, the lifetime skills guarantee, which is going to take a long time to come into being anyhow, already has limitations.

Amendment 53 seeks to test the Government’s view on ensuring that more people are able to access a second qualification. Earlier, we gave the Government the opportunity to support a quite limited amendment on a second qualification.

I remind the Committee that a lifetime skills guarantee was in place for level 3 qualifications for everyone until 2013, when the former Chancellor George Osborne removed it. The decision to reintroduce this poor relation of that policy shows how the Government are learning at least some lessons from the mistakes they have made, but it lacks the ambition needed to reverse the failures of previous Government policy. More than 9 million jobs are excluded, many in sectors that have skills shortages and vacancies, such as tourism and hospitality.

I was speaking to a business in my constituency just this weekend that owns a number of establishments in the hospitality sector. It is desperate to attract members of staff into the sector. This is an organisation with a long track record of training up and developing members of staff, and ensuring that people make the best of their careers. It would be alarmed to hear that those kinds of opportunities are excluded from the lifetime skills guarantee. It is essential that the Government get this right. We hope they support our proposals.

Amendment 54 is an attempt to put on to a legal footing the promise made by the Secretary of State at the Association of Colleges conference in November. He said that

“from next April any adult in England who earns a yearly salary below the National Living Wage will also have the chance to take these high value Level 3 qualifications for free.”

That is precisely what the amendment seeks to do. It says that if anyone has a level 3 qualification and is earning below the living wage, as identified by the Living Wage Foundation, they would be able to take another level 3 qualification.

As we have laid out, we think that restricting the opportunities for students to take a second level 3 qualification is a huge missed opportunity. As the Committee has rejected our more ambitious amendment to allow all students the right to take a second level 3 qualification, we believe that the Government should at least be willing to support an amendment that supports what the Secretary of State has said.

New clause 7 relates to students wishing to do a level 3 qualification in an area where the local skills improvement plan has identified a local skills shortage. It would allow the local skills improvement plan to approve funding for a second level 3 qualification where local labour market shortages are identified.

The Bill contradicts itself. Reportedly, its aim is to ensure that skills policy is determined locally. New clause 7 would ensure that local skills improvement plans were able to identify that there was a skills need in the area and encourage people to retrain in that sector. Anyone who votes against that once again will seize power from local skills improvement plans and place it in the hands of the Secretary of State. We look forward to hearing what I imagine will be universal support for our amendments from hon. Members who are keen to support people in their constituencies.

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

I rise briefly to support my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield in his amendments 53 and 54 and new clause 7. We have had this debate already in Committee and I still think that the Committee made the wrong decision to prevent learners having a second chance at a level 3 qualification for the reasons that I set out.

Those reasons were as valid the other day as they are now for these amendments, because we live in a dynamic economy where industries come and go. The industry that my town was historically dependent on, and that the town of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South is equally famous for, is hatting. Those industries have pretty much died out, but the hatting industry made Denton famous. The Bowlers of bowler hat fame came from Denton, although they made their money at Lock & Co. Hatters in St James’s in London. However, that industry and those skills have gone.

In the past 50 or 60 years, my constituency has had to diversity and the workforce has had to retrain. That pace of chance will be prevalent in the decades ahead as technology advances, the global economy shrinks to make the world a smaller place, and international trade becomes the norm, meaning that we buy goods from other countries rather than make them here.

If we are going to have an industrial strategy that says that we want to be the lead nation in the new green industrial revolution, we need to ensure that we have the skills and the workforce to match that ambition. I am supportive of that and, if we are being honest, every Member of the House recognises the challenges and is supportive of it. That is not a top-level ambition, however; it has to be dealt with in the nitty-gritty of legislation.

We have a Bill going through Parliament that is rightly focused on skills and training and on ensuring that the next generation of the workforce has a built-in dynamism to be able to diversify, retrain and fill skills in the areas of the economy that have shortages. As the Opposition have said, that may mean someone has to have a second bite of the cherry at a level 3 qualification. If the subject in which someone has a level 3 is no longer fit for purpose, or relevant to the modern workplace, are we going to leave them languishing with inappropriate qualifications and skills that are no longer needed, or are we going to give them the opportunity to retrain, reskill and join the workforce, hopefully in highly paid, decent jobs? That is why I support amendments 53 and 54, which would put that idea on a legal footing, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield rightly said.

The voice of local businesses and the economic partnership between local government, businesses, academia and training providers are setting out local skills improvement plans. They identify key skill shortages in their economic areas, and they should be given the flexibility to say, “You know what, in my area, we have an absolute shortage of skills in a particular sector. We want to make sure that our area is really dynamic in that sector and therefore it is a key priority for our partners to skill up to level 3 adequate numbers of the workforce.” That is sensible. It is devolution as it is meant to work, from the bottom up, and that is why I also support my hon. Friend’s new clause 7.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish, because I agree with everything he said.

The amendments and the new clause address the issue from the relevant two angles. They are designed to offer a genuine lifetime skills guarantee for individuals—one that is aspirational and does not fall back on the argument that because someone got a couple of A-levels 30 years, they cannot now retrain for a level 3 qualification to meet a skills need in the local area. I think about the changing world of work, and how much more is now digital or IT-based. There has been a shift in skills, which is driving our economy. Unless we agree to the amendments, so many people will be locked out from making a genuine shift in their skillset and acquiring a higher skilled job, which would put them on a sustainable footing. It is short-sighted to attempt to restrict that opportunity.

We have heard much about the responsibility of employers to lead the development of skills plans for their areas, given that they understand their local economies. New clause 7 is positive because it would genuinely enable employer representative bodies to shape what that level 3 qualification should be, based on the skills shortages in their areas. The new clause would meet the purpose of ERBs in developing the skills plans and ensure the lifetime skills guarantee for local people.

I support the terms of the amendments and the new clause. I should add that there are still a few hat factories in Luton producing artisan hats, and very good they are, too.

[Andrew Gwynne]

And in Denton.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I will speak to the amendments and the new clause that appear in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield.

Of course we all want to see a high-skill, high-wage workforce. We need that for our economy. A crucial part of that is the retraining of employees. I am sure that most people in the room agree that the evolving workplace means that we need a process of continuous development if we are to adapt and ensure that our economy thrives, against an ever-competitive global marketplace.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Burghart]

New clause 5, tabled by the hon. Member for Rotherham, seeks to require the Secretary of State to undertake a national review and have a plan for addressing the attainment gap within six months of the Act passing in relation to those who have not achieved grade 4 or above in GCSE English or maths. The Government are clear that supporting people who are yet to achieve GCSE grade 4 or above in English or maths—the equivalent of level 2—is of the utmost importance, given that good levels of English and maths are linked to better economic and social outcomes. We want young people and adults to have the literacy and numeracy skills to thrive in work, education and life. That is why we already have a clear plan and are taking significant steps to support those who have not achieved grade 4 or above in English and maths.

All learners aged 16 to 19 are required to continue studying English and maths if they do not have a level 2 qualification in these subjects already, including, for example, those studying T-levels. Additionally, apprenticeships in particular have an exit requirement in English and maths in order to complete the programme. We also support adults by fully funding GCSE and functional skills qualifications in English and maths up to level 2 through the adult education budget. In addition, as of next year, we are rolling out Multiply, a new £559 million programme for adult numeracy, announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor at the spending review. This will significantly increase the provision and opportunities for adults to improve their maths skills.

More broadly, we have reformed functional skills qualifications, which are a widely acceptable alternative to GCSEs, improving their rigour and relevance. The Government have also established 21 centres for excellence in mathematics, designing new and improved teaching resources, building teacher skills and spreading best practice across the country through their wider networks. In response to disruption to education during the pandemic, a further £222 million has been provided to continue the 16-to-19 tuition fund for an addition two years from the 2022-23 academic year, allowing students to access one-to-one and small group catch-up tuition in subjects that will benefit the most, including English and maths.

Improving English and maths attainment is already a key part of the Government’s plans across higher, further and technical education. In 2020, 68% of 19-year-olds held grade 4 or above in both English and maths GCSE, which is an increase of 6 percentage points since 2013-14, the year before we required students to continue studying English and maths. This is a major step forward. The OECD’s 10-yearly survey of adult skills showed that in England people aged 16 to 65 currently perform significantly above the OECD average for literacy and around the OECD average for numeracy. The Government continually review the impact of policy, so a formal review at this time is not necessary.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am heartened by what the Minister highlighted in his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield about some of the Government’s attempts to close the attainment gap, but the reality is that it still exists and we should redouble our efforts to close it. I feel passionately about that because failing to get a good GCSE in English and maths can hold a young person back and deprive them of real opportunities later in life.

I know that from experience, because as I mentioned last Tuesday, in 1990 I left high school with a clutch of good GCSEs, but they did not include maths. I really struggled with maths at high school, much to the frustration of my dad, who was a maths teacher. It turned out that I had dyscalculia, so I struggled with numbers.