Adult and Further Education
Andrew Western Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
It is a privilege to contribute to this estimates day debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) on securing this discussion on such an important topic.
I was contacted by the Trafford College Group, which delivers skills and qualifications to more than 12,000 learners and employer partners across the south of Greater Manchester across multiple college sites, including its North Trafford campus in my constituency. Like many colleagues, I am not naive to the challenges facing the further education sector, but I confess that I was still shocked by what Trafford College Group told me about the impact that more than a decade of underinvestment in further education and a workforce crisis have had on its ability to meet the needs of local students and, indeed, employers. Its frontline experience must be considered today as we discuss departmental spending on further education.
Allow me to offer a brief summary of what I was told is happening on the ground: 140 staff vacancies in the last 12 months—a cumulative figure of nearly 20% of its workforce. In health, care and early years courses, it reported significant issues recruiting staff, due to salary expectations leading to more than 20 vacancies in those areas alone in the past year. That forced Trafford College Group last year to take the decision to cease delivery of health and social care apprenticeships. Given the challenges in recruitment in that sector, that is a tragedy.
There are approximately 165,000 vacancies in social care and 132,000 vacancies in the NHS—the total figure is roughly equivalent to the entire population of a city the size of Newcastle. I suggest to any member of the New Conservatives group who seeks to blame immigration for the recruitment problems in our care sector that, instead, they look at their own party’s record on funding the courses that train and upskill the care staff we need, because it is blatantly not good enough.
It is not just health and social care where Trafford College Group is having to restrict entry to courses. Building services, electrics, construction, engineering and early years education are all areas in which students in Greater Manchester are not accessing courses, which could be vital to improving their life chances, all because there simply is not the capacity in the workforce to teach them. It is not just students who lose in that situation; each of those courses is crucial to the needs of our local, regional and national economy. The National Association of Colleges and Employers has highlighted construction and engineering in particular as areas of the economy where skills shortages are most acute.
Like social care, early years education is crying out for more and better qualified staff, who can serve the equally essential purposes of narrowing attainment gaps for children from disadvantaged backgrounds while freeing up young parents—especially women—to drive forward in their careers, with all the benefits that has for the economy through increased productivity.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour from Greater Manchester for an excellent speech. Trafford College Group has several campuses, including Stockport College, which I visited recently. One of the key issues that the principal highlighted was workforce recruitment because the pay scales are so low. That has a disproportionate impact on more disadvantaged communities, some of whom I represent. Does he agree that the Government are simply failing on pay for that sector?
Andrew Western
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and he is a champion for further education in his constituency. I quite agree that pay for the further education teaching workforce has lagged behind teaching salaries more broadly for some time. This is a growing crisis, which is leading to a loss of opportunities for our young people. I absolutely agree that the Government are failing on that and need to address it urgently.
Holding colleges back with inadequate funding to both address their workforce crisis and reverse the cuts since 2010 is the ultimate false economy, but that is exactly what is happening. Despite recent uplifts, the truth is that further education funding compares extremely unfavourably with both university and school funding.
The latest IFS annual report on education spending in England found that further education spending per student aged 16 to 18 in 2022-23 was £6,800, which is lower than spending per pupil in secondary schools and only 11% to 12% greater than per pupil funding in primary schools, having been more than two times greater in the early 1990s. The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) made a similar point with that data earlier.
Andrew Western
The report acknowledged that extra funding announced in the 2019 and 2021 spending reviews would result in real increases in funding per student up to 2024-25. However, that only partially reverses earlier cuts, and increasing numbers of 16 to 18-year-olds up to 2030 will put further pressure on finances after 2024, when departmental spending plans have been scaled back. The director of the IFS has himself said the Government’s real-term cuts to further education are:
“not a set of priorities consistent with a long term growth strategy. Or indeed levelling up.”
In contrast, the Labour party sees how a thriving further education sector is essential to growth. That is why a Labour Government will create a skills system that works for businesses and for people across our country, by reforming the apprenticeships levy, devolving skills budgets and delivering a national mission to upskill, led by a new Skills England. Devolving skills budgets in particular is something I would welcome after seeing, from my time leading Trafford Council and as the work and skills lead for Greater Manchester, the real need for skills policy to be better aligned and integrated with regional economic policy and local labour markets, to deliver a more localised, tailored approach to skills provision. In short, colleges, like those currently doing great work in the Trafford—and indeed Stockport—area, have a critical role to play in any plans to grow the economy, but they need support and investment to be able to do that after years of declining funding for adults’ and young people’s education.
I hope that when the Minister replies, he will set out what further support and investment will be provided to Trafford College, and colleges like it across the country, to tackle the workforce crisis that is holding them back, holding students back and holding our local, regional and national economy back, too.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Western Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak)
I am delighted that we are joined today by a delegation from Kyiv. This coming Friday there will be a national moment of reflection, which will give us the opportunity to pay tribute to the courage of the Ukrainian people and demonstrate our solidarity with Ukraine. This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Andrew Western
I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s comments about the bravery of the Ukrainian people. Labour has asked his Government on three occasions to commit to a police response to every domestic abuse call. To date, no answer has been forthcoming. Can the Prime Minister provide a response today?