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

Andy Carter Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd December 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I believe that just one university in the whole of the United Kingdom does not accept BTEC qualifications, and it is not Oxford or Cambridge—they do. If these qualifications are good enough for Oxbridge, they obviously set the standard that academia wants to see.

It is more than that. BTEC is about more than reaching the same standards in theory as A-levels or years 1 and 2 of an undergraduate degree. There is also the experience and opportunities that BTECs bring to the people studying them, which academic qualifications—and possibly even T-levels—cannot.

I want the Minister think about the fact that some colleges are requiring GCSEs in English and maths to be considered for a T-level qualification That is fine, but what about those who do not have those qualifications but do have a whole string of other GCSEs at the equivalent of grade C and above, in old money? Do we really want to hold back our young people and keep them doing resits until they can get on to a T-level qualification, or do we want them to progress through T-levels and possibly study for English or maths resits at the same time? That really concerns me. I see colleges in Greater Manchester suggesting those entry requirements for T-levels, even though that is not necessarily the Government’s intention. We must look at that.

With BTEC, students who did not have GCSEs had the opportunity of going through a BTEC first before progressing to BTEC national and BTEC higher national. It is really important that we do not take opportunities away from young people. We should be increasing opportunities.

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

I just want to be clear that, on Second Reading, the Secretary of State indicated that the requirements for maths and English were being removed. I just want to make sure that the hon. Gentleman has not misunderstood that or is trying to suggest otherwise.

[Andrew Gwynne]

No, and I said clearly that that is not the intention of Ministers, but it is already happening de facto on the ground. Although colleges do not need to consider whether someone has English or maths qualifications, some are saying that they want people to have them. We have to ensure that that does not happen. At this early stage, the Minister can use his influence to ensure that colleges stick not only to the spirit of what was said on Second Reading but to the letter of what we want, which is no young person missing out on the opportunity to follow the BTEC further education route, as is currently the case.

Lastly, I will talk about depriving people of the right to take two BTECs, AGQs, diplomas or extended diplomas. In the good old days, when someone left school and went to work in what was likely to be their job for the entirety of their working life before they retired, these things did not matter. Today, the workplace and employment market are incredibly fluid. We cannot guarantee a job for life in 2021, and we certainly cannot guarantee that there will be a job for life in a decade’s time, or even two decades’ time. People going through college now cannot be guaranteed that they will remain in one job for the whole of their career. The reality is that they will have lots of jobs. The world of work will change, the challenges for people in the workplace in the future will change, and the way we work will change, so the way we learn about advances in technology and new job opportunities has to change as well. It may well be that somebody is currently employed in an area that will not exist in 10 years’ time. Are we seriously going to deny them an opportunity to reskill in a whole new area of work that is currently unforeseen but might develop? Are we really going to be so rigid as to say that somebody cannot go back to college to do a qualification at the same level as the one they got 20 years ago but is no longer relevant to modern-day work?

I support the Lords amendment. It is absolutely sensible for the future, because we do not know what the future holds. Are we really going to hold back a proportion of the workforce who might have to retrain or start literally from scratch and do another level 3 qualification in a whole different area because the level 3 qualification they did 20 or 30 years ago is no longer relevant to the modern world of work? That is absolutely crazy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lia Nici]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Great Grimsby has a history of fishing. Actually, it was the Icelandic cod wars and joining the EU that ended our fishing industry. We still have a very important fish processing industry that employs around 5,000 to 6,000 people in the town directly. I am working with the fishmongers’ association, Seafish, and my local colleges and industry to look at new apprenticeships and T-levels, so he is right: I am working on that. It is extremely important, because we have lots of people in our communities who are working at extremely high levels and have no qualifications. We need to consider not only people who are new into the workplace but those who are working and are specialists in their field. I see them every week when I am out and about. They talk passionately and are very knowledgeable—to level 5, 6, 7 and beyond—and they worked their way through. We need to ensure that qualifications can do that as well.

[Andy Carter]

My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of engaging with colleges and employers. Does she agree that it is also critical that we engage with young people and hear their experiences of T-levels? Priestley College in my constituency was one of the first in the UK to undertake T-levels, and one of the best visits I have had in my almost two years of being the Member for Warrington South involved sitting with T-level students and hearing their experiences of going out into the workplace and learning in a very different way from what they expected. We have been able to gather a tremendous amount of insight, and we can build on that. My hon. Friend made the point earlier that Opposition Members’ suggestion that vocational qualifications are moving in a direction that is perhaps not advantageous for young people is simply unfounded.

[Lia Nici]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that extremely important point. I speak to T-level students who are absolutely and utterly convinced that this is the way to go forward. I spoke earlier about my career in education and did a quick tot up of how many young people I have put through diplomas at level 3. I think about 45,000 students have been through my classrooms, studios and workshops, and they now work all over the world in a whole range of different roles within their specialism. It is really important to say that we do not want to put people in an absolute state of panic, because there are really good qualifications and jobs out there.

I will make a couple of points before I finish. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish said that the Conservative party does not like competition, but I think there is a misunderstanding here. T-levels are not a brand; they are qualifications. All those different organisations, such as Cambridge, Pearson and the City and Guilds, will all be able to feed in and offer T-levels.

I want to pick up the point about the Wolf report, which said that BTECs are high quality. The Wolf report came out in 2011, so I would be cautious about looking at something that was published 10 years ago.