Skills and Growth

Angela Watkinson Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington]

The response that people give on television quiz shows when they are not quite sure of the position is “Ask me one on sport.” I may be able to give the hon. Gentleman an answer after listening to the debate on Monday, but perhaps I can help him for the future by saying that he might have asked a better question if he had asked whether I agreed that children who go to UTCs should not really be the kind of children who would consider going to university. I do not agree with that at all.

The advantage of the UTCs is the practical education that they provide. Their pupils are thinking about careers at the age of 12 or 13, which is really good. They can combine an academic education, studying for GCSEs like everyone else, with learning specific skills. The UTC in Watford is geared towards hotel and hospitality management, an area in which there are lots of good skilled jobs available, as well as IT skills, the need for which is universal. It is commendable that there are already 30 UTCs in England, with nearly 6,500 pupils, and by September 2016 there will be 25 more. I have met the principals of various UTCs, including Emma Loveland, the principal of the one in Watford, and their view of education is based on their belief that this country is under-skilled and that conventional education—notwithstanding the academies, which are very good—has been producing quite a lot of children who are either unskilled or not in a position to become skilled.

[Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the preparation for the world of work needs to involve the acquisition not only of practical or academic skills but also employability skills? Students need interpersonal skills that include good manners and good timekeeping. They need to appear interested and look as though they really want the job when they go for an interview. That is all part of getting on to the first rung of their career ladder.

[Richard Harrington]

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said. I am pleased that the UTCs are leading the way for the education system now to include ways of getting a job in the whole process, rather than that being an afterthought at a careers fair, as it used to be in the sixth form.

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[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

May I say what a privilege it is to be called in this debate—first, Mr Deputy Speaker, to welcome you back to the Chair, but also to follow the excellent maiden speech by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss)? She represents a fascinating area of the country and she gave a very good explanation of what has been going on there and her role in it. Her speech comes on the back of an enormous number of excellent maiden speeches, including those of the new broom, the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), and the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), if I may pick out just two. The latter reminded me of my days as an archaeologist at the University of Edinburgh. I am very familiar with the Antonine Wall that he described.

I want to deal with apprenticeships. I can agree with the first bit of the motion—

“That this House notes that improving education is imperative for the future economic growth of the country”—

but not with the rest of it. If the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), who is no longer in his seat, wants a more bipartisan approach, it could start with this motion acknowledging that the apprenticeship programme has been a flagship programme of this Government and we have put £1.5 billion into making sure that it works.

The wording of the motion does not bear comparison with the situation in my constituency, where the advancement of the apprenticeships scheme is having an excellent result. One way of seeing that is to look at the unemployment figures in the constituency. The figures released today show that the total number of people unemployed across the whole constituency amounts to 244. That is a diminution in the number of unemployed on the previous month, and in effect it represents full unemployment and the normal churn of people looking for jobs. Most importantly, in the previous month the number of youth unemployed in the constituency was down to 30. I have every sympathy for those 30, but this represents a very good achievement for the Government. I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), who is no longer in the Chamber, to his new position. He is right to stress the role of MPs in driving the process along; each of us has the ability to do that. In my constituency I have Henley College, which is a very strong player in providing training for apprenticeships and has been working hand in hand with companies to promote those apprenticeships.

[Dame Angela Watkinson]

Will my hon. Friend join me in welcoming the increasing number of girls who are taking STEM subjects, which are leading to apprenticeships in engineering and technical subjects, and does he agree that we need more of them?

[John Howell]

I absolutely welcome my hon. Friend’s comments. She makes a very good point that we all need to bear in mind.

At the time when the recession was at its deepest, I took the initiative in my constituency to get together a whole lot of players in this field, including Henley College, to help businesses cope with the fact that they were going into recession. Henley College rose to the challenge very well. It was instructive to find that many people in the room from firms that had done business in the area for 25 years did not know a single soul among the rest of those gathered there. I think that if I were to do the same thing now, that would not be the case. They know where they are going, and they are taking the lead in promoting apprenticeships.

Colleges like Henley can make an important contribution in encouraging the provision of training. This is to do with a lot of the work that companies are undertaking to find the best training providers to help them in delivering apprenticeships. I recently went to see two contrasting companies in the constituency to hear about the work they were doing in apprenticeships. One was DAF, the truck manufacturer, which is one of the biggest companies in my constituency and sits at the centre of a web of apprenticeships that goes right across the country. It has made great efforts to find the right training provider to help it in this—a college down in the west country with which it can work to deliver this training. It has degree-type award ceremonies at the end of the apprenticeship training so that people feel they have got something out of the whole process. I have been invited to the ceremony it will conduct in September, to witness it at first hand.

The other company I went to visit was Williams Performance Tenders. Despite the constituency being landlocked, Williams Performance Tenders is the biggest producer of boats by volume in the whole country. Having been on one of those boats, I know they are extremely fast. This company, too, has a very good apprenticeship scheme that it manages largely by itself. That scheme operates in the most deprived village in the whole of my constituency, and it is making a big difference to people’s lives.

As a result of all this, if we look back to the beginning of 2010, we see that there has been an increase of some 58% in the number of apprenticeships taken up in the constituency. That is an excellent achievement. I put on record my thanks to all the businesses that have participated in and are contributing to this.

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[Dame Angela Watkinson]

Does my hon. Friend attribute that to good co-operation between local education and training providers and local employers, so that the skills that employers need are identified and young people are taking the right courses?

[John Howell]

That is a difficult question to answer. I attribute it partly to that, but the role of schools needs to be worked on further, because they can do more.

During the election campaign, I became aware of the way schools in the constituency still regard apprenticeships in an academic light as providing an academic training rather than a genuine life option for people.