Agriculture GCSE

Anne Milton Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) on securing this debate. He spoke passionately and emphasised the need for people—not just young people—to know about careers in all aspects of farming. He also mentioned agri-tech. In my role as Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, I have met a number of people in that sector about the opportunities. My hon. Friend and I have spoken at length before about grazing horses. This is a new subject for us to discuss, and I heard everything he had to say.

I am mindful that with apprenticeships and T-levels there is a tendency for the focus to be urban-based and for rural areas to be forgotten. I assure my hon. Friend, as well as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) —who has now left—my hon. Friends the Members for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin), for Angus (Kirstene Hair) and for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), and the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew), that I will not forget that, because it is important.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer raised the issue of food production across the world and the international aspects of farming, which is equally important. It is also important that the sector gets the workforce it needs. He will be aware that a number of subjects taught at key stage 4 and earlier include some core knowledge about food production and the environment. Those have been recognised in the changes that have come about to GCSEs. There have also been a number of changes to GCSEs that make the content more rigorous. Whatever someone does after 16, it is critical to have a good foundation in maths, English and digital skills. My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of understanding that farming is a business. Business skills are important, and such skills are predicated on a solid grounding.

In geography, for instance, pupils are expected to learn about changing weather, climate change, global ecosystems, biodiversity and resources, including an overview of how humans use, modify and change those ecosystems and environments in order to obtain food, energy and water. In the nutrition GCSE, pupils are required to understand the economic, environmental and socio-cultural influences on food availability. That is quite important. There is also content in some of the science GCSEs. I suspect that that will not be enough to satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer, or indeed my hon. Friend the Member for North Herefordshire, who spoke with his usual passion, but material in the core reformed subjects provides a general background, which forms an important grounding in some of the knowledge needed to go on and run a business.

Schools can also do outdoor learning and there is a certain amount of freedom, which many schools use. I gather that there are more than 100 schools with farms in the UK, a fact I was not aware of. They bring pupils from both rural and urban areas to understand a little bit more about farming. Also, there is a City & Guilds technical certificate in agriculture for 16 to 18-year-olds, so some opportunities do exist. In addition, apprenticeships and T-levels—technical education that will be on a par with A-levels—will change the world. To some extent, it is in the hands of hon. Members to go out into their schools to highlight the opportunities that exist.

The first teaching of T-levels will start in September 2020, with the remainder launched in two phases in 2021 and 2022. The agriculture, environment and animal care route will be rolled out in the second phase, which gives it a degree of importance not afforded to all. The content of the T-levels will be decided by employers, professionals and practitioners, which will mean they have real market relevance and real currency within the sector. We are currently consulting on T-levels and I am sure the farming sector and the broader agri-tech sector will have input.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Outer is right that early introduction to the issues is important. I launched our careers strategy in December last year. The strategy recognises that young people’s interaction with work is absolutely critical—not just doing work placements, but employers coming into schools. There are now duties on schools to bring people in and there are clear benchmarks about what they have to achieve in terms of introducing young people to the wide range of careers and the routes to getting there. Entrepreneurial, talented new entrants are needed to encourage the next generation of farmers.

There has been wide-scale reform of apprenticeships. There will be some farmers who pay levies, but there are opportunities even for small and medium-sized enterprises. Apprenticeship standards for land-based service engineer and land-based service engineer technician are already live and a number of standards are in development, including crop technician, farrier, poultry technician and stockperson. The Institute for Apprenticeships is working with employers to ensure that quality standards are high. I recently met some students in a school for young people with special needs. I was very impressed with the work that they are doing to encourage those children, who are going on to do level 2 apprenticeships in agriculture, farming and animal care. It is very impressive.

We want to make sure that the sector has the right skills, but what is absolutely critical is overcoming a not insignificant degree of parental and teacher prejudice about the options that are open for young people. It has been a pleasure to have this debate. I am sorry I did not have longer, but I assure my hon. Friend that I am on the case. It is very important that the tendency with these changes for an urban focus is spread out into rural communities. National Apprenticeship Week is coming up. He will have the opportunity—

[Bill Wiggin]

Will the Minister give way?

[Anne Milton]

Yes, briefly.

[Bill Wiggin]

It is critical that we have an academic qualification for people in urban areas in this subject, rather than making them do apprenticeships that they cannot reach because they live in the towns.

[Anne Milton]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because it is also about attracting people back into the countryside. One of the issues for rural communities is that people leave and go elsewhere. There are high-level qualifications too—it is not just about levels 2 and 3; it is about levels 4 and 5. The degree opportunities were mentioned, and degree apprenticeships are really taking off. There is not much not to like—