Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) on his success in the ballot and on bringing forward this important Bill that I absolutely endorse because if, like me, hon. Members believe in extending opportunity to all, careers guidance is one sure way to do that. In fact, I believe in it so much that more than a decade ago I set up my own charity If Chloe Can to bring careers guidance to schools.

I work with schools across the country, including many in deprived areas, with pupils from all backgrounds in all areas. I bring them successful people from backgrounds such as theirs who have wonderful careers to inspire and motivate them, and to make them start thinking while they are in school, “What would I like to be when I leave school? What can I do? What would I like to achieve in my life?”. How can anybody aspire to work towards something exciting in a career if they do not know what careers exist—more importantly, if they do not know what careers exist for them? They need to see people like them achieving in all walks of life.

Letting pupils know early on, while they are in school, what paths are trodden, what hobbies are done, what work experience can be gained, and what exam grades are needed for a profession is absolutely key. It fires pupils up to do more in school and to go for those grades, because they know what they are in school for. I have seen pupils doing so much better in education once they have a purpose and they know what it is all about.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt, because my right hon. Friend is making an important point about where we find careers advisers and from which backgrounds they come. Would she say a little more about the people who are going into schools and how they are incentivised to do so and to help by preaching about their success, and to lead as an example in their community? We could all do with understanding how to do that in our constituencies to encourage it further.

[Esther McVey]

Most people, if asked, really want to go in and speak to pupils about what they do and the opportunities that are out there. I work with more than 200 successful women who give up their time for free because they want to help the next generation of pupils to do well. In the last decade, I have worked with thousands of pupils; I have written career books; and I have done a touring play with the National Youth Theatre and spoken to a thousand pupils at a time with panels of experts on stage who, as my hon. Friend mentioned, all gave up their time to talk about an array of different subjects.

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[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend is so right. Blessed are those who know immediately what they want to do. Some people might know, perhaps in sport or if they are creatives or those who are gifted in a certain way. Many of us do not know for many years. In fact, life is a journey, finding out where we fit in, and we will do many jobs along the way, hopefully adding to life and society as we go along.

[Anthony Mangnall]

My right hon. Friend is making an interesting point about the fact that we will have many different careers and relearn and have to look at new jobs that come along. There is an interesting point here: if people are allowed to get experience and gain advice from careers advisers early on, whatever they do later on in their life, they have the understanding of how they can engage with businesses and how they can find out about new careers. Doing it sooner serves people much better later in life if they do decide to make changes. Can my right hon. Friend see the Bill going further on that in future years?

[Esther McVey]

Absolutely; my hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is important that someone knows that they are going to have to upgrade their skills, where that support is and that it is not a mountain to climb, but that they will probably do it alongside their career throughout their life.

I believe, too, that we cannot put more on the shoulders of teachers. The Government need an updated careers strategy and better links with the National Careers Service and the Careers & Enterprise Company and to signpost better so schools know where they can turn to get the extra support. Not every teacher will know about every profession. They need to bring other people in, so that signposting to those voluntary organisations, charities and businesses is absolutely key.

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[Anthony Mangnall]

I could not have said it better, and it is also essential that universities do not try to charge the same tuition fees if they are going to do courses via Zoom.

[Simon Baynes]

I strongly support my hon. Friend’s intervention. This is something that has been brewing in my mind as I see the fractured form of education that is being provided by the universities attended not only by my children but by the children of many of my friends.

My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) spoke about the integration of training and paid work within the further education system, and that process will shake up the universities by making them realise that it is not just about academic courses or the odd lecture. It has to be a much more structured and much more concentrated form of education for our young people.

In conclusion, I add my voice to those of other hon. Members here today in supporting my hon. Friend’s Bill, which does a great deal of good for pupils across our country and will no doubt have a tangible and positive impact on our young people at a time when they are making some of the most exciting and important decisions of their entire lives.

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[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) and his Bill. I was delighted to have the opportunity to intervene on the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He is not in his place at the moment, but I really appreciated his idea of sending a copy of every contribution he makes in this place that has a devolved suggestion or idea to the relevant Minister in the devolved Administration. I will be working on that myself in respect of the Welsh Government, and I pay tribute to the Northern Ireland Executive for responding to every contribution from him—this must be a Department in itself.

On careers, life is presenting a lot of change at the moment for anyone entering the labour market. The fact that I have a pen behind my ear attests to the fact that I come from a family of carpenters, and my brother reminds me time and again that when he had his careers advice, they did not listen. When he went to see his careers manager, he knew he wanted to be a carpenter—his dad and granddad had been carpenters, and he was going to be one, and I can confirm to the House that he is one—but would the careers adviser listen? There was a keen interest in getting him to university, but that was never going to happen and I could have told him that for years, as he would allude to. Members can imagine my careers conversation and his, and can imagine Christmas dinner conversations between three carpenters and a politician.

In this place, we have alluded to the fact that technical education and academic education need parity, and they absolutely do. That is why I intervened in the opening remarks about the Baker clause and why I am so passionate about getting outside expertise into our schools. I pay tribute, as other Members have, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) for the excellent charitable contribution that she has made. That kind of impact—that lively, active impact in our schools—will change careers advice for the better.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, and I hate even to contemplate the sense of disappointment in the Williams family when they learned that he was going to be a politician, not a carpenter, but I am quite interested to know whether he has read the book by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes), of course showing a diverse range of experience.

My point is really about the fact that when we get people, businessmen and those with different skills into schools, we are also getting them to understand how those schools operate and enhancing their relationships with those schools and what they can do in the future. We are developing a relationship that actually lasts far longer than the pupils who are there at the time, and we should be encouraging that all over the country, especially in the devolved Administrations.

[Craig Williams]

My hon. Friend makes a very valid point, and he has done so far more eloquently than I will in the next few minutes. I am conscious of the next private Member’s Bill—my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson) is sitting next to me—so I will not go on for too long. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) is right, and I can confirm that I have indeed read the books—not book, but “books” plural—by my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Simon Baynes). I can also say that he offered me a lot of career advice in my day, and indeed may be blamed by most of the Williams family for this career of mine, as he would confirm.

I come back to the main thrust of this Bill, why I am here supporting it, and why I will be imploring the devolved Administrations, particularly the Welsh Government in my case, to follow it for careers advice.

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[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), who has the second most beautiful constituency in the country—of course, St Austell and Newquay is the best.

I left full-time education at the age of 16 and went straight to work for Barclays bank. However, I recently had a conversation with one of my former teachers, who remarked that many of my teachers thought I left school long before. I distinctly remember that, in my early years, the only thing I wanted to be in life was a British Airways pilot. I was fixed on this but, unfortunately for me, just before I started my O-levels—I am old enough to have done O-levels—British Airways closed its airline training school, which threw me into complete confusion about what I would do. I ended up doing my O-levels and, almost by accident, going to work for Barclays bank. I look back now and think, “If only there had been better advice to help me think about my career.”

I have since meandered through various opportunities that life has put my way and somehow ended up in this House, but that was never the plan. There was never a sense that this is where I wanted to go. I very much welcome this excellent Bill, and I am pleased that the Government are supporting it to make sure that good careers advice is available to all our students throughout their secondary education. That is absolutely right.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) made the important point that we have to be very clear that careers advice is not about closing down the options for young people too early. Very few of us end up doing what we thought we were going to do when we were at school. It is about giving our schoolchildren a sense of aspiration, a sense of all the opportunities that our incredible country provides for our young people, and giving them the confidence and the attitude that they can go and make the most of it, wherever life may take them. It has to be about inspiring them and getting them to lift their aspirations.

I particularly say that because I represent a Cornish constituency, where we struggle with a lack of aspiration among our young people. Very often their view of the horizon is too low, and one of the best things we can do, particularly in secondary schools, is raise the horizon for our young people. Good-quality careers advice can definitely do that, so this is an excellent Bill.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I apologise for interrupting my hon. Friend, because he is making an important point. In the south-west, we know far too well how many people are looking over the horizon and are looking to move away to find their future career. They are not aware of the opportunities within their midst. This Bill presumably allows us the opportunity to find what is both immediately available in such areas but also what can be created or invented.

[Steve Double]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Since I was first elected to this House, I have focused on the need to create better opportunities for young people in the south-west and, in my case, particularly Cornwall. Too many of my peers had no option but to leave Cornwall and the south-west to achieve their ambitions in life. I count myself incredibly lucky that I was able to stay in Cornwall and make a reasonable life for myself, but that opportunity has not been available to many. That is one reason why I have spent so much time in this place championing such things as the spaceport, renewable energy, lithium extraction and all the things that are creating incredible opportunities in Cornwall for the future, so that young people growing up today can think, “I can have a good career in Cornwall. I don’t have to leave the place I love and call home to achieve that because we are creating opportunities.”

Alongside the great career advice that we need to provide, we have to make sure, particularly in some of the most disadvantaged parts of our country, that we create local opportunities for young people who want to stay in their home town and reach their potential in life. That is why the Government’s levelling-up agenda is so important to people like me. We have to create those opportunities.

One of the things that I did was run a business for several years that employed a lot of school leavers. One of my frustrations was that when school leavers came to me, yes, they had academic qualifications but they did not have the soft skills that employers need for them to become good members of the workforce quickly. Sadly, even today when I talk to employers, they tell me a similar story. That is why I really welcome such things as T-levels, which are going to provide an excellent connection between education and the workplace to give our young people the right sort of skills, so that they enter the workplace not just with the academic qualifications and skills that they need, but the attitude that they need to get into the workplace and so they know how to relate and be part of a team. People can only really learn those sorts of things by experiencing them. T-levels will provide that and I absolutely welcome them.

Alongside that, we are moving away from this strange idea that 50% of our students need to go to university. I think that has actually been damaging for far too long. Introducing T-levels and vocational and other qualifications is very important. Technical qualifications are so important and having a really strong connection to the workplace is valuable, and I am delighted with the Government’s efforts and the direction in which we are going in that regard.

I represent the constituency that is the most reliant on tourism and hospitality in the country and I am really passionate about changing the view that working in tourism and hospitality is just a dead-end or short-term job. It is one of the best career opportunities for a young person to get on quickly. It is incredible and provides great social mobility. Yes, people enter it by working in a bar but they can progress very quickly to management or HR, or some other aspect of management. We have to change the perception. I plead with schools, in the career advice that they provide, to get away from the negative view of tourism and hospitality as just a dead-end job. It is an incredible opportunity for the right sort of young person. They can go into that sector and have a really successful career and progress quickly. In any career advice that is going to be provided as a result of this excellent Bill, we need to change the perception of tourism and hospitality to make sure that we are providing good advice in that sector.

In conclusion, I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) has introduced the Bill.