Technical and Further Education Bill

Baroness Donaghy Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Grand Committee

[Baroness Wolf of Dulwich (CB)]

I, too, support the amendment. Like other noble Lords, I recognise that this is not something that is easily in the Minister’s gift, but it is a major issue and has been for some time.

Apprentices are employees and they should be employees, so they are different from full-time students, but it is also important to recognise that they are not skilled workers, which is why they are apprentices. That is why it is also important that there is an apprenticeship wage, but that apprenticeship wage is very low. This is a major issue and has been a major issue for a while, but, curiously enough, the improvement in the quality of vocational training and the drive to improve vocational training and to make sure that young people go into apprenticeships rather than into some form of quasi, not-real apprenticeship has made the problem worse, because more parents are now faced with the situation in which they tell their children, “I can’t afford for you to take the apprenticeship”.

This is a major issue, and it cannot be beyond our capacity to do something about it. I add my voice to those urging the Minister to see what can be done to prevent young people from the most deprived families feeling that there is a serious barrier to them taking up an apprenticeship.

[Baroness Donaghy (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall make one additional point in support of the amendment. I was one of the founding members of the Low Pay Commission. When it was first established, its job was to create the infrastructure around not just the minimum wage but the wage for apprentices and how that would play out in the world of employment. It was 19 years ago that we first grappled with these issues, so the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, is quite right that this has been a problem for quite some time. It is a structural issue.

I know that the Minister is very good at leaping over barriers to try to solve problems. I know it is not easy, but he can see the broader pictures and can try to bang heads together on an issue which will not go away unless something positive is done.

I fully endorse what my noble friend Lord Blunkett said. The Low Pay Commission had to agree to a very low wage not only to get a unanimous report but because we were pioneering and wanted to be absolutely sure that we were not going to damage the economy. When we look at that low wage, as it still is, and the transport implications, to be honest it is a miracle that anybody whose family receives benefits goes in for an apprenticeship at all. Far from being the group that needs the least motivation—we are trying to tackle the fact that the education system is failing that group at the moment—these people require the most motivation to keep going.

This is a plea for the Minister to do his Superman act—he is about to take his jacket off, so I am feeling much more optimistic—and try to find ways of breaking down barriers and breaking through this structural anomaly, which we all want to do.

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to disappoint, but Superman is not responding to this amendment, and I am certainly no Superwoman.

We welcome the sentiment behind Amendment 12A tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, that young people should not feel financially disadvantaged by taking up an apprenticeship. However, I hope I will be able to persuade noble Lords who have taken part in this debate that sufficient safeguards are in place to support this aim. In saying that, the amendment focuses on child benefit rather than the broader issue of all other benefits, which are not part of this Bill. Therefore, it is very difficult to widen my response in that regard, but let us see what we can do.

One of the core principles of an apprenticeship is that it is a genuine job and is treated accordingly in the benefits system. A young person on an apprenticeship will receive at least the national minimum wage, which is now £3.40 per hour for apprentices following a 3% increase in October 2016. Of course, these figures do not remain static—indeed, I am moving a Motion on an SI tomorrow on upgrading the figures—and most employers pay more than the minimum. The 2016 apprenticeship pay survey estimates that the average gross hourly pay received by apprentices in England was £6.70 per hour for level 2 and 3 apprentices.

The purpose of child benefit is to support parents financially with the extra costs of raising a child—for example, with the cost of food, clothing and other necessities. If a young person is undertaking an apprenticeship, or is in training or education by virtue of a contract of employment, their parents are no longer eligible for child benefit for supporting that young person. However, parents can still receive child benefit for other children and qualifying young persons in their family.

An apprentice has to work only 6.1 hours—less than one full day’s work—on the minimum wage to earn the equivalent of the weekly child benefit amount for the eldest or only child, or four hours to earn the equivalent of the second and subsequent children’s amount. In that sense, there is more than a catch-up there. So I hope I have provided sufficient reassurance that the wages from an apprenticeship, even if paid at the apprenticeship minimum wage, will more than offset any household income reductions through the loss of child benefit.

Noble Lords talked also about the loss or reduction in housing benefit, credits and so on. As I said at the beginning, that is not within the scope of this Bill. Noble Lords have said they would like an opportunity to talk to my noble friend the Minister about this issue before Report. My noble friend is very happy to meet, but it is not within our gift to make a difference on this. The point has certainly been well put by noble Lords, but within the confines of this Bill it is very difficult to look beyond what we are already able to do for apprentices.

I hope that, on that basis, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

We are learning such a lot this evening, and it is really very interesting. Clearly, the Government are taking draconian measures—and perhaps they should—to clear out a vast number of technical qualifications. That would be the consequence of this particular Bill finding its way to the statute book.

As a result of the process of establishing, with the help of industry, standards and outcomes, the Institute for Apprentices might apparently come to the conclusion that one particular technical qualification, for example in plumbing, is best done by City & Guilds. That seems to be the purpose behind what we are doing in this part of the Bill. The other awarding bodies would presumably not think it worthwhile to attempt to replicate that and have another plumbing qualification that is different, because that is the one that has the real stamp of approval with the Institute for Apprentices. Presumably, someone who is apprenticed to be a plumber will actually work for that qualification and hopefully get it.

This is a different system from that which has operated so far, but it is authoritative. If it is so perfect, are the Government intending to do this at GCSEs? If this wonderful system of technical awards is developed, should it not also be done for maths, English, history, geography and French? If what the Government are going to do is so wonderful and perfect, why should one stop with just technical subjects? If they are really persuaded that they have the best system for determining the best qualification in a technical subject, surely they should be able to decide what the best is in maths. If you are going to standardise things to this level, it might be GCSEs that would be the most effective. We must try to appreciate how thorough and complete a transformation will occur as a result of this.

[Baroness Donaghy]

My Lords, I want to follow the important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. At the beginning of the first day of Committee, I said I hoped at the end of this to have a clearer understanding of the organisational chart and who was responsible for what. The longer the discussion has gone on, the more I am clear that this will be, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said, a fairly draconian change, which may be for the better.

However, I offer a word of caution. Some of us have lived through the birth, life and death of the Council for National Academic Awards or CNAA, some of us through the B Ed, and some of us through the area training organisations. At one stage, one of my roles at the former Institute of Education was to look after 48 teacher training colleges, which were training 26,000 teachers. It had a central and, it has to be said, very bureaucratic system of recognition for teachers at the university to ensure that they were all of the right standard and that all the institutions were offering the right quality. I emphasise that we had a complex and inadequate system. In trying to do something which is much needed and replace one system with a better system, we should not make some of the mistakes that we have all made—all Governments have made them; I am not trying to make a party- political point—by creating a structure which turns out to be Frankenstein.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I shall not make any general assertions of what may or may not happen. I take the “all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds” approach to this. However, is the institute going to issue an apprenticeship certificate? The schedule refers to the:

“Power to issue technical education certificate”.


We heard some examples of where there could be an apprenticeship without a technical qualification, so is the institute involved in that?

I want to address the point the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made that on the completion of an apprenticeship there should be a stamp of approval, so that you have something to show. In the old days, you got a beautifully illuminated manuscript. I was not assuming that the Government would go that far, but I remember that the master bricklayer who lived across the road from me had an exceedingly impressive document from his apprenticeship. I am not expecting that but I want to know what this actually includes. Can we be assured that every apprentice, on completing their apprenticeship successfully, will get a certified stamp of approval?