Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I would like to start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Black, on her interesting and fascinating maiden speech, from which I personally learned a great deal, and, equally, by saying how proud I am to follow the noble Lord, Lord Baker, because his ideas and what he has achieved in education policy are also very interesting and have taught me a great deal.

For many years, I have been heavily engaged in the lifetime learning debate, which is increasingly important because of the longevity of our population and the impact that technology is having on employment. Added to this, we have just lived through a pandemic which has caused considerable disruption to the labour market, resulting in changes that are going to be very long-lasting.

I want to congratulate the Government on the reforms to post-16 education that this Bill seeks to implement. As the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, has already outlined, this Bill will give employers greater input into skills development and ensure that there is stronger regulation and consistency of qualifications. This Bill also responds to the current skills gap in the economy and places duties on education and training providers in specific areas to co-operate with designated employer representative bodies to develop, review and revise plans.

We live in a society where people are living longer and a great many of us are working much later in life than previous generations were able to do. It is projected that someone entering the workforce today will change careers five to seven times during their working life. We know that many jobs may significantly change or become obsolete because of technology change. It is also likely that many children born this year will eventually end up in careers that, at present, do not exist. There needs to be significant investment in lifelong learning and a fundamental rethink of the way we deliver education. Our current school system, where compulsory education finishes at 16, increasingly does not prepare pupils for modern life in a labour market that is changing so rapidly. In the future, we will need most people of working age to participate—perhaps more than once and perhaps many times—in further education to keep up with labour market changes.

It is, therefore, disappointing that in the last 10 years there has been a 26% fall in the total number of people in England of all ages accessing undergraduate higher education. This has been driven by a significant decline in part-time higher education. Now, there are 67% fewer part-time undergraduate students in higher education than a decade ago. The Government have acknowledged that this is a problem, and this Bill is an important start in trying to reverse this trend.

However, in its current form, the Bill does not go far enough in reforming our education sector. There is an opportunity to ensure that the education system provides equal access and support for learners, regardless of where the learning takes place. Rather than creating a unified, credit-based funding system, the Bill creates separate funding systems for those who study module by module compared to those who study a full degree. Education of technical skills or qualifications should be given the same level of importance and respect, and there should be one funding system that does not separate them. Our society needs people to gain degree qualifications, and it is crucial that the Government do not undervalue our universities; apprenticeships and other technical qualifications are different and they teach different skills, but they are just as valuable and should be given equal status.

In a world where an 18-year-old leaving school today will likely work well into their mid-70s, or even later, and where the labour market is likely to go through significant change, investment in lifelong learning is crucial. This Bill makes an important start, and I support what it aims to achieve. However, much more needs to be done to support the lifelong learning education system that we are going to need in the future. I look forward to being a participant in this Bill, which aims to do just that.