Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Janke Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Janke (LD) [V]]

I too offer my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Black, on her impressive and extremely entertaining maiden speech. I am sure that we are all looking forward to her contributions to our work.

Like other noble Lords, I welcome many of the proposals in the Bill, particularly to make it easier for adults and young people to study more flexibly, allowing them to space out their studies, transfer credits between institutions and take up more part-time study. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, has just said, the principle of colleges and employers working together underpins much of the Bill. It rests, too, on the leadership of employers. My experience leads me to agree very much with the issues she identified. Yet it is important that this is a co-operative and fully accountable partnership. Will the Bill create a duty on schools and universities to collaborate with colleges and employers in the development of skills plans, so that the training on offer meets the needs of local areas and of the national economic strategy?

As a former council leader, I have seen that the actual experience can be very patchy: stronger in some areas than others. In sectors where there are many SMEs the employers’ input can be limited, for a variety of reasons. As the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said, sometimes employers are not well represented by particular employer organisations which vary in strength in different areas. There needs to be better accountability and understanding of the difficulties involved. The present system gives no incentive for proper co-ordination. Instead, it focuses on delivery of qualifications rather than on the long-term strategic priorities.

I would welcome a better understanding from the Minister as to how she sees this working. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, also said, I am sure that we will want to explore this area during the passage of the Bill. I also emphasise that local authorities should be key players in any future collaboration. Many people face great difficulties in accessing education, whether part-time or full-time. They may be care leavers or have special educational needs, as my noble friend Lord Addington mentioned, or not in education or training. They may be long-term unemployed people. They face difficult barriers and would need access to a whole range of local services to help them to be ready for work or training.

Local authorities are of course essential in providing these sorts of services. They link with adult education provision and other support, such as mental health, housing, debt management, support for parents and childcare. Their involvement will be essential to prevent those most in need of support and training being left behind. As a former adult learning tutor, I know that the role of local authorities in adult and community provision has been a bedrock, providing many adults with opportunities to train and upskill. For many adult learners, adult education is the first step that they take. It gives them confidence and so often inspires people to take up further learning opportunities. The current budget has been halved; I very much support the LGA proposal to reinstate this budget as a fundamental building block in the provisions of the Bill.

It is also important that financial support is considered essential if poorer students are not to be penalised. Flexible and part-time learning is essential for potential learners. My own experience is that, although I went into higher education when I left school, I subsequently took a degree with the Open University. I experienced for myself the great difficulties that one has in trying to keep up the commitment to learning while either bringing up a family or working and needing to prioritise earning a living. These can really undermine the motivation of people who are trying and gain qualifications or skills or, indeed, add a new dimension to their lives through study. I underline here the need to revisit the benefits system so that those acquiring new skills will have their needs fully taken into account and not be excluded from benefits.

I also emphasise the importance of longer-term strategic goals. Anyone involved in education over the last 20 years has experienced constantly shifting grounds in how the system operates, in its objectives, and in the local and national priorities. We need to recognise some long-term objectives and ensure that our training and education objectives and skills acquisition link fully to the economic strategy and its requirements. In recent years, many of us have found the unhelpful element of competition in post-16 provision counterproductive, with an overemphasis on delivering qualifications rather than focusing on strategic and local long to medium-term priorities.

So I hope the Bill will ensure that the providers of post-16 education and training are aligned and not preoccupied with short-term expediency and quick fixes that do not really take us further forward. We certainly welcome the Government’s interest and ambitions for skills and lifelong learning, in particular the strong collaboration of cross-providers. The new lifelong learning entitlement is a huge step forward, but there must be access to all, and we must address the skills shortfall of so many citizens if we are to face the challenges of the future. We support much of the content of this Bill and look forward to taking forward these issues through its passage.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, it may be worth noting that the Back-Bench advisory limit of six minutes per speaker will allow us to finish at around 8 pm this evening.