Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB) [V]]

The irony clearly weighs heavy when I have wi-fi issues. I apologise, but the internet completely collapsed in my home—fingers crossed that it works this time. You would think that I would have been able to crack it, but I appreciate that I am the least qualified person, perhaps, in many ways.

I too commend the noble Baroness, Lady Black, on her maiden speech. She is an absolute heroine to many of us. I can still see in my mind’s eye her visceral explanation of cutting into flesh for the first time, which may haunt me to my later days. In fact, she might have tempted me to swap careers had I not already become a Member of your Lordships’ House. That is one important dimension of this interesting and important Bill that I shall talk about as part of my role as chancellor of the Open University.

As noble Lords will know, because many in the House today are graduates of the OU as well as honorary graduates—we even have a wonderful ex-chancellor in the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, as well—the OU is the largest university in the UK. It provides part-time learning through all people’s lives and careers. Perhaps less known to people is the fact that 70% of OU learners are also in full-time work, which is why this Bill is so important in unlocking the relationship between work and vocational technical training and between employers and study.

Furthermore, as I referenced in declaring my own interest in perhaps changing careers, there are some concerns from the Open University about the way in which this is constructed—particularly, as the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, mentioned in his earlier remarks, there are concerns about the lifelong learning entitlement and how it is structured. The OU would be extremely keen to see it structured in the most creative and imaginative way possible to prevent too much rigidity around learning requirements and to make sure that we really allow for part-time learners who may be in work who may want to go sideways in their career. It is unclear yet to me whether, if I became a forensic anthropologist as a Member of the House of Lords, that would be down, up or sideways. But jokes apart, we must make sure that people are enabled to take sideways and forward leaps and, potentially, upgrade their skills but slightly downgrade what might be seen as their natural career prospects. The Open University has concerns around the LLE requirement and how it is structured, and I would be very keen to hear the Minister’s response on this.

Similarly, the OU, as will be known to many Members of your Lordships’ House, has seen a collapse of more than 67% in part-time learners—not just for the Open University but in those going into higher education over the last decade. The Government themselves have recognised that this is cataclysmic for our economy, and we must make sure that we build back the capacity for part-time learning right at the heart of this Bill and put at the heart of it the importance of part-time learners for the economy and wider society.

I always joke in the OU degree ceremonies that part-time learners are no such thing at all. Normally, they are double-time learners, holding down a family and making sure that they also study. It can sometimes take five or even 10 years but, in all my interactions with OU students, they have been people dedicated to improving their learning through their career and the various ducks, dives, weaves and twists that life takes. We want to be clear at the Open University that this Bill will represent part-time learners very clearly—and, as I say, without too much rigidity about requirements, particularly in Clauses 14, 15 and 17. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that.

The Open University is one hat that I wear very proudly, and I am thrilled to be its chancellor and champion of all the types of learning that it represents. I have also recently chaired the House of Lords Select Committee on the long-term implications of Covid. As other noble Lords have alluded to, particularly my noble friend Lord Patel, we have done work recently to look at the hybrid nature of our world right now. As some noble Lords may know, I have a long-standing interest in digital skills and, surprise surprise, that came out very clearly from our work. So I am pleased to see a recognition that we need these technical skills in this Bill, but I hope that it goes far enough and fast enough.

As I think the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, very articulately declared, we cannot design for the here and now; we need to look ahead to the next decade and think about what those skills will constitute and look like. We have found consistently that not only is there a lack of skills right now for employers, there are also huge concerns among employers about what skills will be available in the next decade to take on the challenges that we have not yet even managed to quantify or think about. We in our committee report called for a closer partnership between government and employers to tackle professional qualifications and digital skills to help, for example, a nurse or anybody dealing with any kind of front-line service to have a deeper understanding as part of their professional development. I hope that we take again an imaginative and creative view of what that looks like.

I end by reiterating the point made by my noble friend Lord Puttnam about Demis Hassabis and the importance of creativity and imagination. I am always struck by the words of Sugata Mitra, the great tech entrepreneur, who did a huge amount to open up learning and access, who said that learning is the new skill, and imagination, creation and asking questions should be at the core of skill. We must bear that in mind as we take this Bill forward; we must not get too stuck in rigid ways of thinking about skills, as they will shift immeasurably over the next decades. It may be best to equip people with the ability to ask questions that they want answered and equip them with the ability to personalise their studies through their whole lifelong journey.