Technical and Further Education Bill

Baroness Mone Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Mone (Con)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for setting out the Government’s ambitions for technical and further education. It gives me great pleasure to speak in support of this Bill. I declare my interests as a businesswoman and mentor, and the author of Be the Boss, a government review to help increase business start-ups in the most disadvantaged communities across Great Britain.

Over six months, I journeyed across the country from John O’Groats to Land’s End, meeting business leaders, start-up owners and aspiring entrepreneurs from areas of high unemployment. I gained a great deal of insight into the barriers they face in starting their businesses. Those often include not being able to find the skilled workers they need for those businesses. So many opportunities are opening up for British companies and, as we create the right circumstances to grow our economy, it has never been more important to make sure we nurture the talents, wherever they might lie, of our young people so that they can play a full part and share in our prosperity. Like me, a lot of young people do not have the opportunity to go to university but that does not mean that they do not have hopes and aspirations, and an excitement for what the future holds. We have a duty to give all young people every single opportunity to follow their dreams, so it will come as no surprise that I welcome the Prime Minister’s desire to give the same opportunities and respect to those who pursue technical routes as we do to university graduates.

Placing the same value on technical and academic education has escaped us for far too long. It is not helped by the fact that employers know exactly what academic standards are but are bewildered when it comes to a confusion of technical qualifications. The Bill seeks to address that and is just one part of the Government’s strategy to improve technical education, as they implement the recommendations from the Independent Panel on Technical Education chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury. They say that good, skilled people make good businesses so I am really pleased that the Bill will make it easier to align skills training with the needs of employers, as the noble Lord recommended.

The Sri Lankan company which bought my business last year visited Toyota in Japan. Its target was to increase productivity in making a bra. It used to take four months to make a bra and it wanted to reduce this. Did your Lordships know that, when all the fabrics and components are looked at, there are 28 components in just one bra? The company invested heavily in training the team in lean manufacturing. The results were absolutely astonishing, cutting the lead time for making a bra from four months down to just 14 days. Similar examples will be found all across the country and it is our responsibility to ensure that the knowledge built up by employers is translated into the skills needed by our young people, reinforced by meaningful qualifications. There is no point in having a piece of paper if it does not get you a job.

I therefore speak in support of the measures in the Bill to extend the remit of the Institute for Apprenticeships to cover technical education, so that employers can take the lead in setting standards for both apprenticeships and college-based technical education. I hope that this will create a system which enables young people to finish their education with the skills and experience that employers need, so that they are able to gain worthwhile and fulfilling employment.

It is important to see the Bill in the wider context of the Government’s industrial strategy and their commitment to tackle disparities in skill levels between regions. As I found in gathering evidence for my review, levels of self-employment are roughly half the national average in the 10% most deprived areas. We need to make sure that employers have meaningful involvement in developing a system of technical education that gives young people the skills, and entrepreneurs access to those skills, which each need to succeed. The reforms set out in the Bill are a matter of social justice and will ensure that all young people, no matter what their backgrounds or capabilities, are equipped with the tools to succeed in their professional lives.