Skills and Post-16 Education Bill (First sitting)

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 30th November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend must have eyes in the back of his head, because that was pretty much the next point that I wanted to make. It all hinges on the term “due consideration”. We are doing this in city regions such as Greater Manchester, and we are getting there. We have the skills, and we have good collaboration with local businesses to shape the agenda. We have a shared vision. I accept that that might not be the case in other devolved areas—there might be a degree of friction between the business community and the combined authority—but in Greater Manchester, it is genuinely a partnership. The skills programmes, strategies and priorities are genuinely developed in partnership.

The Minister talks about “due consideration” in relation to the amendment, but I want assurances from him that Ministers will take a genuinely collaborative approach and we will not end up with some monolithic, top-down and Whitehall-knows-best approach being imposed on city regions that are already starting to develop the very skills strategies that are envisaged in the Bill. I will be grateful if the Minister can address my concerns.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I will keep my comments brief, but I want to touch on some of the issues raised by colleagues.

First, LEPs, chambers of commerce and other instances of local involvement in skills plans have been mentioned. Some of those are excellent and some are awful. Will the Minister touch on what safeguards might exist for those plans, particularly in areas without combined authorities? Combined authorities have devolved local oversight or engagement in the plans, but for areas that do not, where will the safeguard be if chambers of commerce that are not delivering for business bring forward less effective plans?

Secondly, I should declare an interest as a local government leader in talks with Government about devolution. In all honesty, I would devolve adult skills to all upper-tier local authorities. However, recognising that areas with combined authorities will have local engagement in the discussion—the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish has mentioned future-proofing the Bill—does the Minister acknowledge that the Government are in talks about devolution with counties that will not be part of combined authorities, but that might have powers over adult skills? Is that something that has been considered in the wording of the Bill? Such areas might have that local input or devolved skills budgets and options available to them in future, although they might not be covered by the term combined authority.

[Matt Western]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Miller. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle was saying, it is great to be in a room that contains so many educationalists and educators, including my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Great Grimsby, who will bring a lot to bear on the Bill.

I will preface my remarks by turning to earlier comments on vocational qualifications and the relative value of one sector versus another. We must remind ourselves to talk about the HE sector as opposed to universities and think about the great breadth brought to our educational sector by higher education providers, who are diverse in nature.

On Government amendment 4, given that COP was a month ago and how disappointing it was, we must ensure that all Bills include elements that remind us of the importance of climate change, which is the issue of our time and that of decades to come. The Government are seeking to remove subsection (6), inserted by the Peers for the Planet group, which importantly sees LSIPs granted to authorities by the Secretary of State only if they comply with the duty in the Climate Change Act 2008. We must ensure that, at every opportunity, in every piece of legislation, that duty is embedded in our thinking, and future generations must know of our determination on that.

I am sure that the Government are committed to environmentalism—they certainly talk about their commitment—and addressing the issue. I urge Government Members to think about this measure as it is particularly important in terms of education and what is being shared with the next generation. I remind the Committee that it was a concession in the Lords, so I am surprised that it should be opposed in the Commons.

I turn to Government amendment 5. It is important when designating LSIPs to consider the views and wishes of the mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority. The Association of Colleges made that clear when it said:

“The voice of employers is critical—but it is also important that LSIPs reflect wider priorities too”.

Through the pandemic, we should have learned just how important localism is. One of the great successes was the delivery of track and trace and the vaccine programme locally. The same should be said of how we design our needs for skills and education in our regions. The principle of subsidiarity—decisions being made at the local level—is really important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Bradley]

It is important to clarify this point, and I assume the Minister will do so as well. The hon. Member keeps using the word “exclude” as if others will be unable to take part in these conversations, and that is certainty not what amendment 7 says. Opposition Members have argued that the Government are taking too much central control, but when the Government try to give those at the local level flexibility to include the people they want to include, as opposed to mandating that certain groups be included, the hon. Member says that it is not specific enough. I wonder which one he is actually after.

Surely it would be better for local skills plans to be put together by partners who want to be involved, because not all the businesses or local bodies that he mentions will want or have the capacity to engage, and to have local flexibility to choose the most representative groups, rather than it being decreed that all such organisations must be involved in the discussions. It could become very unwieldly if we had to include every sixth form or FE provider in a whole region in those bodies. Surely flexibility is a good thing.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Clearly their lordships thought differently from the hon. Gentleman, and I think he is reading a different Bill. I will read it out to him. It says:

“draw on the views of employers operating within the specified area”.

The plans will be drawn from the views of employers.

[Ben Bradley]

Where does it say “exclude” them?

[Andrew Gwynne]

Why does it need to specify employers, and only employers? It is a very one-sided view, and it strikes out regional and local authorities, post-16 education providers that are active in the area, schools, FE institutions, community learning providers, specialist designated institutions and universities.

To come on to my final point, why is

“such sources of information on long-term national skills needs as the Secretary of State may specify”

being removed? If the Government spotted on the horizon that there was likely to be a skills shortage, especially in our brave new world where we have taken back control and will upskill our own population to meet the coming challenges, I would expect the Secretary of State to ensure that our long-term national skills needs were included in every single one of those plans across England. Again, it is incomprehensible to think that the Secretary of State would not say to each and every one of those local areas, “We need to make sure that we have enough skills to do x, y or z, because we will face skills shortages in the future.”

To conclude, I cannot fathom the logic behind striking out these Lords amendments. Doing so runs against everything the Minister said a moment ago about collaboration. If he believed in true collaboration—a true partnership— he would not be doing this today.