Careers Guidance in Schools

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Rees. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) for bringing forward this timely and helpful debate, on an issue that is vital to the future of young people and to our country. I know all Members will watch the progress of the private Member’s Bill tabled by the hon. Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) with interest. It has Labour’s support.

We have heard from a number of speakers on a range of important issues, including access, quality, frequency, variety, consistency, and how fruitful partnerships are between businesses and schools. They make a real difference to the outcomes for young people. My hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane) reminded us how seriously our party takes the issue; my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) made it a centrepiece of his speech at party conference. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about how early young people can make decisions that affect their lives, and how those should be backed up by good advice. A number of Members raised how good-quality careers advice helps social mobility, the impact of the pandemic on the jobs market, and the importance of getting advice early.

At the heart of the debate is a desire to ensure that young people are ready for work and for life. There has been a noticeable surge in that sentiment since the pandemic. While parents will always want to see their children succeed academically, with high attainment in subject-based learning, many are increasingly concerned that their children should leave school as well rounded individuals with the skills to succeed in the wider world; yet the availability and quality of careers advice remains patchy, and the Government must move further and faster to outfit children with the skills that they need.

Teachers, parents, children and business communities agree. According to Parentkind’s 2021 “Parent Voice” report, just half of parents say that their school offers good careers advice. The Centre for Education and Youth’s “Enriching Education Recovery” report makes it clear that the vast majority of teachers, parents and children agree that there should be improvements to access. That is echoed by the business community. In 2019, a CBI survey said that 44% of employers felt that young people leaving education were not work ready. It also highlighted the geographic variation in engagement with employers in education settings. I visited St Edmund’s Catholic School in my constituency last week, which has a very good offer, but more broadly students in rural and coastal communities face a postcode lottery in access to joined-up support.

The Sutton Trust has concluded:

“All pupils should receive a guaranteed level of careers advice”;

yet a recent Careers England survey tells us that three quarters of schools have insufficient, limited or no funding with which to deliver what is needed. About a third of secondary schools say that they receive the equivalent of £5 per student, with 5% receiving just £2. The inclusion of the Gatsby benchmarks as part of the DFE’s statutory guidance on careers education represents welcome and modest progress, but ultimately, despite a northern powerhouse strategy in 2016, a careers strategy in 2017, the “Skills for Jobs” White Paper in January 2021 and the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, little action has been taken to address the postcode lottery that our children face in accessing the skills and opportunities that they need in school to navigate the world of work.

Labour is backing pupils, parents, businesses and educators with its pledge to give every child access to quality careers advice in their school. Our plan would allow children to access a professional careers adviser one day a week. That would be achieved by increasing the Careers and Enterprise Company’s grant funding, allowing it to employ more advisers in every school. That would enhance the ability to strengthen links between schools and local employers across the board, guaranteeing standards and eliminating the current postcode lottery.

Practical careers advice is closely linked to the invaluable hands-on experience that children get during periods of work experience. Here again, we find a record of failure from successive Conservative-led Governments. The next Labour Government would introduce six weeks’ worth of compulsory work experience, reversing its removal from the curriculum by the coalition Government and equipping young people with the skills that they need. In addition to support for schools, we will work with businesses, communities and others to ensure that they offer the placements needed. Once again, Labour is restoring a skills-led agenda for our children, while successive Conservative Governments have mortgaged their future.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point about the need for careers advice. We would all love for young people to spend more time with business, engaging with different kinds of work and getting to grips with what they want to do in life. He says that the Labour party is committed to a statutory six weeks of work experience per child. How does he envisage that he will find all those placements in his communities, and where will the capacity come from to deliver that level of experience?

[Stephen Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. We have already heard a number of examples of how businesses are working closely with schools across the country, and we want to amplify that message even further.

Improved careers advice in schools must be a key building block in our children’s lives, and I therefore have a number of questions to ask the Minister. Alongside academic attainment, enhanced vocational and technical qualifications, and university, does the Minister agree that careers advice must play a much larger role in getting young people ready for work? Will she adopt Labour’s pledges to ensure that schools have the funding and structures in place that are needed to deliver this? I would also be keen to hear her reflections on the availability and quality of careers guidance in schools, and particularly on the disparity in access that exists for students at maintained schools.

We owe it to the next generation to get this right. From an economic perspective, we cannot afford not to.

[The Minister for Higher and Further Education (Michelle Donelan)]

I want to start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) on securing this really important debate, and on building on her years of pioneering work in this space by setting up the charity If Chloe Can, which is empowering thousands of young girls and women in Cheshire and beyond. Like her, I know from personal experience that role models can inspire and change lives. I am sure that many of us would not be sitting in this room had it not been for role models in our lives, but not everybody has that luxury. The value of having people whom we look up to and turn to for guidance and support at a young age is something that I see every day in the Department for Education, so I am delighted that If Chloe Can is helping to connect schools to leaders and mentors from many different industries and sectors.

Having spoken in Westminster Hall and the main Chamber a number of times over the last two years about the exciting skills and careers revolution that is taking place in education, I must say that I am pleased to be here today to talk specifically about what we are doing to improve careers guidance across all our schools and colleges. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) highlighted, all the evidence shows that improving careers guidance fuels ambition, lifts aspiration and encourages young people to reflect on their strengths and interests, to find careers that they are interested in pursuing, and to develop the skills and attributes that they need to succeed in those careers. The foundation of making that a reality is careers guidance in our secondary schools.

As I am sure right hon. and hon. Members agree, every secondary school pupil, regardless of background or geography, should have inspiring careers resources available to them, just as the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) outlined. Clear, universal careers guidance from an early age not only ensures that everyone has a fair opportunity to get on in life; it also levels up the playing field. That is why we are strengthening the legal framework so that every secondary pupil is guaranteed access to high-quality, independent careers guidance. Careers guidance, in itself, is not the panacea; the quality is absolutely crucial.

[Ben Bradley]

My hon. Friend is right to say that high-quality careers advice should be available to everybody throughout their time at secondary school. I once asked a former Secretary of State for Education what happens if the Baker clause is not enacted by the school and it is not delivering such education or allowing outside bodies to come in and deliver careers advice. He replied that the Department would write a strongly worded letter to the school in order to insist that they should, but that did not really have a great deal of leverage. Can the Minister confirm that the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill strengthens the ability of the Government to direct that and ensures that it is much more likely that children will have access to external education providers?

[Michelle Donelan]

I can confirm that. Ofsted is now playing a much more active role in looking at the careers support and guidance that is available to schools, including their utilisation of the Baker clause, so that we do not have the postcode lottery to which the hon. Member for Portsmouth South referred. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton spoke in support of the Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill, which is sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson). The Government wholeheartedly support that important Bill, which will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore) outlined, extend careers provision to all pupils in state education, bringing year 7 and upwards into scope for the first time—something that my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) called for in the debate. The Bill will also place a duty on all academy schools and alternative provision academies.

Through the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, we are also improving access to colleges and opportunities so that young people can hear directly from providers of approved technical education qualifications and apprenticeships about the wide range of opportunities that are open to them beyond school. A recent report by The Careers & Enterprise Company shows why that is so important. Uptake of apprenticeships was 16% higher in the schools that provided information on apprenticeships to most or all of their students, compared with the schools that provided information to a small minority.

It is for that very reason that we have taken such committed action in this area. First, we have put in place support to help schools to develop their careers offer so that pupils have much more comprehensive support, something that was stressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). That support helps them to plan for the next stages in their lives.

The Gatsby benchmarks, for example, are eight clear benchmarks recommended in the “Good Career Guidance” report produced by Gatsby, a leading education charity. Data from schools in England has shown that when all eight Gatsby benchmarks are met, the proportion of students in sustained post-16 education, employment or training rises by nearly 10%. In disadvantaged areas, that same figure rises by a staggering 20%. We have adopted the Gatsby benchmarks as our career framework for secondary schools and colleges. They are based on robust international evidence and they provide a clear definition of what world-class careers guidance really looks like.

In fact, we are investing £28 million this year for the CEC to support schools and colleges to implement the Gatsby benchmarks. That is part of a total £100 million investment in careers guidance for the financial year 2021-22. New careers hubs allow schools and colleges to form strong local partnerships with businesses, providers and the voluntary sector so that they can collaborate and improve careers guidance. By September 2021, two thirds of schools and colleges in England were already part of the careers hub. Additionally, careers leaders are a brand-new workforce of specially trained staff who will drive forward careers programmes in schools and colleges. Since the launch of the training in September 2018, more than 2,200 careers leaders have engaged in the funded training. In addition, around 4,000 senior business volunteers are now working as enterprise advisers to schools and colleges.

Already 21 secondary schools and colleges in the Cheshire and Warrington LEP are in a careers hub, and enterprise advisers are already matched with 90% of schools and colleges across the area. Of those enterprise advisers, 64% are sourced from small and medium enterprises, and I am pleased to say that 52% are female.

To return to the importance of role models, our funding is helping to increase young people’s exposure to employers and the world of work. That includes schools and colleges linking up with providers and employers that offer mentoring opportunities.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton also raised important points about the work of the CEC in relation to the National Careers Service. Sir John Holman has been tasked with making recommendations to drive greater alignment and collaboration between the CEC and the service. I am pleased to inform my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) that those findings will be published in the summer. I am sure that hon. Members will be updated as and when those responses are forthcoming. It is a brilliant achievement that, through the CEC, we are now working with 300 cornerstone employers to challenge those negative stereotypes identified by Members to—as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) put it—instil aspiration and understanding of the opportunities available. Those employers are working closely with local partnerships at schools and colleges to support employer encounters and ensure that young people are exposed to the world of work and the broad possibilities of potential career paths lying ahead.

Employers such as the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Gatwick airport and Hilton hotels have seen benefits from their roles as cornerstone employers in developing their pipeline of skilled employees. As a cornerstone employer, Pinewood Studios has recently co-designed immersive maths lessons for pupils at 21 different secondary schools. Thanks to that partnership, 14,000 young people are now learning about careers in new ways, and the ambition is to showcase those lessons to hundreds more schools in the coming years.

With those achievements in mind, I want to conclude with a look ahead to the future. Our skills revolution, combined with an innovative new careers guidance system, will help to lead millions of young people into the careers that suit them. Initiatives like If Chloe Can are helping to drive us forward. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton is due to meet the Secretary of State for Education to explore how we can collaborate and build on that excellent work. I am sure that the skills Minister will be only too happy to join that meeting.