Bill Esterson
Main Page: Bill Esterson (Labour - Sefton Central)Department Debates - View all Bill Esterson's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Esther McVey
It is slightly off the subject to talk about a specific housing renewal project, but I will say that infrastructure is key, and we have put £450 million into the Mersey gateway. We have set up enterprise zones in the area, and we are putting money into the Royal Liverpool hospital, which will develop the Merseybio campus to extend the knowledge economy. We are also considering ways to develop Wirral Waters and Liverpool Waters. There are various ways to create regeneration and improve an area.
Bill Esterson
I jest. I wanted to ask, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) did, about the future jobs fund. It reduced youth unemployment, which was falling as Labour left power. The hon. Lady discussed the scale of the problem, but does she recognise that the future jobs fund was a success, and does she regret the fact that one of this Government’s early decisions was to scrap it?
Esther McVey
The future jobs fund had some successes, but 50% of people never ended up in a job. It focused on providing temporary and short-term jobs, which led to false expectations and a lot of upset when jobs did not come to pass. It was also one of the most expensive schemes ever. I do not think that it was a success. It might have been for a small set of people, but it was expensive. Given the timing of its introduction, some might consider it a pre-election stunt. We have to consider schemes that are sustainable. The Work programme, which we are working on now, can get more people into employment.
The statistics in our area show that unemployment for 16 to 24-year-olds across the country stands at more than 1 million. The figure for the north-west is 160,000, making it the region with the highest unemployment. Unemployment for 16 to 24-year-olds has decreased by 35,000 since the last election. It is a tiny dent, but necessary.
The hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) asked about development in Merseyside. I mentioned some of the schemes and the things that we must develop. Merseyside, in its heyday as a maritime port, had a population of 1 million, which dropped to 400,000. We must develop our natural unique selling points. On Merseyside, one of those must be the port. That is why I am delighted that the Minister with responsibility for ports, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), has been negotiating with city council leader Joe Anderson. We need a stop-and-start cruise terminal there. We must also work with private enterprise—we are working with Peel Holdings, Cammell Laird and the Stobart Group—to open up the port, with a vision of Merseyside as the port of the north. If we want to achieve our goals on carbon emissions or other issues, surely developing the port is a way forward and an opportunity for the people there.
As well as increasing employment within the area, we need training schemes for the youth of the day. That is why I am delighted that we are investing in and supporting apprenticeships and increasing the number of places, although I agree with the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) that the issue is not just about apprenticeships; it must be about attracting buy-in from businesses, which must understand that they will benefit. We are considering work experience schemes, voluntary work and the Work programme. All those things are key.
There are things that we can do ourselves. I am doing something this Friday in Wirral West. I visit schools every week; I have seen 5,000 schoolchildren since this time last year. One of them said to me, “Esther, it is a hugely changing landscape. Things are getting more complicated. What will happen at universities? Who will fund us? Who will sponsor us?” I am putting on a youth summit in Wirral this Friday. I will bring together a collection of universities and everybody who could sponsor the event, such as the Manufacturing Institute, which has been mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, the Institute of Physics, the police and the Army. I will also bring businesses together to see how they can fund young people, and to discuss the paths they could take to become perhaps a legal executive, solicitor or accountant. I will also bring together apprenticeship schemes from the BBC, the Chemical Industries Association, INEOS, Merseytravel and Andrew Collinge. The National Youth Theatre will also be there, as will a head of recruitment, who will speak to young kids who are at school about what employers need.
Having spent the past 10 years looking into and researching the traits and characteristics of people who succeed in business, I know that what we are talking about is not just grades, but character traits and personality types. It is key that pupils at school understand that, so recruitment people will be present to talk about that. In an ever more complicated age in which CVs might all seem the same, those character traits are key.
We are members of different parties, but we all want more people, particularly the youth, in jobs. If people think that there are no opportunities for them and that they have no future, that will have deep, long-term effects on what they will achieve and what they will want to do. I was slightly different from my friends. In 1984, when we were wondering what we were going to do and most jobs were not available, I thought, “Well, if most jobs aren’t available, I can do whatever I want to do, so why not have a go, and go into TV?” Some of my friends did not have that outlook and were somewhat disappointed for many years to come.
As I have said, the issue is about education and the opportunities that we as a Government can provide in the field of learning, and through apprenticeships and the Work programme. Equally, however, it is about regenerating areas so that they have jobs. I have said all that I wanted to say. We need to do something. The scars that have been left on Merseyside for a long time need to be healed, and one key thing would be the development of the port to provide Merseyside with maritime jobs for a long time to come.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey). As she has reminded us, it is the 30th anniversary of the events in Toxteth. In many ways, Liverpool and the rest of Merseyside, in common with the rest of the north-west, have come a very long way in those three decades. However, communities in Liverpool, including in my constituency, are concerned and fearful that the large-scale cuts in public spending will result in a return to those days. I should also like to put on record my appreciation of the hon. Lady’s work in promoting career opportunities. She came to St John Bosco school in my constituency and spoke to the girls there about career opportunities, which was a positive experience for the young people concerned.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) on securing this important debate, which addresses vital issues for constituencies throughout the region and, indeed, other parts of the country. He set out some of the key economic strengths of the north-west region. He spoke about the BBC’s move to Salford and about the impact of the work of both the National Apprenticeship Service in the north-west and the North West Universities Association. He rightly reminded us of the disproportionate and unfair impact that the Government’s decisions on cuts last year have had on constituencies such as his and mine. The combination of the reduction in the area-based grant and the disproportionate impact of the wider cuts has been felt in the voluntary and communities sector and in education, including, as my hon. Friend rightly said, further education.
My hon. Friend spoke about the impact of the cuts to the education maintenance allowance. Like other Members, I have in recent months visited sixth forms and colleges, including Liverpool community college, in my constituency, and young people are concerned that, without EMA, they might not be able to stay in education. I still encourage them—I am sure that all Members do this—to consider education, because of the broader benefits that it brings, but there is concern. My hon. Friend is right to say that the Opposition will closely monitor how the Government’s new and much cheaper scheme to replace EMA operates in practice.
My hon. Friend also spoke about the English baccalaureate and its implications for vocational education. It is a big challenge. Concerns have already been aired about the E-bac—the subjects that are and are not included, the way in which it was introduced, and the retrospective application of a standard that schools did not know about at the time. Those, however, are matters for another day. In today’s debate, I am keen for the Government to give an indication that they will develop a vocational version of the E-bac. It would tell those young people who will not follow a primarily academic path that there is something of equally high status and rigour with a strong vocational component that will recognise their achievement.
My hon. Friend also spoke about apprenticeships. I want to put on record my appreciation of those in Liverpool who provide apprenticeships. When Labour regained control of Liverpool city council just over a year ago, a commitment was made, despite the difficult funding environment, to create new apprenticeships. I am delighted that Joe Anderson’s administration has created 133 apprenticeships. It is striking that, when Liverpool city council advertised those new apprenticeships, there were 1,183 applications. That demonstrates my hon. Friend’s point about the demand for the kind of support that apprenticeships provide.
I want to refer to three different examples—two from Liverpool and one from London. If we are to enhance career opportunities for young people, that will not simply be delivered by the state, be that the Department for Education nationally or local authorities. The social and private sectors will also have an important role to play. In Croxteth in my constituency, the neighbourhood services company, Alt Valley Community Trust, is a model of a social enterprise that works with both the private and public sectors to deliver for local people. Its work has been widely praised and recognised. It runs a hugely successful future jobs fund initiative. I certainly do not concur with the hon. Lady, who described that fund as a pre-election stunt. I invite her to come to Croxteth to see the brilliant work that the communiversity is doing with funding from the future jobs fund. Some 800 beneficiaries have been provided with six-month contracts over almost the past two years. There have been more than 500 work placements as a result of that one social enterprise, which is a communiversity or neighbourhood services company based in Croxteth, one of the most deprived parts of my constituency.
From September, when the future jobs fund will come to an end, the neighbourhood services company in Croxteth will work with others, including local housing associations and the city council, to provide a further 60 apprenticeships. Yes, future careers for young people are about what happens in our schools and the policies of central Government and local authorities, but they are also, importantly, about engaging with social enterprises such as the communiversity in Croxteth.
Liverpool city council, in partnership with Liverpool community college and Liverpool John Moores university, is working on a proposed university technical college in Liverpool. It is an exciting opportunity for Liverpool to create a new college for 14 to 19-year-olds. Some 600 students will probably attend the university technical college, if it gets the go-ahead, which I very much hope it does. Its curriculum for 14 to 16-year-olds will be based on traditional GCSEs and A-levels, but with a much more significant technical element for about 40% of the curriculum. It will look at either the traditional or the new strengths in the Merseyside economy. I echo what the hon. Lady has said about the importance of the port. The university technical college will focus on the port and economic activity around it, as well as on environmental technology. That is a model of the way in which the education system can meet some of the new challenges we face, particularly in vocational education, which my hon. Friend has set out so eloquently.
Finally, there is the broader question of careers advice. Frankly, we have never got it right in this country, and we can all tell stories about the advice we got when we were at school or college as teenagers. When the Labour party was in government, we tried to deal with the issue, and I was briefly the Minister with responsibility for the Connexions service when it was first set up. We know from all the evidence that, for all the different initiatives we have had, we have never quite got things right. We have to look at new and innovative solutions.
Cardinal Heenan school in my constituency runs industry days. It invites local people who work in a variety of fields to come and meet its young people face to face to talk about the work they do. The school does that with the year 9s before they choose their GCSE options, and it does it again with the year 11s, who are at a crucial stage in their education. That is the sort of programme that we need to encourage and have more of.
Bill Esterson
My hon. Friend is giving some good examples of the importance of a good careers service and good practice. Does he agree that the change to providing careers advice remotely is worrying? The loss of face-to-face careers guidance, particularly where personal relationships already exist, is very worrying, and there is concern about the ability to maintain the benefits of such face-to-face guidance.
Stephen Twigg
. I share my hon. Friend’s concern. I echo what he has said and what my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South said in his opening remarks: a face-to-face element and direct interaction are crucial. In a sense, my argument is that we need more rather than less of that. Some of that advice will come through traditional careers advice in school, but some needs to be different and innovative, and I will give an example shortly.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I add my congratulations to those given to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) on securing a very important debate. Given the good and positive discussions that we had in the Select Committee on Education some weeks ago on similar topics, I am looking forward to the Minister’s response.
I shall pick up the excellent points made by my neighbour in the Chamber today and in the north-west, my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper), about rebalancing the economy geographically. It is absolutely crucial that we establish good employment prospects for young people, so that they stay in the region. We should do that through investment in the local economy. The abolition of the regional development agency has created a big problem in achieving that, but there are opportunities.
The port of Liverpool has been mentioned. Although the cruise terminal would be a welcome development, we need to go much further than that and provide opportunities for export through the sorts of hi-tech industry that hon. Members have mentioned. It is absolutely essential that we achieve that for the wider economy and for the future of young people.
David Mowat
The RDA has been mentioned in the previous two contributions. I do not deny that that organisation did a great deal of good in the north-west. However, if an organisation is given £3 billion a year to spend, that is what will happen. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that each job created by the RDA in the north-west, which was one of the better RDAs, cost £60,000? That is an awful lot of money, and we need to consider alternatives.
Bill Esterson
I am grateful for that intervention, because it ties in with two other issues that I was going to raise: the abolition of the future jobs fund and the phasing out of the young apprenticeship scheme. Both programmes are being phased out because of the high cost of success. The hon. Gentleman is making the same point about the RDA.
Esther McVey
It is about not only cost but sustainability. We should not have short six-month schemes, because such programmes must lead to sustainability. It is about cost and sustainability.
Bill Esterson
Those are closely linked issues. Whether we are talking about the RDA, the young apprenticeship scheme or the future jobs fund, the issue is about finding better ways of running such schemes, rather than just abolishing them and leaving a void that could go on for many years.
In the north-west, there was the particular problem because the recession peaked in 1981, but youth unemployment only peaked four years later in 1985. Unless we deal with these issues now, there will be a repeat of that pattern. There was success. I consider a 50% conversion in relation to the future jobs fund to be a success not a failure. We need to learn the lessons of the past if we are to get it right in the future.
I want briefly to say something about the EMA before I finish. The EMA was crucial to apprenticeships and to colleges. It was a core part of family income. Evidence from Hugh Baird college in Sefton and elsewhere in the north-west shows not only that it was a core part of family income, but that it increased achievement and attainment. It is hard for college principals to identify who absolutely needs it and who will continue to attend without it. Those issues were not considered in the haste to make changes. The sorts of changes that have been made to the EMA, the future jobs fund and the young apprenticeship scheme are, as with so many other areas, too far, too fast. That is my major concern.
I hope that such an approach will not lead to young people of the current generation paying a very steep price, as people of my generation did in the ’80s. Even now, some of those people have never found well-paid jobs or established careers. Their families have paid the price over many years. I hope that the Minister will address those points in his summing up. We are 14 months into this Government. If we do not get it right very quickly, the time will have passed and it will be too late for this generation as well.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. It is also a pleasure to respond to this debate, which I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) on securing.
I am going to discuss three things, and I will try to deal with as many of the points that have been raised as possible. First, I want to speak about apprenticeships. Secondly, I want to talk about the careers service, information, advice and guidance, as that is what the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) and other hon. Members focused on in particular. But before I deal with those, the third thing that I want to speak about, which I will deal with first just to create a degree of excitement in my short peroration, is macro-economics.
Macro-economic strategy is critically important to the future that we want for our young people—indeed, for all our people. The Government’s emphasis on dealing with debt is an important pillar in that strategy. In that effort, the recalibration of our perspective on what government does and does not do needs to be taken into account. The silver lining, if I may put it that way, of the very tough comprehensive spending review that we have endured is that we have had to think more critically about the value for money that we get from all the taxpayer funds that we invest.
The second pillar of the macro-economic strategy, which is less often spoken of but is no less central to our ambitions, is to rethink the character of our labour force. We do so against a background, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool said, of greater uncertainty and more rapid change. In order for our economy to succeed, it must be more sustainable. That sustainability will make it better able to endure some of the challenges that we have faced in the past two years when they doubtless happen again, because as you know, Mr Bayley, economies move in cycles. That redrawing of what Britain can be and should be requires us to think about what modern economies look like. Modern economies are more advanced, more high tech and more highly skilled, and they change more rapidly. That dynamism, and indeed that high-tech work force, will be essential if we are going to develop the productivity and competitiveness that we seek, which underpins prosperity.
As Minister, my task is to implement measures that allow us to develop that high-tech, highly skilled work force fit for a high-tech, highly skilled economy. That is why I focused so heavily on apprenticeships when I became a Minister. The hon. Member for Hartlepool—I have two hon. Members shadowing me, because the Opposition know that one would not be enough—is right that the previous Government understood that, too. Indeed, he was a Minister in the previous Government. I do not, for a moment, claim that we have a unique insight into the value of apprenticeships. However, the difference between his Government and ours—where his Government got this wrong and we have got it right—was to make apprenticeships the pivot around which the rest of the skills offer moves. To do that, we transferred money from the Train to Gain budget to the apprenticeship budget, as the previous Government could and should have done. The support that the previous Government gave apprenticeships provided an important foundation, and there was trend growth in apprenticeship numbers—I want to acknowledge that clearly—but we have gone further and faster than they did or perhaps would have done. I say that with as much generosity as I can summon, which is not easy for a party politician, although it is made all the more easy by the two people who shadow me, who are diligent, studious, committed and decent.
Let us look at how the constituencies of Members currently in the Chamber are affected. Since we came to office, there has been a modest but not insignificant increase of 4% in the number of apprenticeships in the constituency of the hon. Member for Blackpool South, and a 13% increase in your constituency, Mr Bayley—all the figures are based on the latest data, which I announced to the House on my birthday only a few days ago. In my Parliamentary Private Secretary’s constituency of Bromsgrove, the increase was 16%, in Wirral West 23%, in West Lancashire 22%, in Warrington South 11%, in Liverpool, West Derby 22%, in Sefton South 27% and—
Bill Esterson
The Minister did not mention my constituency because it is called Sefton Central, not Sefton South, but I am grateful for the figure.
I mentioned young apprentices in my speech. The worrying finding in Professor Wolf’s inquiry was that most of the increased number of apprenticeships have gone to 19 to 24-year-olds. The danger is of a gap among the 16 to 18-year-olds who are not able to take up apprenticeships. How does the Minister intend to rectify that?
Mr Hayes
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. There are particular pressures on 16 to 18-year-olds, and some of those pressures are to do with the perceived and real risks for businesses taking on a young person. That is particularly true for small and medium-sized enterprises—small businesses perceive an associated risk because they have a small base—while the capacity of large organisations to absorb such risk is rather different. Nevertheless, the figures that I announced a week ago of about 114,000 more apprenticeships in total throughout the country, amount to the biggest single boost in apprenticeship numbers ever in our history, and I have no doubt that at the end of the CSR period we will have 500,000 apprentices, which is a previously undreamed-of figure. Also, when I looked closely at the figures, there has been growth for 16 to 18-year-olds, for 19 to 24-year-olds and for 25-plus, which suggests significant latent demand on the part of learners and of employers. We can talk about that at greater length when we have more time, but I suspect that we have further untapped demand, as well as some trend changes in how businesses are interfacing with the skills system and how learners are making choices about the route best suited to them.