Education, Skills and Training

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman]

It is. Our universities do not do nearly enough to encourage a broader range of people to attend their institutions. There are little schemes—I am sure there are some lovely pockets of good practice around the country; I have seen some gorgeous things with primary school children wearing hats around local universities—but their long-term impact is very weak.

We find that the life chances of non-graduates, the people who do not go on to university, are limited. Some 42% do okay: they find themselves in the top half of occupations, are relatively well paid, and receive further training and progression throughout their careers. However, men in lower-half occupations are low paid, with no progression. They make up 16% of non-graduates. They are mostly younger men and they work in lower-paying occupations. There are then the skilled but stuck. Generally, they are women in part-time work. They, too, make up 16% of non-graduates. They are mostly mothers working in low-paying occupations, such as sales and customer service, because they are unable to retrain, get childcare or part-time work in occupations for which they may well be qualified.

About 26% of non-graduates are young, tend to have children and have low qualifications. Again, they are mainly women. They are at real risk of getting stuck. They may have messed up and not done so well in their GCSEs. Perhaps they did not get any advice on what was best for them and made a poor choice. They may have ended up doing hairdressing, beauty therapy or going into another low-paid profession because their friends were doing it and the alternatives were not explained to them. It is now almost impossible for them to get out of that profession and into something with a real chance of progression. If we are talking about life chances, it is this stage in education—if I could fix one thing—that really needs to be addressed. It is underfunded and ignored. There is no decent advice for young people before they make these decisions.

One recommendation from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission is for a common access point. For young people going to university there is the UCAS system. They make their application and are supported through the process. There are deadlines and they understand the process. There is a whole host of information about the outcomes, routes and destinations available on the internet. There is nothing like that for those trying to get on a further education course and that needs to be addressed.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making an extremely interesting and apposite speech. As the father of five children who have gone through the age of 16, your point—sorry, the hon. Lady’s point; forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I deserve to be hanged—about the age of 16 being a crucial time for decision making is so very important. I just want to reinforce that point, having watched five children go through the age of 16. It is so incredibly important. People should recognise that 16 is the golden age.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is great to have support across the House on this point.

On GCSE and A-level results days we send out tweets congratulating young people, schools and parents. In our constituencies and nationally, there is a sense of an event. There is nothing like that attention, celebration or recognition for non-academic, post-16 qualifications. We do not have the same sense of a nation coming together to recognise the achievement of our young people when they receive their NVQ level 3 in whatever it might be.

Such an inequality of status in qualifications at that age is wrong and something we need to address if we are serious about promoting non-graduate routes into the professions. Let us be honest: most of us will be encouraging our children to take a certain route, involving A-levels and university, because we know that that is how a person gets the best chances. Until non-graduate or non-academic qualifications post-16 bring with them the same opportunities, life chances, employment opportunities and pay, life chances will remain desperately unequal and how well someone succeeds will have nothing to do with what they know but will depend on who they know, who advises them and—even worse—who their parents know. We will not have equality of life chances until we address that simple issue.