Technical and Further Education Bill

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 19th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his considered exposition of the Government’s position, particularly regarding the amendments, with which we are not in dispute. I shall say something about Lords amendment 2 after turning to Lords amendment 1. We welcome the Government’s changes, particularly those to the technical parts of the Bill. The devil is in the detail, and we do not always get these things right first time around. I am grateful to the Government for reflecting on that.

I particularly take on board what the Minister said about care leavers and local authorities. Without straying outside the narrow confines of today’s discussions, may I say that I hope that the recent debates in the House on the Children and Social Work Bill, in which my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck) played a strong, positive and constructive part, have been a useful focus for the Minister and his Department in tabling the amendments that he has spoken to today. I am grateful to him for that.

I am also grateful for the widened information sharing in schedule 1. As the Minister knows, I have described the present structure as a bit of an alphabet soup. To strain the analogy, I hope that this change will enable us to fish some of the letters out of the soup and make them work together a little easier than they would otherwise have done.

As the Minister says, the issue in Lords amendment 1could be regarded as one of financial privilege. I accept that he has great interest in matters of financial support and the rest of it. I hope that he understands that I have never, in any shape or form, and in any of the Committee sittings in which we have debated, disavowed his good intentions and commitment to issues of equality. But, of course, warm words of themselves do not necessarily carry through the projects that we all want to see. When he says that most apprenticeships have benefits, one has to ask about the fate of people who do not get those benefits. He says that this proposal will cost £200 million but, as he said, we are already committing £60 million to training providers, so I am not sure that that is a strong or powerful argument.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gordon Marsden]

I will give way in a little while. I want to make some progress on the main issue before giving way to the hon. Gentleman.

I am proud of the fact that the noble Lords considered the matter addressed in amendment 1, which I support, in considerable detail. In doing so, they revealed how much further the Government needed to go and, in my view, still need to go. In February, The Times Educational Supplement published an eloquent chart that spelled out in graphic detail the current gap in support between students and apprentices. It showed that apprentices have no access to care to learn grants, and that their families have no access to universal credit and council tax credit. Most trenchant and relevant when it comes to amendment 1, they have no access to child benefit.

Amendment 1 would enable families eligible for child benefit to receive it for children aged under 20 who are undertaking apprenticeships. The Opposition understand, as I am sure Government Members do, that it is not simply about the benefit itself, but the doors that that benefit opens to other benefits.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s argument, which seems to involve a spending commitment of £200 million. How would he pay for that?

[Gordon Marsden]

First, we do not recognise that figure of £200 million. Secondly, as I have said, the Government are already committing £60 million to training providers, so I really do not know why the hon. Gentleman is raising the issue of £200 million, which would be aggregated over a period of time.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gordon Marsden]

No, I will not give way again. The hon. Gentleman has had one go. I want to make progress.

The amendment calls for the Secretary of State to use regulations to make provision to ensure that apprentices are regarded as being involved in approved education or training. The Government’s apprenticeships programme has seen the introduction of the Institute for Apprenticeships and the apprenticeship levy this month, while setting the target of 3 million apprenticeships by 2020. However, many commentators have continued to raise real question marks about the potential quality of those new apprenticeships. It is really important that in reducing the growing skills gap in this country apprentices are not given a raw deal. My noble Friend Lord Watson spelled this out vividly in the House of Lords when he said:

“Why should families suffer as we seek to train young people desperately needed to fill the skills gaps that I mentioned earlier?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 March 2017; Vol. 782, c. 361.]

We simply ask that question.

I am well aware—we discussed this in Committee in this place and it was also discussed in the other place—that apprenticeships are not currently classed as approved educational training by the Department for Work and Pensions. That is one of the reasons we have raised this issue so many times. The Minister needs to reflect on the situation of apprentices who live with parents and whose families could lose out by more than £1,000 a year through not being able to access child benefit, and could lose more than £3,200 a year under universal credit. If the Government want to reach this target, it cannot be in anyone’s interest for doors to be closed to young people keen to take up and embark on an apprenticeship.

The predecessor Government—perhaps this has not been heard so much under this Government—were very fond of the concept of “nudge” to achieve results, but, as I have said on other occasions, people can be nudged away from things as well as towards them. In some circumstances, parents may prevent young people from taking up apprenticeships because the economic consequences for the family of loss of benefit payments in various forms could be considerable. Their lordships made this point in their debate on 27 February. Baroness Garden noted that

“only 10% of apprenticeships are taken up by young people on free school meals”,

adding that

“the loss of child benefit”

was

“a significant penalty.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 February 2017; Vol. 779, c. GC99.]

Baroness Wolf spoke very strongly when she said, echoing the Minister, that there needs to be genuine parity if the Government want to fulfil a holistic vision.

As I have said, the exclusions printed in The Times Educational Supplement justify the anger and disappointment of the National Union of Students and apprenticeship organisations, which feel that they are being treated like second-class citizens. I accept that, as the Minister said, some apprentices are being paid well above the minimum rate, but research has shown that some apprentices earn as little as £3.50 an hour.

[Charlie Elphicke]

Since the hon. Gentleman is talking about financial matters again, will he return to my earlier intervention when he said that he did recognise the figure of £200 million? How much would his policy cost?

[Gordon Marsden]

As I say, those issues would be taken forward over a five-year period. The £200 million figure that the Minister quoted has not been recognised, and I do not intend to engage with it any further because no further detail has been given to us on this point.

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

[Gordon Marsden]

No, I am sorry, but I am not going to give way again. The hon. Gentleman has had two shouts and he is out. [Interruption.] I am going to continue, so he can stop chuntering.

This will inevitably have a negative effect on the family income in circumstances where the household budget is not covered by the earnings in an apprentice’s salary, given that the apprentice minimum wage is barely over £3 an hour. The National Society of Apprentices made that point in its submission to the Committee, saying:

“It seems inconsistent that apprentices are continually excluded from definitions of ‘approved’ learners, when apprenticeships are increasingly assuming their place in the government’s holistic view of education and skills”.

If apprenticeships are to be seen as a top-tier option, then the benefits should be top tier too. University students receive assistance from a range of sources, from accessing finance to discounted rates on council tax. Apprentices currently do not receive many of those benefits. Their lordships believe, and we agree, that the system must be changed so that both groups are treated equally.