Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

Let me start by thanking the Secretary of State for what I thought was a rather conciliatory speech. Hopefully, it will set the tone for this evening’s debate on a Bill that has already gone through the other place. We have seen a number of amendments tabled, not least the one on essay mills—I am very grateful to the Government for adding it to the Bill. That was the result of a cross-party effort, involving not just myself, but Lord Storey who has led the charge in the other place, I think, for the past five years. I hope that, in this place, we can try to build some cross-party consensus in order to improve the Bill, as the Lords have done.

In that spirit of cross-party consensus, I would like to reflect on the words of the Opposition Front Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who set out very clearly the challenge with the lifetime skills guarantee. At present, it is not a guarantee for all those who need lifetime skills. As the Secretary of State clearly set out in his speech, 80% of the adult population in 2030 are already in work. If we wish to grip the challenges that climate change presents and grip the challenges of the systems-based approach that will lead to net zero across all parts of this country, we will need new forms of skills, reskilling and upskilling in green technologies, in retrofitting boilers and in all those things that, at the moment, we struggle to be able to do. We will need those reskilling and retraining opportunities. Those will come only if we take this moment to expand the lifetime skills guarantee and, importantly, as the Secretary of State said, the lifetime loan entitlement, because nothing flows without the finance. We need to ensure that that is available to those who have a level 3 qualification or above. We must look to abolish the so-called equivalent, or lower, qualification rule.

I want to declare my interest as having established a new Lifelong Education Commission with ResPublica. I am not paid for doing it, but I want to make sure that it is on the record that I have this interest in running the commission. The commission has published its first report, which looks in particular at what is needed when it comes to the frameworks. It is very easy to announce the lifetime skills guarantee—it sounds great. It is very easy to talk about a lifelong loan entitlement—it sounds marvellous—but unless we get the partnerships right in order to be able to deliver and implement this locally, they are just words. They are just a framework. I desperately want this to succeed.

I have been in this place for 11 years and, if I am honest, one of the greatest failures of my Government has been the decline in adult and part-time learning due to a lack of funding. We now have an opportunity to learn a lot of lessons from what went wrong there.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a very good speech. Would he consider and welcome the improved approach to collaboration that the Treasury Bench has taken this evening, with the involvement of metro Mayors and combined authorities? Does he also agree that if we want to have a truly locally driven skills agenda, we need to involve local enterprise partnerships? They are often a much better voice for local employers than the chambers of commerce, which can be quite variable— not in the case of Suffolk, I hasten to add, but more generally.

[Chris Skidmore]

My hon. Friend’s intervention brings me to my second point, which is about the need to take a truly place-based approach to these reforms, if they are to succeed. We cannot necessarily legislate, top-down, and expect the reforms somehow to be successful. We have to involve local communities, because they know what will work in their local ecosystems. Many points have been made today about the role of employers. I would also say that universities are missing from the local skills improvement plans. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), made a point about the involvement of universities; they should be written into the Bill as part of the local skills improvement partnerships.

I know that we have had a review of the form and function of local enterprise partnerships. It may be that the levelling up White Paper brings further light on their role. There is enormous variability in the actual skills base of local enterprise partnerships to understand what is needed when it comes to delivering local skills. If we are going to level up, we want to ensure that we level up the capacity and capability of local actors to deliver on the ground, so ensuring that we get the correct place-based approach is important. I do not mind which actors locally are involved in the partnerships. I just think that it should be up to local communities to help forge the approach.

Let us look at what is happening in the Health and Care Bill, for which I have sat on the Bill Committee. We have seen that local approach with integrated care boards and integrated care partnerships. The Government are trusting them to come up with their own membership; it is not prescriptive. We have to try to demonstrate the same level of trust in education at a local level as we are doing with health through that Bill.

[Margaret Greenwood]

The right hon. Member is talking about the Health and Care Bill and trusting that this will all be okay; it is as if fingers have to be crossed and things are devolved down to a local level. Given the very high number of Members of Parliament with financial interests in private health, this is a dangerous road to go down. Will he revisit the view that he has just expressed? That Bill is a privatising Bill that is going to make it harder for people to get healthcare. It will open up the whole thing to the private sector in a way that we really need to object to.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before you respond to that, Mr Skidmore, the time limit will be four minutes after you have finished your contribution.

[Chris Skidmore]

It is not an amendment for this Bill so I am simply not going to respond to that point.

I will finish by reflecting on the wider tone in which we take this debate forward. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire, talked about the need for partnerships between universities and further education colleges, and about ensuring that we do not pitch one against the other. That is absolutely right. This is a tertiary education Bill that is meant to be uniting, not divisive.

The Education Secretary, in his opening remarks, talked about President Harry Truman’s comment that it does not matter who takes the credit, as long as something is delivered successfully. I would like to quote another US President, Abraham Lincoln, who said:

“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.”

I think that that applies when we look at the role of universities and further education colleges. We need them to work together in a sustainable ecosystem. We cannot allow the Bill to divide and rule, or somehow to allow for FE colleges to be compared unfavourably or favourably against universities.

We need higher technical education to succeed. To do that, we need flexible pathways that will allow the individual learner to move between FE and higher education—and sometimes back again—across the country. We will only ensure that those flexibilities exist if we support every part of the education sector and every institution. It is the institutions and their strengths that will deliver success in this vital Bill.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

There is now a four-minute limit.