(1 month ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I beg to move,
That this House has considered public perceptions of trades and apprenticeship completion rates.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. One of the many toxic legacies of the previous Government is a crisis in education and training, overwhelming barriers to opportunity for many young people and the denigration and downplaying of the construction industry. Young people in my city are not accessing well-paid jobs, despite the many opportunities on our doorstep in the maritime, space, science and trade sectors. To fix that, we must improve and promote vocational pathways through increasing the number of apprenticeships available, improving apprenticeship completion rates, simplifying the apprenticeship system and increasing its flexibility.
Much of the research for this debate has come from Checkatrade, a home improvement platform based in Portsmouth North. I will therefore focus mainly on the construction sector. The trade and construction sector sits at the heart of the national mission to get Britain building, to reach net zero and to drive economic growth. From plumbers and electricians to roofers and carpenters, there will be huge opportunities for careers and job creation in building the skilled workforce we need to deliver those targets.
Research by Checkatrade has found that the UK economy faces a severe skills challenge. The UK must find 1.3 million new skilled trade people and 350,000 new apprenticeships over the next 10 years to meet the Government’s ambitious but much-needed housing and net zero targets. London will require at least 55,000 qualified construction apprenticeships, but the demand is not just in England; it is spread across the UK, with Scotland needing 26,000 new apprenticeships, Manchester 15,000 and Birmingham 13,000. With 35% of those working in the sector over the age of 50, and almost three fifths of tradies planning to retire between the ages of 61 and 65, the industry is facing a cliff edge of retirement with little or no succession planning.
The transition to net zero is also impacting jobs and apprenticeships, with 59% of jobs affected and 29% of those jobs requiring upskilling. However, apprenticeship starts have declined in recent years, highlighting the urgent need for a renewed focus. In 2022-23, there were 337,140 apprenticeship starts, compared with more than half a million in 2011-12. Challenges in the sector, such as high apprentice drop-off rates and high levels of self-employment—37%—make addressing the skills gap even more challenging and crucial.
What solutions can we explore? First, we must create more apprenticeships: despite a chronic skills gap in the UK, for every apprenticeship there are three applications, but only one successful candidate. That can be achieved by restoring financial incentives to small and medium-sized enterprises to take on apprentices under the age of 25, offering an apprenticeship incentive payment and expanding funding to create apprenticeships.
SMEs have a crucial role to play in boosting the number of apprentices, and we need to find ways to incentivise them to invest in training. We must provide them with the support they need to take on an apprentice and ensure flexibility in training that works for their businesses and for the apprentices. Making the apprenticeship funding model more transparent to help to improve businesses’ understanding of and confidence in the apprenticeship system is vital.
Secondly, we must improve completion rates. Only a third of apprenticeships are currently completed—a shockingly low statistic. We could improve that rate by increasing financial support. The apprenticeship rate of pay currently sits at £6.40 per hour, making apprenticeships financially unattractive. More targeted support should be made available to attract those with dependants and other financial responsibilities, and those wishing to change career. Financial mentoring for apprentices could also go a long way towards improving the completion rates. We should also look at expanding foundational apprenticeships and introducing a shorter apprenticeship course for those who cannot afford the minimum length of 12 months in a placement.
Lastly, we must simplify the system and increase flexibility. That could be achieved by creating more flexibility through the apprenticeship levy. For example, the functional skills requirement is cited by employers as a barrier to learning and is not always relevant to the role or individual. Those could be removed in some cases. Apprenticeships and training programme providers should be enabled to deliver three, six or even nine month-courses, which could be used to help workers to reskill and retrain in areas that are part of the green transition. We must also end geographical differences; apprenticeship levy funds can currently be spent only on apprenticeships in England.
To do all that, we must value all the pathways. The toxic legacy of the Tories in education was the undervaluing of certain subjects, including vocational courses and apprenticeships. We must value all pathways if we are to move towards a productive, highly skilled population and achieve our growth targets. Apprenticeships of all kinds create successful business owners and entrepreneurs who are well paid. Average weekly earnings in the construction sector are £761, surpassing the national average by 13%.
Furthermore, not all apprenticeships are low-paid during training. Roofing apprentices can earn more than £24,000 a year, plastering apprentices £19,000 and plumbing apprentices £18,000. Apprenticeships can be a stable and reliable route to success: with success rates remaining stable at 93% over past years and many apprentices staying on with their employer after qualifying, they offer value for money and a good career.
Despite that, however, many young people and their parents do not see a trade career as aspirational. We must highlight those benefits of vocational courses to young people, to inspire them into diverse sectors and to elevate vital sectors, including construction. That could be achieved by using the money raised by the growth and skills levy on access and outreach activities, and by the Department for Education ensuring that careers advice highlights the training provisions available, including T-levels, BTecs, skills bootcamps and more, as well as the career opportunities accessible through apprenticeships. We must ensure that work experience gives an insight into the opportunities and, although it must have safety at its heart, we must reduce the red tape for SMEs and larger companies to offer valuable work experience places.
In conclusion, to achieve our national mission of kick-starting growth and breaking down barriers to opportunities, we must look at people and skills in the round and value them. To create a highly skilled and highly paid workforce, we must provide accessible, well-funded and fairly paid vocational training. We must provide balanced education about vocational options and provide support for those on vocational pathways to help them to complete courses. That will help to diversify vocational pathways.
Apprenticeships in construction are currently almost 91% male and 92% white. Although there has been some progress in diversifying the workforce, its composition remains highly disproportionate compared with society and other sectors. As an ex-teacher, I truly believe in the saying, “If you cannot see it, you cannot do it.” Those opportunities must be visible and open to local communities, whether that is our young people or someone who wants to change career or upskill to a new one.
We must place pride, value and respect in this sector. As the proud sister of an electrician, the daughter of a plumber and the granddaughter of a painter and decorator, I know the value of tradespeople in our communities and families. They are the backbone of our everyday lives—building, fixing, and ensuring that our houses, schools, hospitals and communities are safe, functioning spaces.
Probably much to his surprise, I am going to call Jim Shannon as the next speaker.
(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I beg to move,
That this House has considered SEND provision.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I am delighted to have secured this debate and to see such a packed Westminster Hall. I start by thanking all the parents and campaigners who have rightly put this issue high on the agenda, all the organisations that have provided briefings for MPs, and of course all the MPs here in a packed Westminster Hall.
Nearly 50 MPs have applied to speak today; I cannot recall anything like that for many other Westminster Hall debates. I hope that the Government and all those with a say over the parliamentary agenda take note and ensure time for a much longer debate on this vital issue very soon. This is an essential debate. The crisis in SEND provision is one of the biggest messes left by the previous Government—one that the new Labour Government will have to start to clear up quickly, as SEND needs are likely only to increase. That will require a radically different approach from the one currently failing so many children.
We cannot have this debate today without acknowledging how the crisis was deepened by an austerity agenda that tore up much of the social fabric that once would have offered pupils and their families much of the support needed. That dangerous idea has hollowed out councils’ budgets and severely restricted the services that they can provide. It has caused long-term harm to the NHS, including huge waiting lists for assessments and massive backlogs in mental health services. It has placed unbearable pressure on schools, which are asked to do more and more with fewer and fewer staff and resources. It has caused key public workers to leave due to stress, simply impossible workloads and low pay, further weakening services.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this really important issue to the Chamber. Does he agree that, despite the huge increase in EHCPs, investment in mainstream and special educational needs schools has been drastically cut? That is having a huge impact, mainly on mainstream schools that are trying to back-fill the provision for special educational needs pupils in our areas. Society is often measured by the way—
Order. A lot of people are down to speak, so please keep interventions brief.
My hon. Friend makes his point well and passionately. He is correct; that is what parents and people who work in our schools have been saying to me.
I will highlight some of the most appalling statistics. More than half of SEND pupils have been forced to take time out of school due to a lack of proper provision, and some children are missing years of schooling. Two in three special schools are at or over capacity; there are 4,000 more pupils on roll than the reported capacity. There are eye-watering delays for children to get their education, health and care assessments and plans, and fewer than half of the plans are issued within the 20-week legal limit.
Nearly a third of parents whose children have special needs have had to resort to the legal system to get them the support they need, and many have spent thousands of pounds to do so. Seven out of eight teachers and 99% of school leaders say that SEND resources are insufficient to meet the needs of our children, according to National Education Union and National Association of Head Teachers staff surveys. Councils face huge SEND deficits, which now stand at £3.2 billion but are expected to reach £5 billion by 2026. The core £10,000 sum that special needs schools receive on a per-pupil basis has been frozen since 2013, despite spiralling inflation. That cost them hundreds of millions of pounds last year alone. I could go on and on, but that alone is a damning indictment of the system.
Child neglect is defined as:
“the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development.”
That is what this failure is, and we should be deeply angry that children are being neglected in such a way.
The SEND crisis is part of the wider crisis in education. There are too few teaching assistants, too few educational psychologists, too few special school places, and Sure Starts have been closed. All that and more means that schools are unable to provide the support that children need. It means that effective early interventions are not possible; that can deepen children’s needs with the result that they require more costly support. When schools face such difficulties, talk of bringing more children into mainstream schools, rather than specialist provision, is just empty rhetoric. All that is exacerbated by national curriculum changes, a much more rigid, prescriptive focus to learning and a greater emphasis on performance measures that simply do not provide the flexibility needed for genuinely inclusive education. We cannot solve this crisis by looking at the SEND system in isolation; we have to consider the wider education system as a whole.
My hon. Friend makes that point very well on behalf of his constituents in the Wirral, and I completely agree. What a trauma! It is trauma piled upon trauma, as parents are forced through this adversarial system, with all they are going through, struggling to get the best for their children—and the best is what our children need and deserve.
I suspect that the blame game of unfairly calling parents “pushy” was all part of a strategy by some in the last Government to blame the system breakdown on too much demand for special education provision and to claim that that demand must somehow be suppressed rather than met. I fear that those who promoted that view could even have been looking to water down the legal entitlements of children with education, health and care plans. Our new Government need to ensure—as I am sure they will—that that demonising of parents is challenged.
To conclude, the dire picture I have painted today is not inevitable; the system can be fixed and children can get the education they need and deserve. That requires improvements in SEND training for teachers, and special educational needs co-ordinators having time to focus on doing their job. It requires many more support staff in school, which means proper pay. It requires changes to the curriculum and to the way in which our education is so focused on tests and league tables, which means that there is pressure to off-roll SEND pupils. It requires genuine early intervention, including the restoration of Sure Start. It requires the scrapping of the safety valve scheme and the writing-off of local authority debts. And, of course, it requires cash. I note that the f40 group believes that the high needs block alone requires an additional £4.6 billion a year just to prevent the crisis from getting worse.
I know that many hon. Members want to speak today. I am delighted that the new Education Secretary has recognised that there is a crisis in SEND provision, because the first step in solving a crisis is to recognise that there is one. I hope that this exercise—going into this debate, continuing through this debate and following this debate—can be part of getting a grip and turning the page on a situation in which so many children are not getting the support and education they deserve in order to fulfil their potential for a happy life, which is something all our children deserve.
Obviously, a lot of Members want to get in. We have 40 minutes, so I am going to impose a time limit of three minutes. Please do not take more than one intervention, because that lengthens the time. Interventions should be to the point; they should not be speeches. If you make an intervention, you will not get called to speak as well. Off we go: I call Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst.
Not at the moment.
We know that families have to go through a rigorous set of tests to obtain an EHCP, often ending in an appeal or taking many weeks to be finalised. In those cases where the plan has not been finalised, parents will have to make the difficult decision whether to send their child to an independent school. In those instances there will be a significant uplift in those pupils’ fees—a massive worry for parents. Some will now no longer be able to afford the fees. We can only imagine their guilt and concern. What are they going to do? Will they have to stop their child’s progress at that school? Will the child need to leave that school?
How can it be fair that a child who is delayed in the education, health and care plan process, through no fault of their own, faces VAT costs, while another child who has secured their EHCP in time does not have that burden? Could the Minister explain that unfairness that the Government have now introduced into the system, and whether they plan to put a stop to it as soon as possible? In light of that unfairness, I urge the Government to look at what steps can be taken to reduce the time that the assessments for an EHCP take, more generally.
There are three local authorities in my constituency, all of which consistently go beyond the legal timeframe. I asked Cheshire West SEND accountability group for parents how long the EHCP process takes. Legally, it should take only 20 weeks, but some have waited more than 60 weeks. Anecdotally, they say on average it is taking 30 to 50 weeks—
I will have to move on to the Front-Bench speeches now. I am sorry to disappoint so many people, although it was pretty inevitable. For the information of new Members, I did not call anyone who had not applied to speak in advance, and I tried to take account of the time that they applied when deciding the order in which I called people. That is the only way we can do it, really.
We move on now to the Front-Bench spokespeople, who will have 10 minutes each. If you could leave a little time at the end for the mover of the motion to respond, that would be helpful. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Munira Wilson.
I will say again and again that we are absolutely committed to ensuring that every child’s entitlement to have the best education possible, in their local area and where they need it, can be delivered under our system.
Nothing says more about the state of our nation than the wellbeing of our children. However, one of the great casualties of the last 14 years has been our children’s wellbeing, their development and their opportunities. Under the last Government, we saw relative child poverty soar, the rates of children presenting with mental health conditions skyrocketing, and more and more children languishing on waiting lists.
It now falls to the Labour Government to rebuild opportunities for our children. That is why we have bold ambitions and why we are determined to deliver on them. I thank hon. Members for bringing this matter forward today and all Members who have contributed to this debate.
However, most of all I want to acknowledge the hard work being done by so many people working in education, health and care who support our children and young people with special educational needs. We know that work is challenging, but we thank them for their commitment and their service.
I call Richard Burgon to respond—very briefly—to the debate.