Colleges and Skills: Covid-19

Debate between Clive Betts and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for securing the debate. He is a powerful advocate for our colleges as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for further education and lifelong learning. It is clear that all contributors recognise the crucial role our colleges play. Many took the opportunity to specifically thank and acknowledge the work of their local colleges, and I have no doubt that all those contributions about the role of our colleges were genuinely felt.

As I know from my regular visits to Chesterfield College, our colleges are the providers of second chances. They are the home of about 30% of all apprenticeship learning and the focal point for our skills strategy. For so many, they are the road between school failure and academic and career success, and they have changed the life chances of people in my family. They are fundamental to our country having the skills it needs to cope with the twin threats to our economy of covid-19 and Brexit.

We have heard during this debate a familiar refrain: that our colleges have been ignored too long by successive Governments, and that they must finally be taken seriously. However, I somewhat take issue with that lazy characterisation, and with the suggestion that recent announcements by this Government constitute some kind of golden age of FE. In welcoming the campaigning zeal of the hon. Member for Waveney I also want to ensure that the record of this Government is properly put under the spotlight, because it is not a case of “it was ever thus”.

As was revealed by my recent written question, £2.61 billion was invested in further education capital expenditure in the final five years of the previous Labour Government. In the following five years, the Government reduced that spending in actual terms by a shocking 64%. In all, colleges have endured a decade of cuts amounting to a third of their budget, while attempting to continue to be at the forefront of equipping young people and adults in every area of the country with the skills they need to succeed. What is more, we have seen adult education funding slashed by 50% in real terms and appalling failure on careers guidance, and the Government announcement just this week that they were scrapping their “Get Help to Retrain” initiative—the centrepiece of the national retraining scheme—less than three years after it was announced should give us all pause for thought.

As we enter this period in which we are asked to believe that the Government have finally accepted the need for a skills-based economy, we do so in the shadow of the vindictive and destructive announcement that they are scrapping funding for the Unionlearn programme that their own assessment was so complimentary about. That is perhaps more revealing than 1,000 press releases. At the same time, we know that, just a few months ago, the Government sent £300 million of apprenticeship levy funds back to the Treasury. There is far more generous funding for the commitment-free kickstart programme than for apprenticeships, and the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) was absolutely right to say that SMEs are shut out of our apprenticeships far too often. The Association of Colleges has stated that colleges face a shortfall of £2 billion this academic year.

There is so much more to say about our further education sector, but unfortunately there is not the time in which to do it, so I will close with this: we need a Government that recognise that colleges are a fundamental part of our skills and economic ecosystem and that do not pit them against universities or even see them as opponents of the independent provider sector, but that see them working collaboratively across the piece. We need a Government that introduce policy based on evidence and then give policies a chance to work. We need a Government that are honest about the fact that the scale of funding cuts means that the current investment is a tiny step back up the mountain.

We need a properly resourced Department for Education that sees FE colleges working collaboratively with employers, universities, trade unions and Government schemes, and we need a Government that recognise that not all people can get careers advice from their father’s friends at the golf club. We need a skills system that works around real people’s lives and supports them to retrain without their families going hungry while they are doing so. Colleges are capable of playing the role we need them to, but not unless the Government show the humility and resolve to recognise where those colleges are starting from and what is required to help them back to the place they should be in: at the heart of a skills system relied on by employers, valued by learners and every bit as good as the very best in the world.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Minister, you have 10 minutes, in order to give the mover a brief opportunity to wind up.

Business Rates

Debate between Clive Betts and Toby Perkins

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins]

It is interesting the hon. Gentleman says that, because the point is that our business rate proposal was announced at the same time as we said how it would be paid for. It is the principle of ensuring that we do not make commitments unless it is clear how we will pay for it—in this case, the corporation tax cut is not being taken forward, and that will pay for the business rates. The Chancellor has just announced that he will not increase business rates, but I would be interested to hear from Government Members whether he will make it clear how that will be paid for. We have had numerous policies so far from this Government that seem to be just sticking it on the deficit.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has made an important point because as well as small businesses, local authorities are under real pressure. Can he assure the House that his proposals will not reduce by one penny the money going to local councils?

[Toby Perkins]

I absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. It is entirely costed and there will need to be a reworking of the Budget to ensure that local authorities do not miss out. The other important point is that, as my hon. Friend will be aware, the Government amendment refers to the fact that local authorities can reduce business rates if they want. The idea that we can give local authorities huge cuts and say, “Well, if you want to reduce business rates, you can”, bears no relationship to the reality of local authority finances in many areas.

Localism Bill

Debate between Clive Betts and Toby Perkins

Monday 17th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

There was a problem with the initial design of the board, but it was subsequently reformed and now works an awful lot better. My concern is that if a local authority chooses not to have one, there will be nothing between the action of pulling a local councillor up and questioning their actions in some way and taking criminal action against them for failing to deal properly with an issue in relation to which they have a registered interest. There could be a real problem there with a void in the system.

I have other real concerns. The Government are embarking on a fundamental change to the planning system in this country, which Government Members cheered because that is what they believe in. With regard to the abolition of the regional spatial strategy and the development of neighbourhood plans, my concern is that change of this kind brings uncertainty and, to an extent, a lack of clarity, and that it could bring delays and, potentially, unintended consequences.

What will happen ultimately? The Government say that their policy is to build more homes than we were before the recession. They have obligations on renewable energy and ensuring that wind farms are developed to meet them, but what will happen if the sum total of all those local decisions is that fewer homes are built and not enough wind turbines are built to meet our renewables obligations? What is their fall-back position? Is it at that point that the Secretary of State will intervene, or is it that they will accept the sum total of local will across the country and fall down on their national house-building targets and their renewables obligations? What is the Government’s position? I have not heard a coherent explanation of it.

[Toby Perkins]

It was a tremendous privilege to be a member of the Select Committee alongside my hon. Friend for a short time. During one of its meetings that I attended, a number of witnesses expressed different views on the strength or otherwise of regional spatial strategies, but every one of them, to a man, agreed that the proposals being produced by this Government would lead to fewer houses being built, not more.

[Mr Betts]

Ultimately, the test will be whether the policy works. My question is this: if the policy does not work, what is the Government’s fall-back position? The Bill includes a duty on local authorities to co-operate on a range of issues, and it is important that they do so, because many of those decisions will have an impact beyond the boundaries of an individual authority. What will happen if local authorities do not co-operate? The Bill is vague about what will happen in that case.

I have mentioned that local authorities stand at the heart of localism. I believe in elective, representative democracy, so I do not understand why it is necessary for the Bill to spell out what the Secretary of State thinks is a proper increase in council tax and for there to be the power to have a referendum in such cases. Rather than a referendum on whether local authorities should cut services, there can be only a one-way referendum if a Secretary of State thinks that a council tax increase might be excessive, as defined by him. Why can we not just leave it up to elected local representatives to make such decisions? I continually refused to vote for the previous Government’s proposals on capping council tax because I did not think that they were right either.