Apprenticeships

Damian Green Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Ministerial Corrections

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to improve the quality of apprenticeships.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

22. What steps his Department is taking to improve the quality of apprenticeships.

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

Apprenticeships are now of high quality, with more off-the-job training and holistic end-point assessment. This ensures that, at the completion of an apprenticeship, the apprentice can demonstrate that they have the skills, knowledge and behaviours for their existing employer or a new employer in the future. Forty-four apprenticeships are now at the new higher-quality standard, and training is up from 540 hours to 670 hours, which is a 20% increase—well ahead of where we thought we would be on quality.

[Official Report, 12 November 2018, Vol. 649, c. 2.]

Letter of correction from the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills:

An error has been identified in the response I gave to my hon. Friends the Members for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) and for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green).

The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Green Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to improve the quality of apprenticeships.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

22. What steps his Department is taking to improve the quality of apprenticeships.

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Anne Milton)]

Apprenticeships are now of high quality, with more off-the-job training and holistic end-point assessment. This ensures that, at the completion of an apprenticeship, the apprentice can demonstrate that they have the skills, knowledge and behaviours for their existing employer or a new employer in the future. Forty-four apprenticeships are now at the new higher-quality standard, and training is up from 540 hours to 670 hours, which is a 20% increase —well ahead of where we thought we would be on quality.[Official Report, 19 November 2018, Vol. 649, c. 6MC.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne Milton]

I do not want to fluster my hon. Friend. The Department is doing a great deal to improve apprenticeships. It is important to make sure that apprenticeships offer high-quality education that rivals that of our universities, so we are doing exactly that. There is no doubt that apprenticeships are already offering such education. We have a £10 million development fund available to develop degrees at a high level, and apprenticeship starts at high levels continue to grow—up almost 30% on last year.

[Damian Green]

Many large firms in my constituency, notably Premier Foods, have great apprenticeship schemes and are using the new system very creatively to improve the quality of those apprenticeships, but it is often more difficult for small companies to do the same. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that small businesses can benefit from apprenticeships as much as large businesses do?

[Anne Milton]

I congratulate Premier Foods on what it is doing in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. Levy payers can already transfer up to 10% of their funds to other employers, including SMEs, and we are increasing that to 25% from next year. SMEs have taken longer to put in place their apprenticeship programmes, although many have already grabbed the opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Green Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to identify the challenge in the north-east—a region with particularly strong primary schools and early years settings, but with more of a challenge at secondary school. She is absolutely right that we need to work doubly hard, and I look forward to working with her.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

T5. I have seen the enthusiasm for apprenticeships from firms in Ashford improve markedly in recent years, which is great, but I hope Ministers agree that the quality of apprenticeships is as important as quantity. Is my right hon. Friend in discussion with the Institute for Apprenticeships about how to enhance the quality of apprenticeships?

[Damian Hinds]

My right hon. Friend the Skills Minister is in very regular contact with the IFA, and I also met it last week. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) is absolutely correct to identify that if we are going to make the step change that we need in the skills and productivity of this country, it is going to be all about driving quality.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Green Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

As the hon. Lady will know, there is a consultation taking place with the Home Office on these very issues, and it will report in due course.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

One of the traditional problems with getting more students to study STEM subjects has been the difficulty of persuading girls to take such subjects up to A-level and beyond. Does the Minister have any evidence to show that policies to encourage more girls to take up these very important subjects are working?

[Mr Gibb]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government recently set out an ambition to see a 20% increase in the number of girls’ entries to science and maths A-levels by 2020. We established, with industry, the Your Life campaign, which is designed to encourage young people, and especially girls, to choose maths and physics. We have seen a huge increase in the number of girls taking A-levels in physics, from 5,800 in 2010 to 6,800 this year, and in maths, from 28,000 in 2010 to 31,000 this year. However, there is still more to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Green Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree with the first part of the hon. Lady’s question, although I am afraid that I could not agree with the second part because I could not quite see where she was heading with it. The overall issue is that the mental health of young people from all backgrounds needs to be addressed, in the sense of tackling early intervention and prevention and of ensuring that we produce strong, resilient young people. That is why I have been talking a lot about character education, which is something that I want to prioritise in the schools system in England.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

I am delighted by the announcements that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have made on this issue, not least because many families in my constituency and in other parts of east Kent have great difficulty in accessing mental health services, particularly for adolescents. Can the Secretary of State reassure the House that her Department’s involvement in these matters will mean that people throughout the education system will be much more alert to the early signs of mental health problems and have quicker access to the medical mental health services?

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. That is precisely why the Department has made this a priority. We understand that, although teachers are not mental health workers, they work with young people day in and day out, week in and week out, and they will be able to spot the issues. However, they need to know that when the cases get referred, they will be dealt with speedily by the medical service, which is why we are working closely with the NHS as well. I also want to ensure that teachers are fully equipped to tackle mental health problems and mental health stigma in classrooms, and that is why we have funded the Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education Association to produce guidance and lesson plans to support age-appropriate teaching on mental health issues which can be used in this academic year.

Further Education

Damian Green Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

Well, there are going to be devastating things coming further down the track, as the Barnett formula will have impacts for Wales, and for Scotland as well.

Let us look at the context. First, with the budget for provision for 16 to 19-year-olds down by 14% in real terms over the last Parliament, post-16 education is at breaking point. Principals are desperate to maintain provision and parents are worried about the narrowing opportunities for their children, and this is filtering down to our young people who feel this Government do not value their education. This is not scaremongering. As has already been said, 139 chairs of FE institutions wrote to the Chancellor recently warning that further Government cuts threaten the viability of their colleges.

Already we are hearing that sixth-form colleges and FE colleges are dropping courses and reducing classes and teaching hours, and it is not beauty courses or fashion courses that are going first, as many Conservative Members want to think; it is the expensive A-level courses such as science, maths and modern foreign languages. Let us repeat that for Conservative Members: we have a Government who are overseeing the loss of A-level courses in science and modern foreign languages. What modern-day Government have ever done that?

Secondly, the raising of the participation age to 18, which we legislated for and continue to support, comes with extra pressure on institutions, with an increase in student numbers. New requirements on compulsory resits and a new A-level curriculum also further increase expectations on sixth-forms and FE colleges. During a period of such significant change, we would expect the Government to support teachers in the transition to a new system. In New South Wales and Ontario, where the minimum school leaving age was increased recently, additional resources were provided to deal effectively with the extra numbers; instead, changes in our country are taking place in the context of significant reductions, with more severe cuts on the way. That will lead to poorer outcomes through fewer teaching hours and less support.

A recent report has found that, from next year, A-level students face the prospect of being taught for 15 hours a week—just three hours a day—because of the fall in funding since 2011. And that is before we have heard the announcements in next week’s comprehensive spending review. In Shanghai, Singapore and other high-performing education systems that the Secretary of State likes to talk about, sixth-formers are taught for more than 30 hours a week. This Government are downgrading our education system to part time, leaving our young people behind their counterparts abroad in the global economic race. I think I get brownie points for mentioning the global economic race, too.

The Government’s area reviews also threaten the viability of some high-performing institutions in a sector that the Education Secretary herself has described as fragile. Yes, there are opportunities for joint working and efficiencies, but it is impossible for the area reviews not to be seen in the context of cuts to the sector, which further undermines the viability of those institutions. What is more, it is simply ridiculous to look at only half the provision and to ignore the many institutions that are in the greatest peril. Studio schools, school sixth forms, new free school sixth forms and university technical colleges are not included in the area reviews. They are the institutions that are most likely to be in danger of losing their viability, yet they are out of the mix. At the same time, the Government are content to put many high-performing and excellent colleges at risk. Our sixth-form colleges are outstanding providers of 16-to-19 education. They offer fantastic value for money by delivering strong outcomes for young people at a lower cost to the public purse than school and academy sixth forms.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

How much more money does the hon. Lady want to spend, and where is it going to come from?

[Lucy Powell]

The question we should be asking is: what will be the cost of these cuts? People will be getting lower-paid, lower-skilled jobs and drawing down on the state for longer periods of time.

There is excellent sixth-form provision in Greater Manchester, my own area, which is currently undergoing an area review. Winstanley College in Wigan and Loreto College in Manchester provide some of the best value-added in the country, and they outperform schools in getting kids from all backgrounds the highest grades in A-levels. I am sure that Conservative Members would be appalled to think their local sixth-form colleges could be under threat, but this is the reality in other parts of the country. Further massive reductions in funding will result in good sixth-form colleges and good school sixth forms closing. The 25% cut that the Chancellor has asked the Secretary of State’s Department to find is equivalent to the loss of half of all sixth-form colleges and one third of FE colleges.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I want to start by recognising the enormous success, despite the financial constraints, of the post-16 sector in the last Parliament—2.4 million apprenticeship starts and more young people than ever going to university; 97% of young people now studying English and maths at 16 to 19 who did not achieve good passes at the age of 16; new gold-standard qualifications such as tech levels, rather than thousands of worthless courses such as marzipan modelling and balloon artistry. That is the legacy of the last five years of this Government’s approach to growth and skills, and it is a record I am proud to defend. Ensuring that our young people have the skills they need to succeed in an increasingly globalised labour market is vital to driving up national productivity.

Our plans for 16-to-19 education lie at the heart of our productivity drive. The plan published at the start of this Parliament by my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills enshrines the role of an improved 16-plus skills system in driving up our nation’s productivity. With rapid technological progress and greater global competition, the skills we give the next generation are fundamental to the UK’s future growth.

[Damian Green]

On 16-to-19 skills, if the Education Secretary would like to see physical, palpable evidence that gives the lie to the Opposition’s case that it is all going wrong, I invite her—and, indeed, the shadow Education Secretary—to Ashford, where, after years of delay, a new further education college is being built in the centre of town. It will open in 2017 and will provide precisely the kinds of skills that all our young children will need for the next generation. It was planned under the previous Government and it will be built under this Government.

[Nicky Morgan]

I am delighted to hear that. Only last week, I opened the newly refurbished sixth form at Loughborough college in my own constituency.

School Expansion

Damian Green Excerpts

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

It does not surprise me at all that the hon. Gentleman is a product of a grammar school education, and it is a delight to have him here. I hear what he says, but I repeat that I want to focus particularly on making sure that all our schools are excellent, offering what he described as the pursuit of excellence to all pupils and all schools in the country, rather than always focusing on some of the older battles.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

I assure my right hon. Friend that her decision will be welcomed not just in Sevenoaks and Tonbridge, but throughout Kent, where thousands of children and parents benefit from our excellent grammar schools. May I ask her once again to refute the false point made by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who seemed to cast a slur on the many excellent high schools in Kent? If she wants some evidence for that purpose, I should welcome her, and indeed him, visiting some of the excellent and improving academy high schools in my constituency, where children can receive an excellent education.

[Nicky Morgan]

My right hon. Friend is right. Alongside Sevenoaks is Knole Academy, which also offers an excellent education. It is a novel idea that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and I might make a joint visit to Kent, but I am always up for novel ideas, so perhaps I will pursue it further.

Child Sexual Exploitation (Oxfordshire)

Damian Green Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

As I said earlier, the serious case review is an independent inquiry and, under this Government, it will be published in full so that we can all see what has been said. As I have said, we propose that there should be a specific piece of work led by Oxfordshire’s safeguarding children board on the impact of the multi-agency approach to tackling CSE, and we are appointing a children’s services expert to work alongside the council and gather evidence of the reforms it has already made to front-line practice.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

I know that many police officers at all levels of the service are appalled at the policing failures that led to the wider failures in this terrible set of cases. I appreciate that this does not fall within the Secretary of State’s ministerial responsibility, but does she share my view that the key thing in the training of police officers now is to change the culture of disbelief so that they treat vulnerable young women no longer as a problem but as victims of crime?

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Green Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I do not think that saying that 71% of pupils are taking the more academic subjects most highly valued by employers and universities could be described as a non-answer. In answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, I am sure that as the local Member of Parliament he will be working closely with the regional schools commissioner, the head teacher, the teachers and the governors of that school. What we all want at the end of the day is the best possible education for our young people.

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

I was able to see for myself at Kennington Church of England junior academy on Friday the benefits of academy status in improving a school that has had serious weaknesses in the past. Does the Secretary of State agree that academy status increasingly benefits not just secondary schools but primary schools?

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree very much with my right hon. Friend. He will want to know that the first wave of sponsored primary academies, which opened in September 2012, has seen the proportion of pupils achieving levels 4 and above in reading, writing and maths increase by 9 percentage points, double the rate of improvement in local authority-maintained schools over the same period.

Grammar School Funding

Damian Green Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) not only secured the debate, but set it out in the way he did. Sixth-form funding is a real issue and I hope that even those across the educational ideological spectrum who oppose the existence of grammar schools can be, as he said, united on that, because children’s chances are being affected. That is at the root of what we seek to bring to the Minister’s attention.

As it happens, I attended a grammar school and I support them in my constituency, more widely in Kent and throughout the country because they provide a route for disadvantaged children to reach the top of the academic ladder. Providing that opportunity is one of the core objectives of any sensible education system.

[Kevin Brennan]

Given the right hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks, does he regret that the debate is limited in scope by its title to only 160 or so schools? The issue that he seems to want to highlight affects many more institutions throughout the country.

[Damian Green]

The hon. Gentleman may have a discussion offline with my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough about the title of the debate, but my hon. Friend and I have made it clear that we are not talking only about grammar schools. There are comprehensive schools in my constituency, including one extremely good one, and there are others around the country—the hon. Gentleman mentioned sixth-form colleges. This is a wider debate but, clearly, among the schools most appallingly affected by the unfairnesses in the funding system are grammar schools.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Is this debate about grammar schools in fact about the fundamental unfairness of the whole funding formula? That is what we are actually talking about, that is what the F40 campaign is all about and that is why we need to see fair funding for pupils wherever they are.

[Damian Green]

We all agree that we want fair funding. It is not an easy issue and Ministers in this and previous Governments have grappled with it. The principle that we all start from is that allowing all children to reach the full extent of their potential must be the aim of every school.

When the rhetoric and emotion that have begun to enter this debate, and which have gone on for decades, are stripped away, all grammar schools are is specialist academic schools. Under successive Governments, we have thought it a good thing to allow schools to specialise in music, sport, science, maths or languages, but the one thing that the education establishment has never allowed schools to specialise in is academic excellence. That has always seemed completely perverse: we allow schools to specialise, but not at being good in schoolwork.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The right hon. Gentleman is discussing specialising in academic excellence. In Northern Ireland we have attempted to do that. Does he agree that grammar schools in England, as in Northern Ireland, need to continue to do more to dispel the perception of elitism that continues to dog the sector?

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. There is a different debate to be had about how grammar schools can attract children from across the economic and social spectrum. They are particularly successful at attracting students from minority communities in the UK, which is hugely welcome—and, I suspect, illustrates how committed to the education of their children such communities are. As I say, however, that is a separate debate. The point of this one is that grammar schools and other schools with large sixth forms deserve a fair funding regime, along with all other schools.

A number of complex interactions have led to the unfairness. The Minister needs to address two basic issues: first, that post-16 funding is not protected in the way that the rest of the schools budget is, so that any school with a large and growing sixth form is in a financial straitjacket—grammar schools in particular are disadvantaged, but not only them. Secondly, there is the wide amount of local variation that has arisen, again from perfectly good motives. That can be illustrated in a number of ways.

Some of us attended a meeting of grammar school heads and I was struck by one of the illustrations, which comes from Buckinghamshire, although I am sure the same would apply in Lincolnshire, Kent or other areas in which there are many grammar schools. We were shown what would happen if a Buckinghamshire school moved next door: if it moved to Oxfordshire, it would gain 6% in funding and if it moved to West Berkshire, it would gain 8%. If it moved to nearby urban areas, it would gain even more—in Reading, it would gain a 10% uplift and in Luton it would gain 18%. One can understand all the reasons why such disparities might have arisen, but it is not unreasonable for the heads of successful schools to observe the situation as an unfairness from which they suffer in their daily lives.

One of the reasons why I wanted to contribute to the debate was the effect of unfairness on the day-to-day teaching at the two grammar schools in my constituency, Highworth and Norton Knatchbull. Mr Paul Danielsen, the head teacher of Highworth, told me that, despite being oversubscribed, having full classes and having made staffing reductions and other economies, the school can no longer offer the full range of provision. He thought that some schools, at the extreme, might not be able to operate at all—I think that that is unlikely, but it is a possibility. We are talking about the cumulative effect of funding decisions.

[Mr Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale West) (Con)]

Is there not a further irony? At a time when we want a broader curriculum taught post-16, it is often grammar school sixth forms that teach the most challenging A-levels, such as single sciences, which are among the things that lead to more scientists and engineers. Is there not a terrible danger that the squeeze on funding might reduce that breadth, rather than increase it?

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is not only right, but uncannily anticipates my next point.

The practical effect on day-to-day education is a smaller offer in the sixth form for many pupils. Highworth school does a lot of challenging A-levels. Languages are a particular problem, unfortunately, because they have become a less attractive subject for many pupils. German A-level classes are being run with class sizes of 11 and French and Spanish ones with class sizes of seven. With the financial squeeze, they might no longer be viable, which would be appalling. Already in that school, the number of A-levels offered has gone down from 40 to 32, which is completely perverse. I know that the Minister agrees. It is a nonsense that good pupils at good schools are being penalised. They are losing opportunity, and levels of attainment that could be reached are not being reached.

What has happened has not been because of Government intention. Much hugely beneficial education reform under this Government has massively improved the life chances of millions of young people in the country, and I applaud that wholeheartedly. The one perversity in the system, however, is damaging the life chances of children—of some of our most academic children at some of our best schools. I fervently hope that the Minister and the Government can address that in the months head.