Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords]

Damian Hinds Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

We cannot just wish it into being, we cannot assume it or assert it, and we cannot legislate for it: esteem is in the eye of the esteemer and parity of esteem is earned. In technical and vocational education and training, that requires a clear and understandable set of qualifications with high standards and specifications that people know cannot be fiddled because they have been set independently. It also requires equipping the individual with what they need to know and what they need to be able to do to succeed in a trade, craft or sector because those standards have been set by employers in that trade, craft or sector.

Those things were at the heart of the blueprint set out for technical and vocational education in this country, which has been followed for the last number of years. I say the blueprint, but it was also a red print, because it was the vision of Lord Sainsbury, a Labour peer. In his landmark report, he set out that we needed to reform the system so that we had a streamlined set of qualifications with clear paths to vocations. His recommendations included: a minimum length of time for apprenticeships, along with a minimum length of time off the job; for T-levels, a minimum length, which was much longer than usual for industrial placements; and standards set by employers. There was also the expansion of the remit of what was then the Institute for Apprenticeships to become the broader Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, linking apprenticeships and T-levels. Lord Sainsbury was also absolutely clear that specifying standards was not a job for Ministers in the Department for Education. It was a job for employers in the industries that would employ those apprentices.

We thought that those principles had become a matter of cross-party consensus. I am sorry to say that we were wrong. We have already had from this new Government a rowing back on the streamlining of qualifications. They have said that they will have shorter apprenticeships but still call them apprenticeships. Now, in the Bill, they will abolish—not reform or evolve—the body that is independent of Government, which sets the standards and ensures the integrity of the system.

Over 50 years in this country, we have had industrial training boards, the Manpower Services Commission, the Training Commission, training and enterprise councils—TECs—which were different from another TEC, the Technician Education Council, which existed alongside the Business Education Council, or BEC. BEC and TEC would eventually get together to give us the Business and Technology Education Council, or BTEC. There were national training organisations, the Learning and Skills Council, sector skills councils, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills and the Skills Funding Agency, or SFA, which would later become the Education and Skills Funding Agency, or ESFA. Lately, we have had local skills improvement plans and IfATE.

Now we will have Skills England, which will be the 13th skills agency in 50 years. I say to Ministers that if all it takes to solve our skills challenges is a new body, a machinery of Government change, do they not think that one of the previous 12 would have managed that already? Ministers, especially those in new Governments, like to create something new, and, in this case, they think that they have something new that business wants, which is a quango—except Skills England is not even a quango. I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for indulging me thus far in talking about all these things, because none of them is in the Bill. This Bill is not about Skills England. There are, I think, two mentions of Skills England in the text of the Bill and I think that they were both inserted by the House of Lords.

This Bill is about abolishing the independent institute that sets standards and passing those powers not to Skills England but to the Secretary of State. That is what Skills England is. Ministers are bandying about all these fancy terms about agency this, and agency that, but it is part of the Department for Education. When it comes to working across Government, I have no reason to believe that this new part of the DFE will be any more equipped to work across Government, let alone across the whole economy, in solving some of these issues.

I love the Department for Education deeply, but, honestly, to operate across Government, to exert leverage and to get things done, I am afraid that the new body has to be in the Treasury or possibly in the Cabinet Office—not in the Education Department, the Business and Trade Department, or some of the others that could have been picked. Therefore, far from reflecting what business needs, what this legislation does is remove the requirement for business to set the standards for what their future employees will learn.

Following the vote in the House of Lords, the Government say that they will amend the Bill to be clear that they will still listen to business. I have the amendment here. What it says is that they will be clear about the times when they will listen to business and when they will not, which is not quite the same thing. In any case, if we are to make use of that business voice—if it is really going to mean something—it has to go hand in hand with the independence of the body. As things stand, even if the DFE is listening to business, it will still be the convenor. There will be no other body. Therefore, it will be the Government who are setting the standards for T-levels and for apprenticeships. I have asked the Minister this question twice already. We would not allow the Department for Education to set the standards for A-levels. We would always have that independently done and verified. Therefore if we would not let it happen for A-levels, how can it be right for T-levels? That is a rhetorical question, but it is a rhetorical question that Ministers should try to answer.

Baroness Smith of Malvern set out all the things that were being done to make Skills England something other than just another unit—a mini department—within the DFE. Today, the Secretary of State has set out some of her appointments, which sound like good appointments, to that body. But none of that is in legislation. That was all news to us. News of this set-up and the appointments of these individuals has come out since the announcement of Skills England. We are voting over the course of the next few weeks, as the Bill passes through its stages, on what will be an Act of Parliament. All that Act of Parliament will say is that those powers are coming to the office of the Secretary of State for Education, and it will be for them to decide in the future how to use them. It may well be that this team of Ministers is in power for 25 to 30 years, or it may not. I encourage all colleagues to think about that. When we legislate, we do so not just for the next 12 months, or even for the next four or five years; we legislate the law of the land, which, all other things being equal, stays in place.

I have some good news. I confidently predict that the Government will hit all their targets on the numbers of young people going through technical vocational education and training and attaining. That is because I think back to the 2000s, and the key target of more children getting five or more GCSEs at grade C or above, including in English and maths. Year after year they made that happen, even though, as we knew subsequently, we were tumbling down the international comparison tables. About a dozen different ruses made those figures look better every year, and that was achieved even without having final control over the specification and what counted as passing or getting a particular grade. Let us imagine what the Government could achieve now.

The Government want a new body—fine. But to give it a chance to succeed for our economy and, crucially, for the young people who this ultimately is about, that body must be independent. I call on Ministers to take the opportunity, as this legislation goes through the House, to write that on the face of the Bill. We were encouraged by the Secretary of State saying earlier that, in any case, within two years they will review the status of Skills England with a view to perhaps making it a statutorily independent body. I encourage Ministers to take the opportunity in Committee to write that into the legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

In rising to support the Bill, I want to say, without heaping too much praise on the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), that it is a pleasure to follow him and many of the comments he made. Like him, I have arrived at this place through the academic route, and perhaps precisely because of that, I, like him, am incredibly aware of the value of the vocational, practical and apprenticeship route. It is in that value that the power of what the Bill is seeking to achieve lies, and I hope to return to that point. I thank the Secretary of State, who is no longer in her place, for bringing forward the Bill, because seven months ago this country voted for change, and what we see today is another building block of that very necessary change.

On a recent visit to Southampton college’s marine skills centre in my constituency for National Apprenticeship Week last week, when it seems we were all busy making visits, I met some apprentices learning a whole range of skills, from engineering to electronics, to carpentry and yacht making. It was truly impressive, mostly because I would be entirely useless at all those skills. It reminded me that investing in apprenticeships is one of the most effective ways that we can equip the next generation with the skills they need. I am pleased to see that, with this Bill, the Government are taking action to ensure we get the right framework in place to shape our apprenticeship system. What apprentices want and what employers need is a system that offers routes into those meaningful, secure jobs, full of the dignity of work, that will bring them success as well as grow the economy.

I am not particularly obsessive about the structure of things or the way in which Government Departments organise themselves to implement policy. Like most people, I want what works, and I want what works best. The truth is that what we have at the moment, however much Opposition Members try to dress it up, is simply not working for too many people. I am pleased that the focus of the Bill is on how we create an agency that will reduce the number of hoops to jump through and will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) said, focus on outcomes, what happens at the end of these training courses, and opportunities.

[Damian Hinds]

Which hoops is the hon. Gentleman looking forward to the removal of?

[Darren Paffey]

I think the best people to answer that would be the employers who, time and again, have been telling us—and, I am pretty sure, telling the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues—about the pure bureaucracy and complexity of the system that has been set up. They are the best advocates of the need for change. By setting up Skills England we can give apprenticeships the flexibility and durability that we need, and that those training will need. Importantly, we can take the interests of employers and young people into account.

If the years since 2010 have taught us anything, it is that poor policy has consequences. Sadly, the IfATE structure set up by the previous Tory Government has failed to deliver and, alongside a lack of investment, that has left the UK with stubbornly high numbers of vacancies due to skills shortages and too many young people who are not in education, employment or training. I would welcome reflections from the Minister on how, at the same time as setting out the new framework and strategy for skills development, we can deal specifically with those not in education, employment or training, and whether a strategy specifically on that would be another jigsaw piece in resolving this picture.

Employers in Southampton Itchen are crying out for new trainees and employees, especially those with crucial, basic digital skills, but even today in this country about 7.5 million working-age adults lack those skills. Is that the golden Tory legacy that we keep being reminded of by Members on the Opposition Benches? All of that is changing with the structures that the Bill sets up, paving the way for Skills England. That will meet the skills challenges of today and empower all training providers and employers, including the excellent Kiwi Education and the South Coast Institute of Technology, to drive maritime, engineering, hospitality and digital opportunities in and around Southampton. It will also ensure that we reset the prestige of apprentices and the apprenticeship route, and elevate them once again to a place of real value.

I associate myself with comments from Members on both sides of the Chamber about the value of apprenticeship skills. I say that as someone who has paid my bills by being a university lecturer for a number for years, yet throughout my time in politics I have championed apprenticeship routes. A piece of paper at the end of something is pretty incidental, to be frank, because its real power is what it empowers someone to do and which doors it opens up. To return to the point made by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, it is about what skills enable someone to be, and what they become through those skills. That is where the real value and prestige of apprenticeships lies, and that is why we are resetting the value of them.

If we want growth and a well-trained workforce, the Bill is a route to delivering that. With this Bill, and with action that I know Ministers will be taking in future, this Labour Government are widening options and breaking down barriers to opportunity for people in Southampton and beyond. That is why I will be proud to walk through the Lobby and vote for the Bill later today.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 13th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Neil O’Brien]

A fantastic person—all good. It is like having NEDs—non-executive directors—in a Department; it is good to have external people. As I noted, however, the CEO of the organisation is literally not a civil servant; it is a job-share civil servant. They are people who currently work in the Department doing post-16 skills, so I am not sure about idea that this is an independent body. Can the hon. Lady tell me where Skills England is based? Physically, where is it located? Perhaps the Minister will tell us. Is it in Sanctuary Buildings, by any chance? Sanctuary Buildings is none other than the headquarters of the DFE. Is this, in fact a desk in an open plan office that is part of the DFE?

The Government can bring in good people. It is good to bring in good people. The DFE has some good NEDs, by the way, but that is not the same as having an independent institution. That is why Lord Blunkett and other Labour peers are warning that the Government are making a mistake. Those are their words, not ours. Lord Blunkett has a lot more experience of those things than me.

All I would say to the Minister and to hon. Members on the Government Benches is, instead of overturning what peers have put into the Bill, this might be one of those times when it is more sensible to listen to people on their own side, people with some serious grey hairs and a lot of experience, people in their own party, who are advising them that they are making a mistake here. Instead of overturning what they have done, the Government should allow it to stand. The criticisms being made by people in the industry and people with experience in education and skills are serious. I hope that the Government will listen to them, rather than simply overturning what they have done and ignoring them.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

We are debating clauses 1 to 3 stand part and schedules 1 to 3. The Minister, in her opening remarks, talked a lot about the intention to create Skills England, how it will operate and so on. That is not in clauses 1 to 3.

The Bill is all about transferring functions from the independent Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to the Secretary of State in central Government. Colleagues may have seen the, as ever, helpful and pithy descriptive notes from the House of Commons Library. Clause 1 introduces schedule 1, which will transfer statutory functions from the institute to the Secretary of State. Clause 2 introduces schedule 2, which will allow the Secretary of State to make schemes for the transfer of property rights and liabilities from the institute. Clause 3 will abolish the institute and introduce a schedule 3, which makes consequential amendments to the 2009 Act and other Acts.

The history of this sector is the history of many changes in the machinery of government and the creation of many quangos. There have been 12 in the past five decades. This one will be lucky—no doubt—13. My hon. Friend the shadow Minister helped us with some of the history and some of those previous bodies. I have a slightly longer list.

We have had industrial training boards, the Manpower Services Commission, the Training Commission, and the training and enterprise councils known as TECs—but those TECs were not the same as another type of TEC, the Technical Education Council, which existed alongside the Business Education Council or BEC in the 1970s. The two would merge in the 1980s to give us, of course, BTEC, the Business and Technology Education Council. There were national training organisations, the Learning and Skills Council, sector skills councils, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, the Skills Funding Agency or SFA, which would later become the ESFA, or Education and Skills Funding Agency, and most recently LSIPs—local skills improvement partnerships—and IfATE.

[Pam Cox]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

I have missed one!

[Pam Cox]

The right hon. Member has missed one: the Statute of Artificers 1563, known as the Statute of Apprenticeships. We have been trying to do this for many centuries, and it is only right that each generation tries to do so. We are still not getting it right for our young people, hence the need for speed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I am very grateful; who knows where this conversation might take us? Last time I looked, 1563 was not in the past five decades. The hon. Lady says that every generation should try to reform, and that may well be true. I do not know how many generations she calculates there are in a 50-year period, but as sure as anything, there are not 12, let alone 13.

Those many bodies over the years have been mirrored by a true panoply of qualifications and awards: traditional apprenticeships; modern apprenticeships; the YOP or youth opportunities programme; the YTS, or youth training scheme; City and Guilds; the TVEI, or training and vocational education initiative; the NCVQ or National Council for Vocational Qualifications; NVQs or national vocational qualifications, which are still in use; GNVQs, or general national vocational qualifications, which became BTECs and diplomas; the 14-to-19 diplomas, which are not quite the same thing as the Tomlinson diplomas; Skills for Life; traineeships; and all together between 100 and 200 recognised awards and organisations, excluding those that do only end-point assessments.

[Peter Swallow]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

I have not forgotten another one, have I?

[Peter Swallow]

I simply wish to say to the right hon. Member that it was not too long ago when he was on the Government Benches and presiding over the very system in question. As he has helpfully elucidated for everyone, we are dealing with an incredibly fractured landscape, which is precisely the challenge that the Bill proposes to address. In all frankness, given the fractured nature of the landscape, which he eloquently identified, should he not support any attempt to bring it together?

[Damian Hinds]

Yes, but the Bill does not do that, and if the hon. Member thinks it does, I am afraid he is mistaken.

Some years ago, I used to sit on the Government Benches and was a Minister at the Department for Education, as the hon. Member said, and on many occasions I have had a close interest in these areas. There was a cross-party coming together in the early to mid-2010s, which resulted in the Sainsbury report. The noble Lord Sainsbury, as the hon. Member may know, is a Labour peer who devoted a great deal of his life and the work of his foundation, the Gatsby Foundation, to trying to improve something that in this country, historically and by international comparison, we have not been tremendously good at: technical and vocational education and training. The Independent Panel on Technical Education, which convened in 2015 to 2016, took a broad overview of exactly the fractured landscape that the hon. Member talked about. By the way, I have missed out the page of my notes where I was going to go through all the qualifications that someone could do at level 3 to age 18, which is a similarly sized list.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I had probably better go on a little, but I would love to hear from the hon. Gentleman. I promise that the Committee will have a chance so to do.

Unsurprisingly, that panel found that the technical and vocational education and training landscape in this country was over-complex. The example of plumbing was given, with 33 different qualifications that a young person could decide to do. Moreover, the panel found that the system was not providing for the skills that the country needed and that the technical and vocational education and training had become “divorced” from the occupations that they were there to serve, with no or weak requirements to meet employers’ actual needs.

The Sainsbury report, published in April 2016, set out a blueprint for what would be a major upgrade and simplification of technical and vocational education and training, to address the productivity gap in this country—we talk about this sometimes; there has been a productivity gap every year I have been alive, and I am in my mid-50s today—and indeed a major social justice gap. Although it was a blueprint, it was also a redprint because it had cross-party support. It called for a fundamental shift in how we did technical and vocational education, with coherent routeways from level 2 through to level 5 along 15 different sector routes, three of which would be apprenticeship only, through to 35 different pathways mapped as specific occupations—specific needs of the economy and companies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

I, too, pay tribute to the work of Lord Sainsbury. Those points, which were inserted into what were then called the Sainsbury routes, drew on the experience of the best technical systems in the world, particularly those in Germany and Switzerland. What characterises those systems is the unbelievable level of employer ownership and the incredible constancy of the organisations, which are external to Government, that run them. The Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung has been around for, I think, 50 or 60 years. Are those not the characteristics of a good system—employer ownership and independence—and the things that Lord Sainsbury was talking about?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is right. If we take the full etymology, we can go back a lot further, to the creation of guilds centuries ago, which evolved into the modern system.

[Laurence Turner]

I have enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman’s recapitulation of the history. In the last Parliament, I attended meetings of the UK shipbuilding skills taskforce, which was sponsored by the Department for Education, and considered these matters in respect of that industry quite closely. Employers and employee representatives were unanimous that the GCSE entry standard requirements should be removed in that industry, but the inclusion of that recommendation was blocked because, we were given to understand, it would not be supported by DFE Ministers. Does he share my concern that the independence of the current system is more claimed than real?

[Damian Hinds]

No, I do not, but there is a definition of what an apprenticeship is. There are perfectly good reasons to have all manner of training courses, including entry-level ones, that do important things, but they are not apprenticeships. The shadow Minister talked about Germany. In our country, the minimum length of an apprenticeship is shorter than the typical length of one in Germany. The time off the job—the time in college—is shorter. As I say, we can add on other things, but we cannot stretch the definition of what an apprenticeship is indefinitely. I may come back to that later.

On the face of it, this is a simple Bill—it has 13 pages and is on a simple subject—so it should be fairly easy for a Committee to dispatch in a couple of Thursdays. I have no doubt that Government Members will take the opportunity to make speeches on this subject, and I am sure those will be rather good. Members may make what could be described as great speeches and what they say will be largely unarguable. I fancy that we may hear the word “mission” from them, perhaps even more than once. They will talk about the importance of skills in our economy, investing in the next generation, valuing every single person for what they can do and the value of joining-up across Government Departments.

That will all be correct, but it will be largely beside the point. To turn a great speech that includes those things into a truly outstanding speech in this Committee, they would have to explain why taking away the independence of the body overseeing the system that upholds the standards would make those entirely laudable and shared goals more likely to come about. I know of no reason to believe that it will, but I am keen to hear from anybody who has such an idea.

In the Labour manifesto, there were some very laudable aims. It said that it wanted to empower

“local communities to develop the skills people need”

and to

“put employers at the heart of our skills system.”

Labour said that it would

“establish Skills England to bring together business, training providers and unions with national and local government”,

in order to deliver its industrial strategy. The manifesto said:

“Skills England will formally work with the Migration Advisory Committee to make sure training in England accounts for the overall needs of the labour market”.

It mentioned a commitment to

“devolving adult skills funding to Combined Authorities…alongside a greater role in supporting people into work”,

and Labour will

“transform Further Education colleges into specialist Technical Excellence Colleges.”

There are different ways that those aims could be achieved, and I would argue that there are better ways. The Government could, for example, keep IfATE as the standard-setting and upholding body, and create a new, small body, possibly inside the Treasury, to assess the needs of the economy and allocate funds accordingly. They could also strengthen the powers of local skills improvement partnerships, working closely with devolved authorities and mayors, to ensure that what is delivered at a local level in individual colleges matches what the local economy needs. I would have probably chosen that architecture, but plenty of other variations are possible.

To be clear, the Bill does not do any of those things. It simply abolishes the independent body that convenes employers to set the standards and then uphold them, and it hands those powers to the Secretary of State. It does nothing else—I say that, but it is not totally clear to me what it does to Ofqual, and we may debate that when we get to clause 8. I suggest that the Bill presents two fundamental questions: first, about independence; and secondly, about who should set the expectations and standards in any given sector of work—should it be the employers in that sector or somebody else? We will come to that debate when we reach clauses 4 and 5.

Ultimately, this is about whether we believe enough in the phrase “parity of esteem” to do the things necessary to achieve it. As I said in the House the other day, parity of esteem is not something one can just “assert”, and it cannot be legislated for. We cannot pass a law to give something greater esteem. Esteem is in the eye of the esteemer and it can only be earned. In part, that comes from knowing that the qualifications of the technical and vocational strand in our country are just as rigorous and have the same integrity as the academic strand.

By the way, independence is not totally a left/right issue. There are plenty of people on the right of politics who share the Minister’s desire not to have independent bodies. There is a general “anti the quangos” strand, and I have some sympathy for that. By the way, a debate is going on at the moment about removing the independence of the national health service and bringing it into the Department of Health and Social Care. That can be argued both ways. On the one hand, it will be harder for the NHS to do some things, particularly what they call reconfigurations, when they become subject to political pressure. On the other hand, it can be argued that there should of course be direct control from a democratically elected Government over the most important institution in our country. However, I think an independent body for upholding standards in education is in a separate bracket.

[Neil O’Brien]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the context in which this is happening matters? We are talking about getting rid of a prestigious and independent institution, and at the same time, T-levels will not do what Lord Sainsbury hoped they will do. They were supposed to replace the existing standards but, in fact, they will be just another thing in the alphabet soup. We are seeing apprenticeships being made shorter again, and we are going back towards shelf-stacking types of apprenticeships. The mood music is already pretty ominous, and that is against the backdrop of Ministers getting more power by taking this back into the Department and abolishing independence. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is an issue?

[Damian Hinds]

I do. Funnily enough, my hon. Friend anticipates my next paragraph. Any Government rightly want more young people to pass their GCSEs, get good A-levels, or start and complete apprenticeships. The truth is that the quickest way to have more people getting any qualification is to make it a bit easier, and there is plenty of history of that, I am afraid. The entry requirements or length could be reduced, the pass mark could be made lower, or the credits that count towards the outcome could be changed. One of the reasons we have independent bodies setting standards is so that that temptation cannot be succumbed to, and crucially, everybody can see that it cannot, so they can have total faith in the standards being upheld.

Essentially, the rationale for why there is an independent Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is the same one as why the Chancellor sets fiscal rules, or why Gordon Brown made the Bank of England independent: it is specifically for the Government to keep themselves within certain tram lines. We do this for academic qualifications. I have asked the Minister this question I think three times, and I will ask it again today: it would not be acceptable, would it, to say, “I’m going to put the pass mark, standards and specification for A-levels in the hands of a Government Minister”? If that is not acceptable for A-levels, how can it possibly be acceptable for T-levels? And we still say that we believe in parity of esteem.

In the good, possibly great, speeches that we will hear from Government Members, one other thing they might say—in fact, they have already started to say it; they pre-empted me—is that apprenticeship starts have fallen since the peak, but that under this Government, they will rise. Well, of course they will rise. If we look at the time series over the last decade of apprenticeship starts, we are not comparing apples with apples; we are comparing apples with oranges, because we had major changes in what counts as an apprenticeship, with the move from frameworks to standards as well as the minimum duration and minimum time off the job.

In discussing the overall numbers, we should also mention that the falls were in the intermediate level and that there were rises in the advanced level, and especially in higher-level apprenticeships. If the specification is reduced, of course that will increase the numbers. To be fair, the Government are not waiting for Skills England. They have already been doing this, by bringing the minimum length down from 12 months to eight months. They have also announced what they are calling foundation apprenticeships, and I hope the Minister will be able to tell us exactly what those are—they sound a bit like traineeships, but let us hear it—and crucially, whether they will count towards the number of apprenticeships that are being undertaken in the country.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms Furniss, for these proceedings today. I rise to speak against Government amendment 1 and, by extension, in defence of clause 12 as it came out of the other place.

To be clear, we want Skills England to succeed, and clause 12 as drafted will help Skills England to succeed. It is a breathing space clause, allowing Skills England to operate for a year before it has to absorb IfATE’s functions. The Minister just described it as disappointing that this clause was inserted by the other place. I do not think it is disappointing at all. It is a very good thing. It is not anti-Skills England. It is a pro-Skills England clause to give the new body its best chance of success.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and I did not confer in preparing our notes for this morning, but I, like him, was very struck by what another former Sheffield MP, the noble Lord Blunkett, said in the other place. He noted that with the transfer of functions, close to 200 people would transfer from IfATE over to Skills England and, in his words,

“there is a real danger that IfATE will swamp Skills England at birth.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 November 2024; Vol. 841, c. GC98.]

Skills England has a really important function to perform. Were it to be hampered in that because of operational complexities and difficulties, that would be deeply regrettable. To understand why this is significant, it is important to note that Skills England and IfATE have different shapes—as an analogy, think about different depths and breadths. Skills England will, at least initially, prioritise 10 sectors: the eight sectors identified as growth-driving sectors in the industrial strategy. Added to those we have construction and health and care, which are also essential to some of the Government’s other missions—so eight plus two makes 10. It will develop skills needs assessments for each of those 10 priority sectors to feed into the industrial strategy planning process.

In the noble Baroness Smith’s very helpful letter to peers on 18 March, she says that work is under way on the eight growth-driving sectors identified in the industrial strategy. That begs the question: what about the other two? They are also identified as being crucial to Government missions. Another question: what about the other volume sectors of employment in the economy? I worked in hospitality for almost 20 years before coming to this place. Hospitality is a fundamental part of our economy; hospitality and retail along with care form the biggest employers in our country. There is sometimes a danger with being mission-led that, if something falls slightly outside the scope of the mission, it gets slightly overlooked. I know that many in those sectors would be keen to hear more about that.

On top of the three big volume sectors of hospitality, retail and care, we could also add admin and support—four sectors that collectively historically have accounted for about a quarter of gross value added in this country, but account for about three quarters of the people in the country who are low paid. For many social justice and equality reasons, those sectors need to have proper focus.

That is what Skills England is currently planning to do. IfATE does something rather different and is on a different scale. That goes back to what I was saying about the difference between depth and breadth. IfATE creates and maintains over 600 occupational standards for apprenticeships, T-levels and higher technical qualifications. It works with employers to develop, approve and review occupational standards. It creates and maintains the occupational maps, which group together occupations into 15 routes. It approves, reviews and ensures the quality of approved technical qualifications and their alignment with the occupational standards, and it develops, reviews and approves apprenticeship standards.

Skills England is initially looking at a narrower set of sectors, but with a much broader remit for those sectors; that is what I mean about the difference between breadth and depth. It does more than IfATE, and each of the additional things will, in its own right, take a lot of work to properly establish. That is why I say that clause 12 as currently drafted is a pro-Skills England clause: it seeks to give Skills England the best opportunity to achieve those ends.

Each of the three elements of Skills England’s remit is big. It will, first, identify where skills gaps exist and, secondly, work with the Industrial Strategy Council and the Migration Advisory Committee to address them. Those are the two bodies that have typically been mentioned in the Government documentation, although recently Ministers have also started mentioning, importantly—it should not be overlooked—the Labour Market Advisory Board, which the noble Baroness Smith spoke about in the House of Lords recently. Thirdly, Skills England is to identify the training that is accessible via the growth and skills levy. Each of those is a very large undertaking that will take time to establish.

Let us take them in turn. First, Skills England will identify skills gaps. On the face of it, that might sound straightforward, but it is not. The first question is: what constitutes a skills gap, and what level of detail are we talking about? Are these individual job roles, groups of job roles or industries? It is also necessary to distinguish between skills that need to be provided systemically, in our education and training system, and skills that firms themselves should be able to train for.

We all know that filling vacancies can be difficult. In my constituency, which has had very low levels of unemployment over the past 10 years or so, it is the No. 1 thing that businesses talk about. It is obviously related to skills gaps, but it is not necessarily the same thing as skills being absent. The Minister talked about the need to home-grow our labour, but a key question for firms that are importing labour—this is relevant to some of the sectors I mentioned—is whether they can be persuaded to make the investment and take on, in some cases, the risks involved in not bringing in labour from abroad. That is a question for individual firms. It is also a question for some whole sectors or sub-sectors.

A real example is social care. Most people would say that it is perfectly possible to train people up to work in social care, but for a potentially complex set of reasons—I do not intend to go into it today, and we do not have time for it—people do not want to go into social care. When business leaders complain to us about the lack of skills, they are typically not talking about the sorts of things that can be certificated. They do not say, “Not enough people have grade C or above GCSE maths,” and they do not say that not enough people have a BTec in such and such or an apprenticeship in something else. They mostly talk about soft skills, or what are called soft skills—some soft skills really are soft skills, but some of them are what in business terms are more properly called behaviours: self-discipline, turning up to work on time and so on. It is not clear to me how that set of soft skills—in my experience, the No. 1 thing that businesses talk about—relates to the work of Skills England.

To come back to the specific questions about the skills required for particular sectors or individual job roles, there is also the question of how far into the future Skills England is looking. Is it talking about how we fill the skills gaps we have today, or about the future effect of artificial intelligence on the labour market, and what we should be planning for 10 or 15 years hence?

There is also a question about the level of ambition. There is a certain set of skills required—craft skills and so on—to fill the vacancies we have today, as jobs exist today. But it is also true that this country has a productivity gap against the United States, Germany, France and others. By the way, that has been true every year since I have been alive—I think I said that last Thursday as well. I am 55 today—I do not mean it is my birthday today, but I am 55 now—so that is quite a long time. If we were being really ambitious, we would not ask what skills we need to fill the jobs that we have today, but what we need to do to make up that skills gap, and what skills are needed to fulfil that.

In identifying where skills gaps exist, Skills England will also have to deal with localities, because jobs exist in certain places. It will have to work with devolved Administrations and with mayors, and mayors will have their own views about the skills gaps in their areas. Will there be a hierarchy of analysis? At what level is Skills England going to identify gaps, and to what extent will that fall to the local area? I will come back to that later. It is also true—I have experienced this myself when talking about the adult education budget, for example, with mayors and local authorities—that, quite rightly and understandably, local governance structures and leaders often want more power to be devolved to their local area. Skills England will have to find its place in what can be a tense area.

There is also the question of LSIPs—local skills improvement plans and local skills improvement partnerships. In the debate on this subject in the other place, Lord Lucas said:

“The word I hear is that LSIPs have been a real success, as they are effective and flexible. It takes a couple of years for the DfE to evolve a qualification but LSIPs can do it in weeks, because they are so focused on the actual local employer need and work closely with a provider.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 November 2024; Vol. 841, c. GC125.]

The Liberal Democrat, Baroness Garden, said:

“I think it is important that the Secretary of State must set the priorities for LSIPs and review them regularly to ensure that their priorities are reflected in national strategies for the creation of standards”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 November 2024; Vol. 841, c. GC106.]

The Minister herself, Baroness Smith, said:

“LSIPs and the employer representative bodies that develop them will also provide important intelligence to Skills England to inform its assessment of national and regional skills, both now and in future. They will work with Skills England to resolve skills gaps.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 November 2024; Vol. 841, c. GC128.]

However, in her letter to peers two days ago, she wrote that Skills England is now—already—responsible for oversight of LSIPs and relationship management for all 38 of the designated employer representative bodies, but also that LSIPs will be a joint responsibility between mayoral authorities and those employer representative bodies.

Devolution is increasing, so the other part of the background is the English Devolution White Paper. At the same time as we are creating Skills England to be the uber skills authority in the land, the foreword to the White Paper, in the hand of none other than the Deputy Prime Minister herself, says:

“We will give Mayors strong new powers over...skills, employment support and more”.

The White Paper states:

“The majority of the Adult Skills Fund is devolved…but we need to go further”,

continuing:

“Strategic Authorities will take on joint ownership of the Local Skills Improvement Plan model, alongside Employer Representative Bodies, which set out the strategic direction for skills provision in an area.”

The question for Skills England, therefore, is how that will work in practice. Clearly, it will take a lot of time and work to make the new structures operational, at a time when the structures themselves are changing in so many areas, with the devolution White Paper being implemented. This is complicated architecture anyway, but potentially something is still missing: ultimately, how we match up demand and supply.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman is slightly out of scope. I would be very grateful if he would just stick to the different clauses that we are debating today.

[Damian Hinds]

I am very grateful for your guidance, Ms Furniss, and of course I will ensure I do. In my defence —obviously I am not arguing with your judgment— I am trying to illustrate the large number of things that this new body will have to figure out. As Lord Blunkett said, if, at the same time, it is taking on the enormous existing role of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, with 200 people coming on board, that makes it harder to figure all these things out, with which I think we all wish the new body and its leadership the very best. But of course I take your judgment.

[The Chair]

Order. I am sure the right hon. Member wishes to hear the Minister fairly soon in response to his comments.

[Damian Hinds]

Of course I do, Ms Furniss. The different parts of Government that the new body will deal with include the Migration Advisory Committee, which is a well-established part of the machinery of Government but takes its commissions from the Home Secretary. This is a quote from gov.uk:

“The MAC bases all recommendations on what it sees as being in the interests of the resident population, taking account that migration has different effects on different groups.”

There will be conflicts between that aim and the aims of Skills England, and who will resolve those conflicts?

The new body will also work with the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, which is an expert committee reporting to the Business Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer; it is made up of experts, as the name suggests. Interestingly—we will perhaps come on to this in relation to some of the new clauses—the Government will legislate to establish that body

“in statute when Parliamentary time allows”,

which raises the question of why they will do so for that one and not Skills England. It suggests that there is perhaps a hierarchy of these bodies.

There is also the Labour Market Advisory Board. It reports to the DWP’s Secretary of State and its aim is to support the DWP

“to better understand the current state of the labour market, to help design policies and strategies to address key challenges”.

I will not go through all the things that it is supposed to do—[Interruption.] The Government Whip encourages me, but I would not risk your wrath, Ms Furniss, despite her best efforts.

Suffice it to say that there is again a cut-across, because of course, in terms of getting people back into work, which the DWP is focused on, there is some tension. Will Skills England be able to ask, for example, for changes in the conditionality regime operated by the DWP and the jobcentre network, to improve skill matching? Will there be better join-up between DWP work coaches and the National Careers Service?

Finally, the third thing the new body is to be responsible for is potentially the biggest and most controversial of all. In the rubric that the Government put forward, they said the new body would “identify the training” that is accessible via the growth and skills levy. I do not think they actually mean “identify”; I think they mean it will specify what is available to be paid for through the growth and skills levy. I will not go through all the arguments about the levy, but the new body will have to, and the 12 months envisaged under clause 12 would be a good time to do that. It will have to think about the levy’s real purpose and the distinction between firm-specific skills and training, sector-specific skills and training, and generic transferable skills and training. The levy’s purpose was to increase the total amount of investment in human capital in this country, to help our productivity gap and fill job vacancies, and the new body will need carry on with that purpose.

I hope I have given us a flavour—there is more—of the enormous strategic challenges and the enormous job of work for these very good people. There are some very encouraging signs in the appointments the Secretary of State has made, but what these people have to take on is enormous, and we want and need them to succeed in this endeavour. It would be far better to stage the approach, so that Skills England is established first, then takes on the great strategic roles working across Government and throughout the economy, and then, 12 months later, subsumes IfATE.

[Janet Daby]

The right hon. Member speaks of the enormous challenges; might I point out that the enormous challenges were left by the previous Government, which he was part of? The right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston were both previously in the Government, so it is only right that I set the context of the failings of the previous Government before I attempt to respond to the many, many points, views, opinions and ideas that were offered.

To put it into context, the previous Government had 14 years to deal with the skills problems and the crisis we are facing today. UK employers reported that more than a third of UK vacancies in 2022 were due to skills shortages. Would Members from the previous Government like to respond?

[Damian Hinds]

That is not really the way we do it in Parliament. You respond for the Government.

[Neil O’Brien]

We ask you a bunch of questions. I do not know whether you have noticed, but you are the Minister.

[Janet Daby]

I did not expect the Members opposite to respond anyway.

[Damian Hinds]

I am very happy to—

[The Chair]

Order. Calm down. Sit down, please.

--- Later in debate ---

[Janet Daby]

This mission-driven Government have a plan for change. The need to boost Britain’s skill is crucial. We need skills to drive growth, to build homes, to deliver energy security and to build an NHS fit for the future. We want to move forward and make sure—

[Damian Hinds]

The question is how.

[Janet Daby]

Oh, there is how.

[Damian Hinds]

Go on then.

[The Chair]

Order. Please do not have a conversation across the room.

--- Later in debate ---

[Janet Daby]

I ask the hon. Gentleman to allow me to proceed further, because there is so much to say.

We have announced £300 million of additional revenue for further education, with £50 million available to sixth-form and further education colleges from April, to help to respond to priorities including workforce, recruitment and retention. We are offering up to £6,000 annually through the targeted retention incentive to attract and retain new teachers in critical subjects. We continue to support recruitment and retention through teacher training bursaries worth up to £31,000, tax free, in certain key subject areas. We are providing support for industry professionals to enter the FE teaching workforce through our Taking Teaching Further programme.

On Skills England’s relationship with the devolved Governments in the UK, its territorial scope is England only. The devolved authorities will be essential partners for it to ensure that our skill systems meet the skills needs of the whole UK labour market. It will be vital for us to work together openly and collaboratively. The Department for Education and shadow Skills England have engaged with the devolved Governments and the territorial offices, and there will be regular meetings.

In devolved areas, strategic authorities will play a stronger role in local skills improvement plans, working with a designated employer representative body. We are currently in the process of reviewing the geographies of LSIPs to ensure that, where possible, they align with the boundaries of devolved areas.

[Damian Hinds]

The Minister may be about to come to this, but what will be the relationship between LSIPs, and whatever strategies they draw up, and Skills England?

[Janet Daby]

As I have already said, the devolved areas will work on LSIPs with ERBs and maintain a close and strong relationship with Skills England.

LSIPs provide ongoing mechanisms through which local employers, strategic authorities, providers and other stakeholders come together to identify and address skills needs and issues. This supports Skills England’s aim to have the skilled workforce the economy needs at a national, regional and local level.

In response to the question about the impact of national insurance costs on skills and education, the Government have agreed that public sector employers will receive support in recognition of the increase in their national insurance contributions from April 2025. We are also providing £155 million for post-16 schools, academies and further education colleges. That is an increase of over £1 billion in the financial year 2025-26 for the education sector.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Neil O’Brien]

Clearly, the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire has had precisely the same thought that we have, and indeed as many other educators, peers and businesses have had, namely that we should make the Bill actually do what the Government try to pretend that it does: set up Skills England.

As I said in the last sitting, the Bill, as introduced, did not even mention Skills England, the reason for which is that it is part of the Department for Education—in fact, its chief executive officer is a pair of DFE civil servants. Ministers have made their case for this in-sourcing, as they think it will make things faster, and we have made our case for using independents, but so have lots of others. For example, as the Labour peer Baroness Blower pointed out,

“the appropriate move from where we are would be to a statutory body”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 November 2024; Vol. 841, c. GC90.]

That is the effect of new clause 2; the powers that would be transferred to the Secretary of State would instead be vested in Skills England. The Labour peer Lord Knight has pointed out:

“The problem that some of us have with the Bill is that it feels like the second half is missing. The second half is the establishment of Skills England as a statutory body.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 November 2024; Vol. 841, c. GC87.]

That is effectively what new clause 3 would do.

In the previous sitting, I quoted from various industry bodies that are making the case for independence, including the Institute of the Motor Industry and the Construction Industry Training Board. Since then, further evidence has been submitted to the Committee by those on the education side. The University of Winchester, in its submission to the Committee, highlights “four core concerns”, one of which is about independence. It says:

“The transfer of power from IfATE to the Secretary of State for Education raises questions about the independence of the proposed Skills England regulatory body. We believe that the integration within the Department for Education (DfE) is a significant risk, with the current regulatory body being completely independent of external leverage. The current IfATE structure includes a regulatory board which is independent from the DfE, ensuring that outside influence is minimised within the decision-making process. We are, therefore, recommending that Skills England is structured to ensure and protect their regulatory independence from Government and other agencies”.

That is the spirit of our new clauses.

The University of Winchester also worries that in IfATE, at present,

“employers and academics come together to ensure that the standard is industry relevant, current, and academically rigorous. Within the current proposed bill, we believe this breadth will be at risk given the transfer of power from IfATE to an individual in the Secretary of State for Education. This transfer has the potential to lead to situations where ministers can create and/or change standards and assessment plans without consultation with the relevant stakeholders, resulting in apprenticeships which are not fit for purpose or academically appropriate.”

It also notes:

“Currently, IfATE as a regulatory body highlights the importance of technical education, through both its name and its work. The proposed legislation will effectively remove the prominence of this important aspect of industry, undermining its activities and relegating it to the background.”

The university is completely right. Setting up an institute was a core part of the drive to create greater prestige and esteem for technical education, and our new clauses aim to restore that degree of independence from the Secretary of State.

New clause 3(c) and (e)(i) also try to highlight, via an annual report, how the Secretary of State is steering Skills England, and how the body is responding to that. I mentioned earlier the Skills Federation’s submission to the Committee, which brings together 18 employer-led skills bodies and 150,000 employers. Its submission notes:

“The clauses in the bill which transfer powers from IFATE to the Secretary of State risk shifting the development of standards further away from employer demand…Too much centralisation leads to a lack of focus on sector needs.”

Surely that is right, which is why we propose a degree of decentralisation with these new clauses.

In a previous sitting, the Minister made the argument that the Secretary of State might need to write standards directly without external input from a group of people in fast-moving and technology sectors. We argued, in contrast, that those are precisely the kind of exciting sectors where industry input, rather than just ministerial enthusiasm, is most needed. That same argument was made to the Committee by the International Information System Security Certification Consortium—the international professional body for cybersecurity—which wrote:

“While ISC2 understands that Government is seeking to introduce flexibility and agility in the way apprenticeship standards are developed, we contend that without industry involvement in the development of standards, there is a risk that apprenticeships may not adequately reflect the evolving needs of certain sectors. This is especially true for cybersecurity where a changing threat landscape and dramatic shifts brought about by emerging technologies means that apprenticeship standards must stay relevant. It is essential that the voice of professionals and industry, as well as those directly involved in delivering educational provision, be heard whenever the Secretary of State exercises these new powers. Any decision to intervene and directly develop or approve apprenticeship standards or assessment plans should take into account the perspectives of those with hands-on expertise in the sector.”

That is surely right.

We have already voted on a very similar new clause to this—new clause 1, tabled by the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire—so we will not press this to a vote. But I want to log the concerns that are being raised by professionals and those in industry about the lack of independence, and I do hope—even though I suspect that the Government will not change their mind about bringing this into the Department—that they can at least find ways in its operating procedures and the way it evolves to try to create that sense of independence, and reassure all those who are worried about the idea of the Secretary of State taking the powers in this Bill to go it alone and write things without the input of those who are actually working in the sector.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I rise to speak in favour of the new clause in the name of my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. He is right; of course, we have just voted on something quite similar, and that vote was lost by the classic 11 to four margin, with which we have become familiar. But that does not mean the Government cannot do this, and indeed there have been some signs and indications that they might make Skills England a fully independent body on a statutory footing. Most people talk about Skills England in their speeches, but that is not what the Bill, as introduced, does; it abolishes something without actually creating something else, and hands the powers to the Secretary of State, in whose gift it is to hand on.

There was also the question that came up last Thursday about Ofqual, and what the Bill does to that, which I do not think we were 100% clear about. I think the Minister was going to write, but I do not think I have seen that letter—that is not to say it has not come, or been sent, but I am wondering if when the Minister comes to speak, if she could confirm whether that letter has come.

There have always been two fundamental questions about the Bill and the creation of Skills England: the first is about independence, and the second is about who should set the expectations and standards for various occupations—should it be the employers in those organisations or somebody else? There is also a third point, which is relevant to independence, about the heft of this body, putting skills right at the heart of cross-departmental work, and what statutory independence would do to the status of this body.

Particularly in education and training, one of the reasons that we have independent bodies is so that everybody knows that the standards are robust, they cannot be subject to political pressure, and there cannot be a temptation to make it a bit easier to get over a hurdle to make the numbers look better. We have had that system of independence for a very long time, and do to this day, and still will in the future for academic qualifications. As I said the other day, I think independence of this body is important to underpinning parity of esteem. IfATE is legally established as a non-departmental public body, whereas Skills England will be, as things stand, an executive agency. As a non-departmental public body, IfATE does therefore have some independence from the Department for Education because its functions and responsibilities are set out in legislation approved by this Parliament, whereas Skills England, as things stand, will simply be an integral part or unit within DFE.

When Skills England was first talked about in the King’s Speech, it seemed that it would be established as an independent body. As well as my question on Ofqual, the first of my other questions to the Minister is, what has changed? If that was the intent—perhaps we have all just misread the text—what is different now, that it should not be? Finally, if it is right for the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council to be put on a statutory footing, why is it not for Skills England?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Janet Daby)]

New clause 2 would impose a requirement on the Secretary of State to establish Skills England as a statutory body with a separate legal identity. It would transfer the functions the Secretary of State takes on under the Bill to a new body within 12 months.

The new clause would undo significant progress already made by the Government to establish Skills England. It has been operating in shadow form since July of last year. It is ready to take on the functions conferred by the Bill. I reassure Members that we considered different options for the model of arm’s length body for Skills England. It being an executive agency allows us to move fast, much faster than the previous Government did for 14 years. Skills England can take immediate action to plug the skills gaps that this Government have inherited, and we are focused on economic growth. An executive agency balances the independent Skills England’s need to deliver its functions at arm’s length from the Department with being close enough to inform decisions on skills, policy and delivery. That is good practice for all new arm’s length bodies.

The Department for Education will undertake a review of Skills England. The review will take place about 18 to 24 months after it is fully established, and that will align with the requirements of any future Cabinet Office review programme. It will consider how far Skills England is delivering its functions in the way intended; whether its mix of functions is still aligned to Government priorities; and whether there are alternative ways to deliver the Government’s objectives, including a different model of arm’s length body.

Delay, however, is not an option. We need to respond urgently to critical issues in the skills system to drive growth and spread opportunity. To encourage this Committee, in the first set of apprenticeship statistics under the new Labour Government, we saw an increase in starts, participation and achievements compared with the same period under the Tories in 2023. We remain an ambitious Labour Government. We do not dither or delay, and we urgently need reform to deliver the skills and technical education that is needed. That is what the Bill and Skills England will enable us to do.

New clause 3 would create a duty on the Secretary of State to publish an annual report setting out Skills England’s activities in the preceding year. It would also require Skills England to have regard to matters such as the quality of training and education, and value for money when performing its duties.

Well-established requirements are already placed on executive agencies for a high level of transparency and accountability in how they operate. That includes the publication of a framework document which, as I have mentioned, is a core constitutional document. It will be agreed between the Department for Education and Skills England in accordance with HM Treasury’s handbook “Managing public money”. Once finalised, it will be published online and a copy deposited in both Houses.

The Secretary of State, and Skills England acting on their behalf, is already obliged under general public law to take into account all relevant matters when exercising their functions. Those relevant matters are likely to include the ones in new clause 3. While the Bill was scrutinised in the other place, as I have said, my right hon. Friend the Baroness Smith of Malvern, shared a draft copy of the Skills England framework document with peers. She committed to include references to the need for Skills England to deliver its functions efficiently and effectively, and to ensure that training is high quality and provides good value for money.

In response to the right hon. Member for East Hampshire on Ofqual, the letter concerning Ofqual has been sent to the Chair of the Committee, and also addresses other issues raised by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston last Thursday.

I am happy to repeat the commitments that I have already mentioned, but finally, I would like to say there is precedent for non-departmental public bodies being closed and their functions being reassigned to newly formed executive bodies. For example, under the previous Government in 2011, the Standards and Testing Agency was established as an executive agency taking on functions from the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, a non-departmental public body, which was later closed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

It is a shame, as this is the last day of this Bill Committee. I do not know whether the letter could be produced before we finish today, but otherwise, those questions will effectively go unanswered because they have not made their way to Committee members. But this was a minor point about the interaction with clause 8 and the decision to bring Ofqual in potentially for T-levels, so I will turn squarely to T-levels now.

I was encouraged by the positive words about T-levels in the curriculum review, but it is very difficult to get a new qualification going, never mind a whole new system, which is what T-levels were intended to be in their initiation by Lord Sainsbury. After the big long debate on BTecs, Ministers in the end decided to add T-levels into the existing alphabet soup of qualifications rather than use them to replace and rationalise that system, which was the original goal of Lord Sainsbury’s project. I should declare an interest in so far as I worked on T-levels back when they were still known as Sainsbury routes. None the less it would still, despite the Ministers’ decision, be possible for them to grow and become a leading part of the system, but that would require a huge push from Ministers. It is difficult to get a new qualification going, never mind a whole new system, and it is much more likely that in the absence of a big push from Ministers that they will stagnate as an interesting, well-regarded and quality niche, but ultimately a small part of the system, which was really not what was intended.

For several years, the DFE has provided a 10% uplift to the funding rates for T-levels as a new qualification, but a couple of weeks ago the Government implied that they would stop doing that this year. They have not made a decision, and providers are now desperate for certainty on that issue. I ask the Minister directly to respond to this: will the 10% uplift be continued or not after this academic year? The sector is now making decisions about this, and urgently needs certainty. The Minister keeps saying that she wants to move fast: the providers, and I am asking her to move fast to give them the certainty on what the funding rate will be, and whether the 10% will continue, because if not, my strong sense is that many providers will conclude that it is not really a priority any more, and not worth the investment of time and resources, which are significant to get these things going. I hope the Minister can address that point, and I give her a bit of notice: will the 10% continue or not—yes or no?

The Government are notionally in a one-year “pause” on the move to replace BTecs, which should give the Government time at least to make up their mind on how they see the future of T-levels. If they want to preserve the option to be ambitious for T-levels, however, they need to keep supporting them now. Those of us who worked on their development and who still support them are not blind to the challenges. Although drop-out rates fell sharply in the last year, they are still high. Even though T-levels are meant to be a demanding qualification, we want young people to get to the end of them.

Although the huge element of work experience is a key advantage and attraction of T-levels to learners, it is expensive and hard to deliver, particularly in a way that is slick and gives clarity to students up front, rather than gives stress. I do not say this every day, but Gordon Brown was right to press the Government to be more ambitious here—

[Damian Hinds]

Hear, hear.

[Neil O’Brien]

We do not always cheer Gordon Brown on the Conservative Benches, but on that occasion he was absolutely right. Lord Sainsbury, too, is right to want to be ambitious. A huge amount of thought went into T-levels over a long period and on a cross-party basis. They have great potential to rationalise the system and to do what politicians have said for decades they want to do, which is to create a prestigious and clear alternative to the academic A-level route. At the moment, however, T-levels are still a fledgling qualification. They have great potential, but they are in need of a lot of care and attention.

My worry is that, amid all the commotion and disruption caused by the transfer of IfATE staff into the Department, that attention will be lost at the critical moment in the development of T-levels. The looming withdrawal of the 10% compounds my worries that attention will be lost at this critical moment. Our new clause therefore aims to ensure that the spotlight stays on T-levels, so that they do not get lost in all the reorganisation, that we preserve at least the option for them to become a widespread and leading qualification on the technical side, and that we achieve Lord Sainsbury’s vision of a more prestigious and higher-funded set of qualifications, more intelligible to employers, and with simpler routes and much more work experience. There is so much potential in T-levels that it would be a tragedy if they got lost in this reorganisation. That is why we are moving the new clause: to ensure that we continue to closely monitor everything going on with them.

New clause 5 concerns higher education. The Government talk about Skills England bringing everything together, but as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire has pointed out, we can never quite do that—there are always other bodies and overlaps. In this case, for starters, we will have two continuing levy training bodies, the Construction Industry Training Board, or CITB, and the Engineering Industry Training Board, or EITB, as well as the many other bodies that my right hon. Friend mentioned—I am thinking about those involved in skills and supply, which includes the Migration Advisory Committee, as well as the workforce strategies of other Departments, such as the NHS long-term workforce plan, which spans technical education, higher education and apprenticeships.

The other big case in point, of course, is the overlap between the work of IfATE and the future Skills England, and the regulators of higher education. In our previous sitting, we talked about the welcome growth of higher apprenticeships and the Government’s imminent plans to axe them, which we are concerned about, particularly after so much work has gone into them. That is why new clause 5 would require a report on the impact of the Bill on higher education.

The Bill is about apprenticeships and technical education rather than higher education, but the two have become increasingly overlapping. The number of people on higher apprenticeships went up from a little over 3,000 in 2010 to 273,000 last year—a huge increase. For some universities, providing degree apprenticeships has become a very important part of their work.

I will not recapitulate the things I talked about in the previous sitting, but level 7 apprenticeships are a powerful tool to enable people to earn while they learn, and to allow employers the freedom to shape higher education to their needs. Employers are choosing—with their own money—to invest in level 7 skills. It would be false to assume that a reduction in funding here would lead to an increase in the lower levels. Contrary to the claims that are sometimes made, level 7 apprenticeships do not cater primarily to major corporations. Less than 10% of level 7 apprentices are in FTSE 350 companies. Level 7 apprenticeships in health and care are a hugely important part of the NHS workforce pipeline. In a previous sitting, I talked about how axing those apprenticeships would blow a hole in the NHS plan over the long term, equivalent to 11,000 senior nursing posts, but that would start right now, as there were 2,040 level 7 apprenticeships starts in health, public services and care in 2023-24.

The creation of the apprenticeship levy had two purposes: to stop employers that do the right thing and invest in their people from being exploited by employers that do not, and instead just wait to poach their staff once they are trained; and to make sure that employers drove and owned the system. Now that they do drive and own the system, we see that their revealed preference is to spend their money on higher and degree apprenticeships.

The growth has been spectacular. Between 2018-19 and 2023-24, higher and degree apprenticeship starts grew by 63%, while the growth in level 7 apprenticeship starts was even higher, at 105%. That growth was even faster in some critical sectors. Level 7 apprenticeships in health, public services and care grew 716%. Significant extensions occurred in construction, planning and environment, where they went up by more than 700%, and in digital technology, where they went up nearly 600%. Both are key skills areas for our economy and both are supposed to be key parts of the Government’s industrial strategy.

The Bill changes the balance between the voices of employers and the voices of Ministers. Degree and level 7 apprenticeships are a good example of how ministerial priorities can be very different from employer priorities. I will not repeat the criticisms from lots of employers that I read out in a previous sitting—I quoted the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Chartered Management Institute, several solicitors’ firms and those providing higher apprenticeships into local government and the NHS. In this sitting, I want to look at the other side of the ledger and consider the impact on universities, which is the purpose of new clause 5.

I have said before that we would never accept the lack of independence for the academic side that the Bill proposes for technical education. We would not have Ministers setting the curriculums, specifications and exams for GCSEs and then taking on the role of Ofqual and marking their own homework. We would not allow the same for higher education either, in general, but there is a growing overlap between IfATE, which is to be centralised into the DFE, and higher education, which has all kinds of implications.

The context for higher education is a challenging one. The Government have increased fees, but wiped out the gains from that by increasing national insurance, meaning a real-terms cut in resources for universities this year. With widespread industrial action in the sector looming, the Government have also chosen this moment to dramatically lower the threshold for strike action with the Employment Rights Bill. To now axe level 7 apprenticeships, and potentially also level 6, would be very destabilising for universities and could whack institutions that have tried to do the right thing for their community and for those who do not traditionally go to university.

Sixty-six universities now deliver level 7 apprenticeship standards, and some have got really into it. Prestigious institutions such as Cranfield, a postgrad-only institution with deep industry links, will be hugely exposed if the Government wield the axe in the way they are planning—I suspect that level 7 accounts for a very large part of Cranfield’s UK students. Likewise, York St John University has something in the order of 100 level 7 apprenticeships. Other institutions that are heavily involved include the Open University, Manchester Metropolitan and the University of West London. Given the challenging context for higher education, which is partly a result of Ministers’ own decisions, axing these apprenticeships, which have become quite a big part of their work, could be very damaging.

Given that their action on fees, national insurance and strike action has been a connoisseur-level example of un-joined-up Government, I am not reassured that Ministers have thought through the implications of axing level 7 for higher education.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

The hon. Lady is completely correct; this is not the Bill that abolishes level 7 apprenticeships. However, according to Ministers, the Government are planning to abolish those apprenticeships, which I think is a shame. I think I detected a note of regret in the hon. Lady’s intervention, which I certainly share.

New clause 5 would require a report on the impact of the Bill and the actions of Ministers, through their centralisation of power, on higher education, given that there is now this overlap. Someone might think, “They’re looking at a Bill on technical education and apprenticeships. What’s that got to do with universities?” The truth is that it has quite a lot to do with universities, for the reasons that I have just set out. I worry that the Bill’s implications have not been well thought through.

Can the Minister assure us that she has thought this through? For example, can she tell us how much income universities would lose if the level 7 levy funding really is axed, as Ministers plan to do? How much would universities lose if level 6 levy funding is also axed, an option that Ministers are keeping open? I would love answers from the Minister on those questions today. If she does not feel able to give them, I would be very happy for her to write to me. We have tabled new clause 5 to ensure transparency, so that it is at the back of Minister’s minds that, as they take greater control of everything to do with technical education and apprenticeships, they are not just thinking about those things in their own right, although they are very important.

[Damian Hinds]

In encouraging the Minister to write to him about the effect of the level 6 and level 7 restrictions, will my hon. Friend also ask her to comment on the potential effect of those restrictions on schools—the sector for which the DFE is responsible—and in particular on the postgraduate teaching apprenticeship?

[Neil O’Brien]

My right hon. Friend is completely correct. He will remember from the last sitting that I tried to lay out the incredibly damaging direct effect on our public services that the decision to axe level 7 apprenticeships would have. The most notable effect is on the NHS, where the doctor apprenticeship has already been axed—that is tragic and has left various people who were on it stranded. It will have a particular effect on advanced nursing, which is a critical part of the NHS long-term workforce plan, as well as management throughout the public services, including local government and the town planning skills that the Government claim are desperately needed.

Exactly as my right hon. Friend said, the implications are severe right across the public services, including teaching, where the DFE is the biggest user of this apprenticeship and the biggest beneficiary in the end, which is a terrible irony. That is why we bring have tabled new clause 5, so that we at least have transparency about the effects of Ministers’ actions, and we have it in the back of Ministers’ minds that they will have to explain their decisions, including not just their direct effect on technical education and apprenticeship funding, but their effects on the wider education system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Janet Daby]

I thank the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston for tabling new clauses 4 and 5 and his discussion of them. New clause 4 would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to publish a report within one year of Royal Assent, setting out the impact of the Act on T-levels. Specifically, the report would have to include information on the administration and accreditation of T-levels, and whether T-levels were meeting local demand in schools.

T-levels are indeed an excellent technical qualification for students after GCSEs; I concur with the hon. Member on that. On his question about whether the 10% uplift will be continued after this academic year, we will confirm that position in due course, and I will write to him on that point.

Thousands of T-level students have already gone on to jobs, apprenticeships and further study related to the subjects of their T-levels, and we continue to support the qualification’s growth and uptake. Indeed, three new T-levels were launched in September 2024. A new T-level in marketing will be available from September, and we will continue to support providers to deliver and upscale their T-level offers. T-levels are designed by employers based on occupational standards, and Skills England will continue the work that IfATE has been doing to set and maintain the high-quality occupational standards on which T-levels are built. Curriculum content and assessment methods are set by awarding organisations in line with these standards.

The Bill already contains a duty for the Secretary to State to publish a report setting out which of the functions being transferred are to be undertaken by Skills England and the impact on technical education and apprenticeships. The report will provide information on T-levels, given that they are an important form of technical education qualification. Ofqual is an independent regulator for technical qualifications, and is the only body with the power to accredit the qualifications. Through the Bill, we are reintroducing the potential for Ofqual to apply its accreditation power to technical qualifications, when the Secretary of State considers it to be appropriate. That will reopen the door so that the full range of regulatory options is available for technical education qualifications. That will help to ensure their quality and enhance confidence in them.

[Damian Hinds]

Fortuitously, Ms Furniss, we do now have an opportunity to ask about something in the letter, which the Minister is going through now. I am struggling a bit with this thing about, “If the Secretary of State deems it appropriate.” That is not because I question that judgment, but because I do not really understand what the intent is. What does the Minister believe will be the practical change that comes about as a result? For example, is it about more new qualifications coming in? Is it changing the balance between T-levels and other TVET qualifications?

[Janet Daby]

My understanding is that there needs to be the option for Ofqual to decide whether to inspect certain technical qualifications and whether they should be accredited. That option needs to be available. At present, it has not been happening since 2002. We continue to support the growth and uptake of T-levels, in line with identifying skill needs in the economy. Skills England will gather and publish information about local skill needs. Skills England will also assess how far available provision, including T-levels, is meeting those needs.

I turn to new clause 5, which would impose a duty on the Secretary of State to publish, within one year of Royal Assent, a report on the impact of the Act on the higher education sector in England. Higher education providers play an essential role in meeting the nation’s skill needs and supporting the growth mission. Many of the jobs and sectors that drive economic growth rely on the skills delivered by higher education providers. It is therefore vital that Skills England works closely with and supports the higher education sector as it delivers each of its three key functions. Higher education providers have a deep understanding of local skill needs and growth opportunities. That provides a rich resource for Skills England to draw on, and it builds its authoritative assessment of skills needs in the economy.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [Lords]

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 31st March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Pam Cox]

I have concluded.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I want to make a short contribution to this Report stage debate, particularly in favour of new clause 4 and amendment 6. On the train coming up to Westminster, I typed into my tablet “Short IfATE speech”, and every time I did so, it kept changing it to “Short irate speech”. Unfortunately, I am not very good at irate speeches—it is not really my thing—so I will make a slightly disappointed speech, but with a hint of optimism, because I hope this Minister may take this opportunity to do something of significant benefit for the technical and vocational education and training system in this country.

I know why the Government came forward with the idea of a new quango—it is not even a quango, but a sort of semi-quango—called Skills England. They did that because they were going to have to talk to British industry about a lot of other things. They knew deep down that they would be doing things that were really very unpopular, such as the Employment Rights Bill and the massive hike in national insurance contributions and business rates, and that aspects of those things are bad for employment and unpopular with employers. With Skills England, Ministers—then campaigners, but now Ministers—had come up with something they thought business would really like and want.

In truth, however, if the Government are going to fix the two big underlying issues in our system—the productivity gap we have in this country compared with France, the United States and Germany, and the parity of esteem we all say we want, and that the Conservatives do want, between academic learning and vocational learning —we need to make technical and vocational education better. We also need to make it simpler and more appealing, but above all it needs to be made better. That is entirely what the Sainsbury review—spearheaded by the noble Lord Sainsbury, a Labour Lord—was all about. It was about giving us a simpler, more appealing system, led by business, which would deliver the highest quality of technical education.

[Edward Morello]

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point about creating parity between academic and technical education. Would a useful step in the direction of attracting people into the apprenticeship scheme be to ensure that they are paid the national minimum wage in line with their age group?

[Damian Hinds]

The truth is that there is always a balance about apprenticeships. Of course, there can be abuses: in the past there were abuses of the apprenticeship system with the lower rate that could be paid, although many employers pay the full rate to people of whatever age who are doing apprenticeships. However, it is also true that providers are getting four days a week—not five—of work from somebody, and a form of learning is involved. It is the same, with the opposite proportions, when someone is doing a T-level, which is partly done at college and partly on an employer’s premises. There is always a risk that if we make that gap too narrow, fewer people may be afforded that opportunity in the first place. That balance has to be got right, but I take my hat off to all the many employers who have invested very strongly in their young people, particularly in the way the hon. Member outlines.

Clearly, quality cannot be guaranteed just by the structure of the Government Department or Executive agency that oversees it, but quality is less likely if we get that structure wrong. The two key things with IfATE—key to this debate and for the amendments we are considering —are, first, its independence from the Government, and secondly, that there was the guaranteed business voice. I am talking in the past tense already, but I mean that it is independent and there is a guaranteed business voice.

Which Minister is not going to say, “We’ll listen to business”? Of course, Ministers will say, “We’ll listen to business. We want business to be at the heart of our plans and designing them.” They will say that, but it is not guaranteed in what the Government plan to set up, and just saying they will listen is not enough. Such independence gives people, meaning the employers, the young learners and everybody else, the confidence of knowing that the Government—and it might not be this Government—could not erode the standards because they wanted to artificially increase the volumes of people on those courses.

It has been a feature of the broader debate to have Labour colleagues saying, “We’re going to get the numbers of people getting apprenticeships up.” Well, wahey, of course they are going to get the numbers up. That much is blindingly obvious. I am reminded of a time in the past when many apprentices did not know they were on an apprenticeship, so loose were the requirements. The Conservative Government raised the minimum length of time for an apprenticeship and raised the minimum amount of time in off-the-job training. In college-based education, the Sainsbury review reported that in many cases qualifications had become divorced from the occupations and sectors they were there to serve.

We are already seeing, with the change in the minimum length of apprenticeships from 12 months to eight months, the rowing back or erosion of that standard. There is plenty of training in industry that does not require a 12-month minimum and there always has been, but if somewhere is going to have a short course, just do not call it an apprenticeship. That training is very worth while, but that does not mean it is the same thing.

In Germany, which is the country people usually look to as the international standard on these matters, an apprenticeship typically lasts for two or three years, with two days a week—not one day a week—in college. In those two days a week, young people typically do a full timetable of what we in this country call general education or academic subjects, as well as vocational education. In Germany, people can do an apprenticeship to become a food and beverage manager, but if they want to be a bartender there is not an apprenticeship for that role, because it does not take that long to train to be a bartender—they do another kind of training.

In this country, we have come to a strange position with the apprenticeship levy. There is lots of lobbying to count more and more things as an apprenticeship, so they can be paid for out of the apprenticeship levy. That is not the right way around. Already, we ask the word “apprenticeship” to do a lot. In most countries, it means young people aged 16, 18 or 21.

[Mr Perkins]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I could not resist the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Perkins]

Thank you very much—that is a niche view. The right hon. Gentleman is talking about how the apprenticeship levy creates a straitjacket whereby there is a real value to what is being offered, but it perhaps should not fit into an apprenticeship. Is that not precisely the aim of the Government’s approach? Is he not advocating for precisely what the Government are suggesting, which is, “Let’s make it more flexible. Let’s say it doesn’t have to be a year There is value to investment of a different kind to an apprenticeship.”? Is he not arguing in favour of what the Government are proposing?

[Damian Hinds]

He is not, no; he is saying something different. Of course there is value in all sorts of training. In my working career, I did various stints of training but they were not called an apprenticeship. We do not have to call something an apprenticeship for it to be a worthwhile piece of training.

Already, we ask the word “apprenticeship” to cover a lot of things. As I was saying, in most countries it typically means younger people starting their career. Here, it covers career starters, career developers and career changers. If anything, we ought to be thinking about how we can refocus and differentiate between the requirements that people have at different times of their career, and the requirements their employers have as well.

The Bill is not about to fix that or address that, but I am hopeful—this is where I started—that the Government have indicated that they have heard the message on the two key elements needed when certifying and specifying qualifications: independence and a guaranteed business voice. New clause 4 would create precisely that independence. New clause 1, which was moved by the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), has a lot of merit. He put a great deal of thought into it in Committee, but the additional point about statutory independence is fundamental. If the Minister is minded to accept just one amendment—I hope she will accept two; what do we think?—it should be new clause 4.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point about the exclusion of a number of sectors. There is a danger that Skills England will be very much tilted towards London and the south-east, ignoring large areas such as the midlands and the north of England, which will suffer as a result of its very prescribed focus.

[Damian Hinds]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point, which stands on its own merits.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

To refer back to the previous intervention, as the MP for Bournemouth East in the south-west, I can assure the House that we are very excited about the prospect of extra construction coming to our area. In fact, Bournemouth and Poole college tells me that it has 600 construction apprentices on its books, but that it is having to turn away hundreds more. Those are opportunities being lost. The college welcomes the abolition of IfATE and the speedy transfer of responsibilities to Skills England. Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that we should listen to colleges such as Bournemouth and Poole college?

[Damian Hinds]

Of course we should be listening to colleges such as Bournemouth and Poole college. We heard the Government announce earlier that thousands of people were going to go into construction, but then say that they could not do anything until they created this body and subsumed the functions of IfATE into it. I do not see how all those things fit together. Yes, we want more people going into construction, and a long list of other sectors too, but that does not necessarily mean an apprenticeship in every case. There is a whole suite of existing technical and vocational courses, and T-levels are still ramping up as well.

On breadth versus depth, IfATE has a huge range, with more than 600 occupational standards for apprenticeships, T-levels and higher technical qualifications. Skills England is initially looking at a narrower set of sectors, but has a much broader remit for them, so it does more than IfATE. There are three big things on its list. The first is to identify where skills gaps exist, which is itself a very significant task. It may at first glance sound obvious, but it really is not. First, there is a question of what time horizon we are talking about. Are we talking about today, or planning five, 10 or more years into the future? More significantly, I am sure people would generally say that we could train more people to go into the social care sector. The issue is not so much whether we have the training courses available, but whether people are willing and happy to go into the sector. That is a broader question.

Secondly, Skills England has to work across Government with the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council and the Migration Advisory Committee, as well, of course, as with the Labour Market Advisory Board, under the DWP. The MAC is a well-established body, having been around for a number of years, that has a remit on immigration; it will not necessarily have the same perspective as Skills England. As the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire rightly said, the ISAC is going to be given its own statutory footing, which begs the question of where in the hierarchy Skills England will be. We want this to be a body that is able to speak authoritatively right across Government.

Thirdly, Skills England is going to identify the training that should be accessible via the growth and skills levy. That, again, is a huge task. What can be funded from the levy is a huge strategic question. What specific skills should we rightly expect a firm to provide, and what should be generalisable skills for the economy?

Even after all that, there is still the big question about supply and demand at college level—this may come back to the point the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) made about listening to colleges, on which he was absolutely right. We do not currently stop people doing courses because there is a surplus of people in such and such a sector and a shortage somewhere else, but some hard questions are going to come up around the funding formulae for these things to ensure that we do have enough people going into construction, social care and so on.

My contention is that each of those functions is enormous. Amendment 6 would, therefore, perform a useful role. It is not about dither and delay, but about allowing Skills England to establish itself and to carry out those key strategic functions that it is there to do, and then to be able to subsume the functions from IfATE.

[Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the contributions of the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom), who spoke powerfully to their amendments. It may disappoint them to know that I will be speaking against both new clauses, as they risk undermining the speed with which we need to effect change in the sector.

It is a privilege to speak in this debate on a subject about which I am very passionate, and as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships. The transfer of functions to the Secretary of State and the creation of Skills England is one of the most critical reforms this Government are due to bring about. It addresses one of the most damaging legacies of the previous Government: the fall in apprenticeships. This matters when we look at the structure of the Bill, which is why I am concerned about new clauses 1 and 4 in particular. It also matters in constituencies like mine in Peterborough, and in neighbouring St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire, where we have seen falling apprenticeship starts, falling training and rising unemployment. Peterborough is a city with one of the highest levels of young people not in education, employment or training. This is not just the folly of opportunities lost and young people let down, but the story of a failed economy.

I take the opposite view to that expressed by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire, who seemed to elevate the independence of Skills England as a virtue in respect of what it could deliver; I see the independence of IfATE as one of the tools that led to its failure. The fact of its independence removed it from economic need, made it bureaucratic and meant it failed to address the needs of businesses and other providers to get the flexibility and delivery of skills that we need. Independence does not always guarantee success or the things that we need.

[Damian Hinds]

Would the hon. Gentleman extend that principle to the academic route? I have asked the Minister this question a number of times now. I do not think we would stand for anyone saying that the standard and specification for A-levels should be set in Sanctuary Buildings by the Department for Education. If we would not do it for A-levels, why would we think it is right for T-levels? What is the answer to that?

[Andrew Pakes]

I think we need a mixed economy in this area. The principles I elevate in this debate are speed, substance and bringing businesses around the table, alongside providers and colleges—such as my excellent provider in Peterborough, ARU Peterborough, with its new university campus—to deliver the goods and get the job done. My concern with new clauses 1 and 4 and amendment 6 is that they elevate a level of independence that does not address the overall issue.

In fact, many of the issues the right hon. Member for East Hampshire described in his speech were actually around delivery and political choices. Having the Secretary of State and the Department establishing Skills England will make it much more likely, in my view, that we deliver at speed on those challenges. However, I am sure scrutiny will come from all parties of this House if that is not the case.

Our No. 1 mission is economic growth, spread across all parts of the UK and built on a diverse base of industries and services. The Government have already made a powerful start, which could be undermined by these amendments if they cause further delay, with early work on the growth and skills levy to drive up standards and places, the move to functional English and maths, foundation apprenticeships providing flexibility and a route in, and a £600 million investment in construction skills. I particularly welcome the replies from my right hon. Friend the Minister for Skills, who has acknowledged in written answers the need for social mobility to be a factor that Skills England will consider, so that we can actually change people’s life opportunities. This is something I am passionate about, and which the Co-operative Group and other employers I have talked to consider to be very important. This mission will fail without the urgency needed to get the Bill passed and to get Skills England up and running.

Skills England has already been set up in shadow form. Given the urgency of the task, it provides the best of external industry leadership in its Skills England shadow board, which will move to a full board. It provides independence for the voices around the table, and therefore already meets the needs that new clauses 1 and 4 seek to address. It also focuses on delivery and the speed with which we can get going to bring jobs and opportunities to all parts of the country.

The Government had already been clear, before these new clauses and amendments were tabled, that the transfer of the institute’s statutory functions to the Secretary of State will introduce more flexibility to the skills system, which I wholeheartedly endorse. It will allow us to be more responsive to the needs of employers, learners and the economy, which I also endorse. The Secretary of State will delegate these powers to Skills England. I think new clauses 1 and 4 risk delaying and creating confusion, rather than aiding purpose and delivery of what we need. I therefore oppose the moves to create a separate Executive agency or to bind Skills England before it is even created.

We need to get going. This is not just a political slogan or the subject of debates in this House, but the message I hear from businesses, providers and schools in Peterborough. We need a genuine partnership in places such as my community between colleges and employers to ensure that we are providing leadership at all levels; we need practical action and leadership, working together to improve lives and our economy. The independence of IfATE, as I said earlier, elevates it to a level that risks undermining the ability to get going quickly.

Let me provide an example. A few weeks ago, I met MDS, a not-for-profit membership organisation in my constituency that is a pioneer in flexi-job apprenticeships and training in the food supply chain, working with some of the biggest names in the food sector to create a workforce for tomorrow. It is looking to Skills England and this Bill to create the flexibility and opportunities that businesses and learners need. It would be sorry to see any delays or confusion over structure when it knows what needs to be done to get the jobs. It wants this Bill.

Can the Minister say what additional funding and resources are available to help businesses to provide pre-apprenticeship training for individuals who have been unemployed long term? Businesses want the Government and Skills England to do that quickly. They want to understand how, with SMEs and others, the Government are supporting the growth of flexi-job apprenticeships to help industries to attract new talent into the food and fresh produce industry. That is a direct criticism of IfATE and the structures we already have, and there is concern that delay through new clauses 1 and 4 will make it more difficult. As we have heard, Skills England will identify the skills gaps in our economy and work with the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council and the Migration Advisory Committee to plug them. The direct link between the industry, the MAC and the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council will address our industrial need and purpose at the necessary speed.

The new clauses are not necessary. This is a Bill about skills and about addressing our skills shortages, and it needs to get going. I support the Bill and oppose new clauses 1 and 4 and amendment 6.