Young People (Barnsley Central)

Dan Jarvis Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in tonight’s debate on an issue that is extremely important for Barnsley and the country.

In these times of austerity, there is huge pressure on my constituents, including young people. This is a tough time to be growing up. Barnsley is a great place to live and raise a family. It is an exciting place to work and a good location to set up a business. It is a place to build a life. It is a town with a proud history and what should be a bright future, and the young people of Barnsley Central are key to unlocking our town’s potential. Prospects for young people are uncertain, however, and many are concerned that we risk wasting a generation of talent.

There is no shortage of talent among young people in my constituency. I see this in the Barnsley youth choir, which will perform a concert later this month alongside the world-famous Hungarian Aurin choir; at Carlton community college, where four pupils were recently awarded the prestigious Diana anti-bullying award in recognition of their commitment in tackling bullying; and at Holy Trinity school, which I visited on Friday and met some outstanding pupils. I felt privileged to meet Calum Barnes, Alex Haycock, Alexandra Ryan-Moss, Callum Mitchell, Jessica Knowles, Eleanor Coles, Lucy Towers and Tariro Munega. I came away inspired by their ambition.

I know from my time in the Army that young people can and will do the most amazing things. I have seen at first hand young people demonstrating outstanding courage, professionalism, dedication and commitment, but the potential that young people possess must be encouraged, cultivated and celebrated. Developing young people’s potential ensures not only that every individual feels valued in society, but that the UK has a bright future. Young people must be given the chance to make this future a reality, however, and my concern is that the Government run the risk of letting this wealth of potential fall by the wayside by failing to put policies in place that protect young people from the worst effects of the economic crisis.

Although I intend to focus this debate on young people’s education and training opportunities, it is important to understand the context of the challenges facing young people at the beginning of their lives. The beginning of a child’s life should be filled with hope and happiness. Instead, children and their parents face real financial challenges, at an already difficult time. In 2011, the Prime Minister assured the House that

“The money for Sure Start is there, so centres do not have to close.”—[Official Report, 2 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 295.]

However, the budget has been cut by a third, and there are now 400 fewer centres nationally compared with May 2011. In my constituency there has been a significant reduction in funding, with a cut of £6.9 million since 2010. The Prime Minister also promised “a major step forward” on child care in the recent Budget. In reality, many families are set to lose up to £1,560 a year, at a time when wages are stagnating.

Recently I visited Darton college, a brand new Building Schools for the Future school, like all the secondary schools in Barnsley. There I met some hugely talented students who were researching the impact of child poverty. Like me, they were struck by the statistics. Twenty-two per cent of children in Barnsley Central live in poverty—a completely unacceptable figure in this day and age—so children and their parents need all the support we can give them. By supporting them in their early years, we can provide families with a stable emotional and financial platform from which they can get the best possible start in life.

I would like now to focus this debate directly on education and training opportunities for young people in Barnsley Central. I acknowledge that some of the issues I will raise sit outside the Minister’s brief and are the responsibility of other Departments. Although I do not expect the Minister to respond on all these matters, I would like to make it clear that they affect education policy and are relevant to the debate.

Everyone deserves the best possible start in life, and equal access to a high quality education should provide this. After all, education is the key to success. Young people have a range of options open to them when they reach further education, from the study of A-levels and BTECs to apprenticeships and other vocational courses, but the Government are making it harder, rather than easier, for young people to access further and higher education. The decisions to abandon the education maintenance allowance, treble tuition fees and remove the Barnsley-inspired future jobs fund have delivered a triple whammy for young people in Barnsley Central hoping to get on the career ladder. Consequently, the number of young people in my constituency in further education is falling. In 2011-12, 8,600 young people from Barnsley Central started a further education course of one kind or another. This was 400 fewer than in 2010-11 and 1,400 fewer than in 2009-10.

Proposed reforms to the way in which A-levels are studied also threaten the future prospects of some of our young people. The restructuring of exams to make assessment linear rather than modular is likely to affect the provision of education and skills needed by young people in later life. I believe we must encourage children to develop skills in school that will enable them to adapt and respond to situations and opportunities they will face in life, not simply to regurgitate remembered facts for an exam—facts that are quickly forgotten. Surely we should be equipping our young people with a more rounded and flexible education, which will better prepare them for the modern work place, rather than resorting to the old “exam conveyor belt” system in an attempt to boost league tables.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Last week I visited Newman school, which is a special needs school. I was struck by the vigour with which the school encourages young people to be empowered to have a voice and take an active role in society. Does my hon. Friend agree that these are also skills that children need?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. It brings me on neatly to what I was about to say about the impact of some of the Government’s proposed reforms on special schools, which also echoes the point she has just made. I have two such schools in my constituency: Greenacre and Springwell. Both are excellent, well-led schools, with hugely committed teachers. I share the concern of my hon. Friend and many others about the impact of some of the Government’s reforms on the delivery of education, particularly in the context of assessment and examination in special schools. I am sure the Minister would agree that we must do all that we can to support young people with disabilities and additional needs.

The educational opportunities open to young people in Barnsley Central include an outstanding tertiary college. In the words of the Ofsted inspectors,

“Barnsley College provides an inspirational resource for the Barnsley community and a transformational one for many learners.”

However, I believe that, in order to create a level playing field for post-16 schools and colleges, we need to remove the basic funding differences. One issue that has been debated by Members in this House is the fact that the entitlement to free school meals in schools and academies does not extend to colleges. Another significant difference is that colleges have to pay VAT out of the money they receive for teaching and learning. The principal has informed me that if Barnsley college was treated the same as an academy for VAT, he would have around £1 million a year more to spend on teaching students.

Barnsley college also has a successful programme of encouraging community groups and school-age children to use its new building in the evenings and at weekends. The latest addition to this programme will be additional classes in English and maths, held on Saturday mornings. The principal has informed me, however, that he cannot grow that valuable work any further because Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs regards teaching children in colleges as a business use, and he will run the risk of receiving a huge bill if he tries to grow classes or activities for the community beyond their current level.

It seems reasonable that parents and politicians should be able easily to compare the performance of post-16 provision in schools and colleges. To enable this to happen, there needs to be a level playing field in the production of the data in the Department for Education league tables. We must also ensure that Ofsted applies the same standards and judgments to all post-16 providers, including the awarding of a clear separate grade at inspection for school and academy sixth forms. May I ask the Minister or a ministerial colleague to write to me about these specific issues relating to Barnsley college?

Leaving school or college is a time of fresh challenges and tough decisions for our young people. Those pupils who opt to go to university will face the daunting prospect of high tuition fees. Those young people who feel they cannot afford to do so face missing an opportunity to further their study. The rise in tuition fees has also had a significant impact on the number of young people applying to university. According to the latest figures from UCAS, university applications are down for a second year running—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is a long-established convention in this place that when someone is making a speech in an Adjournment debate, they are heard with courtesy and in silence. I ask the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) to observe that convention. If she does not feel able to do so, she can leave the Chamber.

[Dan Jarvis]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The figures for students in England show a drop of 6.5% from 2012. The coalition’s decision to raise tuition fees has made it even harder for young people, particularly those from less well-off backgrounds, to gain access to higher education.

The focus of this debate is on young people, but it is important to reflect for a moment on the huge contribution that teachers make to supporting them. It is a truism to say that we never forget a good teacher. I know that leadership in schools is hugely important, and in my constituency, we have some great head teachers, including Simon Barber at Holy Trinity, Neil Hutchinson at Carlton community college, Dave Whittaker at Springwell, Sue Hayter at Greenacre, Sharon Rossedes at Darton college, Nick Bowen at Horizon—just over the boundary in the neighbouring constituency—and Colin Booth, the principal of Barnsley college. I have also been inspired by many other teachers I have met, including Mat Wright, Phil Evans, Kathryn Smith, Leanne Crowther, Sharon Stacey, Steve Iredale, Kate Davies, Vicki Bruff, Eleanor Wright and many, many more.

However, the truth of the matter is that many, if not most, teachers feel undervalued. Many have told me how low morale is, and many have shared with me the fact that they struggle to sleep at night because of the pressure of the job. I recently received a letter from a maths teacher. He told me that over half his colleagues had considered leaving the profession last year. He said:

“The attacks on pay, pensions and conditions of service are without precedent...I feel angry. I feel undervalued, and as though I am a scape goat for the ills of society”.

What can the Minister say to him and the countless thousands of others in the teaching profession who feel like that? Will he come to Barnsley to meet teachers to discuss these matters and education more generally?

I want briefly to say something about apprenticeships and other vocational routes.

For too long, people have focused on the 50% who go to university; now it is time to focus on the other 50%—the forgotten 50%. For too long, politicians have viewed vocational and academic education in silos, leading to a focus on the latter at the expense of the quality and status of the former. Approaching further education as a whole will allow the benefits of both forms of learning to be experienced by a greater number of young people, offering a broader and richer education, better suited to the needs and the challenges of a modern economy because today’s apprentices face very different challenges.

Many young people can expect to go through several career changes in their lifetimes, requiring them to possess a more flexible and adaptable skill set. These new challenges demand a co-ordinated and hands-on approach from Government, as well as from figures in the business and education sectors.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the downgrading of careers advice given to young people has contributed to some of the difficulties faced by young people not always knowing which is the best route for them, when they are not encouraged either to stay in education or to take up apprenticeships. That lack of good career guidance is detrimental to their future prosperity and health.

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful and completely agree with my hon. Friend. The decision young people make about their future career destinations is an incredibly important one. It can make such a difference if they are able to receive helpful and useful careers advice in tandem with other advice that they receive from schools.

The vast bulk of additional apprenticeship places created by the Government have come in the post-25 age range, with an increase of some 367%, but the latest figures show that 69,600 16 to 18-year-olds started an apprenticeship in 2012-13 compared to 79,100 in the previous year—a drop of over 12%. Those in the 16-to-25 category risk being left behind. Our country and the town I am proud to represent are clearly in need of fresh initiatives aimed at addressing youth unemployment, and it is my constituency that is helping to lead the way in the fight against youth unemployment.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that initiatives could be used to encourage more young women to enter into apprenticeships, which is one of the markets waiting to be developed?

[Dan Jarvis]

I absolutely agree, but time is running short, so I must mention briefly an initiative in my constituency.

The Minister may recall that I have written to him about the “Barnsley apprenticeship pledge”—a pilot scheme pioneered by Barnsley college, which is working in partnership with nine of Barnsley’s major public and private sector employers to ensure that 2.5% of their work force are apprentices. Schemes such as the pledge not only provide skills for young people, but provide businesses with the opportunity to expand and tailor a work force that meets their needs.

Finally, I would like to touch briefly on the issue of youth unemployment. Despite the recent figures showing that overall unemployment is going down, the job market for young people is still extremely difficult. Youth unemployment continues to climb with a growing number of NEETs—those not in education, employment or training. According to the latest figures for my constituency, the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance is, at 7.4%, still higher than in May 2010. With 900 JSA claimants aged 18 to 24—a figure up from this point in 2011—youth unemployment continues to remain a serious problem in Barnsley.

The Government’s answer to youth unemployment was to introduce the Youth Contract, aimed at providing training and skills. However, the Youth Contract has been ineffective, and has failed significantly to gain employers willing to support the scheme. Fewer than 6,000 young people have been helped into permanent jobs—just 3.4% of young people on the Work programme. Those left behind are often people who are desperate for work, want to earn a living, get on the housing ladder, start families and contribute to our town—but there are simply not the jobs available.

This is a tough time to be growing up. There are genuine concerns about the need to ensure that young people secure the right education, training, apprenticeships and academic opportunities. My concern is that we are running the risk that the talents of thousands of our young people will go to waste. That is why we must talk up the importance of raising aspirations among young people. Research findings have shown that low aspirations are related to poor academic attainment and professional achievement—and that is an all too common trend in times of austerity. We must therefore take every single opportunity to encourage, inspire, persuade and, when necessary, cajole the young people in our constituencies to get on and realise their ambitions, hopes and dreams.

I urge the Minister and the Government to do all that they can to support the young people in my constituency and throughout our country, so that they can be given the best possible start in life. After all, they are the future of the country.