Careers Guidance in Schools

Debate between Esther McVey and John Hayes

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered careers guidance in schools.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I thank the Speaker for granting the debate. I should start by saying that my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the Chair of the Education Committee, wanted to be here today, but unfortunately he has tested positive for covid and cannot join us. I know that careers guidance is a matter close to his heart, and I thank him for all the work that he has done on it.

One of my very first speeches in this House was on career guidance and extending opportunities to all. That was over a decade ago. It included reaching out to young girls and supporting them to climb the career ladder. It was about smashing glass ceilings, stopping stereotyping people, and knocking down the barriers that prevent people from achieving, succeeding and fulfilling their potential. I have written academic papers on this issue, worked on reports such as the “Genda Agenda” report and the Ideopolis report, and worked on the Merseyside Entrepreneurship Commission, which looked at the reasons why pupils from deprived areas were often half as likely to set up in business and twice as likely to claim benefit as people from more advantaged areas.

We looked at how to go about breaking those cycles, and the answer kept coming back to good-quality, consistent, regular careers advice and meeting inspirational role models—people young girls could learn from and, where possible, people from similar backgrounds who had managed to succeed, often against the odds, as well as people who young girls could really relate to and who would have an influence on what they were going to do as they got older.

Most advice, for most people, comes from people they know—from parents and friends. How big that pool is will determine how much those people come into a huge and different array of careers, so that pool needs to be widened if we want to widen opportunities for as many people as possible. How can children know what they want to do when they leave school if they are not told about the career opportunities available to them, the qualifications they will need and the different educational paths they can take to get there?

I hope Members can tell that I am as fired up by these issues today as I was more than a decade ago. I will declare an interest because, caught by the bug of supporting young people, I set up my own charity to do just that in 2013. It is called If Chloe Can and it provides careers advice to pupils up and down the country, particularly in years 8 and 9, and predominantly to disadvantaged pupils. It is supported by 200 role models who are successful individuals: Debbie Moore, the first woman to run a public limited company; Jo Salter, the first woman in the UK to fly a fighter plane; Professor Sarah Gilbert, who developed the AstraZeneca vaccine; and people such as Nick Knowles and James Dyson. The list goes on.

The charity provides careers advice, role models and confidence. It is about goal-setting, planning, communication, resilience and assertiveness. The charity used to go into schools and hold performances and plays, but all of that changed because of covid and lockdown, and so too must careers guidance.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about familiar networks providing advice and about the way that that disadvantages those who do not have good access to such support. That is why, when I was the Minister responsible for these things, I introduced a statutory obligation on schools to provide independent advice and guidance. The problem is that that needs to be face to face—it needs to be direct. It is not enough for it to be via a website, or a remote connection. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the key thing for the Minister to assure us of—I know that the Minister is very keen on this matter—is that that degree of face-to-face guidance will be available to all children in sufficient quantity and quality to make up the difference for those who suffer from disadvantages?

[Esther McVey]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the work he has done. To go back to covid and lockdown, many of us wanted to make sure that schools were not locked down, and he is right that pupils need face-to-face connections, inspiration and support. But when that was not possible, the work that I did with Zoom to engage directly with pupils, play videos and allow pupils to meet inspirational role models online was important too. As my right hon. Friend says, it is the number of times that a pupil connects with people that is important; it cannot just be once, and then they forget it in the years to come. If the pupil can do that consistently, week on week in the summer holidays or in the school term, wherever they are—in school or not; with covid or not—then they can engage. That is the programme I have been working with Zoom on.

We have done some great initiatives, and lots of good things have been done over the last 10 years. I congratulate all the groups, businesses, local enterprise partnerships and charities that are doing so much. Before Christmas in my area of Cheshire, AstraZeneca showed 480 pupils how artificial intelligence, virtual reality, robotics, 3D printing and drones could be used remotely to diagnose problems in the manufacturing process. There are companies doing it, and across Cheshire and Warrington, the local enterprise partnership has been co-ordinating online work experiences too. In two months last year, 1,750 young pupils were given a workplace challenge with 43 local employers; those employers worked with the pupils to open their eyes to what was right on their doorstep. Equally, that allowed the businesses to influence what subjects the pupils might like to—and could—do.

I welcome all that is going on, but it is a bit piecemeal; it depends on where someone lives and what school they go to. We need to broaden that. That is why I welcome the Government’s Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, because it will allow local school skills improvement plans to be created by employer representative bodies, to make sure that schools are working locally with businesses in their area to develop programmes for pupils. Embedding employers in the heart of the education system is key. The Bill also looks to transform the current student loan system, which many of us have called for quite some time. It will give every adult access to a flexible loan for higher-level education and training at university and college, and it will be usable at any point in their lives.

All of these great things are happening, but more still needs to be done in schools to provide better guidance. The latest report from the Centre for Social Justice says that there is a growing need for tailored, innovative and inspiring career guidance with links to role models and employers. Some good work has been done, but lots more needs to be done.

Why is that so important? A young person who has four or more interactions with an employer is 86% less likely to not be in education, employment or training—to not be a NEET—and they can earn 22% more during their career compared with a young person who has had no interaction with an employer. Sadly, the Centre for Social Justice points out that there seems to be no single place where a young person can go to get comprehensive Government-backed careers information. It has also found that schools are not consistently delivering good-quality careers advice. About one in five schools does not meet any of the eight Gatsby benchmarks—a series of internationally respected benchmarks that help Government to quality-assure careers advice in schools.

The Centre for Social Justice also drew attention to the fact that careers advice in school often leads strongly towards academic routes. According to one study, only 41% of 11 to 16-year-olds said that a teacher had discussed the idea of an apprenticeship with them at school, and just 21% of teachers always or usually advised high-performing students to opt for an apprenticeship over university. We are not really looking at the pupil’s needs and what would be best for the pupil; we are still focusing on the institution. We need to ensure that it is pupil-centric advice and support.

I want to acknowledge the work done in this area by Lord Baker. He secured the amendment to the Technical and Further Education Act 2017 that allowed further education colleges, university technical colleges and apprenticeship providers into secondary schools to explain to students the various alternative pathways for their education and training. That will be strengthened by the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, and that is key. Knowing the options, knowing the benefit of an option, having sample days in colleges and workplaces and meeting people who actually do the job is really important, because it is usually when a young person meets the person doing the job that the job is brought to life.

Also important is starting careers guidance at a very young age. Teach First is really pushing for it to go into primary schools, and I agree with that too. Sometimes I meet pupils and they do not necessarily really know what school is for; they do not realise that it is a journey to get them into work. They feel that it is for killing time for a number of years and perhaps getting exams. In fact, this is a journey to help them to do whatever they want to do for the rest of their life, so I would agree with going into primary schools.

I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) on his private Member’s Bill, the Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill, to give careers guidance to those in year 7. It should complete its passage through the House on Friday. I welcome the advice going to younger pupils. I know that the Government will be supporting that but, again, can the advice go to even younger pupils? We know that we have the National Careers Service and the Careers & Enterprise Company, but this feels a bit piecemeal. I am wondering whether they can merge, so that we can really get value for money with those two organisations.

I appreciate that the Minister who will answer this debate is standing in for one of her colleagues, who also has covid, so if she cannot answer today all the points that I am about to ask, it would be most appreciated if she could perhaps arrange a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), who is the Minister for skills. The questions I am asking are these. How do the Government plan to ensure that careers guidance is of a high quality for all pupils, irrespective of where they come from? How do they plan to link pupils to the local businesses in their area? How do they aim to support schools to bring in role models, whether that is in person or in the new, innovative way I am doing this—with Zoom, online? How do we stop piecemeal careers guidance? Pupils need to know, in this fast-paced, ever-changing world, what works for them—where they can get the education and the support that they need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and John Hayes

Thursday 19th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Hayes]

I am very conscious of the sinking of the Solstice off the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. I have met him, too, and I know how much he cares about this issue. I care about it, too, so yes of course I will do that. Furthermore, let me be absolutely clear to him, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar and the whole House. In respect of looking at these matters with assiduity, we will leave no stone unturned. If there can be improvements, there will be improvements.

[Ms Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

T7. Can the Minister provide an update on the progress of the mid-Cheshire rail line?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Esther McVey and John Hayes

Monday 27th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

Having done much work in career guidance and helping young people to enter work, I am now working with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to do real-life pilot schemes with real-life business advisers. Could I meet the Minister so that we can have the best cross-departmental support for that scheme?

[Mr Hayes]

It is absolutely right that we should have that, and to understand that the business of providing information, advice and guidance is about giving people the wherewithal to know that the choices they make will affect their future prospects, how they will do so and how we can help. I am determined that such empirical, independent advice and guidance should be available to all. It is about redistributing advantage.

Girls (Educational Development)

Debate between Esther McVey and John Hayes

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hayes]

It is important to appreciate the value of face-to-face guidance. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Education Bill establishes the new statutory duty on schools to secure independent, impartial advice and guidance. When it was debated in the House, we agreed, in the statutory guidance accompanying the Bill, to ensure that face-to-face guidance was available in particular to people with the greatest disadvantage, those special needs and learning difficulties. We also said that schools should make the most appropriate provision for their pupils. I emphasise that it is vital that that should include a range of provision, and that that provision should be linked to the quality standards that are being developed by the profession itself.

As well as changing the law, we have worked with the careers profession to establish a new set of qualifications, with appropriate training and accreditation. That means that we will re-professionalise the careers service after the disappointing years—I put that as mildly as I can—of Connexions. We are on the cusp of a new dawn for careers advice and guidance, with a professionalised service, a new set of standards, a new statutory duty and the launch of the national service co-located in Jobcentre Plus, colleges, community organisations, charities and voluntary organisations. I do not say that the task will be straightforward, but it is a worthwhile journey. The destination to which we are heading will be altogether better than the place we have been for the past several years. That advice and guidance will assist young women, in particular, to fulfil their potential in the way I have described and, as a result of this debate, will re-emphasise the significance of opportunities for girls and young women in the establishment of the national careers service this spring.

The second issue I wanted to speak about was apprenticeships. I made a point—the hon. Member for Cardiff West knows this subject well too—when I became the Minister of challenging the National Apprenticeship Service on the under-representation of particular groups. The obvious example in relation to this debate is women in some of what might be called the traditional apprenticeship frameworks: engineering, construction and so on.

[Esther McVey]

I conducted some surveys and analysis on that, which was very interesting. For young girls who took science apprenticeships, it fitted in far better with their family life because they could achieve a job and status far more quickly than the slow process of going through university. It fitted in much better with the cycle of a woman’s life and child-bearing age.

[Mr Hayes]

How interesting. I defer to the greater expertise of my hon. Friend, but what I have done is ask the National Apprenticeship Service to run a series of pilots, building competencies and understanding on how we can make the apprenticeship system more accessible to those who are currently poorly represented. That is not to say that women are poorly represented in apprenticeships per se. More than half of all apprenticeships are taken up by women, but they tend to be in areas such as care and retail. The effect of that, because of the wage rates in those sectors, is to exaggerate the difference in wage-earning potential among successful apprenticeships between men and women. I have asked the NAS to work on a series of pilots. Bradford college is prioritising action to increase female representation in the energy sector. Essex county council is focused on women in engineering and on acting as the prime contractor for a regional provider network. West Notts college, whose representatives I met recently, is also looking at increasing female representation in engineering. There are a number of others, but I want to give the Chamber merely a flavour of what we are trying to do.

The third issue I wanted to speak about is women and science, technology, engineering and maths. Basically, not enough girls study STEM after the age of 16, as has been mentioned a number of times, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport. There are several things that we can do. The Department for Education has worked closely with the Institute of Physics. Its stimulating physics network incorporates many of the recommendations of the Girls into Physics report, which the hon. Lady will know about. The STEM ambassador scheme, co-ordinated by STEMNET, is arranging for working scientists and engineers to visit schools to support teachers, and engage and enthuse pupils to continue studying science. The hon. Lady will know that a large proportion of the STEM ambassadors are women. We want to focus that energy on what we can do to encourage more girls to study STEM subjects. By making different choices early, they cut off some of the routes that might be available to them later. So much of this is about early intervention and changing perceptions about what choices can be taken to facilitate subsequent progress. I will happily give way before I come on to my exciting conclusion.

[Esther McVey]

Will the Minister congratulate the new president of the Royal Society of Chemistry? For the first time in 300 years, it has a female president. In the next year, she will try to increase the number of female teachers becoming ambassadors and the number of girls taking chemistry.

[Mr Hayes]

I not only add my voice to that congratulation, I suggest that we invite her here to a tea party with the hon. Lady and myself, which, needless to say, she will be funding.

This debate has brought to the attention of the House the important subject of opportunities for girls and women. I do not take the orthodox view, by the way, that men and women are more alike than is often supposed. I think that they are rather less alike—my life has taught me that. However, that does not mean that the opportunities available to them should not be just as demanding, just as exciting and just as exhilarating. We should work tirelessly to create those opportunities in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West has done for so long, beyond old frontiers to new horizons.

I learned at my mother’s knee first, and I learn from my wife every day, as Yeats said:

“That Solomon grew wise

While talking with his queens”.

In that spirit, I assure the Chamber, and all those who have contributed to this important debate, that the Government will go the further mile that I described at the outset to achieve the ambitions of my hon. Friend, which reflect the ambitions of so many girls and young women.

National Apprenticeship Scheme

Debate between Esther McVey and John Hayes

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hayes]

Even though I say so myself. I was greeted with warmth and appreciation, because of the commitment that the coalition, of which I am a humble member, has made to skills and to apprenticeships in particular.

The important thing to emphasise when considering that aesthetic is that apprenticeships involve not only the crafts we think of when considering the craftsmen who built the great cathedral church of St Peter and the Holy and Undivided Trinity, but those in the modern economy. Growth industries mentioned by various hon. Members include the green economy, the IT industry and high-tech engineering. The whole range of advanced apprenticeships in advanced subjects in the modern economy will do so much to fuel our nation’s recovery and future prosperity.

I have already had meetings with sector skills councils about such high-tech, high-growth areas, and with individual employers, missioning them to develop new apprenticeship frameworks and to make the best of existing ones. In that way, we will make apprenticeships, as described by the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), relevant to businesses and current economic need, and exciting and seductive from the perspective of learners. That those sectors matter is absolutely right, as the hon. Member for Wrexham said. We will focus on those high-growth sectors because that is what we must do to feed national economic growth. We see our skills strategy as very much tied to our growth strategy. My Department, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, is after all the Department for growth.

Let me pick up some of the other points made by hon. Members this morning. There has been a welcome for the Government’s conviction of the value of apprenticeships and the view that they should be an indispensable component of any effective and responsible further education system. There has also been an appreciation of the fact that we have put our money where our mouth is, and I am grateful for what the hon. Member for Wrexham said in that regard. One of the first things we did in government was transfer £150 million from Train to Gain to the apprenticeship budget. We did that because we know what competencies apprenticeships deliver, how long they take, how much they cost, and that they are valued by employers and supported by learners. Nevertheless, there are important questions to ask about them.

Our plan involves transferring resources from Train to Gain to the apprenticeship programme. That is a challenge for providers, which they have discussed with me and are willing to take up with relish. None the less, it is a challenge. It is important that the apprenticeships that evolve from that are meaningful and are the right product for employers, and it is absolutely right that employers buy into them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) said that such things cannot be managed from the top down but have to be built from the bottom up. We need to look at some of the supply-side reforms mentioned by various hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James), and how small businesses in particular are disincentivised from taking on apprentices.

We must ensure that the framework matches current economic need. The economy is dynamic. Perhaps, Mr Caton, I might be allowed, at a tangent, to give a short lecture in economics, as I believe that it will be relevant to the debate. As economies advance, they not only require greater skills but also become more dynamic. Skills needs become more dynamic, too, so it is critical that the skills system is as responsive and flexible as possible.

The best way to deal with that kind of economic change is to ensure that money and competence are devolved to the sharp end—to businesses and those who serve them in terms of training. That is why we are so determined to free up provision and to give further education colleges and independent training providers more flexibility and freedom to respond to employer need. Apprenticeships are at the heart of that, and I have had discussions with the FE sector, which welcomes the changes that I have recently introduced to free up colleges, and with independent training providers, who relish the opportunity in a more freed-up market to be more responsive to an increasingly dynamic economy. But let me move on from that short tributary on the subject of macro-economics that we have travelled up together back to the questions that have been put properly by hon. Members in the course of the few minutes that we have had to discuss apprenticeships.

It is important that we are absolutely certain about where apprenticeships are to be delivered and how. The hon. Member for Wrexham knows very well that we are talking about an average when we talk about £50,000. Some apprenticeship frameworks cost much more than others. An apprenticeship in hair and beauty, for example, will cost the Government less than an apprenticeship in aeronautical engineering, so we are discussing an average. In the end, such things must be demand-led. I cannot dictate exactly how many apprenticeships there will be in a particular sector at a particular time. The dynamism that I described earlier will dictate exact requirements for skills in particular parts of the country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester said that the programme is too target-driven. I have done some research on the basis of earlier discussions that he and I have had on the subject. I know that he is extremely concerned that there should be flexibility for the National Apprenticeship Service to respond to changing local demand. I assure him that we will not be rigid about setting unalterable targets, and in a meeting that I had earlier today, just after my extremely luxurious breakfast in the Tea Room upstairs, I asked officials to look at those issues.

The truth of the matter is that the success of our plan will depend on our motivating—indeed, galvanising—businesses, and I will look at how we can help small and medium-sized enterprises. There is an argument for giving them particular support, both on supply-side reform and through a series of incentives. We spoke in opposition about an apprenticeship bonus to support SMEs in that way, but hon. Members will understand that we live in difficult economic times. We have inherited circumstances that no incoming Government would have wanted, and we have to see how we can deliver more for less. Nevertheless, I remain committed to the idea that, in particular sectors and for particular kinds of business, we need to have carefully tailored policies that help to make our ambitions for apprenticeships a reality. We must walk the walk and not just talk the talk, although I am immensely grateful for the complimentary comments of the hon. Member for Wrexham about my rhetoric.

I do not want to be too hard on the previous Government and, particularly as the hon. Gentleman is performing outside his natural brief—he is a full back performing as a striker today—I do not want to be too hard on him, either. Nevertheless, it has to be said that the culture of aspiration that apprenticeships should embody—the culture that they feed aspiration and satisfy economic need, which unites people across this House—was previously, unfortunately, swallowed up by a series of meaningless targets and inflated figures. The previous Government forgot Einstein’s dictum:

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count”,

And we had the curious business of confusion between level 2 and 3 qualifications. The hon. Gentleman asked me particularly about that.

Let me be clear: it is vital that we identify levels in a meaningful way. I am looking at building a progressive ladder of training, beginning with re-engagement for those who are outside the work force altogether—that might involve small, bite-size, modular chunks of learning as described by various hon. Members—running through to level 2. Of course, much level 2 training is useful and purposeful, but we would move to full apprenticeships at level 3. The idea that we are exploring is for foundation apprenticeships at level 2, full apprenticeships at level 3, and advanced apprenticeships at levels 4 and 5. We are working on and consulting on that kind of clarity, which I feel the previous Government did not deliver.

In addition, we need to look at the costs of what we deliver through the apprenticeship programme and the effects of how it is delivered. In these times in particular, we need to look closely at whether more money can be delivered directly to employers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge suggested, whether we can be less bureaucratic about how we manage the apprenticeship programme, and whether that too can be made more cost-effective.

Yes, we are committed to the idea of apprenticeships as a route into further learning, whether that further learning is at levels 4 and 5 in a college or in an institution of higher education. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science and I have worked together, hand in glove, for many years on these matters and share a view that the division between FE and HE should be more permeable, that the university sector can play an important part in assisting us with the elevation of practical learning, and that we do not need to see this as an either/or, as it is sometimes seen. He is the personification of how one can be both a practical achiever and an academic.

[Esther McVey]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hayes]

I will, but then I must move to my exciting peroration.

[Esther McVey]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we will increase the status of apprenticeships by introducing the apprenticeship rate tied in with the minimum wage from October 2010?

[Mr Hayes]

That is a complex question which I would rather deal with offline, but my hon. Friend is right to say that we need to look at the rewards for businesses and the rules for individuals. People who do apprenticeships accept that they will not earn money while they are doing so at the rate that they might have if they were not training. However, the evidence from cost-benefit analyses carried out in 2007, as she will know, is that a person with an advanced apprenticeship is likely to earn £105,000 more over their working life than someone with a lower qualification. There is a sense that people get trained because they know that they will do better later.

I shall now move to my conclusion. Once again, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester for drawing these matters to the attention of the House. As a distinguished historian, he will know that there was another Richard Graham, also a Tory, who was elected successively to represent Cockermouth and then Cumberland. He rose to become Lord President of the Council but, unfortunately, fell when he became involved in Jacobite plots. I hope that my hon. Friend does not fall, and that he continues to advocate the case for apprenticeships. He will certainly have my support. His position is in line with the Government’s policy, as I can assure him and others in this Chamber—