Adult and Further Education

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) for securing today’s important debate.

The UK workforce faces a multitude of present and future challenges. A recent report found that almost 80% of businesses are seeing reduced output, profitability or growth due to the ongoing skills shortage. To help plug that gap, everyone must have the opportunity to upskill for the jobs of the future. The scale of the challenge is huge, with the CBI finding that nine in 10 people will need to reskill this decade alone. Having a thriving further education sector is vital to overcoming those hurdles. For decades, colleges have been helping people of all ages to upskill.

The stark figures I have just mentioned should be enough for anyone to see the need for investment. However, that is a far cry from the reality faced by the sector, which has withstood cut after cut at the hands of this Government. Between 2010 and 2020, spending per student for those aged 16 to 18 fell by 14%. The impact of those cuts is clear: the number of adults participating in some form of learning has collapsed to only one in three—the lowest level for 22 years. The Government have brought about a lost decade in adult education, just when investment was critical to meet the challenges of the future.

Ministers might overlook that harsh truth and instead focus on the extra funding announced in the 2019 and 2021 spending reviews, but our colleges still feel the full brunt of their cuts. Even with that extra funding, spending per college student will remain 5% below 2010 levels. For school sixth forms, the situation is even worse, and their spending per pupil will remain a staggering 22% lower than in 2010. To make matters worse, in the midst of a cost of living crisis, there was not a single penny of extra funding for further education in last year’s autumn statement, despite huge pressures on college and sixth form budgets, including sky-high inflation and energy bill rises.

If the Government were truly committed to levelling up areas such as Sheffield, they would invest in the vital work of our colleges and sixth forms. I have seen that fantastic work at first hand in my constituency, where we are lucky to be home to Sheffield College and Longley Park Sixth Form Academy. Both are run by hundreds of dedicated staff, who go above and beyond to support students and prepare them for the working world. Anybody who sees their work is left in no doubt that every penny of investment in further education is money well spent. I use the word “investment” because that is what it truly is: money put into further education is an investment that pays for itself many times over.

I am proud to fly the flag for our further education sector. It has sadly borne the brunt of this Government’s cuts, but it has also shown itself to be resilient, and it will continue to benefit us all directly and indirectly. As we begin to face up to the full scale of the skills shortage, and with future technologies including AI starting to have an impact, our further education system stands ready to help us embark on this new chapter. I was pleased to hear the Minister being pressed earlier to fund everything adequately, and we heard about the challenges that are there. The Select Committee has done an excellent piece of work to identify the changes that need to, and hopefully will, take place.

We should not underestimate the challenge that not being able to claim back VAT presents to colleges, particularly with current funding levels. Retention and recruitment is a massive problem, and many hon. Friends have discussed that already, so I will not go over that again. I will finish by saying that we hope this round of estimates is not another missed opportunity to provide our colleges and sixth forms with the funding they need to thrive. The sector is in dire need of investment, but if the past 13 years are anything to go by, we will not be waiting with bated breath.