Colleges Week 2022

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Murray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) on securing the debate. He has a long track record of advocacy for the further education and skills sector, and he resolutely champions the cause of FE, often in a difficult environment, with great commitment.

I want to take this opportunity to apologise on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), who was due to respond to the debate but is unfortunately unwell today. I know how disappointed my hon. Friend is to miss this important opportunity to speak up for the sector and outline Labour’s approach, but he feared that the entire room would end up with his very heavy cold if he were to turn up. However, I am delighted to have the opportunity afforded by my hon. Friend’s absence to celebrate the amazing work of colleges and I pay tribute to Lambeth College, Southwark College and Morley College, all of which provide a wealth of opportunities to learners from my constituency.

As has been said, last week was Love Our Colleges Week. Every one of us has an FE college serving our local areas, and they are incredibly important institutions, which Labour wants to see far better supported and utilised. We are hugely grateful to the Association of Colleges for all the work that it does all year round, and its Love Our Colleges Week celebrations continue to get better and better each year.

I thank everybody who has contributed to the debate. The hon. Member for Waveney clearly set out the breadth of provision in colleges across the country, from post-16 qualifications to higher education, and the vital role that colleges have in building the skills that our economy needs for growth. My right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) talked about the excellent work of Exeter College and the impact that it has on the economy of Exeter and the wider Devon area. I should also say that Exeter College has been fortunate to have my right hon. Friend as its champion for the past 25 years.

The hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) spoke of the terrible situation facing Malvern Hills College, and I wish her every success with her campaign to ensure that learners in Malvern and her wider constituency have access to the important opportunities that the college previously provided. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) spoke compellingly of her experience of teaching in further education colleges and the role that colleges play in helping women returners. That was certainly the experience of my mother, who was able to gain her GCSEs and A-levels, and ultimately to graduate as an occupational therapist, in exactly the same years that I did those same qualifications, thanks to the provision that a local college provided in her place of work, which was our local hospital at the time. The hon. Lady also talked about the role that colleges play in retraining workers who have faced redundancy, which is important work.

Further education colleges perform amazing work across their communities. Often colleges are the most visible places in a town or city, and people go there if they want to learn, retrain or improve their skills. Colleges are the brokers of second chances—the repair shop that gets so many people on the path to a better future. They literally change the lives and prospects of learners in every community on every single day of the week, and the funding cuts that they have experienced over 12 years has been a national act of destruction. After another tough year for our colleges, the theme of Colleges Week—staff, students and skills—really says it all, because colleges are all about people, with learners and staff at their centre.

The greatest advocates for our colleges are the learners themselves. Regardless of whether they are heading towards university or the workplace, or returning to the labour market, learners speak volumes for the value of our FE colleges. The learners in our colleges are inspirational. Some have had poor experiences in formal education, others want to retrain and change career, and some simply want to pursue a vocational path that academia just cannot offer.

The staff in our colleges never fail to impress with their dedication, hard work and love of the work they do. They are all too aware of the role that they play in their local area to support learners to get on in life, to increase in confidence and to achieve their goals. Just this month, Labour’s shadow FE and HE Ministers, my hon. Friends the Members for Chesterfield and for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), visited West Notts College and Nottingham Trent University to learn more about the exciting new collaborations between further and higher education institutions and how they can offer an holistic education experience to learners. Labour sees collaboration and working together as the right approach for the sector after years of market forces being allowed to dictate the direction. Neither FE nor HE should be placed as more important than the other. A Labour Government will facilitate partnerships that draw on the strengths of both sectors to improve learning opportunities in every community in the country.

Sadly, as we celebrate Colleges Week and the work of colleges, many institutions still face uncertainty about rising energy prices. It is vital that colleges are able to plan for the future, and I urge the Government to end the uncertainty with regard to spiralling energy costs.

Another issue that has faced our colleges this year has been the Government’s obsession with axing BTECs and stripping away level 2 and level 3 qualifications. It would be helpful to get an early steer from the new Government as to what their approach is to the question of level 3 qualifications, because the new Secretary of State for Education was pretty critical of BTECs when she held the skills brief.

Labour has been proud to back the Protect Student Choice campaign, which saw an impressive collaboration between the FE and skills sector, businesses, student groups, and others too numerous to mention, in their attempts to salvage BTECs, which are held in high regard by employers. We welcomed the Government’s U-turn on level 3 BTECs and would be grateful to know today what the approach of this Government will be. We also share the concerns of many in the sector regarding the axing of valuable level 2 courses. We would be glad to know whether that policy will be reviewed by the new Minister.

While we celebrate the achievements of colleges and their staff and learners during this debate, we should acknowledge that the best approach for the further education and skills sector is collaboration and proper funding, with a well resourced further education estate working hand in hand with employers, learners, higher education institutions and devolved authorities in order to deliver world-class skills. I hope that the new team at the Department for Education heed this call. I thank all hon. Members for their interest in this sector, and I thank every single person working in our colleges for the life-changing work that they do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrea Jenkyns]

Sorry. I thank the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw for discussing how important it is for us to build up strong relationships with our devolved nations. I will work on doing that with my counterparts. It was wonderful to hear the story of how FE has helped one of the hon. Member’s constituents. On T-level results day this summer, I went to a college in the north-west. It was amazing—I wish I could bottle that enthusiasm and spread it across the whole country. Students told me how the T-level and being at college actually changed their lives. That shows the great stuff that colleges do.

Colleges do fantastic work up and down the country, every single day. I have already mentioned some of the colleges I have visited. Darlington College had a fabulous robotics department; Leeds College had engineering and construction. They are amazing learning environments enabling students to flourish, get on in life and land the jobs they have always dreamed of.

FE colleges have a role like no other education provider; they reach parts that other education providers cannot reach. They deliver the skills a nation needs to support growth. That could be at level 1 or level 7. They support those who need a second chance and those who need to reskill and retrain. They support those who need higher-level technical skills, and they work with schools, other providers, universities and employers. They are a jack of all trades, and, importantly, also masters of them all.

All that is happening in colleges up and down our country, helping to level up the nation and support social mobility. That is why I see colleges as engines of social mobility, encouraging students to reach beyond what they thought was possible and smash expectations. Colleges focus on what can be achieved by every student who comes through the doors. As a former BTEC girl, I get that. I will touch briefly on what the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) said about BTECs. We need to get on the record that we are not doing away with BTECs; we are reforming the whole landscape to ensure that every qualification that anybody takes leads to good outcomes for the students. That is so important; outcome is everything for students because they invest so much time in their education.

[Helen Hayes]

Can I get some clarity from the Minister on her plans for level 2 and 3 BTECs?

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I will cover those points later in my speech.

My BTEC experience—I studied for a BTEC national in business and finance—helped me on my way; importantly, I gained transferable skills. I fully recognise that others like me—and indeed not like me, which is a real beauty of the FE sector—will benefit from the provision that colleges deliver, as they offer so much in our communities, to our students and to our economy.

With the recognition of the value and worth of colleges comes the need to ensure that they are properly funded, which is why throughout this Parliament we have sought to substantially increase investment in post-16 education. We are investing: £3.8 billion more in FE and skills over this Parliament, including an extra £1.6 billion for 16-to-19 education in 2024-25; an extra £500 million for T-levels, when they are fully rolled out; £1.34 billion in adult education and skills through the adult education budget in 2022-23; and £2.5 billion over the course of the Parliament for the national skills fund to support eligible adults to upskill and reskill. We are also increasing apprenticeship funding to £2.7 billion by 2024-25.

We are also investing in facilities, as I mentioned earlier, with £2.8 billion in capital investment to improve the college estates, and over £400 million to ensure that they have the facilities and equipment needed for T-levels. We have big ambitions for colleges and the whole further education sector, but we cannot shy away from the challenges, which I know some hon. Members have mentioned.

Rising costs and the energy crisis are hitting everyone. Colleges are certainly no exception. The investments that I have outlined will help to support the sector to deliver on its ambitions against this backdrop. The energy relief scheme that the Government announced only last month will be a much needed help for colleges. We are working continually with the sector, and I have asked colleges to let us know about their cost pressures, so we can consider that in determining the next steps. I will listen carefully in order to fully understand the challenges and opportunities that the sector faces, and to understand the challenges that colleges face. We ask a lot of them, but we know that they can deliver what learners, businesses and the country needs. The whole nation needs to be thankful for what colleges do.

Regarding skills reforms, colleges play an important role in our ambition to develop one of the best technical education systems in the world. I am pleased to hear that the Opposition are on the same page as us. We value the importance of technical education, so it is great that we are in government and delivering on this. We are investing in the skills system so that colleges have the means and support to offer learners the chance to retrain, upskill and reskill anywhere in the country, so that they can get good jobs wherever they live.

Since the publication of the “Skills for jobs” White Paper in 2021, we have been working closely with colleges to improve courses and qualifications to ensure we are focused on giving people the skills they need to get into great jobs. Colleges have been pivotal in the delivery of new, high-quality provision, and we thank them for all their hard work these past few years in rolling out this significant reform programme.

Successive reviews, including the Wolf review and the Sainsbury review, have found that the current qualifications system is overly complex and does not serve students or employers well. This is why we have undertaken a series of reviews of academic and technical qualifications at level 3, level 2 and below. As I said earlier, this is about outcomes for students. The reviews will ensure that every funded qualification has a clear purpose, is high-quality and will lead to good outcomes for students. We have already removed funding approval for over 5,000 qualifications that have low, or no, publicly funded enrolments at level 3. That is the right move. Although we want momentum, we want to introduce these reforms at a manageable pace, given the extent of change in the wider qualification landscape, including at level 3.

Let me turn to higher level technical education. Many colleges are already delivering excellent higher technical education, yet uptake of these courses is low compared to other levels of study internationally and previous figures in England, despite strong employer demand for higher technical skills. We are therefore delivering supply and demand-style reforms to grow uptake of high-quality higher technical education. Our reforms are focused on quality, to lay foundations for the long-term sustainable growth of higher technical qualifications.

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney mentioned local skills improvement plans. Employer representative bodies have been appointed to lead on the development of local skills improvement plans in all areas of the country. That includes the Norfolk chamber of commerce, which is leading on the LSIPs across Norfolk and Suffolk, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

We have moved quickly since launching LSIPs in the “Skills for jobs” White Paper in January 2021. We piloted the plans and the development fund to see what worked well, legislated to put LSIPs on a statutory footing, and ran competitions to find the strongest employer bodies to lead on developing each employer-led plan. LSIPs place employers at the heart of our local skills, facilitating more dynamic working arrangements between employers, colleges and other training providers. Together with the strategic development fund, which supports providers to make changes to their curriculum, LSIPs make technical education more responsive to employers’ needs.

I know that the sector is facing challenges with the recruitment and retention of teachers; that is one of the main things that colleges around the country tell me. I recognise that great teachers are fundamental to the success of our skills system, which is why our “Skills for jobs” White Paper sets out our continuing support for the FE sector to recruit and train great teachers. We will support the sector through the national recruitment campaign programmes to recruit industry professionals into FE teaching roles, and upskill FE teachers to deliver new T-levels by improving the quality of FE initial teacher training education.

Let me turn to the Office for National Statistics reclassification. I appreciate that there are some concerns in the sector about this work, but we are continuing to work closely with the sector, and will provide information and guidance for providers in the event of a reclassification. We will ensure that any changes are managed smoothly, and that all in the sector are kept fully up to date at all stages so that providers can continue to deliver the best provision for learners. It is important to recognise that this is the moment that the FE sector remains classified as part of the private sector, and colleges should continue to operate as usual.

Most providers are doing a brilliant job of transforming the lives of people in their community, but our funding system does not always help them to do so. We want to change this and ensure that the system actively supports FE providers to work collaboratively with local providers, employers and other key stakeholders. Our reforms to funding and accountability for colleges will help us to ensure that colleges are better supported to focus on helping their students into good jobs. We have reduced the complexity of funding so that colleges can focus on their core role of education and training, and define clearer roles and responsibilities for the key players in the systems.

We want to build a world-class further education system that delivers for the whole nation. A key part of this is ensuring that colleges are fit for the future, with better facilities and great buildings. That is why, through the FE capital transformation programme, we are investing £1.5 billion over six years between 2020 and 2026 to upgrade and transform the FE college estate.

I am particularly proud of our skills bootcamps, and I pay tribute to colleges for the way in which they have embraced them, as one of the newest programmes. I visited a skills bootcamp on heavy goods vehicle driving, and I got to drive one of the big trucks myself. I saw a few people looking scared when I got behind the wheel, but I managed not to crash it, thankfully; it was amazing. I met a young chap with severe mental health problems, who was a real champion for a men’s mental health charity that helps with suicide prevention. He said that retraining through the skills bootcamp gave him a new lease of life.

Skills bootcamps have the potential to transform the skills landscape by helping local regions and employers to fill in-demand vacancies, and are an important block in the foundations of our skills reforms. I am therefore delighted that colleges are playing an integral part in supporting their delivery in local areas. They are helping to fulfil the aims of the programme by providing opportunities to adults and plugging the skills gaps. Funding for skills bootcamps from the last spending review will enable us to continue to grow that offer significantly with support from colleges. That will help tens of thousands of adults across the country to gain new skills.

We touched briefly on T-levels. We got off to a great start: our first cohort of T-levels achieved an impressive overall rate of 92.2%. I am a real advocate of them, because they are great for social mobility. Middle-class families can get work experience, internships and so on through their connections, but those from disadvantaged areas find it much more difficult to get work experience. It is excellent for young students to get that on their CV, as it helps them to climb the ladder and go on to a great career.

It is clear that the great work of providers such as colleges is setting students up for successful careers and equipping them with the skills the country needs. The numbers of T-level providers and students are increasing quickly, and we are confident that that will continue. In 2021 alone, 5,450 people took up T-levels. Students tell us that they favour these courses, especially when they have industry placements.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney for securing this debate, and for supporting and promoting the sector. I also thank other Members for their equally valuable input. The debate has made it clear that FE colleges are held in high regard throughout the land. The Government and I believe colleges are important, and that is backed up by serious investment. This debate has not changed my position; I am even more convinced of it after hearing the great things that hon. Members have said about the FE sector.

I was impressed and moved by the points that hon. Members made about the colleges in their constituencies and the great work that their constituents do. I have already said that the Government value the importance, impact and value of the FE sector, and our policies and investment back that up. I am honoured to be the Minister with responsibility for further education colleges. Hon. Members can rest assured that I will continue to be their champion.