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

Ian Sollom Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill because, while acknowledging the importance of reforming the delivery of skills and technical education, it fails to establish Skills England as a statutory independent body; because it centralises decision-making power in the hands of the Secretary of State; because it provides for the abolition of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education without ensuring a legally defined replacement; and because it lacks provisions to ensure that Skills England is directly accountable to Parliament.”

The Government are right that our skills system needs reform. The Liberal Democrats agree with the Secretary of State that our current fragmented and confusing skills landscape lets down learners, frustrates businesses and holds back growth, as she made clear in her foreword to Skills England’s first report in the autumn.

I and my hon. Friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches share the ambition to build a high-skill, high-productivity workforce that can meet our economy’s needs, and reform is essential for that ambition to be realised. Like many in the sector, we were encouraged to hear the Government prioritising that last July in the King’s Speech, with the statement:

“My Government will establish Skills England which will have a new partnership with employers at its heart”,

but the Bill before us does not establish Skills England at all; it simply abolishes the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and transfers the functions directly to the Secretary of State. We need a strong, independent skills body with proper parliamentary oversight and genuine employer engagement, but this Bill delivers a centralisation of power in the hands of Ministers.

There are examples of bodies that combine independence and strong democratic accountability for the most critical policy areas. The Office for Budget Responsibility has statutory independence while being directly accountable to Parliament through the Treasury Committee. Its leadership is subject to parliamentary approval, its reports must be laid before Parliament and it has clear statutory duties to ensure transparency. The Climate Change Committee similarly has a clear statutory basis that ensures it can provide independent advice while being properly scrutinised by Parliament, yet the framework proposed for Skills England—or at least the draft framework for illustrative purposes, which is all that we have seen so far—falls far short of those models. Despite promises about working across Government, its governance structure is heavily Department for Education-centric. There are no formal mechanisms for co-ordination with other key Departments; there is no cross-departmental board representation; and there is no clear structure for aligning with bodies such as the Migration Advisory Committee, just aspiration. Are we to assume that the Government think that skills policy is not so critical to their mission that it warrants a stronger framework than the one we have seen?

This matters profoundly when we consider the scale of cross-Government co-ordination required. Skills England must work with the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council on future workforce needs; with the Migration Advisory Committee on reducing reliance on overseas workers; with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on green skills; with the Department for Work and Pensions on employment programmes; with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on priority sectors; and with the Department of Health and Social Care on workforce planning. Particularly in light of recent developments, Skills England must also support the Government’s strategy for defence and the critical industries and skills that we will need for our defence. As proposed, though, it will lack even director general status, meaning that it will struggle to drive the co-ordination of skills that the system so desperately needs.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case for the independence of Skills England. He will know that Government Departments resist independence like most people resist disease, but his point is important because to get the kind of lateral action he describes in respect of the nuclear industry or other industries, it will be necessary for the body created to have a reach that Government Departments do not tend to have.

[Ian Sollom]

I agree. That cross-departmental and cross-industry working is a critical reason for the need for a truly independent body.

The implication for standards development is also concerning. Where we have had employer-led trailblazer groups setting standards, the Secretary of State can now bypass employers entirely. In limited circumstances and for minor changes, that will have the benefit of speeding up the review process, which has been frustrating for employers. There are, however, no safeguards to prevent ministerial control becoming the default approach. Instead of giving businesses a structural role, maximising responsiveness, the Bill makes engagement merely consultative. That speaks to a broader point: Skills England’s credibility with employers will be key if those employers are to buy into the Government’s skills vision for the country. Has the Secretary of State not at least considered the possibility that the proposed structure, whereby programmes can be driven at her whim or those of her successors, undermines that much-needed credibility from the start?

The Government’s own impact assessment worries that there will be a

“slowdown in the growth rate of new apprenticeships and technical education courses due to potential delays in the approvals process”

caused by this new approach, and it reveals who will pay the price. It is adult learners, who make up 48% of apprentices and often face the greatest barriers to retraining; learners from our most deprived communities, whose achievement rates are already eight percentage points lower than those from affluent areas; and learners in regions such as the north-east, where apprenticeship starts are already lower and where every reduction in opportunity has a disproportionate effect.

[Mr Perkins]

I see that the hon. Gentleman has received the briefing from the Association of Employment and Learning Providers. He appears to be reading it virtually word for word; I do not know whether he contributed anything to the speech, but it has been very interesting to hear what he has said.

With the Bill having been through the House of Lords, the hon. Gentleman is proposing a wrecking amendment that would kill it. Although I sympathise with some of the points in his amendment, does he not think that with the reassurances that we have heard from the Secretary of State—which can be scrutinised over the course of this Bill’s progress—we can at least get Skills England set up at speed, so that it can take on the shape he is suggesting in future? The hon. Gentleman’s proposed approach would cancel all this reform. It would go right back to square one and stop reform dead in its tracks.

[Ian Sollom]

I have looked beyond the AELP briefing, thank you very much. This is a critical area of Government policy, and it is important to get it right from the start. That is just a difference of approach.

As my noble Friend Baroness Garden said in the other place, this looks like an innocuous little Bill, but there is so much more to it than meets the eye. It represents a fundamental shift away from employer leadership in our skills system towards ministerial whim, a shift away from statutory independence towards departmental convenience, and a shift away from proper parliamentary accountability towards rule by regulation. The Government may argue that this is just an enabling Bill to pave the way for Skills England, but that is precisely the problem. It enables the wrong thing—it enables centralisation when we need independence, it enables ministerial control when we need employer leadership, and it enables opacity when we need accountability.

[Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)]

The hon. Member and I share a county, and he will be aware that in a place such as mine, we have seen the decimation of level 2 and 3 apprenticeships. Does he not recognise that the biggest concern I hear from employers is that the current system is centralised and letting down working-class families in seats like mine? What they want is Skills England. No employer has been to see me to speak against Skills England, but many have been to speak to me against the current system, because it does not give us flexibility. What might be all right for academic policy in Cambridge will not be all right in Peterborough. We need the change delivered now.

[Ian Sollom]

I point out that I represent St Neots, which is not Cambridge, and many employers have spoken to me about their concerns about Skills England and the lack of clarity on its future.

We cannot support this Bill. That is not because we oppose reform—we desperately need it—but because centralising power in the hands of Ministers, removing proper scrutiny and weakening employer involvement in our skills system will make things worse, ultimately. Learners, employers and our economy deserve better than this overcentralisation of power.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Ian Sollom]

I am going to finish now.

Learners and employers deserve a properly independent Skills England with the authority and accountability to drive real change. I urge the Government to think again and bring forward legislation that delivers the genuine reform that our skills system needs.

Higher Education Regulatory Approach

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement.

The Liberal Democrats fully support free speech, which, as several Members have pointed out, is at the heart of academic freedom, but it was clear from the start that this piece of legislation was not based on evidence, was not proportionate, and was fundamentally flawed. We welcomed the pausing of its implementation last year, and I welcome now the acknowledgement of its flaws and the Secretary of State’s move to repeal the provisions on the tort and on student unions in particular. I must, however, press her on the fundamental question of why the Act is necessary.

Higher education institutions already operate within a legal framework to ensure that freedom of speech within the law is secured for academic staff, students, employees and visiting speakers, and universities have already taken action to improve their policies and processes relating to freedom of speech. Universities UK, which represents over 140 universities, has reissued and expanded its guidance in this area, as well as having regular discussions with university leaders to support them with these challenges. Would the Secretary of State consider taking a more meaningful step to ensure that students are safe, welcome and protected at universities by giving higher education institutions a statutory duty of care for their students?

The Secretary of State also referred to the well-documented fears of minority groups, particularly those in Jewish communities, that the Act in its previous form would allow a platform for extremist views, and she mentioned Holocaust denial. We had some indication of this in her statement, but will she provide more details of her plans to protect those from minority groups and communities on our university campuses?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising those questions. I will start where we agree, and then move on to where I might disagree with him.

I agree that freedom of speech and academic freedom are essential, but, sadly, we have seen too many examples of their not being upheld in the way that they should be by universities. The right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) raised a number of cases in which we have seen unacceptable practice, and some individuals have had to seek recourse through employment law when it should have been possible for them to seek redress sooner. That is precisely what we are seeking to deal with in ensuring that the Office for Students is able to focus on the most serious cases without being caught up in complex cases that could be less well founded or even nonsensical.

I want to be clear that we have engaged with people with a range of views on these topics, including those who hold gender-critical views, those who were in favour of the legislation and those who had concerns. That careful process of engagement with the sector, stakeholders and people with a range of views has enabled me to come to the House today and set out our approach.

Higher Education Reform

Ian Sollom Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement.

It is clear that the current university funding system is broken. Not only is it pushing many universities into a financial crisis, but the changes made by the previous Conservative Government have left us with a system that is deeply unfair in how it treats students. It simply cannot be right to raise fees without taking steps to substantially reform the system to make it fairer.

By abolishing maintenance grants for disadvantaged students in 2016, the Conservatives put up a barrier between disadvantaged students and higher education. The Liberal Democrats opposed that abolition at the time, and we have consistently campaigned to restore those grants ever since. The previous Government also cut the repayment threshold to £25,000, so today’s students have to repay hundreds of pounds more per year than older graduates on the same salary. Perhaps worst of all, they lengthened the repayment period from 30 years to 40 years for those starting courses from August 2023 onwards, so today’s students will still be paying back their loans in 2066.

Does the Secretary of State accept that the first priority must be to fully reform the system, fixing the damage that those changes made and creating a system that is fair for all students? That, rather than simply putting up fees without those much wider reforms, has to be the best way forward. The crisis in funding for universities must be addressed, but have the Government considered how to support universities without raising fees? Does the Secretary of State agree that an important first step would be to recognise the benefits of international students and give universities stability in that area of policy? Does she also agree that any reform must examine how universities currently spend their allocation of £10,000 per student per year, so that that money is spent as efficiently as possible?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his questions. I gently observe that although it might have been slightly before his time in this House, his party has got a bit of form on this topic, but I will address his questions in the spirit in which he asked them. I appreciate the constructive approach that he has taken.

As part of the reform that we want to deliver for our young people and our sector, the hon. Gentleman’s questions about making sure that young people are supported to succeed are important ones. Since becoming Secretary of State, I have also been very clear that our international students play a crucial role, not just in our communities and our country but in the contribution they make to our local economies—I see that myself as a constituency MP. As we take forward our programme of reform, working with the sector and others, I will of course be happy to discuss that further with the hon. Gentleman.