Vocational Training

Baroness Smith of Malvern Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finn]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that their legislative agenda does not undermine vocational training.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill is crucial for a skills system that is more responsive to employers’ skills needs. We will ensure continuity during the transition of functions from IfATE to the Secretary of State and thereby to Skills England, including guidance to learners and employers. Occupational standards, apprenticeship assessment plans and technical qualifications that are being prepared or considered for approval at the point that functions are transferred from IfATE to the Secretary of State will continue.

[Baroness Finn (Con)]

My Lords, the IfATE transfer of functions Bill currently making its passage through your Lordships’ House takes those powers, particularly regarding standards and assessment, away from employer-led organisation and gives them to the Secretary of State. How can the Minister assure the House that this transfer of powers will not undermine confidence in vocational training?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

As we have discussed at some length as the Bill has gone through this House, the intention in shifting the functions is to enable them to be used by Skills England, which will be very much driven by the needs of employers, working alongside trade unions and bringing in the necessary regional and local co-ordination. I hope I provided some reassurance in Committee. There is no intention that we should move away from a system where the occupational standards and assessment plans are determined by employer groups. It is fundamentally important, to build confidence in apprenticeships and other technical qualifications, that they fulfil the requirements of employers. That is the intention for when Skills England takes on that role.

[Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that the legacy of the last Government was nearly 7 million people of working age with little or no qualifications, one in five workers lacking even basic computer skills and the number of apprenticeships falling off a cliff? Does she agree that the remedy, to revitalise vocational training in this country, is in part to have an active industrial strategy involving both employers and unions, and investing in our FE colleges—in kit and equipment but also in staff?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right; we have a skills shortage, and it has worsened over recent years in the way she describes. That means we need the industrial strategy this Government are developing, but we need it linked closely to a much more coherent skills system, led by Skills England, which will identify, with the partnership I outlined previously, current and future skills gaps. Those gaps will then be met by improved opportunities for technical education and apprenticeships. She is also right that a key partner in delivering that will be our FE colleges, for which this Government were of course able to find an additional £300 million of revenue and £300 million of capital in the recent Budget Statement.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

How do the Government propose to fill the many skills gaps in our workforce without overhauling the school curriculum to prepare young people for life and work and vocational skills, in contrast to the overbearing, academic knowledge-rich curriculum of the previous Government?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. Whether young people—and older people—have success in their careers and can access the skills they need starts before the age of 16. It starts with the school curriculum. It is with that intention that we have set up the curriculum and assessment review, to look precisely at how we can maintain and improve our standards of numeracy and literacy, while also ensuring that we enable the curriculum and schools to have the space to develop precisely the sort of skills and aptitudes that the noble Baroness outlined.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, I turn the Minister’s attention to vocational training for exceptionally talented dancers and musicians, which starts at a much earlier age than we are discussing. She will know that the kind of training required is not available in the state system but is provided by schools on the Music and Dance Scheme, which are able to recruit on talent alone, regardless of financial circumstances. What are the Government doing to ensure that the legislative agenda will not impede the ability of those schools to be blind to finance and look only at talent; so that anybody with the drive and the capability can enjoy their full potential, and our creative industries will remain fully inclusive of the broad diversity of our society?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness has contributed considerably to my education, while I have been in this place, on the crucial role played by those really excellent music and dance schools. That is why the Government’s Music and Dance Scheme enables enormously talented young people, regardless of their background, to access that education—to ensure that we can continue that pipeline of completely brilliant and elite musicians and dancers, who are so important to this country’s creative sector.

[The Lord Bishop of Sheffield]

My Lords, FE college enrolments of 14 to 16 year-olds have surged by nearly one-third in the past four years, according to a recent study by the Association of Colleges, with over half consistently from the two most deprived quintiles. These students, however, mostly on vocational courses, do not have the same access to transport funding and free meals as their counterparts in schools. Can the Minister outline what steps the Government will take to address this very basic inequality?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate is right about some of the opportunities available to 14 to 16 year-olds in our excellent FE colleges. I was not clear about the particular inequality that he is talking about. It is of course the responsibility of local authorities to ensure that students have the school transport that they need to enable them to complete their education. I did not think there was a discrepancy between institutions in the way the right reverend Prelate outlines. I will take certainly that away and perhaps come back to him with some more information about it.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, further to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, how will the Government ensure that there are clearer pathways for young people who do not aspire to university, but seek to develop vocational or technical skills for careers, including in the construction sector? How will they address the critical shortages of skilled tradespeople such as bricklayers, without whom plans to build 1.5 million homes in the next five years are simply not achievable?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that we need to improve the careers advice available to young people in our schools. That is why this Government are investing in it and in the expert advisers who deliver it. He is right about construction skills; we need the excellent contribution of our FE colleges. For example, the £140 million that we announced two or three weeks ago will, through the Construction Industry Training Board and the National House Building Council, contribute to the development of skills hubs that link to large housing developments. This is precisely to ensure that we have the skilled tradespeople we need to deliver the Government’s important target to build 1.5 million new homes during this Parliament.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the combination of the Government’s IfATE Bill, which dilutes the role of employers in developing qualifications and standards, and the proposal for the growth and skills levy points to more change, and new delay and uncertainty, in a system that desperately needs stability if employers are really to have confidence in it. The noble Baroness talked about the powers that will be used by Skills England. She knows, from debates in Committee, that the whole House wants Skills England to succeed, even though it is not mentioned in the IfATE Bill. I wonder whether the noble Baroness would make my day by announcing what government amendments might come forward on Report to address the House’s concerns?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

At this time of year in particular, I am always keen to make the noble Baroness’s day. I assure her that I am reflecting hard on the good debates that we have had in Committee and thinking about how I can provide some assurance to noble Lords about the role of Skills England. As I described, it will be enormously important to ensure the development of our skills system, which noble Lords have identified that it needs. I assure the noble Baroness, as I did on several occasions during debates on the Bill, that there will be continuity of the occupational standards and assessment plans that have been or are currently being developed, during the transfer of those functions. I will come back to noble Lords on the other issues before Report, in a way that I hope reassures them about the significance that this Government place on Skills England and this House’s ability to monitor it and to hold us to account for its delivery.