Educational Opportunities

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on a most interesting speech.

If one visits the Scottish Parliament—some Members may have done or may in future—one cannot help but admire the woodwork. The joinery, carpentry and cabinetmaking are of the highest standard. I was on the Committee that oversaw the building of that Parliament—it nearly cost me my seat in the 2003 Scottish election, but that is beside the point. What struck me very forcibly was that in the United Kingdom we did not have the cabinetmaking and joinery skills to produce a finished article of that quality. Most of the work was done by people from Romania, Poland and other eastern European countries. My point is that when skills disappear, they can sometimes disappear forever.

I worked as a young man at a yard in Wester Ross called Kishorn, where the mighty Ninian Central Platform for the North sea was built. I worked at Nigg, where a number of the hard steel jackets were constructed. At the highpoint of Nigg in the early 1980s, some 5,000 people worked there. They were highly skilled: they were trained in welding, fabrication and all manner of supporting disciplines to achieve some of the greatest structures ever built for the North sea. Today, many of those people are retired or nearly at retirement age, and my big worry—this echoes the point made by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe—is that although those people could pass on the skills and train young people in them, there is no effort to make that happen. We could be faced with a parallel to the situation I described at the Scottish Parliament: skills could disappear.

I am heartened by the news from Hull that turbine blades are going to be constructed there. That is good news and the Prime Minister was quite correct to emphasise that today. The point is that we should be making far more floating offshore structures in the United Kingdom—the cells, the blades and the towers themselves. While we have the fabrication skills in different parts of the UK, including in my constituency in Scotland, we should get that business going again and be training up the next generation.

In the past, there was an organisation called the Highlands and Islands Development Board. Under the management of the Scottish Government, it has been left to become almost nothing. I am sorry that no SNP Members are here to hear that. They should get up and sort it out, because if that is not reactivated, we are in dead trouble.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Janet Daby)]

It is a real honour to respond to this debate on this important matter, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing it, and for its wide scope as well.

I also thank all hon. Members for their contributions—I will try to answer their wide remarks and questions as best I can—and I want to mention a few. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) mentioned kinship carers and SEND, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) also talked about SEND. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) talked about the need for buildings, and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about adding value. The hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) talked about issues in the creative industries, and the Government’s response to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) spoke about early years, and there have also been conversations about young carers, breakfast clubs and so on.

The Government believe that the opportunity to enjoy a good life with a great job, and to secure a home, should belong to everyone. Every child and young person should have the opportunity to succeed, no matter who they are, where they are from or how much their parents earn, but as a nation we are yet to fulfil that promise. A person’s background often counts more towards success than effort and enterprise, and too many children are held back by the circumstances they are born into. Children from the lowest-earning families, those from diverse backgrounds, those with special educational needs and disabilities, those with experience of the care system and young carers face too many barriers to building the best life they can.

Too many children and young people grow up seeing success as something that happens to others, but it also belongs to them. That is why this new Government will be a mission-led one, with a defining mission to break the unfair link between background and opportunity. The opportunity mission will build opportunity for all by giving every child the best start in life. It will help them achieve, thrive and build skills for opportunity and growth, and will ensure security.

Building skills for opportunity and growth is key to the opportunity mission. From the age of 16 onwards lies the transition into the world of work and future opportunities. We will ensure that every young person can follow the pathway that is right for them, whether that is through high-quality apprenticeships, colleges or universities, including Open university. The right skills and courses give people the ability to progress into good jobs and not shy away from opportunity.

My hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe focused mostly on skills and technical education. I assure all hon. Members that the Government are focused on opportunities for everyone, whatever their background, age, ability and identity. We are ambitious for children and young people, and for their aspirations. Our higher education system is globally recognised for its excellence, which is great. The Government recognise that university is right for many, but that it is not the only option. Apprenticeships and skills are absolutely the right option for others. That is why we are determined to get it right and support young people who wish to take that path. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that under 14 years of Conservative Government, the number of apprenticeships has plummeted. The apprenticeship levy was exposed as inadequate.

[Jamie Stone]

Will the Minister give way?

[Janet Daby]

I have so much to get through that I am afraid I cannot.

Skills policy has too often been made in isolation, leading to a system that is confusing for employers and individuals, and that does not lead to the right jobs for our population. Skills shortage vacancies in England more than doubled between 2017 and 2022, from 226,500 to 531,200. Too few young people—indeed, people of all ages—have been able to gain the benefits of a quality post-16 education. Those figures are shocking.

We need to do so much more to ensure that people do not face unemployment, low wages and poor health outcomes. The lack of a clear plan has led to widespread skill shortages in areas such as construction, manufacturing, hospitality, information and communication, healthcare and social care. That is why meeting the skill needs of the next decade is central to delivering the Government’s five missions: economic growth, opportunity for all, a stronger NHS, safer streets and clean energy. We aim to create a clear, flexible, high-quality skills system that supports people of all ages, breaks down barriers to opportunity and drives economic growth.

We have not stood still. Last month’s Budget included an investment of an additional £300 million in further education to ensure that young people develop the skills they need. It also included £950 million of skills capital funding, including £300 million to ensure that college estates are in good condition so they meet students’ learning needs. We have also commenced a curriculum and assessment review, which is now in full swing with roadshows up and down the country. It will deliver a curriculum that is rich in knowledge, strong in skills and led by evidence. We have announced the youth guarantee, which will help to ensure that young people have the opportunity to acquire the skills that they need.

We will reform the apprenticeship levy into a growth and skills levy to deliver greater flexibility for both learners and employers. As a first step we will introduce foundation apprenticeships to give more young people a foot in the door. The new foundation apprenticeships will support clear progression pathways into further work-based training and sustained employment. We will support and fill the pipeline of new talent that employers need. We are investing £40 million to support the development and delivery of foundation apprenticeships, as well as apprenticeships of a shorter duration that will provide further flexibility for employers, as so many have called for.

We have also listened to feedback about qualifications; concerns were expressed about the rapid pace of reforms from the previous Government, about the quality of qualifications and about how they do not always serve students well. This Government are determined to do better—and indeed we will. We have therefore announced a short-term internal review of qualifications reform, which clearly signals our intention to balance the range of concerns and to provide clarity in the qualifications landscape. We believe that this is the best way to support students, unlock opportunity, harness talent and drive growth.

We have introduced Skills England in shadow form. It will ensure we have the highly trained workforce needed to deliver national, regional and local skills for the next decade, aligned with the upcoming industrial strategy. Skills England will ensure that there is a comprehensive choice of apprenticeships, training and technical qualifications for individuals and employers to access. Skills England will ensure that the skills system is clear, and that both young people and older adults can navigate it, strengthening career pathways into jobs across the economy. It will increase the quality and quantity of skills development in the workplace by providing an authoritative assessment of national and regional skills needs in the economy, now and in the future.

Moving to the school rebuilding programme, this Government have increased next year’s capital allocation to improve school buildings to £2.1 billion, which is £300 million more than this year. We have also committed to £1.4 billion to support the current school rebuilding programme to deliver 518 projects across England.

Many issues have been raised about children with special educational needs and disabilities and the anxieties of their parents. On reform, this Government’s ambition is that all children and young people with SEND will receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life. We are committed to improving inclusiveness and expertise in mainstream schools, and to ensuring that special school provision continues to meet children’s most complex needs. That will restore parents’ trust, as they will know that their child is getting the support they desperately need. We will work with the sector, as it is essential that we join our valued partners in that shared vision.

There were questions about free school meals and ensuring that children are eligible. We have a mission to break down the barriers to opportunity, and to confront child poverty. The continued provision of free school meals to disadvantaged children plays an important role in that. The Government spend around £1.5 billion annually on free lunches for over 3 million pupils. As with all Government programmes, we will keep our approach open and continue to review it. It remains our ambition that no child should go hungry.

We are also doing a child poverty review. The new child poverty ministerial taskforce will drive cross-Government action on child poverty, starting by overseeing the development of an ambitious child poverty strategy, which will be published next spring. The taskforce publication of 23 October, “Tackling Child Poverty: Developing Our Strategy”, sets out our framework for how the strategy will be developed, harnessing all available levers to deliver a reduction in child poverty in this Parliament as part of our ambitious 10-year strategy, which addresses its root causes.

On breakfast clubs, we will remove barriers to opportunities by ensuring that every primary school pupil, no matter their circumstance, is well prepared for school. From April 2025, free breakfast clubs will be available for up to 750 early adopters ahead of the national roll-out. Early adopters will allow us to identify and tackle barriers to implementing the full breakfast club roll-out. That is the first step in our commitment to enable breakfast clubs in all primary schools.