Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Janet Daby Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the staff at Christ the King Sixth Form College, which I have recently been in contact with. They really do go the extra mile to support young people in my constituency with vocational and non-vocational skills and learning.

I am very supportive of the aims of the Bill, but in content it is just too weak to meet the task facing us. It tries to make up for over a decade of neglect with too little action. We have a serious shortage of skilled workers in certain British jobs. Eleven years of short-sighted education policy in this country has contributed to that issue, but education is not the only factor. Due to the disastrous Tory Brexit agreement, we are now experiencing a wide variety of economic issues. Only now are some people realising how important EU migrant workers were. We are all now feeling the effects of the worker shortage and supply chain issues. Only now are some people realising that they were wrong in their attitudes of superiority over that workforce and eating humble pie.

Of course, the Government should be turning their attention to further education to try to fix their crisis, but taking a bulldozer to the current BTEC system is not the answer. BTECs have helped so many students, in my constituency and beyond, to pursue their potential in vocational subjects. It is indeed important to open alternative pathways for young adults who do not feel that the traditional sixth-form education is for them. Sadly, the numbers show that pupils with different skills and interests from the standard academic subjects have been failed by successive Tory Governments. A staggering four in 10 young people are currently leaving education without level 3 qualifications. When we consider that those Governments have slashed further education by a third since 2010, it is not that much of a surprise.

The Bill is not popular across the board. Some 86% of respondents to the Department for Education’s consultations were against the proposals for qualifications to overlap A-levels and T-levels. The Secretary of State said that he will look at the data, but he is obviously not looking or paying attention to that data. Even Margaret Thatcher’s Education Secretary, Lord Baker, has spoken out against the proposals, so why are the Government persisting with scrapping the BTEC system when students and professionals alike are so against that?

If the Government really want to strengthen the workforce of the future, they will invest more money, more resources, more teaching, more child and adolescent mental health services, more student choice and more financial support for students. Let us improve what we have, not defund it and not move towards scrapping it all together.