Careers Guidance

Joe Benton Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin]

The Chair of the Select Committee is prescient, because the last thing the Humber commission found was a mismatch between the standard of support for young people and adults, with adults generally getting a better service. The Chairman is absolutely right and he lays down the challenge to the Minister, but the Minister can be inventive. We have heard one way forward. Another way would be to provide the resources to local enterprise partnerships. The matter could then be taken forward through city deals to allow the LEPs to innovate. The Chairman gives a good way forward, but there are other ways, and I am sure the Minister will be up for taking on board those interesting ideas.

Let me draw attention to the concerns of the Association of Colleges—this is coming from my background as a college principal. There is concern at the moment about the perverse incentives in the current system, which allow new schools to be established even where there is an over-supply of places. When that happens, we create a competitive environment in which schools are trying to maintain their pupil numbers through compulsory education up to 18 years old. That militates against the provision of truly independent information, advice and guidance because such advice might, for example, recommend that a young person remains in the school because that benefits the school but not necessarily the young person. Independence of advice is crucial; otherwise we get the outcomes that have already been described in this debate that are not in the interests of either young people or UK plc because we are wasting talent.

Let me close by quoting the words of Vince Barrett, the immediate past president of the Association for Careers, Education and Guidance who lives in the Humber area. He has spent his whole life in careers education and guidance, working with young people. He said:

“Removing the statutory duty for secondary schools to provide careers education and replacing it with a new duty to provide only careers guidance has resulted in young people having to make decisions about their future without fully understanding the range of opportunities that may be open to them. It’s a bit like being told to choose a pair of shoes without trying them on and hoping they’ll be a perfect fit.”

I hope that this debate today gives the Government an opportunity to step up to the plate for the young people of this country and put in the resource to allow proper, impartial careers education and guidance to be given to every young person in the land, so that they can achieve their potential.

[Mr Joe Benton (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, I point out that I hope to start the wind-ups at 2.40 pm by the latest. I ask Members to keep that in mind.