Skills Funding and the Skills Funding Agency (Chief Executive)

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

Further to my announcement on 1 November, I would inform Parliament about the outcome of the review into the status of the chief executive of skills funding and the Skills Funding Agency.

The review has concluded that the existing arrangement of a statutory post holder should be replaced with a more traditional Executive agency model. This is consistent with the Government’s wider commitment to improve radically the transparency and accountability for all public services, providing clarity and focus to the work of the agency and ensuring that skills and apprenticeship programmes are delivered within an overarching strategic framework set by Government.

The Skills Funding Agency will continue to play a vital role in funding the education and skills training that our country needs to tackle the very real challenges that lie ahead; and the outcome of this review reflects the Government’s ongoing commitment to building on the strength of the further education system, while ensuring rigorous accountability structures are in place.

I can confirm that both the Skills Funding Agency and wider stakeholders have been fully engaged in the review process, and I will be writing to them today about the outcome of this work.

We will bring forward legislation for this change as and when parliamentary time allows.

Apprenticeships

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of apprenticeships.

Mr Speaker, the other element is skills—but my skills could never be as great as your own, I hasten to add.

The guitarist Chet Atkins once said:

“A long apprenticeship is the most logical way to success. The only alternative is overnight stardom, but I can’t give you a formula for that.”

Mr Speaker, you and I know, along with others, that long apprenticeships in public service can bear out the first part of that sentiment. On overnight stardom, I say only that the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), the new shadow Business Secretary, will no doubt enlighten us on some future occasion.

Mr Speaker, you and I have no wish for this debate to become an exercise in party political tergiversation alone. There is no need for unnecessary contumely, and no need for more criticism of Opposition Members than that which is necessary to, by contrast, highlight the extent of our achievements.

There are many on the Opposition Benchers whose commitment to apprenticeship training is deep and sincere, and I recognise that the previous Government did indeed invest in apprenticeships—certainly towards the end. It is also fair to point out that there was a rise of almost 50,000 in the number of apprentices aged over 25, so, despite some things that we have read recently, the growth in older apprentices is a trend change that has been taking place over a number of years.

Indeed, the previous Government recognised, as you will know Madam Deputy Speaker, in the Leitch report on skills, which they commissioned, that such growth in the skilling of older workers was essential to keep pace with our competitors by upskilling and reskilling the existing work force.

Above all, I know that Members on both sides of the House recognise that apprenticeship training is a sure way to success. The all-party group on further education, skills and lifelong learning recently called for the creation of a “Royal Society of Apprentices” as a means of raising the profile of what many of us believe is our most effective form of vocational training, and I will, I am pleased to tell the House today, take that proposal forward.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister knows and is quite right that all Members are in favour of apprenticeships, but we are in favour of quality apprenticeships. When I was Chair of the Education and Skills Committee, I discovered that too many apprenticeships lasted only one year and very many did not lead to a secure job. There are now 1 million unemployed young people, and some of us believe that 6% of young people going into apprenticeships is not enough. We need new efforts to get more people apprenticeships now.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman has been a long-standing advocate of apprenticeships, and he rightly draws attention to previous Select Committee reports on the subject. He highlighted those reports in the Chamber on more than one occasion when I was present, and he is right in two particular respects: first, it is important that we focus apprenticeships on where they are of most value, and there is more evidence to suggest that they are of most value to young people between the ages of 16 and 24; and, secondly, it is important that we are relentless in our drive for quality. He is right, too, that as we increase the quantity of apprenticeships there will be a tension with quality, but I shall say a great deal more today about the steps that we have taken and the future steps that we propose to take to achieve just that ambition.

Having said that there is a broad measure of agreement, a point echoed by the hon. Gentleman, I should say, first, that the difference between us and the previous Government is that we have made apprenticeships the pivot around which the rest of the skills system turns. Secondly, we have made them fill a bigger space than ever before. Finally, we have put in place an unparalleled level of funding to support our single-minded aim to create more apprenticeships than modern Britain has ever seen. It is important to point out that that growth has not been only in traditional craft apprenticeships, but in the new crafts too—advanced engineering, IT, the creative industries and financial services.

Why, people might ask, do we put such an emphasis on apprenticeships? It is not just that apprenticeships work, although they do, or that an apprenticeship is probably the most widely recognised brand in the skills shop window, although it is; it is also about what apprenticeships symbolise—the passing on of skills from one generation to the next and the proof that that offers that learning by doing is just as demanding and praiseworthy as learning from a book. As William Morris said, all art and craft is

“the expression by man of his joy in labour”.

It is my ambition to dispel once and for all the myth that one can gain accomplishment only through academic prowess. The sense of worth that people gain through the work of their hands—through practical, technical and vocational skill—needs to be recognised, just as we recognise academic achievement.

It is that sense of apprenticeships as the embodiment of a continuum that guarantees their place at the heart of my vision for skills. I hope that, like me, hon. Members on both sides will welcome the provisional figures that show that, in the academic year that has just finished, nearly 443,000 people started an apprenticeship in England.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating HTP Training, an Isle of Wight apprenticeship provider, and its managing director Rachael Fidler? Most notable is its successful apprenticeship completion rate of 87%—significantly higher than the national average of 74%. Does my hon. Friend agree that none of that would have been possible without the Government’s help and support?

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[Mr Hayes]

That is the kind of testing question and penetrating intervention that I expected during this debate. None the less, it was most welcome, and from a Member who never ceases to represent his constituents in the Isle of Wight with vigour, verve and absolute integrity. His support for apprenticeships has been critical in delivering the 100% increase in Isle of Wight apprenticeship numbers to which he has drawn the House’s attention.

[Mr Sheerman]

Some of us sometimes try to get the Minister to be cross with us because he is always so polite and always strokes the feathers of everyone who asks him a question. However, I have to put it to him again: we all know that apprenticeships are something of a fig leaf for the Government. One million young people are unemployed and the Government keep pointing to what I call the fig leaf of apprenticeships.

Will the Minister stop weaving the myth that they are all three or four-year apprenticeships leading to secure jobs? What is the average length of an apprenticeship today? That is the crucial thing. I think that the Minister is going to have to say that it is about a year. Is that the truth? That is what the public want to know. What quality and length are the apprenticeships of which he is so proud?

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is renowned for his insight, and I had thought until today that he was equally renowned for his patience. I said that I would deal with quality and I assure him that I will also deal with the length of apprenticeships. I think he is right. Although there is no direct, guaranteed link between the length of an apprenticeship and its quality, there is a relationship. It is not a direct correlation, but it is a correlation none the less.

Today I will set out my demands for a minimum length for apprenticeships. That is perfectly reasonable. As I said, it is not a guarantee of quality, but it will certainly offer considerable assurance to the hon. Gentleman and others who, like me, are determined that quality should match quantity. The hon. Gentleman has, over many years, supported my view that technical education is critical not merely because it serves an economic function—because of its utility—but because of what it does for social mobility and social cohesion. Drawing on his patience and insight once again, I ask the hon. Gentleman to wait a few moments. I shall be speaking about the issue at considerable and eloquent length.

The figures that I cited show that numbers were up by more than half in the 2009-10 academic year. I want to make the point firmly that that includes an increase of about 10% in the number of apprentices under 19. I remind hon. Members that that Government achievement has been completed not merely because of our concentrated effort and the funding that we have put in place, although that is critical, but thanks to the work of further education colleges and other training providers, businesses coming forward and creating apprenticeship places, and learners and their families seizing the opportunity with both hands. The real credit lies with the learners, the training organisations and the businesses that allowed that expansion in the apprenticeship programme to take place.

[Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)]

SQI in Watford offers 10-week apprenticeship courses followed by 10-week placements. They lead to 85% of those taking part being in permanent employment. I do not think that the length of an apprenticeship is everything.

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend has a lot to be pleased about in respect of apprenticeships; as he will know, in his constituency their number has grown by 98%. I did say that I did not think there was an exact correlation between quality and the length of a course, but I think there is a relationship. By setting down a marker about the minimum length of an apprenticeship, we will drive up quality. We will certainly reassure those who are genuinely committed to the apprenticeship programme, but have doubts about the tension between quality and quantity, that we are serious about standards. That matters.

I take my hon. Friend’s point. It may be possible, particularly for older learners with greater prior attainment, to top up skills—perhaps they are moving from a level 2 to a level 3 qualification, or they already have many of the skills necessary to gain their first level 2 qualification. None the less, I still think that length matters.

I should like to put the debate in context, Madam Deputy Speaker; you would expect me to do no less. The Government’s macro-economic policy is built on twin pillars—reducing the deficit and reshaping our economy to make it more sustainable. That second core aim is served by the apprenticeship programme, because it assists in recalibrating work force skills so that productivity rises and competitiveness grows. Britain’s future chance to prosper lies in a high-tech, high-skill economy and to prosper in that way we need a high-tech, high-skill work force.

The recent announcements of reform to the programme concentrated on three areas key to the programme’s continued expansion and success: how to get more employers involved in offering apprenticeships; how to ensure that apprenticeships continue to offer people, especially young people, a firm first step on the ladder that leads to fulfilling careers and further learning; and how we ensure that the money that we spend on apprenticeships has the greatest success.

In the end, apprenticeships are jobs and the programme is demand-led. That means that the growth depends on employers coming forward to make places available. In the current economic climate jobs are in short supply, notably for young people, so the record increase in apprenticeship numbers is remarkable. Hon. Members will join me in commending the 100,000 employers that are using apprenticeships to develop work force skills—helping their businesses, but also providing opportunities for people across this country to grow their skills and improve their prospects.

Our work to recruit more employers to our cause goes on. Only this morning, I was at No. 10 Downing street briefing major employers on what apprenticeships can do for them. They were as committed to spreading opportunity and to social justice as I am.

Our objective is to improve and strengthen the programme even further so that more individuals and employers can access the benefits of high-quality apprenticeships. Overall, employer ownership of vocational skills is the key to our approach. This ambition informs all our priorities in moving forward: first, by reducing bureaucracy to an absolute minimum, speeding up processes and boosting employer engagement; secondly, by safeguarding quality, raising standards, and enhancing the reputation of the apprenticeship brand; and thirdly, by focusing future growth where the returns and benefits are greatest, including growth sectors of the economy, small and medium-sized enterprises, young people and new employees.

SMEs tell us that they still face considerable hurdles in taking on apprentices, and we have taken a serious look at what we can do to help to remove the barriers that they face. This has rightly been raised on the Floor of the House by Members on both sides and in all parties. I can announce today that, first, we will bring reduce to one month the time it takes for an employer to advertise an apprenticeship vacancy, including identifying the provider and completing an agreement on a training package between the employer and the provider; and secondly, we will remove all health and safety requirements that go beyond what health and safety legislation requires. From 1 January, employers that meet the Health and Safety Executive’s requirements as set out in “Health and safety made simple” will be deemed to provide a satisfactory level of compliance. We will also work with the insurance industry to encourage an approach that is proportionate to risks, and with training providers to develop new service standards for supporting SMEs to be included in all contracts for apprenticeships delivered from March 2012.

In addition, we are committed, in a significant new pilot programme, to taking radical steps to give businesses direct access to up to £250 million of public funding for training and apprenticeships over two years. This pilot is a key part of the Government’s growth review. It will route funding directly to businesses, will be more efficient than current arrangements, and will give businesses real purchasing power in the schools marketplace to secure the support that they need.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hayes]

I happily give way to the Chairman of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee.

[Mr Bailey]

I thank the Minister for his customary courtesy in giving way. I welcome the announcement about provider and employer engagement, and speeding that up, but will he clarify whether there are any restrictions regarding a member of a board of a provider company being precluded from being a member of a board of a user company?

[Mr Hayes]

The answer is that I do not know; in these circumstances, it is always right to be straightforward. Because I know that the hon. Gentleman takes these matters seriously and is committed to getting this right, as I am, I will take his point away and look at it. He is arguing that there might be a conflict of interest in terms of provider and employer, and he is right to say that there should be a proper separation. However, as he will know, it is often the case in large companies that the training wing of the company provides the pedagogy associated with an apprenticeship while the apprentice is engaged in the work-based training in the same company, though in a different part of it. I would qualify his query with that caveat. None the less, I will take another look at the subject and will be more than happy to respond to him directly.

The pilot that I described will involve employers being asked to demonstrate how public funding will be used to leverage private investment and commitment to raising skill levels in their sectors or supply chains. As we grow the apprenticeship scheme, it is very important to take advantage of the value chains associated with our major corporates—their supply chains and their distribution chains, where they exist. Typically, Governments have spent insufficient time considering how that might work in the light of the well-established nature of those relationships and the dependence of large organisations on myriad smaller companies, the fragility of which, by their very nature, is possibly injurious to the interests of those corporates.

For example, major suppliers in the automotive industry tend to have very large numbers of organisations with which they deal commercially in their locality, some of which are vital to the effectiveness of such large organisations. It is vital, in their interests and in ours, that we do more to ensure that those relationships allow us to grow the apprenticeship system within SMEs. It may be of value for large companies to absorb some of the bureaucracy and some of the cost, and certainly to absorb some of the management associated with seeding apprenticeships in their value chain. Bidding for the employer-led pilot will formally be launched in the new year.

Above all else, my advocacy of practical learning and my faith in apprenticeships are driven not by economic imperative—not merely by utility—but by social purpose. I said earlier that for too long the myth that only through academic accomplishment can a sense of worth be achieved has been perpetuated by those who themselves have travelled a gilded path to academia. Now it is time once again to recognise what Ruskin and Morris knew—that all those with practical tastes and talents, with technical vocational aptitudes, deserve their chance of glittering prizes too. This is not just because of the relationship between craft and beauty and, in turn, between beauty and truth, but because for society to cohere we must promote the common good through a shared appreciation of what each of can achieve. All feel valued when each feels valued. Given that inequality is the inevitable consequence for a free economy in a free society, only through social mobility can a communal sense of fairness be achieved. A society that is unequal and rigid is bound to be unable to secure the ties of shared identity, as invisible and yet as strong as the heartstrings of love.

[Mr Sheerman]

The hon. Gentleman and I share a great admiration for the poet John Clare. I am still waiting for a quotation from John Clare, who lived very near his constituency.

May I bring the hon. Gentleman back to the false dichotomy that comes through insidiously in his honeyed words—namely, that there is one group of people going into academia and higher education and a more worthy group going into apprenticeships and more practical learning by doing? This September, 36% of people went into higher education and 6% went into apprenticeships; we want him to talk about the 58% who went in neither direction.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

This is the season of good will, so I am pleading for good will from hon. Members in making short interventions. I remind everybody in the Chamber that this is a very heavily subscribed debate with a time limit on speeches that may, at this rate, have to be shortened for each speaker. In the interests of good will, perhaps we could make sure that all hon. Members get to speak tonight.

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, Madam Deputy Speaker; I must not allow my legendary generosity to prevent Members from contributing to this debate.

To the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) I say:

“I loved thee, though I told thee not,

Right earlily and long,

Thou wert my joy in every spot,

My theme in every song.”

That is by the people’s poet, John Clare. I believe that the hon. Gentleman saved John Clare’s home with the involvement of a social enterprise. We share a passion for the people’s poet, as we share a passion for the welfare and interests of the people. It is just a pity that I am in the people’s party and he is not.

With so many people currently not in employment, education or training, we must do more to extend the ladder of opportunity—the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. It is absolutely vital that in getting apprenticeships to fill a bigger space, we not only allow them to redefine our sense of what we understand as higher learning—I shall speak about that, too—but use them as a vehicle to allow for re-engagement of those who are currently unable to contribute in the way that we both want them to by getting a job, keeping a job, and progressing in a job. Through our access to apprenticeships programme, which we piloted as a result of my determination to do exactly what the hon. Gentleman described, I believe that we can provide just such a vehicle to get those who were failed by the system the first time around and who do not have sufficient prior attainment on to a level 2 course.

The drive for greater quantity must be matched by a determination that quality will grow in tandem. First, we will strengthen the English and maths requirements for apprentices who have not yet achieved a level 2 qualification. Those subjects remain essential for long-term employability and progression, so from the 2012-13 academic year all apprenticeship providers will be required to provide opportunities to support apprentices in progressing towards the achievement of level 2, GCSE or functional skills qualifications. They will be measured on their success in so doing.

Secondly, we will launch a rapid employer-led review of apprenticeship standards to identify best practice, ensure that every apprenticeship delivers the professionally recognised qualifications that employers need, and ensure that the Government are maximising the impact of public investment.

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

Does the Minister share my concern that the new requirement for maths and English to be part of the apprenticeship course might deter some of the NEETs—those who are not in education, employment or training—we are trying to get into apprenticeships from taking part in such schemes? Does he believe that we need additional support to help underachievers who do not have the required attainment in maths and English to achieve it so that they can get on to an apprenticeship scheme?

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend will know that in his constituency of Burton, apprenticeship numbers have risen by 76%. He will know, too, that that rise is due to the excellent work of his local further education college, with which I have had regular dealings.

My hon. Friend is right to argue that it is important that we take account of those who do not have the prior attainment to get on to a level 2 qualification. That is precisely the point that I was making a few moments ago, when I spoke about pre-apprenticeship training. To be clear, I said that those achieving a level 2 qualification must meet the standards in maths and English. There is an absolutely proper argument that we need steps on the ladder before people get to level 2, to allow for the re-engagement of those who are currently not able to get a job.

Thirdly on quality, we will continue to raise quality through consumer empowerment and transparency by improving employer and learner access to objectives and comparable information on providers.

I can also announce today additional steps that I am taking to raise the bar of apprenticeship standards even higher and to root out poor quality where it exists. All apprenticeships should involve a rigorous period of learning and the practice of new skills. If the standards are sufficiently stretching and the expectations of competence high, I believe that a course should naturally extend over at least 12 months. That will be the expectation first for 16 to 18-year-old apprentices from August 2012, as new contracts to training providers are issued. I have asked the National Apprenticeship Service to assess the implications of extending that to apprentices of all ages, taking account of the fact that older apprentices typically have greater prior attainment, as has been said. That will also allow time for our raised expectations on English and maths standards to be achieved. I am mindful of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) in that regard.

Alongside that, I have asked the National Apprenticeship Service to work with the Alliance of Sector Skills Councils to tighten guidance for those who are developing apprenticeship frameworks to ensure that expectations on national standards and rigour are met, and to take action where frameworks are insufficiently stretching. In the current economic times, we must be more vigilant than ever to ensure that funding delivers value and is properly spent. I am mindful of the remarks of the Chairman of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. We must crack down when there is evidence that public money is not being spent properly. Action is in hand to review cases where there is concern. Our resolve is to ensure that every penny of public money delivers high-quality apprenticeships and to continue to weed out failure and weakness wherever they are found. I know that the Select Committee is about to launch an inquiry into apprenticeships. I will make the evidence available in my submissions to that inquiry, giving a clear timetable of action and details of the steps we intend to take to root out poor provision.

The Skills Funding Agency will tighten the contracts with colleges and other training providers to allow the immediate withdrawal of funding from provision where quality standards are not met. I am mindful of the comments of the former Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee, the hon. Member for Huddersfield.

Members are aware of the scale of the crisis in public spending that this Government inherited and of the sometimes painful measures that we have had to take to deal with that. The fact that even in these circumstances we have increased spending on apprenticeships is a clear demonstration of our belief in the economic and social value of this form of training, and in the talent and potential of our young people. On 17 November, we set out a clear commitment to focus growth where the returns are greatest, both in terms of age groups and sectors. For example, there is evidence that younger apprentices see the greatest benefits. We will expect the National Apprenticeship Service, employers and providers to focus their efforts on those groups. Accordingly, I am asking the National Apprenticeship Service to target more actively, through marketing and other operational levers, the learner groups, qualifications and sectors where apprenticeships deliver the greatest benefits.

In addition, to widen the effort to create more and better apprenticeship opportunities and to grow the programme among SMEs, from April 2012 we will offer up to 40,000 incentive payments of £1,500 for small employers who take on their first young apprentice. Sufficient funding was already available for next year to support at least 20,000 incentive payments in respect of apprenticeships for young people. An additional fund will be made available to support a further 20,000, meaning that in total there will be 40,000 incentive payments. The payments will be targeted to provide additional apprenticeship opportunities for young people who are ready for employment with small employers that have not been engaged with the programme previously.

I said at the beginning of my remarks that what distinguishes this Government from the previous one is that apprenticeships are at the heart—at the very core—of our approach to skills. We want to build a ladder of opportunity that stretches from re-engagement to the highest skilled levels, with apprenticeships filling a bigger space. We will redefine what we mean by higher learning. In future, our vision of higher learning will extend out from the university classroom or laboratory into the workplace. Because I want a vocational pathway as rigorous, accessible and progressive as the academic route, on 1 December we announced that £18.7 million from the higher apprenticeship fund will support the development of 19,000 new higher apprenticeships in key growth sectors, including construction, renewable energy, advanced engineering, insurance and financial services.

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

I am glad that my hon. Friend is setting out plans to increase higher apprenticeships, because for many young people that is a better route to successful employment than a university degree. For the benefit of the House, will he outline how many higher apprenticeships were created by the previous Government?

[Mr Hayes]

I do not want to be excessively critical of the previous Government. I made that clear at the outset. I said that I would not be more partisan than was necessary to illustrate the extent of our achievement.

In answer to my hon. Friend, let me point out that in 2008-09 there were fewer than 200 higher apprenticeships. With the announcements that have already been made and the relaunch of the higher apprenticeship fund in January for its next phase, I estimate that in this Parliament we will create 25,000 higher apprenticeship places. From 200 places to 25,000 is an extraordinary and remarkable achievement, for which the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, employers, learners and providers can take an immense amount of credit, and for which I can take just a little credit too.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I am very keen that the hon. Gentleman should get all the credit that he can. On that note, will he tell the House how many more young people between the ages of 16 and 24 are unemployed after the 18 months in which he has been in his role?

[Mr Hayes]

I wondered whether the hon. Gentleman might ask that question because I know of his genuine and deep-seated concern about these matters, so I had a look at the figures on NEETs over the period from 2000 to date. He will know that from 2004 the number of disengaged young people grew steadily, and that in the third quarter of 2009 it reached 925,000. He will understand that that is a structural problem that requires structural solutions, and that part of the solution is to recast how we train and educate young people and how we create opportunities of the type that I have described, so that we can not only re-engage them but allow them to progress.

The difference between our approach and that of the Labour Government—and, to be fair, previous Governments—is that for a time, apprenticeships may have been seen as a cul-de-sac rather than a highway. By creating the number of higher apprenticeships that I described, I am ensuring that there is a vocational pathway, so that far from being a cul-de-sac, apprenticeships are a route to higher learning that enables people to fulfil their potential. I am confident that our structural changes will help us to deal with a structural problem in a way that the last Government failed to do. I do not say that in an unnecessarily partisan way, but it is pretty surprising that even at a time when the economy was very strong, the number of young people not in education, employment or training remained persistently high and continued to grow.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Perhaps I can help by saying that in 1995-96, the number of young people starting an apprenticeship under the Conservative Government was a little over 20,000. The Tory Government did pump that up in their last few months and reached the amazing number of 65,000, but after 12 or 13 years of the last Labour Government, that number had increased to 280,000. I say that to be helpful to the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid).

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is a former apprentice and is passionate about the subject, and on that basis I defer to his expertise and personal understanding of the subject. He will be as pleased as I am that apprenticeship numbers in his constituency have grown by 65%. I acknowledged at the outset that apprenticeship numbers grew under the last Government. Indeed, the former Prime Minister declared to the House in 2010 that there were 250,000 apprenticeships. Now there are nearly 440,000. That is the difference between Labour’s record and ours. I know that in the spirit of generosity that typifies all the hon. Gentleman does here, he will want to acknowledge that success when he speaks later.

The development of our new higher apprenticeships in key growth sectors, including construction, renewable energy, advanced engineering, insurance and financial services will allow about 250 employers, including Leyland Trucks, Unilever, TNT, Burberry and so on, to benefit from nationally accredited technical training delivered in the workplace. Higher apprenticeships have the potential to deliver higher-level skills tailored specifically to individual business requirements, and I am encouraged by the research produced at Greenwich university earlier this year showing that about 13% of apprentices progress into higher learning within four years of completing their apprenticeship. As I said a moment ago, we will deliver more than 25,000 higher apprenticeships in this Parliament.

There is much more that I could add to that catalogue of good news. I could wax even more lyrical about the scope and scale of our achievements, but I know that many Members want to speak and I am anxious not to impinge too much on their time. I know that when they speak, like those who have already intervened, they will want to reflect on how much has been achieved over recent months, not just in expanding the apprenticeship programme but in making it more responsive to the needs of employers and the aspirations of learners. Hon. Members will also be aware of how much remains to be done to ensure that we build on excellence, focus on quality, direct funding, link apprenticeships to growth and ensure that not only the macro-economic ambitions that I have set out but our social ambitions are achieved. That is the scale of what we want to achieve. We will be ever vigilant in raising standards and quality, cutting bureaucracy and prioritising areas in which returns and impact are greatest.

At a recent Business, Innovation and Skills questions, I asked all hon. Members who had not done so already to set an example by taking on an apprentice. Today, I ask for their engagement during national apprenticeship week, which starts on 7 February 2012.

To change our national prospects, we must change our view of what matters to each of us and all of us. Apprenticeships are an economic imperative, a social mission, a cultural crusade—such is the scope and scale of our ambitions. We want to reinvigorate practical, technical and vocational skills by reigniting the fire of learning. We want lives lit up by achievement, with a new generation of craftsmen shaping a bigger Britain and building a better future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

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[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I know that in certain quarters—some of the more world-weary denizens of the 21st century—the Minister, for whom I have much respect and affection, is the subject of mild amusement because of how he manages to cover all times, all places and all poetry, and in particular because of how he invokes mediaeval guilds. I think that is extremely unfair, and I have a confession to make tonight: I, too, am a mediaevalist. In fact, a significant chunk of my education at Stockport grammar school was down to an apprentice made good, Sir Edmund Shaa, who was apprenticed as a goldsmith in 1450 and subsequently founded the school in 1487. His Latin motto was “Vincit qui patitur”, which very loosely translates as “You’ll get there if you stick at it”. Of course, that was what happened in that period for people such as Dick Whittington, who was of course apprenticed as a mercer. This is the time of year for pantomime, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I trust that you will forgive me for mentioning him. It also happened for Scrooge, who was not represented in Dickens’s novel as the Chancellor of the Exchequer but was an apprentice to Fezziwig, who was also a great model.

Apprenticeships were renewed by the trade union movement in this country in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was the skilled working class who took them up. My own father, who was apprenticed just before the second world war to Crossley Brothers, one of the best engineering companies in the north-west, was told by my grandfather that he had a job for life. However, as we well know, we have seen the decline of traditional industries over a long period. In the spirit of Christmas and non-partisanship, which the Minister mentioned, I will not ascribe that to any one particular Government, although Thatcherism comes to mind. We saw the meretricious pursuit of funny money and fluffy activity under the Thatcher Government—not that I would accuse the Minister of being either fluffy or funny. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] Funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha.

By the 1990s, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) said, apprenticeships were on their knees, and it was the Labour Government who renewed them, as the Minister was gracious enough to acknowledge. Incidentally, that renewal did not come out of a focus group, and sadly it was not detailed on the great pledge card. It certainly did not come via Twitter, because we did not have the technology in those days. It came from a deep belief and a response to what we were being told in our heartlands about industrial decline, the failings and horrors of the youth training schemes and the low-skill, low-quality training that had taken place under the Conservatives before 1997.

We said that there must be a better way. That was why we revived manufacturing and gave it a sense of structure as we approached the millennium, and why we set up the national apprenticeship scheme and introduced national apprenticeships week. At the end of the day, it was also why it was the Labour Government who supported our successful bid to stage WorldSkills this October in London—I also pay tribute to the Minister and Members from across the House—and what a wonderful showcase for vocational activities in this country that was.

I do not need to remind the House—because the Minister has already generously done it for me—that we commissioned the Leitch report, that seminal report on our skills needs which has informed policy in all parts of the House. What it says about the direction of travel remains just as relevant, even though the economic situation has changed utterly from the period in which it was produced. Leitch ascribed to apprenticeships an important role to play in improving adult skill levels, as the Minister rightly said. That will only become more important as our demographic profile changes. However, we have to resist the temptation to label all in-work training as apprenticeships, thereby stretching the brand to breaking point. We also have to judge training schemes critically in their own right, and in preparation for this situation.

However, at a time of huge rises in youth unemployment and the number of NEETs, it is clear that the immediate challenge is to grasp the nettle and boost the number of apprenticeships available to those aged 16 to 24. The Government’s own head of the apprenticeship service warned only this summer about the chronic lack of places for interested school and college leavers. It is therefore not just a question of supply, or even money—although the Minister has been somewhat over-familiar with the figures, and I intend to return to where some of the money has come from. It is also about demand—demand in the workplace and demand from employers—and, crucially, confidence. Without confidence, the Government can produce as many schemes as they like, but they will face an uphill battle in successfully attracting the numbers. It is this Government’s failure to produce economic arguments or an economic strategy that will generate confidence that has contributed to many of the problems with which the hon. Gentleman has had to grapple.

However, I would like, if I may, to pose a further question for the House—one that goes to the heart of the future for apprenticeships. What are apprenticeships for? Do we see them as a means to expand someone’s existing skills competences, providing a traditional role, or as a means to give rigour to new and developing types of employment, such as in green and low-carbon areas? If so, we need to highlight the importance of adopting a collaborative approach in those areas between employers and training providers in designing frameworks that best fit those new competences. I know from talking to a successful construction business in my area—a company called Amion, which has a good track record in supporting employees from Blackpool to gain higher and further education qualifications as apprentices, both part time and full time—that expansive frameworks might not always be the answer for young people taking an apprenticeship or skills route to qualifications while working in a company. As for older workers, especially in construction or electrical activities, it might make more sense to have shorter, one or two-day bolt-ons to existing qualifications, which again highlights the need for frameworks to be flexible and adapt rapidly to new developments. In a labour market where the average person will be expected to change jobs a number of times in their lives, can a portfolio of skills be offered that will allow the budding apprentice the ability to cope with this new-found flexibility, as he or she progresses?

There is a lively and ongoing debate about the nature of apprenticeships—an issue to which the Government have rapidly been forced to turn because of some of the disquiet in recent months. That was apparent from a meeting in this House organised recently by FE Week, when more than 80 apprenticeship providers came to the Commons to voice their views and concerns about quality and overstretch in apprenticeships, which is something that we have also articulated via our parliamentary questions. As Peter Cobrin, the national education director of the website notgoingtouni.co.uk, argued:

“Is 12 weeks working in a catering establishment and coming up with a certificate—is that an apprenticeship? Or three years working in a engineering company—is that an apprenticeship? We haven’t got a handle around what it is.”

Alastair Thomson from the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education talked about people who are already working for the employer and then being put on the programme. He said, “Sometimes that’s not a bad thing, but if the person who goes through an apprenticeship stays on the same job or does not get any pay rise—is that really a good use of public money? I’d suggest not.”

Those are issues that have been raised strongly, along with others, in connection with Elmfield Training, which made significant profits in delivering the apprenticeships framework. I have also written to David Way of the National Apprenticeship Service to voice my concern about those issues. I therefore welcome the Minister’s announcement today about curtailing apprenticeships that are shorter than a year. I also welcome all the other things he has said in that respect, but this House needs to remember that this comes on the back of a process of concerted pressure, 18 months into this Government’s period of office. I would say gently to the Minister that the devil is in the detail. I appreciate that he wanted to present a lot of the detail today, but when he was going through it so rapidly, talking about the sunny uplift, I was reminded of the old saying: “The faster they counted their honour, the faster we counted the spoons.” We will certainly be counting the spoons and holding the Government to account on these issues.

The Minister’s announcement will do nothing immediately to address the concerns about the quality and progression of apprenticeships for those in the crucial age range between 19 and 24, although the Minister said that he would look at that. After all, their futures are just as important to the economy and jobs as those in the younger range. We will therefore be pressing Ministers to ensure that apprenticeship standards and quality are maintained for all ages.

[Mr Hayes]

I do not want to intervene too frequently on the hon. Gentleman, because a lot of colleagues want to contribute, but he will know that the growth in apprenticeships for 19 to 24-year-olds over these two years—the first year of which his Government might take some credit for, because of the time lag in publishing the figures—has been around 60%. There has been considerable growth in apprenticeships for 19 to 24-year-olds. As for quality, he will also know that it was this Government who introduced both minimum contract values, to take out some of the smaller and less reliable providers, and apprenticeship standards, and that was in the beginning, not in response to any pressure from the Opposition.

[Mr Marsden]

Well, I—

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the Minister and the shadow Minister, and I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me so early in the debate.

It is great news that the number of apprentices in Stevenage has risen by 73% over the last year, from 380 to 650. Those numbers are important, because they relate not just to training schemes but to apprenticeships that will lead to real jobs. I know that the Minister, like me, attended the WorldSkills event, in which 13 of our young people won medals. That showed that they were hungry for learning and achievement. We need to reduce the gap between skills and education to make it easier for employers to take on such young people. I supported the clause in the Bill that became the Education Act 2011 that increased the requirement to level 2—the equivalent of a GCSE A to C grade in maths and English—because it enables our young people to acquire the numeracy and literacy that will help them to gain real jobs at the end of their apprenticeships.

There has been some discussion about the quality of apprenticeships. My constituency contains a couple of manufacturing firms: MBDA, which builds complex weapons systems, and Astrium, which builds 25% of the world’s telecommunications satellites. Their boards are run by people who were apprentices 20 or 25 years ago, and they offer massive apprenticeship opportunities. MBDA recently won an award for being one of the best apprenticeship organisations in the country. The companies take on students aged 16 or 18, give them real jobs, and support their development and acquisition of skills. They even pay for their degrees so that they can make progress. I wonder whether the Minister would be prepared to meet representatives of one of those companies to discuss level 5 apprenticeships.

[Mr Hayes]

I should be delighted to do so.

[Stephen McPartland]

I thank the Minister.

My constituency also contains a couple of accountancy firms that are taking on 18-year-olds and training them to become accountants. They are not providing old-fashioned apprenticeships—jobs to keep young people going for six to 12 months—but are investing in their careers. Stevenage is in Hertfordshire, and is close to London. It takes 25 minutes to travel to King’s Cross on a fast train in the mornings, although it takes much longer in the evenings. The companies want young people because they become committed to them and stay for 20 or 25 years. They become partners in the accountancy firms, and become board members of the large multinational companies.

The Minister came to Stevenage and kindly opened the first welding skills college. It is the result of a fusion between North Hertfordshire college and Weldability Sif, whose inspirational founder is Adrian Hawkins. We are trying to develop a network of such colleges throughout the United Kingdom, which is short of 30,000 welders. The average age of a welder is over 55, and welders in the midlands are now being paid more than £100,000 a year. Welding gives people fantastic career opportunities. [Interruption.] Some of my hon. Friends are suggesting, from sedentary positions, that many of us should have gone into welding when we were younger.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bailey]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman made that intervention, because it allows me to point out that under the previous Labour Government there was a huge increase in the number of people going to university, including a fourfold increase in the number going from my constituency, and there was also a fourfold increase in the number taking apprenticeships. By and large, we find that those apprenticeships were far superior to the those being classified as “apprenticeships” under this Government. As has been said on a number of occasions, the huge number of apprenticeships for over-24s is just a rebranding of the Train to Gain programme. They would not have been included in the previous Government’s statistics on apprenticeships, so to compare one with the other is not to compare like with like. I believe that in the retail sector more than 70% of those who get an apprenticeship level 2 qualification are in existing employment, so does that really meet the test of improved professional qualifications and employability? I doubt it.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is the Chairman of the Select Committee and I know that he would not want to present a parody of what is happening. We are determined to deliver quality, but I cannot imagine that he is saying that apprenticeships should not be a vehicle for retraining and upskilling and improving the prospects for existing workers. If he was saying that, it would be an extraordinary claim.

[Mr Bailey]

I was not going to make that claim. In fact, the Minister raises an important point. I would not in any way decry the upskilling of existing workers, and Train to Gain was very successful in doing that, but whether we want to call it “apprenticeships” is debateable. Perhaps we do, perhaps we do not, but statistics cannot be traded with the previous Government’s apprenticeship statistics when such people were not included in them. That is my essential point. I am not decrying in any way the benefits of in-work training, but there is a genuine issue with measuring the enhanced employability of people who have undergone that training and the amount of money invested in it.

Let me consider the Government’s approach to the education maintenance allowance. One reason for scrapping it was the alleged deadweight cost of the fact that many young people would have taken courses irrespective of whether that allowance had been paid. The same sort of detailed scrutiny must take place of some of the post-24 training to ensure that we are not spending a vast sum of money—there is a lot of money involved—on providing people with training that they would have had anyway. A secondary issue is the fact that if we can retain the level of skills enhancement we have already and refocus some of the money that would be spent on it on other areas, we might well be able to enhance other apprenticeship provision in other areas, which is equally important.

I could go on for a very long time about this—[Interruption.] But not today. My Committee will carry out a detailed inquiry, but I conclude by saying that we should get away from the rhetoric of apprenticeships and talk about general skills. There are a range of skill packages for different groups of different ages and different skill levels and we must ensure that they are supported rather than talk all the time about apprenticeships—

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

As we have heard, there is substantial consensus across the House that apprenticeships are a good thing. Both the previous Government and the present Government have supported and invested in the growth in apprenticeship numbers. Both the current Skills Minister and the shadow Skills Minister have excellent track records championing apprenticeships inside and outside Government. Many MPs are, like myself, employing apprentices, a practical, positive way of showing commitment to the apprenticeship route into employment.

Across the country there are excellent examples of first-class delivery of apprenticeship programmes. Two examples from my own constituency demonstrate how flexible the apprenticeship model is for apprentices and for businesses. North Lindsey college provides a wide range of excellent apprenticeship opportunities in partnership with a range of local companies. Humberside Engineering Training Association—HETA—whose general manager, Eric Collis, gave compelling evidence to the Education Committee, provides a range of high-quality apprenticeships in partnership with companies such as Tata Steel. It is a tribute to the quality of Tata Steel apprenticeships that they are heavily oversubscribed year on year. It is a tribute to Tata’s commitment to the development of its future work force that it is committed to maintaining its apprenticeship numbers even while it navigates the choppy waters that the steel industry currently faces worldwide.

So the apprenticeship brand is a strong one. Labour breathed fresh life into apprenticeships after they had been somewhat neglected. The number of apprenticeships rose from 65,000 in 1996-97 to 279,000 in 2009-10. The dedicated National Apprenticeship Service was set up to promote and expand apprenticeships. To their credit, the Government have built on this. However, most people think of apprenticeships as long courses focused on practical skills for young people.

Apprenticeships are now being supplied for a much wider range of skills and ages than previously, and vary in length. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but care needs to be taken with the branding, and vigilance should be maintained to ensure that apprenticeships are always used appropriately. We have heard some exchanges about that in the debate today. Vigilance needs to be maintained so that apprenticeships remain rigorous and of quality.

Most of the growth in apprenticeship numbers since the election has been in the 25-plus age group, and much of this has been achieved by the re-badging of Train to Gain numbers, so we need to be careful. With the rise in youth unemployment to record levels, it is important that renewed effort is put into building the number of apprenticeships for those under 25.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that most of the growth has been in that area and he is right to attribute that to the changing shape of apprenticeships. We are using them as the principal vehicle to upskill and reskill the existing work force, as well as the traditional route into employment through the acquisition of practical competences, but I know that he will want to acknowledge that the two-year change in young apprenticeships for people aged under 19 is around 28% or 29%, and that the biggest proportionate growth is at level 3, rather belying the argument that this is all about low level skills for older people.

[Nic Dakin]

I thank the Minister for his intervention. He is right to say that where there is success it needs to be celebrated. That must be built on. He is also right to recognise the diversity of the apprenticeship model, but everybody in the House is right to emphasise the importance of rigour and quality as we move forward. There is agreement across the House on these issues, but when qualifications change, it is a tricky time and must be managed carefully. I am sure that with his track record, the Minister will be doing his level best to ensure that that is the case.

We do not wish to see another lost generation. That is the risk because of the economic challenges that the country faces. One way of addressing the issue would be to boost under-25 apprenticeships by smart public procurement. We have heard that discussed this afternoon. But there are other ways of addressing the challenge. In his opening speech the Minister drew attention to certain barriers to the supply of apprenticeships, which he hopes to release to allow a greater supply.

The Federation of Master Builders notes that there has been a sharp decline in construction apprenticeships as a result of the economic challenges confronting the construction industry. It states in its report:

“Apprenticeships are so successful because they are employer led and the qualifications on offer are designed to equip the learner with the skills required by the industry. Employers are at the very heart of apprenticeships and so, in order to really make a difference, politicians must continue to make the businesses’ case for hiring an apprentice. This includes the continuation, or even expansion, of the apprenticeship incentive payment.”

As the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden), said, a discussion is needed about how to balance the costs and the incentives between the student, the employer and the state as we move forward.

Finally, I shall touch on information, advice and guidance, which is tricky at present. I know the Minister is concerned about that. Research by the Edge Foundation showed that most people know a lot more about academic qualifications than they do about apprenticeships. The emphasis in the school curriculum on the English baccalaureate risks distorting choices and aspirations. Young people must be given better information about apprenticeships in order to make informed decisions. This should include opportunities to meet current apprentices and visit colleges, training providers and employers, starting before they make subject choices at 14.

Better information is needed about the paths that apprentices can take once they have finished their apprenticeships. It is not well known that apprentices can progress to higher education, or that many are promoted to supervisory and management positions soon after completing their training. Edge’s 2009 survey of teachers revealed that more than half—56%—of the secondary school teachers surveyed rated their knowledge of apprenticeships as poor. We need to take action on information, advice and guidance. We need to be rigorous about quality as we move forward, and we need to look at the package of incentives available to stimulate the further progression of apprenticeships.

Farepak

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

It is a great pleasure to be able to respond to this debate, Mr Weir, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) for bringing the matter to our attention. It is a matter of profound concern to the people involved. I think I reflect the Government’s perspective in adding my view that this was completely unacceptable. Many vulnerable people were associated with it and it has taken far too long to sort out. The steps taken to try to resolve it were far slower than both the people detrimentally affected and any reasonable observer might have anticipated, so I am extremely sympathetic to the case that the hon. Lady has made and to the circumstances of the people who were so badly affected. It is understandable that questions of the kind that she has posed are raised when so many people are affected. The insolvency is particularly sad, coming around a savings scheme—a club, if you like—that was tied to Christmas, as we now approach Christmas some years later. This is a poignant subject, and the emotions evident in the contributions made so far reflect the character of the matter with which we are dealing.

[Tony Cunningham]

Does the Minister accept that what makes the situation even worse—it is bad enough that it is Christmas and so on—is that the agents who were taking the money week after week were taking it from friends? The responsibility and the guilt that they feel, because they have let down their friends, are enormous.

[Mr Hayes]

Yes, that is true. It is a good point. The hon. Gentleman made that point in an earlier intervention in a different form, and he is right. We think of the victims as the people whose money was contributed and lost, but the wider effect of the kind he described is also very sad, because people were acting in good faith, unaware of the likely consequences of the role that they played until it was too late to do anything about it. The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the communal effect that it had on communities that are often tight-knit and where trust matters. This is a poignant matter that understandably stimulates heartfelt sentiments. I will try to deal factually with the circumstances, but it is hard to do that in the context, about which we feel deeply.

The matter started before we came to office, but it is not a partisan matter. Governments need to express a view and take appropriate action. The case began under the previous Government and, of course, because it has not yet been satisfactorily drawn to a conclusion in terms of the money received by the people concerned, it continues under this Government. However, neither Government could have intervened in the conduct of a particular insolvency, as that remains subject, as hon. Members will know, to the overall supervision of the court. Nevertheless, I can give some background as to where the Government stand at the moment.

On the issue that was raised about the directors, concern was rightly expressed about their position and their living up to their responsibilities. They are the people who controlled the company. The investigation that took place was complex. As the hon. Member for Newport East mentioned, it resulted in an application by the Business Secretary, in the High Court of Justice on 26 January this year, for disqualification orders to be made against the directors. It was made in the public interest on the ground that the conduct of each director makes him or her unfit to be concerned in the management of a company. It is, of course, a legal application. None the less, the fact that we made it reflects the Government’s view that this is a matter of profound concern. The individuals must be held responsible. As a result, opportunities to serve in a similar or indeed any business capacity should be limited. To say more about that at this stage would probably be improper, but the message that I have broadcast makes clear my views and those of the Government.

[Jessica Morden]

Does the Minister have any idea how long the process will take, and will he address the issue of the knighthood if the person in question is found guilty?

[Mr Hayes]

That is a fair question, but since the matter is now part of a legal process it is difficult for me to give a definitive answer. It would not, however, be unreasonable for my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr Davey), who is the Minister responsible for such matters, to respond directly to the hon. Lady, and I will ask him to do just that. I am not the Minister responsible for this particular matter, although I am happy to act as a conduit to the person who is. On such occasions when I am standing in for a Minister, it is my habit to make it clear to them that they have a responsibility to hon. Members and to the Chamber. I am more than happy to pass on the fact that I would like my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton, in so far as he can, to answer that question.

[Mr Buckland]

In the spirit of that constructive approach, may I ask the Minister the question posited by the hon. Member for Workington (Tony Cunningham) about the criminal aspect of this case? Was a proper investigation ever carried out by the Serious Fraud Office or the Crown Prosecution Service into allegations of fraudulent trading? It certainly seems to me, and to many others, that that should have been looked into at the time. If it was not looked into, why was that?

[Mr Hayes]

I will try to deal in my remarks with some of the actions that were taken, and if I do not cover that point I will come back to my hon. Friend on the matter. I would like to make some progress to describe what actions have been taken, although I am mindful of that intervention and do not seek to avoid it. I will try to deal with it during my remarks, but if I cannot, I will subsequently reply to my hon. Friend directly.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hayes]

I will give way briefly, but I want to make some progress because I am short on time.

[Nick Smith]

It is great that the Minister has shown such sympathy for the victims of this injustice. Such schemes take place up and down the valleys in south Wales, and many members of my family have participated in them in the past. I would like to press the Minister on the matter of alleged fraud. Will he let us know what he is going to say on the matter sooner rather than later, so that we can quiz him further? People are very angry.

[Mr Hayes]

When I have made some progress, if I have not satisfactorily covered that matter I give a commitment that either I or the Minister responsible will respond properly and as far as we can within the legal constraints that I have set out. I am aware of the hon. Members who have participated in this debate, and of those who have a particular interest in the area. I am not avoiding the issue; it is a fair question and I will ensure that it gets a fair answer from the Government. I am not in the business of avoiding difficult subjects, particularly ones such as this that unite the whole House in its view of what is and is not appropriate.

In the short time that we have available for this important debate, let me make some progress so that I can deal with some of the points raised. I want to set out the steps that we have taken to avoid such things happening in the future. As the hon. Member for Newport East said, the main companies in the hamper industry, through the Christmas Prepayment Association, introduced new safeguards for consumers’ money in the form of independently controlled, ring-fenced trust accounts. I know that the hon. Lady is doubtful about the self-regulation of the industry, but however imperfect, those safeguards represent significant progress for an industry that has, quite frankly, faced something of a shake-out following the Farepak affair. Relatively few businesses are now involved in that industry, and their coming together in the way that I have described represents significant progress.

There are various other Christmas saving accounts, such as clubs run by supermarkets, large retailers, local shops, social clubs, pubs and workplaces, and risks are always associated with any business of that kind. They are bigger and certainly more widespread than the principal companies that most of us know about. Local schemes exist throughout the country, and have done so throughout my lifetime if not considerably before. I remember my mother being part of a small, local Christmas saving club when I was a child, and it is hard to regulate every such arrangement. None the less, the Office of Fair Trading has produced a leaflet entitled “Save Xmas”—I am sorry it is not “Save Christmas”—which is a quick guide to paying for Christmas. The leaflet lists various schemes and indicates whether there is any protection should they go bust. It is important that people who put their money into such schemes know where they stand at the outset, because that has not always been the case in the past.

The Money Advice Service provides advice on its website about what protection is offered for various ways of saving money, and in addition, the Office of Fair Trading’s consumer codes approval scheme, which aims to safeguard consumer interests and raise standards in markets, lists the protection of prepayments as one of its criteria. The OFT has approved 10 codes so far, and we are currently consulting on how consumer codes will operate in future, in light of proposals for institutional reform for those bodies that are currently responsible for consumer and competition policy. Those measures should help savers to avoid losing prepaid moneys in future.

On the issue of insolvency, it is clearly a matter of regret that more money is not available for distribution, and I understand the concerns mentioned by the hon. Member for Newport East, and others, about the expenses incurred in dealing with liquidation—I think she described the figure as “eye watering,” and I do not disagree. Farepak is clearly no ordinary insolvency because it is so complex. It was complex from the start and involved an exceptionally large number of customers and agents—more than 116,000—and the identities of many of those were initially unknown. Considerable work was therefore involved in identifying creditors and substantiating their claims.

The creditors’ committee, which represents those who have lost money, has received regular detailed reports on the progress of the liquidation and approved the actions of the liquidators. I understand that the liquidators have undertaken various investigations in order to increase asset realisations, including action that resulted in £4 million being recovered from the directors of the company. I also understand that the liquidators are currently working to bring proceedings against third parties, with the intention of increasing the pot of money available to creditors. Given the nature of such an action, the liquidators say that it is not possible to determine when moneys will be paid to creditors. As a result of this debate, however, I will make further inquiries, and ask the Minister responsible to report back to hon. Members about the anticipated time scale, in so far as he reasonably can.

The liquidators point out that the work they have undertaken over the years has resulted in the possible amount payable to creditors increasing from 5p to 15p in the pound. I accept that 15p may not be perceived as sufficient, but as the hon. Lady knows, it has substantially increased from the original estimate. The liquidators have also stressed that the creditors’ committee can, at any time, instruct them to stop their activities and pay creditors from the funds already secured. They have also indicated that due to the sheer number of creditors, the process of paying a dividend will be very expensive. They therefore want to ensure that as far as possible, all money that can be recovered is received before a payment to creditors is made. The aim is to get the amount returned per pound to the highest possible level before we start the process of paying the creditors. Otherwise, we will add to the administrative costs associated with the process, and the balance between what that costs and the benefit people receive will be even further out of kilter.

I do, however, believe that the figure of £8.2 million, in contrast with the current dividend prospect of £5.5 million, causes considerable concern. I know that the hon. Lady shares my concern about the level of fees, and she will know that the Government have considered the issue and what should be done in the future. I hope that what I have said today will provide some assurance that I, and other Ministers, believe that we cannot leave the situation as it is in terms of how such matters are handled.

In April 2010 new provisions came into force for insolvencies commencing after that date, giving creditors additional powers to obtain information about the fees and expenses charged by insolvency practitioners. The percentage of creditors required to bring a challenge in court was reduced from 25% to 10%, and the issue of fees charged by insolvency practitioners was considered by the OFT in a report published in June 2010.

Earlier this year, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton, the Minister with responsibility for issues of insolvency, issued a consultation on a set of proposed reforms to the regulation of insolvency practitioners, including how practitioners deal with complaints. Our aim is to ensure transparency and accountability and to improve confidence in the insolvency process.

This has been a useful discussion on an important subject. I have had little time to sum up the debate, but I take this issue seriously, just as the Government take seriously the whole business of dealing with insolvency. We will take steps to ensure that the process is fair, reasonable and timely, and I will ask my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton to come back to Members on any specific points that I have not had the chance to cover, and make the position clear.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to promote adult and community learning.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

The Government are enthusiastically committed to adult and community learning. That is why we have protected the £210 million a year adult safeguarded budget. On 1 December we announced our intention to devolve its planning and accountability, so that local people are at the heart of deciding the learning offer. We will pilot different community learning trust models in 2012-13.

[Sajid Javid]

The Minister has been an excellent advocate of adult community learning. May I ask him how his pilot on community learning trusts is working at the moment? In particular, how has he engaged local communities to improve adult community learning?

[Mr Hayes]

We know, as W B Yeats knew, that education lights a fire that burns brightly. It certainly burns brightly in the hearts of Ministers. We have much to do in respect of adult community learning, which was derided by the last Government as mainly holiday Spanish. That was how the former Secretary of State described it. We will work with local communities. The first meeting to discuss models and timings will take place one week from today, and we intend to publish a prospectus in spring 2012. We are delivering.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The Minister and I have jousted about Yeats before, and I should tell him that he did not share the Minister’s politics, which might disappoint him. There is a danger of his policy becoming a fig leaf around adult and community learning. Will he undertake to work from the centre with other ministerial colleagues, particularly for older people in care homes because of the incredible impact that adult and community learning can have on health outcomes for those older people?

[Mr Hayes]

One reason why I, along with the Secretary of State, have defended adult and community learning is due to its effect on things such as physical well-being, community health, mental health and so forth. It is certainly true that we will need to take those things into full account in respect of the offer. I give that answer mindful that the hon. Gentleman, who was my predecessor, was himself a champion of adult and community learning.

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

12. What recent progress he has made on the Green investment bank.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

15. What steps he is taking to ensure that apprenticeships offer a route to higher-level skills.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

We are committed to expanding the proportion of apprenticeships that are at advanced and higher levels. Provisional 2010-11 data show that the number of advanced-level apprenticeships has risen by about two thirds. We have allocated some £19 million to support the development of new higher apprenticeships, which will dramatically extend the range of opportunities for apprenticeships up to degree level, and will create at least an additional 19,000 apprenticeships at the higher level.

[Robert Halfon]

Will the Minister support the parliamentary apprentice school which I founded with the charity New Deal of the Mind, and will he consider the similar idea of establishing a Government apprentice school using public contracts? Figures from the House of Commons Library show that if just one apprentice were hired for every £1 million public procurement, 280,000 apprenticeships would be created instantly and youth unemployment would be cut by a quarter.

[Mr Hayes]

I take the view that Government have a role and that procurement has a role as well. For that reason I have established a ministerial champions group for apprenticeships involving 14 Departments, we have explored the development of kitemarking for good employers who use apprenticeships and supply the public sector, and we have provided streamlined informational skills for companies that want to supply Government.

My hon. Friend has been a great champion of apprenticeships, and has even taken on an apprentice himself. Let me again urge all Members to take on their own apprentices.

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

16. What plans he has to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to offer apprenticeships.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

As you can see, Mr Speaker, I am irrepressible.

We have recently announced a new financial incentive of £1,500, which will help up to 40,000 small employers who have not previously engaged in the programme to take on a young apprentice. We are taking radical steps to speed up and simplify the process for employers, and to remove unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy.

[Mark Lancaster]

While the Minister’s talents are obvious, some of us have hidden talents. I, for instance, am a pyrotechnician, and ran the family firework company for many years. We were always keen to take on apprentices, but it was hard to keep them in a long-term skilled job, and the paperwork involved in taking them on in the first place was very extensive. What can be done to help the situation?

[Mr Hayes]

As my hon. Friend will know, the number of apprenticeships has risen by 70% in his constituency. That does credit to him, and, as I think he will acknowledge, still greater credit to me.

My hon. Friend asked what more we would do. We will strip out all unnecessary health and safety requirements, we will introduce those incentive payments to compensate small businesses, and I am determined to streamline every stage of the process. Tackling youth unemployment is a top priority for the Government: that is why we are focusing the apprenticeship budget on young people, which is where it can make the most difference.

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

18. What progress his Department has made in assessing applications by further education colleges for phase 2 of the enhanced renewal grant.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

In August, I was delighted to confirm that the Government would make an extra £100 million available for a two-year college capital investment programme. The programme was launched by the Skills Funding Agency in September, applications were invited by November, and the agency is aiming to announce decisions on the enhanced renewal grant before Christmas. Speedy action, Mr Speaker: alacrity, combined with perspicacity.

[George Eustice]

Cornwall college in my constituency has recently used a new technique to refurbish and reclad one of the old buildings on its estate at a fraction of the cost of a rebuild, and would like to repeat the process on some of the rest of its estate. Does the Minister agree that procedures of that kind should be given priority?

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend, who is a great champion of his local college and a great local Member of Parliament, has written to me about that very matter. I have his letter here. I am pleased to say that I have arranged to speak to him on Monday about the details of his question, and I can also tell him that as soon as I became the Minister we announced new capital funding. I do not say this with any joy—I say it more in sorrow and anger—but what a contrast with the last Government, who presided over a capital funding debacle.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

19. What assessment he has made of the effect on the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises of planned reductions in the level of taxation; and if he will make a statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sajid Javid]

May I thank the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning for visiting my constituency of Bromsgrove and opening a £3.5 million extension to North East Worcestershire college? Will he update the House on what other investment plans he has for colleges up and down the country, and how that will promote young people’s life chances?

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

I said a few moments ago that we have made £100 million available. It will be spent quickly, and that will affect colleges across the country. I should like to thank my hon. Friend for being such a generous host when I visited NEW college in his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) was in attendance as well, because the college serves both constituencies. On that occasion, I had an opportunity to ride a Harley Davidson motorbike, and like that bike, the career of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) is powerful, speedy and impressive.

[Mr Speaker]

We are all intrigued by the Minister’s exploits, I am sure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

T6. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning will agree with me not only about his own irrepressibility but also about the importance for economic growth of our meeting the training needs of businesses. What measures is he taking to reduce red tape and excessive micro-management in respect of further education colleges —a trend that so characterised the last Government—in order that they can respond to our economic needs?

[Mr Hayes]

The Foster report described the last Government’s policy as a galaxy of bureaucracy, oversight and inspection. By contrast, we are cutting red tape, streamlining funding systems, and giving colleges greater discretion to respond to the demands of employers and the needs of learners. I have recently published a document setting this out in detail. Copies are available in the Library of the House—and signed copies by application.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

T7. Northern Ireland is the only region where employment law is devolved, an anomaly that in the past has led to the Northern Ireland position being largely ignored in the formulation of UK policy both in the transposition of European Union employment directives and in national agreements. Will the Minister assure us that he will work with the Minister for Employment and Learning in Northern Ireland to provide a framework in which Northern Ireland interests can be addressed in any future developments in this area?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The responsibility to promote adult and community learning in Northern Ireland is a devolved matter. Has the Minister considered linking with Northern Ireland’s Department for Employment and Learning to provide a strategy for the mutual benefit of both the UK mainland and Northern Ireland?

[Mr Hayes]

I do have regular discussions with my counterparts in the devolved Administrations. The point that the hon. Gentleman makes is an excellent one and I shall take action on it following questions today.

Further Education Reforms: Building a World Class System

John Hayes Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

The Government are today publishing “New Challenges, New Chances: Further Education and Skills System Reform Plan: Building a World Class Skills System” and the underpinning skills investment statement for 2011-2014, copies of which are being sent to all hon. Members and placed in the Library.

Our vision is for a further education and skills system in England freed as far as possible from central bureaucratic burdens, thus able to respond more effectively to the needs of local learners and employers and so make the maximum possible contribution to renewed growth.

Our plan is based on 10 key policy commitments:

1. We will empower learners—from basic through to higher-level skills—to shape the system through their participation. First-class information will inform their choices, with Government funding focused on supporting students where it can have most impact.

2. We will launch a national careers service in April 2012 to provide information, advice and guidance which both informs and stimulates demand for further education, work-based training and higher education. Lifelong learning accounts will equip learners with the information they need to make the most of their learning opportunities.

3. We will create a vocational pathway as navigable, rigorous and attractive as the academic route, so recalibrating the character of higher learning.

4. We will develop and promote excellent teaching, by establishing an independent commission on adult education and vocational pedagogy to develop a sector-owned strategy and delivery programme. We will also facilitate an independent review of professionalism in the FE and skills work force.

5. We will take further action to ensure that qualifications are of high quality and comprehensible, by improving awareness of the qualifications and credit framework—consulting employers on their engagement in qualification development—and by consulting on the character and function of national occupational standards.

6. We will take action to remove restrictions and controls on college corporations, creating new roles for governors, working closely with other educational providers in post-14 learning, with local stakeholders taking the lead in developing delivery models to meet the needs of their communities.

7. We will continue our programme to free the FE system from central control, building upon the successes already achieved, including further work by the Skills Funding Agency with colleges to remove bureaucratic burdens.

8. We will provide £3.8 billion a year of public funding to the sector and we will create a simple transparent funding system that is both robust in ensuring funding enables high-quality provision that delivers good value for money, and which responds to local needs.

9. We will empower students by providing better access to quality information to make informed choices, determined by a better understanding of opportunities for further learning and employment destinations. Simultaneously, to assure quality, we will take swift action in relation to failing provision, providing intensive support and, if necessary, intervening to ensure that alternative and innovative delivery approaches are secured for the future.

10. We will build on the growing international demand for practical, technical and higher-level vocational skills. Inspired by the legacy of our achievements at WorldSkills 2011, we will stimulate and support the sector to take advantage of opportunities in the global market.

Girls (Educational Development)

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), has said, this has been an interesting and important debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) on securing it.

I do not have daughters; I have two young sons. However, women have been very important to me throughout my life. My mother was a woman and, curiously, my wife is, too. Therefore, what I learned literally from the cradle is that women—mothers—shape our character and form our ambitions. We gain the confidence that has been described by so many of the speakers in this debate—it was highlighted by my hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) and, indeed, by the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane)—very early in our lives. Governments, schools and others can do much—I will talk a bit about what we are trying to do—but, in the end, the familiar influences, particularly maternal influences, are critical to subsequent progress.

I learned from my mother and my father, who were both wonderfully archetypically male and female. I think of my mother and I think of her softness and the smell of talcum powder; I think of my father and I think of how bristly he was and how he smelled of tobacco and work. They were certainly both archetypically male and female and were both wonderfully demonstrative and loving. They gave me the feeling that I was the most special little boy in the world—a feeling that has never left me, by the way. I feel that now, at this very moment, so my ambitions were reinforced by not only their direct support but the sentiments that they instilled in me.

I entirely appreciate the points that have been repeatedly made in this debate. As the shadow Minister has said, they have been made on the basis of good information and a shared determination across the Chamber. I entirely recognise that the challenges people face as they turn their own ambitions into reality are affected by many influences. In the short time left, I will try to deal with some of those influences, some of which are benevolent and some of which are malevolent, as the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd said.

The hon. Gentleman made a wonderful contribution that underpinned the fact that this debate is as much about values and attitudes as it is about education. I reassure the shadow Minister that we understand—at least, I understand—that education is more than utilitarian. It is about values and attitudes, and ethos and sentiments. Although the work done by parents in instilling both ambition and the capacity to realise ambition in children is critical, the work done by our schools matters so much, too. Indeed, it matters more for those children who are not as fortunate as I was in having a stable, loving and supportive family.

In respect of girls and women, we need to go the extra mile. We need to take further steps to ensure that they are able to fulfil their potential. In the brief time available, I will talk about some of the steps that the Government are taking, but before I do so I will just say a word about Plato because I know that hon. Members would be disappointed if I did not. Some 2,500 years ago, Plato said:

“Nothing could be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half.”

How interesting that the classical world understood what so often in the modern world we forget.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West, who initiated the debate, has not forgotten because she has dedicated a great deal of her considerable skill and energy to the promotion of the interests of young women. I pay tribute to the work she has done. I was pleased to be able to support it in a room close to here, when she was able to launch her magazine, Chloe Can, which is aimed at young women. She was able to articulate some of the points that she has made today at greater length then. The work we do to establish role models in these terms is important, and my hon. Friend is indeed a role model for young women whose interests she has championed with such vehemence and to such effect.

We have learned much—I defer to the two former teachers who have spoken—about what characterises good schools in this respect. Schools with little or no gender gap in achievement tend to be characterised by a positive learning ethos—we have heard about that today, have we not?—high expectations of all pupils, high quality teaching and learning, good management and close tracking of individual pupil’s achievement. Teachers know all their pupils well and plan their resources and teaching accordingly, rather than conforming to preconceived views about what those pupils might achieve, whether that relates to gender or any other particular characteristic.

We can do three things in particular to support teachers in their efforts to fuel social mobility and achievement. The first concerns advice and guidance. It is very important that young people get the right quality advice and guidance. In truth, one of the principal inhibitors to social mobility is this: I suspect that our children will become socially mobile because of us. Our children will benefit from the fact that we, in the Chamber, are reasonably well informed about the opportunities that might exist, be they boys or girls, and will impart an understanding of how to turn those ambitions into opportunity. That is not true for all young people, however. The advice and guidance that we can provide through the new national careers service will, to some extent, ameliorate the disadvantages of many young people who do not have either advice from a family or social networks.

[Kevin Brennan]

Is the Minister concerned, in the light of the debate, that the lack of face-to-face guidance in the careers service will be a hindrance to girls gaining confidence and being able to make the right choices?

[Mr Hayes]

It is important to appreciate the value of face-to-face guidance. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Education Bill establishes the new statutory duty on schools to secure independent, impartial advice and guidance. When it was debated in the House, we agreed, in the statutory guidance accompanying the Bill, to ensure that face-to-face guidance was available in particular to people with the greatest disadvantage, those special needs and learning difficulties. We also said that schools should make the most appropriate provision for their pupils. I emphasise that it is vital that that should include a range of provision, and that that provision should be linked to the quality standards that are being developed by the profession itself.

As well as changing the law, we have worked with the careers profession to establish a new set of qualifications, with appropriate training and accreditation. That means that we will re-professionalise the careers service after the disappointing years—I put that as mildly as I can—of Connexions. We are on the cusp of a new dawn for careers advice and guidance, with a professionalised service, a new set of standards, a new statutory duty and the launch of the national service co-located in Jobcentre Plus, colleges, community organisations, charities and voluntary organisations. I do not say that the task will be straightforward, but it is a worthwhile journey. The destination to which we are heading will be altogether better than the place we have been for the past several years. That advice and guidance will assist young women, in particular, to fulfil their potential in the way I have described and, as a result of this debate, will re-emphasise the significance of opportunities for girls and young women in the establishment of the national careers service this spring.

The second issue I wanted to speak about was apprenticeships. I made a point—the hon. Member for Cardiff West knows this subject well too—when I became the Minister of challenging the National Apprenticeship Service on the under-representation of particular groups. The obvious example in relation to this debate is women in some of what might be called the traditional apprenticeship frameworks: engineering, construction and so on.

[Esther McVey]

I conducted some surveys and analysis on that, which was very interesting. For young girls who took science apprenticeships, it fitted in far better with their family life because they could achieve a job and status far more quickly than the slow process of going through university. It fitted in much better with the cycle of a woman’s life and child-bearing age.

[Mr Hayes]

How interesting. I defer to the greater expertise of my hon. Friend, but what I have done is ask the National Apprenticeship Service to run a series of pilots, building competencies and understanding on how we can make the apprenticeship system more accessible to those who are currently poorly represented. That is not to say that women are poorly represented in apprenticeships per se. More than half of all apprenticeships are taken up by women, but they tend to be in areas such as care and retail. The effect of that, because of the wage rates in those sectors, is to exaggerate the difference in wage-earning potential among successful apprenticeships between men and women. I have asked the NAS to work on a series of pilots. Bradford college is prioritising action to increase female representation in the energy sector. Essex county council is focused on women in engineering and on acting as the prime contractor for a regional provider network. West Notts college, whose representatives I met recently, is also looking at increasing female representation in engineering. There are a number of others, but I want to give the Chamber merely a flavour of what we are trying to do.

The third issue I wanted to speak about is women and science, technology, engineering and maths. Basically, not enough girls study STEM after the age of 16, as has been mentioned a number of times, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport. There are several things that we can do. The Department for Education has worked closely with the Institute of Physics. Its stimulating physics network incorporates many of the recommendations of the Girls into Physics report, which the hon. Lady will know about. The STEM ambassador scheme, co-ordinated by STEMNET, is arranging for working scientists and engineers to visit schools to support teachers, and engage and enthuse pupils to continue studying science. The hon. Lady will know that a large proportion of the STEM ambassadors are women. We want to focus that energy on what we can do to encourage more girls to study STEM subjects. By making different choices early, they cut off some of the routes that might be available to them later. So much of this is about early intervention and changing perceptions about what choices can be taken to facilitate subsequent progress. I will happily give way before I come on to my exciting conclusion.

[Esther McVey]

Will the Minister congratulate the new president of the Royal Society of Chemistry? For the first time in 300 years, it has a female president. In the next year, she will try to increase the number of female teachers becoming ambassadors and the number of girls taking chemistry.

[Mr Hayes]

I not only add my voice to that congratulation, I suggest that we invite her here to a tea party with the hon. Lady and myself, which, needless to say, she will be funding.

This debate has brought to the attention of the House the important subject of opportunities for girls and women. I do not take the orthodox view, by the way, that men and women are more alike than is often supposed. I think that they are rather less alike—my life has taught me that. However, that does not mean that the opportunities available to them should not be just as demanding, just as exciting and just as exhilarating. We should work tirelessly to create those opportunities in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West has done for so long, beyond old frontiers to new horizons.

I learned at my mother’s knee first, and I learn from my wife every day, as Yeats said:

“That Solomon grew wise

While talking with his queens”.

In that spirit, I assure the Chamber, and all those who have contributed to this important debate, that the Government will go the further mile that I described at the outset to achieve the ambitions of my hon. Friend, which reflect the ambitions of so many girls and young women.

Economic Growth and Employment

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

First, the previous Government inherited a boom, and then they bequeathed a bust and a massive deficit, so our top priority must be to deal with the consequences of that and keep out of the downward spiral into which countries such as Greece and Italy have fallen.

As my hon. Friends the Members for Bedford (Richard Fuller), for Solihull (Lorely Burt), for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), and for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) have argued, more than ever we need a plan to give confidence to markets, businesses and our people. This debate was introduced by the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna). It was his first major outing, and I thought that his speech was fair. It was better on structure than on presentation—but then again, I suppose the 11 advisers write the speeches; they do not deliver them. [Interruption.] No, I am a fan of the hon. Gentleman. It has become orthodox to say that he has been over-promoted, but I think that that is a welcome change from the self-promotion that has characterised his career so far. We can therefore be grateful that he is at the Dispatch Box, as he predicted he would be for so long.

The problem with the hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members—in fairness, we heard some good speeches from them—is that they still refuse to acknowledge that reducing the deficit is central to any credible plan. We only have to look at the continuing crisis on the continent to see what would happen if we do not do so. To be analytical about it, the hon. Gentleman made a speech about cyclical problems in a structural context. The issues around debt and deficit in this country are structural, and they will not be solved by cyclical solutions.

[Mr Umunna]

The Minister seeks to give me a lecture on reducing the deficit. Can he explain why, as I asked the Secretary of State earlier, in the average of the independent forecasts, his Government are forecast to borrow more in every remaining year of this Parliament than we were under our more responsible deficit reduction strategy?

[Mr Hayes]

That was the ponderous exaltation of a basic economic fact: when tax yields fall because there is less growth than expected, and welfare payments go up, of course that is a result, but it is not a reason not to have a credible fiscal policy. The hon. Gentleman remains in denial, just as the shadow Chancellor remains in denial, but the OECD—

[Mr Bailey]

rose—

[Mr Hayes]

I am sorry, I will not give way. I usually do but I do not have time.

The OECD says that we have a £37 billion structural deficit and that it is the largest in the G7. It is not just about the Government debt. The hon. Member for Streatham must know that if we look at debt as a whole, we have the largest debt as a proportion of GDP in the developed world, with the exception of Japan.

[Gordon Banks]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

No, I will not give way again. Time does not allow.

So, the first thing we have to do is deal with the deficit. The second thing, as the Secretary of State said in his penetrating analysis of this weak motion, is to rebalance our economy in favour of making things, selling them and exporting them. That means an investment in human capital as well as in infrastructure. That is why we have put so much emphasis on apprenticeships.

I noticed that, sensibly, neither the proposer of the motion, the hon. Member for Streatham, nor the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden), who summed up and who has rather sensible views about these things for the most part, attacked our apprenticeships policy. They know that we have delivered the biggest growth in apprenticeships in modern history. They know that across regions and across sectors, we have shown growth in apprenticeship numbers. There is a great deal of discussion about this so let us get the facts on the record.

Apprenticeships among 19 to 24-year-olds have grown by 64% in two years, and among 16 to 18-year-olds by 29% in two years. They have grown even more among over-25-year-olds, but the biggest proportion of growth has been at level 3. It has been across sectors and across regions. The biggest regional growth—I say this to the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods)—has been in the north-east.

The third element of the strategy must be to deal with tax, cut red tape and bureaucracy, and support businesses to create jobs and fuel growth. Much has been said about what the Government have done in that respect. It is true that we have launched the growth and innovation fund, which is supporting life sciences, the creative industries, the hospitality industry and others. It is also true that the regional growth fund is doing that job as well. In the first phase the regional growth fund will support 50 projects and ultimately more than 150 projects. That will leverage more than £8 billion of private sector investment to create or safeguard more than 300,000 jobs. That is the simple fact of the matter.

Labour does not have a credible alternative. The Opposition’s five-point plan is rooted in a denial about deficit which would undermine confidence in business and in the markets, push up interest rates and do lasting damage to Britain. The Labour party inherited a boom. Its legacy was a bust.

The shadow Chancellor is not present, but his fingerprints are on the motion once again. He said recently that he cries at “The Sound of Music” and “Antiques Roadshow”. We all wondered why “Antiques Roadshow”. I will tell the House: he is wedded to the idea of an over-valued, tired out, worn out old Cabinet, and it is the one that he was in. The previous Government and current Opposition would be better taking advice from a singing nun than from the shadow Chancellor or the hon. Member for Streatham.

I urge the House to choose between the past and the future, between despair and hope, between fantasy and reality, and vote for hopeful reality by opposing the motion.

Question put.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

6. If he will bring forward proposals to place schools under a statutory duty to provide high-quality and impartial careers guidance.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

The Education Act 2011 places a duty on schools to secure access to independent and impartial careers guidance for pupils in years 9 to 11. This provision will commence from September 2012 and will be underpinned by statutory guidance.

[Gordon Henderson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his answer and I very much welcome the Government’s progress on launching the national careers service. Does he agree that it is vital that we use the service effectively to promote vocational training?

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend will know that I visited his constituency to look at the excellent work that has been done on vocational training. The purpose of the independent advice and guidance is to ensure that people get advice appropriate to their needs. For too long, we have assumed that the only route to prowess came through academic accomplishment. The Government believe that the work of people’s hands matters too, and that those with practical tastes and talents deserve their place in the sun.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister knows that face-to-face contact and advice on careers is essential. Is it not the case that up and down this country schools are giving up on having a highly trained careers person in them and there is no access to an external schools careers service? Is that not sad for the kids in this country who do not have good, well-connected parents to give them the advice that they crave?

[Mr Hayes]

What preceded the position the Government have adopted was the Connexions service. I am not saying that Connexions did no good, but it certainly was not up to scratch. The skills commission inquiry said that it did not ensure that young people had good advice, Ofsted identified inconsistencies in provision and, as you know, Mr Speaker, Alan Milburn specifically called in his report for a national careers service. Of course face-to-face guidance matters, but it is not all that matters.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

New apprenticeships have grown by 56% in my constituency over the past year and are vital to our future. Will my hon. Friend confirm that he will ensure that under any future arrangements for careers guidance in schools opportunities for apprenticeships are fully promoted?

[Mr Hayes]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend knows that the work the Government have done on apprenticeships has been outstanding and it is due to the support, encouragement and advice of hon. Members like him that that work is cutting through in the constituencies in the way that he describes. It is not just our constituencies: the shadow Secretary of State’s constituency has seen a 69% increase in the number of apprenticeships and I know that he will want to take the first opportunity to rise to the Dispatch Box and congratulate the Government on that.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

During the passage of the Education Bill, the Minister spoke movingly of the scope for the careers guidance service to be a driver of social mobility and quoted a survey that found that 27% of state school pupils have received bad careers guidance, set against 6% of private pupils. The model he has developed for careers guidance leaves 16 to 19-year-old school leavers with only a web or helpline service and does not transfer any of the money from careers guidance to schools for face-to-face services: how many private schools is he aware of in which teenagers receive only a web-based or telephone advice service?

[Mr Hayes]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s question on this subject, because she, too, will want to know that in her constituency, apprenticeship numbers are also up by 69%. To answer her question directly, it is absolutely right that schools make a judgment about the mix of provision that suits their pupils. She is right, too, that private schools typically buy independent, impartial advice and that is the kind of advice that all children deserve, which is why we are changing the situation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

A few minutes ago, the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning talked about the increase in the number of apprentices in various parts of Britain. In Bolsover, that started three years ago when the working neighbourhoods fund was used to increase the number of apprentices in our area. Now, with the 28% cut for the local authority and the working neighbourhoods fund due to finish next spring, there will be a loss of apprenticeships in that part of Britain. Will he have a word with his colleagues to sort that out?

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, this Government have produced the largest number of apprenticeships in modern history. I am very happy to look at his constituency, but I have to tell him that according the latest statistics—not my statistics, but the official figures—apprenticeship numbers in Bolsover are up by 65%.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to praise those teachers and head teachers who are going to put their pupils first and refuse to go on strike a week on Wednesday?

Education Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Commons Chamber

Inspection of further education institutions: exempt institutions

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

I beg to move, That this House agrees with Lords amendment 28.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

With this it will be convenient—

[Mr Hayes]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

If the Minister could just hold himself back for a second, with this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Lords amendment 29, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendment 36, and amendment (a) thereto.

Lords amendments 39, 43, 47 to 71, 99 and 100.

[Mr Hayes]

My enthusiasm to rise to speak to the amendments is indicative of the thorough scrutiny that the Bill has enjoyed here and in the other place, and of the spirit in which that scrutiny has taken place.

If I may, I shall speak first to Lords amendments 47 to 71, which make important changes to schedule 12 and further strengthen the provisions that strip away unnecessary central controls over the governance and dissolution arrangements of further education colleges and sixth-form colleges.

You, Madam Deputy Speaker, with your usual assiduity, will have seen those provisions in the context of the Education Act 1944. In bringing that legislation to the House, the then President of the Board of Education as he was known, Rab Butler, said that it is not possible

“to start colleges ‘out of the blue,’… It is essential that the House should realise that direction by the State from the top is not the right way to administer this vast matter. What is wanted is to encourage the desires, appetites and feelings of those who wish for different forms of adult education and then to try to meet them as far as possible. As long as we follow that line, I can tell the House that it is our desire to reform and bring up to date the adult education system and to make a great stride forward in this regard.”—[Official Report, 12 May 1944; Vol. 399, c. 2261.]

Just as a stride forward was made then, so a stride forward is being made now, although I would not claim to be as great as that very noble and distinguished gentleman, Mr Butler.

In speaking to these amendments, however, the important thing to make clear is the Government’s absolute unwavering and unabridged commitment to the creation of a freer, more responsive further education and skills system—one that is based upon the principles of fairness, shared responsibility and freedom from central Government controls.

I say that not for any doctrinaire reason, but simply because of this enduring truth: unless we make the system sufficiently nimble to respond to dynamic demand, it will not be fit for purpose. Through the Bill, and in that spirit, we propose to remove a raft of unnecessary and prescriptive duties and to reduce the control of the Government and their agencies over the affairs of colleges.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I have written a letter to the Minister on what he has been saying about apprenticeships and supply and demand for apprenticeship places. I am not talking about funding because we have had the debate about the Government providing funding; I am talking about employment opportunities. Is he aware that a training provider called the Liverpool Construction Academy in my constituency is due to close its doors on 25 November, with the loss of hundreds of apprenticeship opportunities and the jobs that go with them?

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is a great champion of apprenticeships, having been an apprentice himself. He understands the value of apprenticeships in providing people with the skills not only to get a job, but to lead more fulfilled lives. I hear what he says about his particular constituency interest and he will expect me to respond in a similar spirit by saying that I am more than happy to meet him to discuss that matter in some detail. However, I am sure he understands that you will not allow me to go into great detail about that tonight, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) (Con)]

I applaud what my hon. Friend has said so far. Does he appreciate that there is an ongoing demand for apprenticeships, particularly in the historic vehicle restoration movement, where expertise is needed? Any burning of red tape in that industry that would lead people to take on more apprenticeships would be most welcome.

[Mr Hayes]

As ever, my right hon. Friend makes a valued, wise and richly-coloured contribution to our affairs. His expertise in that field is unparalleled in this House and, of course, I take his recommendation seriously; indeed, he has raised the issue with me already. As he knows, I can tell the House that I am taking up the matter with an assiduity that is a mere token compared with his diligence, which has brought him such prowess in this place and elsewhere.

[Mr Knight]

Although I am delighted at what the Minister has said about me, I suppose he and I ought to declare an interest because we both may need the services of future apprentices in maintaining our historic vehicles.

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend is right. We ought to declare that we share an interest in that topic and that we might have some personal interest in ensuring that there are sufficient craft skills to maintain our historic vehicles—although his demands in those terms are considerably more numerous than mine.

The sector has welcomed the proposals to offer colleges more freedom. Colleges have long called for such an approach. In the long years that I spent in the shadows before the electorate elevated me to the light, I remember hearing from colleges across the country that they hoped, wished and longed for a Government who would recognise that power is best vested in the hands of those closest to where it is exercised. Colleges should be able to respond to their learners and employers in the way the Bill facilitates. It is therefore unsurprising that, in the public evidence sessions of the Bill, the Association of Colleges said in written evidence that the legislative requirements removed by the Bill,

“will strengthen rather than diminish the historic community role of Colleges and strengthen the importance of strong governance”.

I wholeheartedly agree.

Lords amendments 47 to 71, changes which I recognise were made late in the Bill’s passage through the other place, have been made in the context of a changed further education landscape. In October 2010, the Office for National Statistics announced its decision to reclassify FE colleges to the public sector for the purposes of the national accounts. That decision exposes colleges to the full rigours of the Government expenditure regime and means that they will lose the flexibility to phase expenditure between different financial years and that they will need to work within a financial year that does not line up with their academic year. Such a decision also makes it likely that the very freedoms that were introduced to enable them to borrow without seeking permission will need to be taken away from them, and that even tighter constraints will need to be introduced.

I would like to thank Baroness Sharp for raising those issues in the context of the sterling work she is doing as chair of the inquiry into colleges in their communities. In debating these important amendments, it is vital for me to emphasise the significance of the ONS decision. We were already well on the way to freeing the sector from some of the diktats, bureaucracy and unnecessary regulation that had so hampered and inhibited people from exercising their long-cherished desire to respond proactively to the interests of learners in the way I have described. Nevertheless, the ONS’s reclassification has turned our desire into an imperative and we are working closely to try to persuade it to rethink that classification, because it will have profound effects on the FE sector. The late changes made in the other place, which we are debating for the first time in this House today, were made because of that ONS classification. Those and other controls would all act as significant barriers to college growth and would stifle innovation and creativity in our further education sector. As I said, it is our intention to make the necessary legislative and administrative changes to encourage the ONS to reclassify colleges back to the private sector which, as my noble friend Lord Hill said in the other place, is where successive Governments have wished them to be.

I want to mention the ability that Lords amendments 49, 58 and 69 will give colleges to modify or replace their instruments and articles of governance. In the world I have described—the picture I have painted—the additional freedoms that colleges will enjoy necessitate a new approach to governance. We need colleges to rise to the occasion. I am confident that they will, but it is partly a case of rethinking how colleges are governed. Colleges will continue to be required to comply with a statutory governance framework, but that has been significantly simplified to allow colleges the freedom to decide how best to shape their governance arrangements to meet the needs of their learners, employers and the local community.

May I say a word about the work that the Association of Colleges is doing in that regard? The association is working on a set of model instruments and articles that are framed in the new environment of greater discretion and freedom. There is immense human capital in colleges but, too often, it has been locked up because of the approach taken by previous Governments. There was a view that it was best to dictate, predict and provide from the centre. That is not this Government’s view. For example, as a result of the amendments, colleges will no longer have to seek the Government’s permission to add more members to their governing body or to determine whether a job vacancy should be advertised nationally.

Those are important aspects of a college’s governance, but they are not things in which the state should be involved. The use of that power will not be compulsory. If colleges are content that their existing arrangements support them to meet the needs of local learners and employers, they will not have to change them. The benefit of the changes is that the decision over when and how colleges exercise those powers sits firmly with them. I mentioned that such measures have been welcomed by colleges themselves. They were, for the most part, also warmly welcomed in the other place.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The Minister is making an excellent speech on the amendments. Will he tell us whether the Lords amendments will make it easier for colleges to work in partnership with schools or to offer and perhaps enrol pupils themselves at secondary level? He may know about a college in my area that wanted to enrol pupils but could not do so unless it went through the pupil referral unit route and they were classed as excluded. Will these changes make it easier for a college to work in partnership with schools in the local area?

[Mr Hayes]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I think that these changes will enable colleges to form new kinds of partnerships and collaborations with other institutions in the sector and beyond, with businesses, and with a whole range of community-based organisations. I see this as an opportunity for a more eclectic system that is as different as the needs of each locality. I do not want to see a vanilla-flavoured product dictated from the centre; I do not want that kind of ugly ubiquity to characterise our further education system.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Mr Hayes]

On the point of ugly ubiquity, I happily give way to my hon. Friend.

[Bob Stewart]

In my constituency we have Bromley college, and I have been speaking to people there. Will these changes allow Bromley college to control more properly the fees that it has to charge? At the moment, it is affiliated to Greenwich university and is being forced to charge fees that it does not want to charge, which is very much against the spirit of what we are trying to do. Can it have the freedom to seek other partnerships in the way that we have been discussing—for ordinary degrees, for example? There must be some way in which colleges, which we all want to charge the minimum fees, can actually charge those minimum fees rather than be forced to raise them.

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend is the very antithesis of both ugliness and ubiquity; indeed, he is known for his integrity and truthfulness. As Keats understood, and Shaftesbury in the other place later, truth and beauty are intrinsically linked, and so my hon. Friend’s truthfulness has an aesthetic all of its own. On the specific point that he raises, the way in which colleges have, over time, been dictated to and controlled from the centre has largely been about funding mechanisms. Colleges have danced to a tune set around funding. He is absolutely right to say that greater freedom means being more flexible about funding. It means allowing colleges to devise the kind of offer that is right for their locality in the kinds of partnerships that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) described, and funding needs to reflect that.

We are on a journey, and not all of it can be done overnight. When I came into the job, I was able to put in place a number of important changes that stripped away some of the central control. Since that time, we have done more, and these amendments go a step further. But this is not the end of the journey. The destination we seek is what I began to describe a moment ago—a more eclectic, more responsive and more dynamic system. I am not, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, one to overstate my virtues, but I would go so far as to say that what we are doing in further education is a model of public service reform: a deregulated system that is free to respond to local circumstances; dynamic and innovative; flexible and, in my judgment, imaginative—I make no apology for using that word—about exactly what it does and how it does it; and uses funding to feed that kind of new beginning. As I said, though, I do not want to overstate the case.

[Mr Knight]

rose—

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Hayes]

Once more, and then I must return to my notes.

[Mr Stuart]

My hon. Friend could see one of the reasons for the need for flexibility if he came to visit Beverley, as I have frequently invited him to do, where our excitement grows with each delay until he does so. He would see the area where the new East Riding college was to have been built but, because of the mess that was made of FE capital funding under the previous Administration, it looks like a bomb site in the middle of Beverley. As we move forward with these freedoms and with the excellent leadership that we have at East Riding college, I hope that we will see the college on that site in the near future.

[Mr Hayes]

Every day a new invitation for me to visit a different part of the country arrives, each one more seductive than the last, but none more attractive than the overtures of my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee. Tonight I will do what I rarely do in the House: I commit, from the Dispatch Box, to visit his college, because he has made this case so frequently and persuasively that I feel that I have been less than generous in my response thus far. I will certainly come to look at the specific circumstances that he described in his—as usual—pithy and well-informed intervention.

[Mr Knight]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

I will give way once more to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole and then I must return to my text.

[Andrew Percy]

Now that my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) has seduced the Minister into visiting East Riding, can he, while he is there, show us a bit of ankle and come to visit Goole as well?

[Mr Hayes]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Perhaps I may help the Minister by saying that if he returns to his notes, his diary might not get so full.

[Mr Hayes]

That is wise advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, and it is taken in the spirit in which it is given.

[Mr Knight]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hayes]

No, I will make a little progress, if I may, and then I will give way again.

[Mr Knight]

rose—

[Mr Hayes]

I have made it clear that I am not going to give way at this juncture, because I fear that my right hon. Friend is trying to encourage me to stray, but I will give way to him in a few moments when I have made a little more progress.

There was a debate in the other place on the importance of staff and student governors in colleges. Ensuring strong staff and student representation on a governing body is of importance to me. During the passage of the Bill, I have had positive discussions with the National Union of Students and the University and College Union on this subject, as has my noble Friend Lord Hill. We were anxious to ensure that staff and student involvement helped not only to inform good practice in colleges but to shape the offer in those colleges. As a result of those discussions, we continue to require colleges to have such governors on their boards. The House will want to be reminded that this requirement was warmly supported by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch, who was

“pleased…that this commitment”

was

“honoured in both spirit and practice in the amendment”

that was brought before the Lords and that we are discussing this evening. In fact, Baroness Jones went further and acknowledged that our amendment

“is indeed better than that tabled by those on our own Benches on this issue”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 November 2011; Vol. 732, c. 332.]

How often does one receive a tribute as generous, but as deserved, as that?

I now happily give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight).

[Mr Knight]

I am most grateful to the Minister, who is being very generous in giving way. He spoke earlier about taking us on a journey, and even earlier he quoted Rab Butler. May I remind him of what Rab Butler said about journeys—that it is best to get off the train before it hits the buffers? With the light-touch approach that the Minister is suggesting, is there not a danger that some colleges may move assets overseas, to the detriment of the British taxpayer?

[Mr Hayes]

It is true, of course, that as we free up the system, some of the controls that have previously been in place—some of the levers that the Government could pull—will no longer be there. Frankly, however, I have to say to my right hon. Friend, to whose assiduity, eloquence and wisdom I have previously paid tribute, that if the price of freedom is that loss of control, it is a price worth paying for the benefit it brings in the kind of innovation, exercise of imagination, responsiveness and dynamism to which I drew the House’s attention earlier. That was certainly the view of the other place and, in general terms, the view of the Committee as we went through the Bill. There is growing cross-party acknowledgement that we can no longer predict and provide—that we do indeed need to create a more responsive system. I say that because the character of our economy is changing. Economic need is increasingly dynamic, and a system that is controlled from the centre would never be sufficiently nimble to respond to that commercial need. That is now widely acknowledged. The difference is that we are going about this with purpose, energy and enthusiasm.

Let me return to staff and student representation. It is important that we see the statutory requirement that I have described merely as a baseline. There are all kinds of other good things that we can do in terms of staff and student representation, but representation on governing bodies, it was argued persuasively, should be a baseline. Lords amendment 51 extends those changes to institutions that are not college corporations, but that have been designated by legislation to receive public money for the provision of further education. It would come into effect should they decide to change their existing instruments and articles.

Lords amendments 50 and 58 give colleges the power to close themselves, which is known as dissolution. Currently, only the Secretary of State can dissolve a college. The amendments remove that power from the Secretary of State and give colleges control over their own dissolution. Colleges will also have the ability to transfer their property, rights and liabilities to another person or body for the purposes of education. These amendments and the regulations that will be laid in support of them include a number of safeguards to ensure that any dissolution decision is taken only when all those affected—staff, students and the local community —have been properly consulted, and that the process will be transparent, recognising that colleges are providers of an important public service.

In Committee, the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), who is not in his place, but who was a diligent member of the Committee, raised questions about the likelihood that colleges would fail with these new freedoms. There is no evidence to suggest that the extra freedoms will increase the risk of failure. Notwithstanding what I said about the growing understanding of the need to allow colleges to be more locally responsive, it is worrying that there are those who believe that colleges will not rise to the challenge of the new freedoms and who believe that only through central Government control can we give the necessary protection to the common interest, which I have no doubt was in the heart of the hon. Gentleman. I do not think that he is right. Colleges have shown time and again that when they are given the opportunity to be their best, unrestricted, they can be so.

I am keen to address that point in more detail in relation to the amendments. Further education is a high-performing sector, with more than 95% of colleges judged satisfactory or better. Sometimes further education has been treated as what Sir Andrew Foster described as the “neglected middle child” of education, somewhere between schools and higher education. I see it more as the prodigal son, and not just that, but the prodigal son grown up. I want further education to be a favoured part of our education system because of the difference it makes to so many lives. The important thing is to ensure that where problems occur, there are robust monitoring and support systems so that colleges are given the opportunity and help to recover. It is right that we have in place the proper protections from failure because, as I have described, public interest is involved. A great deal of taxpayers’ money is involved too. However, we should not get to the point of creating an immense infrastructure to manage the college sector.

I think that it is correct to say, albeit with the benefit of hindsight, that after incorporation and the freedoms that colleges enjoyed as a result, we responded in a heavy handed way to the occasional, rare incidents of failure. It is reasonable to conclude that the advent and actuality of the Learning and Skills Council was an overreaction to the challenges associated with the new freedoms.

[Andrew Percy]

Will the Minister explain in more detail the process for consulting the local community, if a college fails or chooses to dissolve itself? I know he has said that that will be set out in regulations, but will he give us some idea of the robustness of the consultation that he has in mind?

[Mr Hayes]

In those exceptional circumstances, I would expect the consultation to be as full as possible. By that I mean that the views of all parties with a direct interest in the college’s affairs, including the local businesses engaged with the college, local learners and the wider community—the family associated with the college—should be sought fully over a proper timetable. Whatever means are necessary should be used to access those opinions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I would like to take the Minister back to the intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight). In East Yorkshire, the Harrier was developed with a lot of taxpayers’ money and then shipped abroad to become an American aeroplane. We rather fear that the Hawk will follow. Will the Minister reassure us, in more specific terms than he used in response to my right hon. Friend, that a college will not be so free that it can leave the country with its assets, if it suits the organisation rather than the needs of the taxpayers?

[Mr Hayes]

As I have said, where public interest is in jeopardy, the Secretary of State will retain powers under the Bill to intervene as necessary. I paid tribute to my hon. Friend a few moments ago for his patient endurance in respect of my forthcoming visit to Beverley. It was Ruskin who said,

“Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.”

We can therefore take it that my hon. Friend is a patient endurer, more noble than strength and beauty. It is likely that the circumstance he describes would happen only rarely, but it is important that when a college wishes to transfer its property, rights and liabilities to another provider, the Secretary of State retains the kind of powers that he requested.

Lords amendments 53, 56 and 62 reinstate statutory safeguards relating to the specific governance and constitutional arrangements of voluntary sixth-form colleges that were inadvertently removed by the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act. It was the previous Government’s view that legislation should reflect the distinct constitutional position of voluntary sixth-form colleges, and they confirmed that they would look to reinstate those protections through legislation. We agree with that view, and it is what the amendments do. The new provisions cover what was afforded by previous legislation or Secretary of State directions.

As Members know, I am a keen advocate of freeing colleges from central prescription, direction and control. Such things inhibit a college’s ability to become the master of its own destiny and stifle innovation and growth in our further education sector. The changes in the Bill will enable the Government to present the best case possible to encourage the Office for National Statistics to review its decision to reclassify colleges into the public sector. However, we are not merely responding to the ONS; we began this programme of reform long before we knew about the ONS reclassification. Indeed, it was one of the first things that I set out when I became a Minister. The changes that we have made in the Bill, including the ones that we have introduced at a later stage, are entirely in the spirit of the policy direction set out in the skills strategy which I published, following extensive consultation, last autumn. Indeed, they are in the spirit of the further consultation in which we were involved over the summer, which will lead to the publication of “New Challenges, New Chances”.

The truth is that the ONS reclassification has been a further spur to us, but has not caused us to change direction. If anything, it has cemented our determination to consider every aspect of college management and every means by which we could free colleges from bureaucracy and direction. That fresh thinking has inspired the changes that have been made to the Bill.

As I have said, the changes, and our efforts to secure the private sector reclassification of colleges, have been welcomed, not least by the Association of Colleges. It considers that they will provide colleges with additional flexibility, allowing them to respond effectively to their local community and economy. I should like to place on record my gratitude to the Association of Colleges for its guidance and support, and indeed for how it has challenged us, in helping the Government develop this impressive legislation.

Lords amendments 28, 29 and 39 concern the business of colleges and inspection. You will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, the report that the previous Government commissioned from Sir Andrew Foster. I have a copy of the summary here. They asked him to examine the potential of further education, and he concluded that the landscape that it faced was

“crowded with organisations charged with inspection, improvement or regulatory functions. There is unnecessary complexity and duplication of effort and further rationalisation is required.”

He also recognised, I think, that we needed to rethink how colleges were gauged, inspected and monitored. Knowing that we had some outstanding further education colleges in this country, we decided that the time was right to look afresh at inspection and regulation.

In that context, some of the comments that the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), made about schools pertain to colleges too. He dealt with the issue of the inspection of schools earlier this evening, and some of the same principles apply to colleges. In my visits to colleges across the country, I have continually been impressed by the quality of teaching, the standard of learning and the innovative systems that colleges put in place to maximise learners’ potential.

Lords amendments 28 to 30 provide for greater parliamentary scrutiny of regulations exempting further education colleges from inspections, by requiring that all regulations except the first set be subject to the affirmative procedure, so that both Houses can be assured that a full debate will happen before further colleges are exempted. We decided very early on that we wanted to limit the inspection of further education colleges, as we did in the case of schools. However, it is important that that exemption is qualified in the way that I have described. The Prime Minister spoke today of coasting schools, and nor do we want to see any coasting colleges. Although there is little evidence of them, it is important that the House can debate the matter as further exemptions take root.

I turn to Lords amendments 36, 43 and 100, which put the legal framework for apprenticeships on a more sustainable and realistic footing. I need not regale the House at length with how passionately I support apprenticeships—at least, not for more than a few minutes. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have championed apprenticeships both in opposition and in government, and the Government have turned our rhetoric into action by delivering the biggest growth in apprenticeships in modern times. I have said before, and I am happy to say now, that there is more work to be done. As we make that growth sustainable, we will need to consider bureaucracy and the quality and age spread of apprenticeships. It is absolutely right that we should do that, but let us not understate the growth that we have seen—29% growth in under-19 apprenticeships and 64% growth in 19-to-24 apprenticeships over two years, and a big jump in post-25 apprenticeships.

It is important to say that the previous Government had the same aims. Many times, previous Ministers, including the previous Prime Minister, estimated the likely jump in the number of apprenticeships and the number that would be necessary to fill skills gaps. However, this Government are actually delivering. We are making more opportunities available to more people to add to their skills, which will increase their chances of getting, keeping and progressing in jobs. We know from independent research that someone who has a level 2 apprenticeship is likely to earn £70,000 more over their earning lifetime than somebody who has not, and that somebody with a level 3 apprenticeship is likely to earn more than £100,000 more. That is roughly equivalent to a degree.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the amazing increase in apprenticeships that he has outlined. I met my local college, Stourbridge college, and other colleges last week, and they reported a huge increase in apprenticeships over the past six months. Is he aware of another route into apprenticeships, which emerged during a meeting that I had the previous week with Stourbridge jobcentre? It reported that among 18 to 24-year-olds a route in was via two-week work experience placements. In many cases, they were being converted into apprenticeships.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. It is very interesting to hear of the extensive commitment that the Minister has personally to apprenticeships, and indeed to hear the point that the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) has made, but we are discussing Lords amendments. Although Lords amendment 36 is about securing the provision of apprenticeships in certain regulations, the debate is going a little wide of that. Perhaps the Minister could relate his comments to the amendments.

[Mr Hayes]

I was not going to be encouraged to speak lyrically about work experience, although I could, but I hear and value what my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) says.

Amendments 36, 43 and 100 deal specifically with the so-called apprenticeship offer. As I said, apprenticeships play a key role in promoting growth and prosperity in British business and give renewed hope and purpose to our young people, who are so affected by the present climate. Through the Bill, we are redefining the apprenticeship offer. We are moving away from what I regard as an unrealistic guarantee that sought to require the Government to tell employers whom they should and should not employ. The previous Government took the view that the House could place a duty on the chief executive of skills funding to fund apprenticeships for anyone who wanted them. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) intervenes from a sedentary position, but he knows that in practice, the previous offer was undeliverable. There was much discussion of this matter in the other place. I pay tribute in particular to Lord Layard, who made this case forcefully and with whom I have enjoyed many discussions. He also writes persuasively about happiness —I read a recent essay from him on that subject. Happiness is all of our aims, is it not, individually and communally?

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Hayes]

Is this about happiness?

[Mr Stuart]

I am always focused on happiness. I thought I could increase the Minister’s sense of contentment if I attempted to correct him. Under the previous situation, there was an obligation not to fund an apprenticeship for anyone who wanted it but to provide one, outwith any ability necessarily to ensure that an employer came forward. That is why the Minister and the Government were right to make that alteration, not withstanding the complaints of Opposition Members.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman got his point on the record, but we are not debating the previous Government’s record or apprenticeships generally; we are debating amendments on quite narrow points in the Bill. I know the Minister is really eager to come back to that.

[Mr Hayes]

As you say, Madam Deputy Speaker, we are debating the character of the apprenticeship offer. This Government take the view that we need further to refine the legal framework for apprenticeships. The debate on this subject in the other place was on the character of that duty. Lords amendment 36 places a new duty on the chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency to make reasonable efforts to secure employer involvement in apprenticeships. That is so important because we have changed assumptions of the nature of apprenticeships. We take the view that apprenticeships should intrinsically involve employment—making an offer separate from employment seemed nonsensical.

I make that point because until relatively recently, some apprenticeships—programme-led apprenticeships, for example—were not tied to employment in quite the same way. Lords amendment 36 was the outcome of a great deal of hard work and good will, as I have described. The overtures made to me by Lords Layard, Wakeham, Willis and Sutherland persuaded the Government and my noble Friends to devise an amendment that satisfies the wishes of those who want to place a clear duty in the Bill, but not one that the Government think is undeliverable.

Although I know some feel that I have summarised the Lords amendments all too briefly, those amendments put apprenticeships, the freedoms about which I have spoken, the changed inspection regime, the different role for the Government, the new emphasis on skills, and the mantra—I decidedly and deliberately put it that clearly—of freedom, flexibility, innovation and dynamism, at the very heart of this legislation. I think they improve the Bill significantly and I look forward to hearing whether the Opposition think so too.

[Stephen Twigg]

It is always a great pleasure to speak opposite the Minister in such important debates. This is my first opportunity to do so from the Opposition Front Bench. The Minister reminded us that my noble Friend Lord Layard has written about happiness, about which he is an international expert, alongside my constituent Ken Dodd, who has been writing and singing about such matters for a very long time.

The Opposition have serious wider concerns about the Bill, some of which, including on schools, were addressed in the debate on the previous group of amendments. Other concerns, including those on information, advice, guidance and the careers service, are outside the scope of today’s debate. I should like to focus on inspection, governance and apprenticeships. I echo many of the things the Minister said, and in particular his positive comments on the role of the Association of Colleges, and I look forward to attending its conference in Birmingham later this week.

I also echo what the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said about the importance of partnerships between further education colleges and the wider education system, including schools. In the debate on the previous group, we discussed the importance of co-operation and collaboration alongside autonomy and competition. We often discuss school-to-school and college-to-college co-operation and collaboration, but there is great scope for further co-operation and collaboration between schools and the further education sector.

Let me address the inspection of further education institutions. All hon. Members are seeking to strike a balance between autonomy and inspection—this is a similar debate to the one on schools, as the Minister said. Lords amendments 28 and 29 have much the same effect as Lords amendments 26 and 27. The former relate to further education institutions and the latter to schools.

The Opposition have a number of concerns that echo those we raised about schools, although they are not exactly the same. I should like briefly to put some of them on the record; they have been raised in previous stages both in this House and in the other place. We are concerned that exempting certain further education colleges from inspection will undermine the campaign for high standards in those institutions, and in particular we fear that the Government’s approach is simply to rely on a market effect, which could let down, for example, students who are currently studying. Their institution could struggle and yet nothing will be done, and there is no trigger for them to make an inspection happen. It is possible—we debated this with respect to schools—for a further education institution that at one time was high performing to slip for some reason. The lack of an inspection regime in such a situation could be a major challenge.

The new Ofsted chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, was quoted in the previous debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan). The chief executive’s point was about schools, but it applies to further education colleges as well—the principle is much the same. The conditions that would render a further education institution exempt from inspection are not clear. If the Minister has the opportunity, with the leave of the House later, I should like him to clarify the Government’s thinking on when a further education college will be deemed exempt.

I understand that that thinking will be set out in regulations, but Lords amendments 28 and 29 mean that all regulations apart from the first set made under section (5) of the Education Act 2005 must be subject to the affirmative procedure. There is no requirement for an affirmative resolution the very first time the exemption criteria are outlined. I invite the Minister to explain his reasoning for that and to assure us that the measure is not simply being rushed through because of Ofsted’s budget situation. Given the seriousness of the step that is being taken, and the lack of public consultation on it, the Opposition believe that there should be an affirmative resolution the first time as well as on subsequent occasions, and have tabled an amendment to that effect.

The Minister referred to issues of governance. As Lord Hill acknowledged on Report in the Lords, Labour peers, led by my noble Friend from the Labour Front Bench, Baroness Jones, made important arguments on this issue. Labour Front Benchers in the other place tabled an amendment to reinstate the rights of students and staff to be represented on further education colleges’ governing bodies. As the Minister outlined, the Government brought forward an amendment on Third Reading in the other place to guarantee governing body places for staff and students. Lord Hill said:

“It may help if I inform noble Lords of discussions between the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and my honourable friend, the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning”—

the Minister—on her amendment to

“retain requirements for staff and student governors…The Government have brought forward these changes to support our case for the private sector classification for colleges, in accordance with the policy of successive Governments. It was not our intention to encourage colleges to remove staff or student governors from college governance arrangements. I know that colleges greatly value the contribution that those governors make.

Having listened to the arguments that were put to him by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones…my honourable friend”—

the Minister—

“and I have spoken further. We have decided that the Government will return at Third Reading with their own amendment, which will give effect to what the noble Baroness's amendment seeks to achieve.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 November 2011; Vol. 731, c. 1135.]

Let me thank the Minister for his generous tribute to my noble Friend and also echo her thanks and appreciation to him and his colleagues in the Department for this important change to the legislation. Participation in the governance of FE colleges is an important part of student citizenship, as well as contributing to good governance. I would like also to put on the record our appreciation to the National Union of Students for its excellent work on ensuring that the relevant amendments were agreed.

Nobody in this House could doubt the Minister’s personal commitment to apprenticeships. We welcome the amendments that impose a duty on the chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency to make reasonable efforts to secure employers’ participation in apprenticeship training for all young people in the specified groups covered by the redefined offer—that is, 16 to 18-year-olds and 19 to 24-year-olds with a disability or learning difficulty assessment, as well as young care leavers. Without those amendments, the Bill would have simply taken opportunities away from our young people. The Minister mentioned the assiduity of my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) in Committee, where he said that the clause in question represented a wholesale degrading in the value the Government place on apprenticeships; that it is a retrospective step, stopping the duty to create apprenticeships for suitably qualified people; and that instead of creating jobs, transferring skills to young people, and boosting the economy, this clause does the exact opposite.

Lords amendment 36 is a significant improvement, but we believe that there is scope to go further. As the Minister has set out, under the legislation introduced by the previous Labour Government, the chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency had a duty to secure an apprenticeship place for every suitably qualified person within certain specified categories. The previous Labour Government’s policy was that the agency was under a duty to find an apprenticeship for every qualified young person who wanted one. They had to be given two choices about the sector that they wished to enter. That was removed in the original draft of the Bill, but as the Minister has said, a cross-party group of peers, led my noble Friend Lord Layard, achieved an important Government concession that required the agency to make reasonable efforts to involve employers in apprenticeship training, which has led to Lords amendment 36, which we welcome.

The amendment was a cross-party amendment, tabled in the names of Lord Layard, Lord Wakeham, Lord Willis of Knaresborough and Lord Sutherland. Lord Layard said in the other place:

“If you look at the situation in our country, it is clear that academic young people are offered a clear route to a skill and a useful role in society. They can see where they are going. That is not the case for less academic young people. There is no clear route that they can see they are entitled to go down. The result is low levels of skills and a degree of alienation…If you look at this from a young person’s point of view, we are raising the education participation age. It is quite difficult to see how we are going to be able to do that in a way that is acceptable to young people unless these apprenticeship places are available to them. We need legislation that states the main aims of our education system. For that 16 to 19 year-old group, we have a lacuna. We cannot fill it by ministerial statements and assurances, as Ministers come and go. We expect the basic structure of our educational system to be reflected in the laws of the country.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 September 2011; Vol. 731, c. GC274.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

I might be told off by Madam Deputy Speaker, but let me say that the quality of the education and training elements of the apprenticeship are vital. What we must not do, however, is allow apprenticeships to become a form of exploitation. A balance has to be struck. Clearly, an apprenticeship should be first and foremost about quality education and training, but with a decent amount of pay, too, for those who are apprentices.

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. These are very important issues. I do not believe that any Opposition Member doubts the personal commitment of the Minister, particularly on apprenticeships. We have concerns that we have expressed previously about the impact of other changes—the abolition of the education maintenance allowance and the trebling of tuition fees—and we would be very concerned if there was any weakening of the apprenticeship brand. Let us perhaps forge a cross-party national consensus to the effect that we want apprenticeships to increase in number, but more importantly we want to see them as a high-quality gold standard for those young people who follow a vocational route of education.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) raised a number of points, which I shall try to address in my closing remarks. I would like to speak first to amendment (a) to Lords Amendment 29, under which the first as well as any subsequent regulations exempting certain providers from Ofsted inspection in particular circumstances would be subject to the affirmative procedure. The hon. Gentleman asked me particularly to address those matters.

My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), has already spoken about a related amendment to the schools inspection exemption. The same intentions lay behind the exemption for further education providers and our plan, in essence, is to exempt outstanding colleges. I will listen, however, to the points raised. I do not have a dogmatic view on this matter, and as we move to a lighter-touch inspection regime, it is important to do so with appropriate caution.

I would like to deal with one particular concern. Where students feel that an outstanding institution is not maintaining high standards, Ofsted will take very seriously any comments students might make as part of the risk assessment, which could trigger an inspection. My hon. Friend the Minister spoke about the risk assessment process, and it is important that it is tied closely to the view of students about the quality of teaching and learning in an institution.

I spoke to the National Union of Students today about representation on college governing bodies, which we discussed when we dealt with the amendments to which the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby also referred. As I described earlier, we view such representation as a baseline. Representation on governing bodies does not provide the whole answer for learner or staff engagement. Learners and staff should be engaged at a policy level in plotting the strategic direction of a college. As we move to a more freed-up system, so learner choice and learner judgment will play an increasingly critical role in how colleges evolve. I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about the process. We are moving ahead boldly, but cautiously. At this juncture, it is probably best for me to leave that there.

Amendment (a) to Lords amendment 36 would require the chief executive of skills funding to make “best” efforts rather than “reasonable” efforts in respect of apprenticeships. Of course I understand the intention to strengthen the focus on the delivery of this important objective. It is crucial to maintain and, indeed, improve the quality of apprenticeships while we grow their number. When something grows rapidly, it obviously creates a pressure on quality. Inevitably, the momentum will lead to more employers and more providers becoming involved and more individuals becoming apprentices—including people who might not have done so if the system was smaller. I believe that places an extra responsibility on us to ensure that the integrity of the brand is retained by an appropriate emphasis on quality, and as I said on the Floor of the House a few days ago in a different debate on a different subject, we will do that. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby is right to say that this amendment, and his argument about it, draws attention to the issue of quality. The debate in the other place and the discussions to which he referred—I pay tribute once again to Lord Layard and others—helped us to concentrate our thinking on maintaining and improving the quality of the apprenticeships offered.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the number of apprenticeships going on to level 3 is a big indicator of quality and that we want more apprentices getting to level 2 to go on to level 3? Has he given any more thought to providing a more flexible level 3 offer for 16 and 17-year-olds who often find that, if they want to go on to level 3 after completing level 2, the funding gets cut in the current system?

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby spoke a little about the age spread of apprenticeships in arguing for his amendment. Although he did not deal particularly with the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) just raised, this is not the first time that my hon. Friend has mentioned it. It is important to devise a system that maximises the prospect of progression, in the way that he describes.

The good news is that the biggest proportion of growth in the numbers that were drawn to the House’s attention a week or so ago was in level 3 apprenticeships. I think that that rather frustrated the critics who had assumed that the biggest proportionate growth would be at level 2. In proportional terms, the number of level 3 apprenticeships has grown at the fastest rate over the last year. I can also inform my hon. Friend of a fact that has not been in the public domain until now: indications suggest that the length of apprenticeships among those aged over 25 is increasing. That is also rather counter-intuitive for those who listen to the critics from the bourgeois left, the glitterati and chatterati who look down their noses at practical learning in a way in which you and I do not, Mr Deputy Speaker.

My hon. Friend was, however, right to draw our attention to other measures that we might take in respect of progression. I know that one of his suggestions is that we should look at ways of helping people to undertake parts of a level in which they were otherwise already competent. There may be ways in which we can adopt a more modular approach to progression. I do not intend to discuss that at length now, because it is not entirely pertinent to the amendment, but it is relevant to what has been said by my hon. Friend and by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, who also made a point about the age spread of apprenticeships.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In other regions of the United Kingdom, such as Northern Ireland, education, including further education, is devolved. In Northern Ireland it is possible to obtain gold-plated apprenticeships that can accompany the education and training that are also needed. Have the Government considered similar action to help apprentices to secure better final qualifications?

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman has made a useful comment. The way in which apprenticeships are perceived, and the experience of the apprentices themselves, are critical to whether apprentices are likely to make progress. Those who have had a good experience of the early stages of apprenticeship may well progress to a higher level, perhaps in the companies that have taken them on, which will be good for both the business and the individual.

Paragraphs 30 and 31 of Lord Leitch’s report, which was commissioned by the last Government, state:

“Improving the skills of young people, while essential, cannot be the sole solution to achieving world class skills. Improvements in attainment of young people can only deliver a small part of what is necessary because they comprise a small proportion of the overall workforce. Demographic change means that there will be smaller numbers of young people flowing into the workforce towards 2020.

More than 70 per cent of the 2020 working age population are already over the age of 16.”

Lord Leitch concluded that unless we upskill and reskill the existing work force, we will never catch up with our competitors.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby is right to say that we should not think in terms of two alternatives. This is not about providing a valued and valuable route to practical learning through apprenticeships for younger people but not doing so for people in their 20s or 30s who want to upskill or reskill, such as the level 3 apprentices whom I met recently at Jaguar Land Rover in Halewood, near Liverpool, not a million miles from the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. Both those things can be achieved through an apprenticeship offer of the right kind.

[Stephen Twigg]

I entirely agree that we are not talking about two alternatives, but does the Minister share my concern about the fact that, according to the IPPR report, there is a large growth in the number of apprenticeships for those over 25, a pretty large growth in the number for those aged 19 to 24, but a much smaller growth in the number for 16-to-18-year-olds?

[Mr Hayes]

I think that we need to calibrate the system to ensure that there is a good age spread. I probably should have emphasised to an even greater degree—you know what I am for understatement, Mr Deputy Speaker—the need to make growth sustainable. If it is to be sustainable, it will be necessary to address issues such as those that have been raised tonight. By “sustainable growth”, I mean growth that offers older learners the opportunities to upskill and progress that were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness—opportunities to create a vocational pathway of the quality that we both seek, the “gold standard” for apprenticeships. I had used that term myself, and the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby may have read it, imbibed it subliminally and repeated it. I know that he would normally have attributed it; perhaps it was by accident that he did not.

We also need to be constantly vigilant about the quality of the offer. Let me set out some of the things we are doing in that respect. I have made it very clear to the National Apprenticeship Service that poor provision should be eliminated. We have to be very tough on any provision reported to us that we investigate and find not to be of sufficient quality.

[Neil Carmichael]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one key measure of the success of apprenticeships—this certainly applies to levels 2 and 3, and is consistent with his views about economic growth, sustainability and so on—is what happens in manufacturing and engineering? Does he agree that all the measures that we should be thinking of in terms of developing that sector should be implemented?

[Mr Hayes]

Another bit of good news when we saw the figures from the statistical release was the substantial growth in manufacturing and engineering apprenticeships; the number of starts was 47,000, which was an increase of 20% on the 2009-10 figure. So we had very strong growth in the very apprenticeships that my hon. Friend rightly identifies as crucial to our future prospects. Interestingly, the figures clearly show that there is growth across the system. Again rather counter-intuitively from the perspective of the critics, there has been growth in sectors where employment more generally has either slowed or declined. So apprenticeships seem to be bucking the trend in areas such as manufacturing and engineering. Even in construction, where there has been a very sharp decline in employment, apprenticeship numbers have held up. That suggests that businesses are investing in training and in their future, and that apprenticeships are succeeding. This is a flagship policy, devised in opposition and delivered in government.

[Bob Stewart]

Has the Minister considered—I am sure that he has—the thought that a great number of high-quality individuals have had considerable technical training in the armed forces? Could they come in at level 2, with this possibly leading on to level 3? Is that part of the system he envisages?

[Mr Hayes]

This weekend, I was looking at a submission that suggested that we might ask the National Apprenticeship Service to look specifically at people who have left the armed forces. I am particularly concerned about those who have left the armed forces with a disability. One of the challenges that the previous Government faced and that we face too is in ensuring that the apprenticeship system is accessible to as many people as possible, and I do not think we do well enough by disabled potential apprentices. I asked, at the very early stages of my distinguished ministerial career, for the NAS to examine that area closely, but I want it to re-examine it. I particularly want the NAS to examine what we can do for disabled ex-servicemen.

[Bob Stewart]

rose—

[Mr Hayes]

I happily give way to my hon. Friend, who is a great expert on these things.

[Bob Stewart]

I hope that the Minister will forgive me, because he has almost made the point I was going to make, which is that we could involve disabled ex-servicemen as part of this system. That would be a superb way of helping them to get into decent employment in civilian life.

[Mr Hayes]

I am glad that I anticipated my hon. Friend’s point. Foresight is not essential for a Minister, but it is a great advantage, particularly when it can be displayed on the Floor of the House of Commons.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) mentioned growth and others have talked about progression, so in dealing with the remark made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby about happiness, I wish to draw his attention to Yeats. I know that the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), the shadow Minister sitting next to him, is a fan of Yeats. Lord Layard did such good work on this particular amendment, so I shall cite the following from Yeats:

“Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.”

When apprenticeships are growing, I am particularly happy because it is testament to the success of our policies.

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[Mr Hayes]

We are going to hear some more Yeats from the hon. Gentleman and I am happy to give way to him.

[Kevin Brennan]

He also said:

“No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.”

We look forward to the Minister’s end this evening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hayes]

Perhaps we will see the end of this speech, but not the end of my career, not the end of this Government and not the end of my time here, which I see stretching a great long distance into the future.

Let me return to the points made by the shadow Secretary of State for Education in respect of the Lords amendment and particularly the apprenticeship offer. He implored us to go further. Indeed, his amendment to the Lords amendment asks us to do so. He asks us to strengthen the offer, having acknowledged with typical generosity, the progress that we have made in this respect. I will again take seriously his remarks about how we market this. An important part of what we do with apprenticeships is selling the product. I have made it clear to the National Apprenticeship Service that its job is as a marketing and sales organisation. Its job is to get more companies to understand the value of apprenticeships, more individuals to understand the opportunities that they provide to them personally and more providers to rise to the challenge and to ensure that they are in the best place possible to deliver apprenticeships. As a result of his overtures, rather than accepting the amendment to the Lords amendment—he would hardly expect me to do that—I will look again at how we can market the renewed offer in the most effective way possible.

[Neil Carmichael]

On marketing apprenticeship schemes, does my hon. Friend agree that the key area that we should focus on is small and medium-sized enterprises, because they need to grasp the opportunities that apprenticeships can bring them and the apprentices?

[Mr Hayes]

Yes. In opposition, of course, it was our policy to offer a financial incentive to support SMEs, which we felt would have a real and perceived risk associated with taking on apprentices, through the means of some kind of payment. We were unable to do that because of the financial constraints that affect the whole Government, but we can make more progress in respect of bureaucracy. We need to make the system accessible, straightforward and simple. We need to get rid of the bureaucracy that has sometimes inhibited small businesses from engaging in the apprenticeship programme. Yes, we will go further, and spurred on by my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm, I will make further announcements on reductions in bureaucracy, specifically for SMEs. He is right that their engagement in apprenticeships is critical, not least because if we are to spread apprenticeships and seed them into every community, village and town, we cannot simply rely on the excellent apprenticeship schemes of major businesses, such as BT, BAM, BAE, the Royal Navy, Ford Motor Company, EDF, the Royal Air Force, Sellafield, Bentley Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, GE Aerospace, Caterpillar, Honda and others. We need to have apprenticeships in smaller businesses and micro-businesses, too, such as those in my constituency—in the small villages and towns, where if we were to ask young people in particular to get an apprenticeship, they could only do so locally, because of travel and accessibility issues.

[Steve Rotheram]

The Minister has just spoken about micro-businesses. MPs are almost micro-businesses. I would like to know how many MPs have put their money where their mouths are and taken on apprentices. I am one of them. Other Government and Opposition Members have taken on apprentices, but a vast number of MPs have not done so. If we all took on just one apprentice, we could create 650 apprentices in the House.

[Mr Hayes]

I have written to colleagues to that effect. I make that plea once again. The hon. Gentleman is right to offer that clarion call to Members of Parliament to take on apprentices. I have one in my office. I hope that the shadow Secretary of State is thinking about taking on an apprentice. I know that he will do so speedily, following the words that he has heard from the Dispatch Box today.

The National Apprenticeship Service is already actively promoting apprenticeships with employers and ensuring that apprenticeships are highly prized by businesses and apprentices. It provides an online vacancy matching service for employers and prospective apprentices. It already has a dedicated employer-facing field force to recruit new employers in the way that I have described.

Skills Funding Agency

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Written Statements

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

I would like to inform Parliament that the Government are today announcing a review of the status of the chief executive of skills funding and the Skills Funding Agency—the body which supports him in carrying out his statutory duties.

The review is consistent with the Cabinet Office public bodies review programme, and reflects the requirement placed on all Government Departments to undertake a regular review of their key delivery bodies, and the Government’s ongoing commitment to radically increase the transparency and accountability of all public services.

I will be writing today to the further education and skills sector and to key stakeholders more widely about the review; and can confirm that both the Skills Funding Agency and wider stakeholders will be fully engaged in the review process, while meeting the core principles set by Cabinet Office of ensuring that any wider consultation is proportionate and provides clear value for money.

It is vital that we have the right structures in place to tackle the very real challenges that lie ahead; and this review reflects the Government’s ongoing commitment to building on the strength of the further education system, while ensuring rigorous accountability structures are in place.

We will make a further announcement about the outcome of the review in due course.