Skills and Growth

Debate between John Nicolson and Khalid Mahmood

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you back in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I congratulate you on your re-election. I also congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson) on his maiden speech. I was interested to hear what he said about his constituency. In terms of policy based on his party’s mandate, I believe that the Government should look at giving Scotland full fiscal responsibility. They should take the ball and run with it. They need to do this properly, and they should take some advice on the matter.

[John Nicolson]

So why didn’t you vote for it?

[Mr Mahmood]

I would be very happy to vote for it. The Government should take responsibility for what they have said.

I have a huge interest in apprenticeships. I left school with CSEs—many people probably do not know what they were—but I was fortunate to get an apprenticeship through what was then the Engineering Industry Training Board. I spent my first year doing off-the-job training, then I was lucky enough to be picked up by Delta Metals, as it then was, to do my apprenticeship.

Further education colleges are a hugely important asset to people like me who did not take the academic route, as they enable us to follow the vocational route. More importantly, they provide a basis for people who have not been able to get the vocational qualifications in school that they need to prepare themselves for their lives. The colleges are the last door for those people who want to move forward and get on in life. The focus for colleges is to enable people of all ages to get qualifications and skills and to help them to get into jobs.

I want to talk about funding. Colleges have had a 24% cut in their 19-plus funding. We have heard about the provision for 16 to 19-year-olds, and about the agenda for 14 to 19-year-olds, but there is a real issue for apprenticeships, because they are necessary to give people the life chances that they need. The Government announced the 24% cut in March, and it will take effect when the colleges’ financial year starts on 1 August. That has given them very little time to prepare. This will hit 16 to 18-year-olds as well as those of 19 and over, because courses are often planned to include both age groups. In certain specialist courses, the age groups are often combined to provide the educational support and funding that they need, in order to make it worthwhile for the college to run the course.

Students who are 19-plus are in college because they have failed to gain qualifications in schools, are two or three years behind and need to play catch-up in their studying. Most people who want to take the step necessary to get to that level are dedicated, because they realise that perhaps they have been let down and the support they needed was not there for them. They have decided to take the baton themselves in order to move forward. It is important that we look at this issue and see how it can be dealt with.

A significant number of adults who come into college have few or only basic qualifications and need to gain others in order to get into a job or to get to a level where they can get an apprenticeship. We need to help these people to move to those level 2 apprenticeships. That is a real issue in many inner-city constituencies such as mine and that of my Front-Bench colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). Our constituencies have historically had a high level of unemployment, which they have not been able to address for at least the past four decades, and putting this sort of funding burden on the colleges makes it even more difficult for us to address it.

I am lucky that my constituency has the EEF Training college, which is doing well—it is oversubscribed. It is predominantly funded by the EEF, but it faces a funding problem because it seeks to provide the hardware needed to bring engineering apprenticeships into effect. That requires a huge amount of kit. I am talking about traditional kit for the engineering industry, such as lathes, millers and welders. Computer numerical control lathes and millers cost a huge amount of money. When I went to Garretts Green College to do my apprenticeship, all colleges across Birmingham had this sort of equipment and so that training was provided.

My constituency is also blessed with having the advanced manufacturing zone in Birmingham, which means we need more support from people such as EEF. It is also blessed with two colleges, South & City College and Birmingham Metropolitan College, which are working hard to move this agenda forward. The normal further education colleges have moved away, by and large, from that type of engineering training, although some facilities are now being provided at South & City College. Again, it costs a huge amount to put that together, so it is important to see what additional funding we can provide to the training providers and colleges that are actually able to provide that sort of training. If we do not do that, all this talk about the manufacturing recovery and the engineering recovery will amount to very little. I am very determined that we examine those issues and see how we can do that. It is important for all of us if we are to be, as Birmingham and the west midlands has always been, at the forefront of engineering development.

We are very glad that Jaguar Land Rover has its new plant in Wolverhampton and we are glad about all the engineering works we are getting. At the moment, one of the world’s leaders in submarine hull valves, a huge speciality area, is working with Birmingham University to try to develop it. A lot of the employers are moving towards working with universities to try to get this support, but we need the trainers to have support from the Government in order to provide the funding for the equipment they need; it is not just about the current funding that colleges have. I am determined that we ask the Government to support 19-plus funding to do that.

Another area of funding has been restricted, again to our detriment: funding for ESOL— English for speakers of other languages. If we are trying to get unemployment down in our inner-city areas, we need to look seriously at that issue. It is not good enough to say that we cannot fund this any more—colleges are under huge pressure not to fund it. Funding is available from employment-type grants and from the Department for Work and Pensions, but if we stick to the current funding reductions for ESOL providers, particularly for colleges in the inner city of Birmingham, we will not be able to move these people forward and lower unemployment in those areas. People in those areas have the skills in most instances, but they do not have the English to match their skills and therefore to be placed into jobs. It is important that we look at ESOL and how we fund it, particularly where inner-city unemployment is high. People want to work and move forward, so it is important that we provide ESOL and fund it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who is not in her place, talked about people with disabilities. There needs to be a recognition in further education of funding for disabilities, because if we do not have that, those people will be isolated and left out, and they need real additional support.

It is important for us to provide the right sort of support in areas such as Birmingham and my constituency if we are to move forward and allow people to get back into employment and into apprenticeships, which is what we and employers in my constituency want. I hope the Minister has taken notice of that.