Technical and Further Education Bill

John Pugh Excerpts

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 19th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Gordon Marsden]

My hon. Friend makes a very important and valuable point, as he did earlier to the Minister, and we certainly need to think very hard about those things.

As I have said, the National Careers Service process has migrated substantially, which may not in itself be a bad thing. I genuinely want to know from the Minister what connectivity there is between the National Careers Service and the Careers & Enterprise Company if the coverage starts as early as age 13. I would really like to know what the connectivity is in that process.

The very disappointing fact is that, as the impact report says, researchers were

“unable to identify a positive impact of the National Careers Service on employment or benefit dependency outcomes”.

Arguably, those outcomes are its main purpose. This is another example of why it is essential for the Government to act on the careers strategy, and of why their failure so far to do so makes Lords amendments 2 and 6 so important. With the expansion of apprenticeships and the addition of technical education to the institute, it will be even more important for students and apprentices to have all the information that they need to make informed decisions.

Young people who get the best careers advice in college or schools are more likely to be able to seek out the better apprenticeships. That is why I warmly welcome Lords amendment 2, Lord Baker’s amendment, which had our support and cross-party support. It would ensure that schools have to provide access to advice about apprenticeships. Why does that matter? It matters because, as my hon. Friend has said, knowledge in general is power, and unbiased knowledge is very important indeed. Incidentally, that is also why my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) introduced a ten-minute rule Bill to require schools to give access to their premises to representatives of post-16 education institutions to enable them to provide pupils with advice and guidance.

All of that is why Lords amendment 6 is also important. I am encouraged by the fact that the new chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, to whom I have spoken recently, is sympathetic to Ofsted making a much stronger case for ensuring that apprenticeships rate more highly in the information provided in schools. Incidentally, the Lords have already pointed out that that will require Ofsted to have more resources; my noble Friend Lord Watson pointed that out on Report on 27 March. If we do not get integration between the Careers & Enterprise Company and the National Careers Service, what we ask Ofsted to do will not work. Just what is the Minister’s response to these arguments? Why are the National Careers Service and the Careers & Enterprise Company apparently working on different lines? If he does not want to accept Lords amendment 6, what guarantees can he give to this House or to noble Lords that the necessary work will be done?

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I want to speak very briefly on the Government motion to disagree with Lords amendment 6 and Government amendment (a) in lieu, as much as anything else to probe what amendment (a) will achieve. As a preface to that, let me give an impression of what the noble Lord Storey sought to achieve with Lords amendment 6. We have all acknowledged during the course of the debate so far that careers advice is incredibly variable and has been for some considerable time. Lord Storey tried to set in place a mechanism for monitoring careers advice so that we know precisely how good or how bad, and how valuable or useless, it actually is.

In Committee stage in the Lords, Lord Nash described careers advice as always having been “pretty poor”. There was, of course, an Ofsted report in 2013 that established that three quarters of schools were not providing effective advice or, as the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) pointed out, impartial advice. It said that the guidance given to schools was not sufficiently explicit, employers were not engaging in many cases and the National Careers Service was not effectively promoted. A key conclusion of the Ofsted report was that schools’ advice should be assessed when taking into account general school leadership, or sector leadership in the case of further education—Lords amendment 6 also applies to the FE sector.

I think that the Minister accepts all that, and I know that he has produced a variation on Lords amendment 6. I would like him to satisfy me and the House that it complies with what the Lords intended in their amendment.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) and the shadow Minister for their speeches. I understand that the hon. Member for Southport is stepping down. He is an experienced Member of the House, and I send him every good wish for the future.

To answer the hon. Gentleman we are essentially accepting de facto Lords amendment 6, which was suggested by Lord Storey. We have just made it tighter for legal reasons and, in fact, stronger. Ofsted will now be required to comment on college careers offers in its reports. However, we accept the principle of Lords amendment 6.

I set out earlier the Government’s position that the majority of the Lords amendments serve to strengthen the measures in the Bill and ensure their success in practice. I urge hon. Members to accept all the amendments made in the Lords, with the exception of Lords amendment 1. As I explained earlier, that amendment is subject to financial privilege and I ask Members to reject it on that basis, while noting the work I have set out, which demonstrates our commitment to finding the most effective ways to address barriers and support the disadvantaged into apprenticeships.

The shadow Minister said, in essence, that we should put our money where our mouth is. It is worth remembering that we have 900,000 apprentices at the moment, which is the highest on record, and that 25% of apprentices come from the poorest fifth of areas. The Careers & Enterprise Company has more than 1,300 enterprise advisers going into schools, and they are set to target something like 250,000 students in 75% of the career coldspots in the country. The National Careers Service is there to give careers advice and CV advice, and to provide personal contact either face to face, over the telephone or on the internet. The bodies have different roles.

I ask Members to accept our amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 6, on which many noble Lords spoke. I spoke earlier of the positive activity at Derby College. It is by no means the only college taking active steps to provide high-quality careers advice to students. I have seen incredible work in my own college in Harlow and in Gateshead in the north-east of England. We want to ensure that all young people can access such support, and I ask Members to support that ambition by accepting the amendment in lieu.