Budget Resolutions

Justine Greening Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

This Government are about delivering opportunity—the opportunities that matter to ordinary working people up and down this country: the opportunity to work in a skilled, well-paying career; the opportunity to send their children to a good school; and the opportunity to contribute to a shared, fairer society, where everyone is empowered to do their best for their community.

Those ambitions are not too much for us to ask—they are not unreasonable—but the truth is that, for too long, too many people in our country have felt cut off from opportunity. They see doors open for others, but stay closed for them. What they want is the chance to show their worth and reach their potential. This Government want them to reach their potential, too, so we will work with the grain of human nature to spread opportunity to every village, town, city and region in our country and to give everyone a chance to succeed and to contribute to a strong, united nation.

A strong economy is a vital part of that mission. A strong economy provides the careers and jobs that equip people with financial independence, protect them by providing financial security over the course of their life, and fill them with a sense of self-worth—the knowledge that we all have a role and a valued place at the heart of our society. A strong economy is at the heart of how people can contribute to our country as a whole.

This Government are in the business of building a strong economy and creating great careers and jobs—over two million jobs since 2010. This year, there are more people working than ever before. The employment rate for women is at its highest level since records began, with 70% of 16 to 64-year-olds now in work. That represents more than 1 million more women in employment since 2010.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most important things the Government can do is support women returners to work, particularly when we have record numbers of women in the workplace?

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[Justine Greening]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I hope she will welcome the element of the Budget that saw £5 million invested in returnships, specifically looking at how we can help women who have been out of the workplace—often starting and having a family—to go back into it and rebuild their careers. I will come on to that later in my speech.

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

I believe absolutely that wealth creation is important to give us the resources we need to provide a good education, but is the Secretary of State aware that so many schools have seen cutbacks? We in Huddersfield are the 64th worst-hit area out of 650. We do not feel the affluence she is talking about.

[Justine Greening]

We have record investment coming into our schools now.

To secure and build a strong economy, we need sustained investment in human capital—the skills, knowledge and technical excellence that drive productivity and growth. It is people who will lift our country, and we are investing in people. We need to do that now more than ever, because we know there is a productivity gap between the UK and other advanced economies, and we know that part of that gap is caused by skills shortages.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

On the issue of human capital, does the Secretary of State agree that it is a mistake by the Government to cut the work allowance under universal credit, which will particularly affect women and deny them work opportunities?

[Justine Greening]

We cut the taper rate on universal credit at the last autumn statement. As I said, the strong economy that this Government’s policies have helped to create means that more women are now in work than ever before. I was talking about how skills and plugging skills shortages for employers is so important. Top employers and businesses are telling us that the skills they need, particularly in science, technology, engineering and maths, are in too short supply.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

On the point made earlier about women returners, is my right hon. Friend aware that just 5% of women returning to work would generate an extra £750 million in the economy—a very good return?

[Justine Greening]

Absolutely. Women’s economic empowerment is one of the most powerful levers we have to help drive growth in our economy and, more broadly, around the world over the years ahead.

Looking at how we are going to plug the skills gap, only 10% of adults in our country hold a technical qualification as their highest educational achievement. Germany currently produces twice as many science, engineering and technology technicians. Driving these skills will power innovation and growth and, in turn, our economy. That benefits everyone, so we cannot afford to wait. Other economies have been ahead of us in developing the skills of the future, and this Government are clear that we will not fall further behind. We should recognise that globalisation and automation are changing the modern workplace. Thirty-five per cent. of our existing jobs are at a high risk of being replaced in the next 10 to 20 years, not through competition but by technology.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

The Secretary of State mentions Germany’s lead in training in technical positions. Does she link that in any way with the fact that Germany consistently has a much higher level of corporation tax in order to fund that?

[Justine Greening]

Germany has its own approach to corporation tax. Ours has been steadily, and dramatically, to reduce it in order to make sure that companies can retain the profits they are making to be able to reinvest in growing their companies. The proof of the pudding is in the substantial and significant job creation that we have seen in our economy, by comparison with many other countries, over recent years. That is why we are able to put money into our public services.

As we prepare to leave the European Union, we will need to be more self-sufficient in our workforces, in our skills and in the training of our young people to set ourselves up for success. We will need new ideas, new jobs and new investment to confidently meet every challenge and grasp the opportunities ahead of us. We want a global Britain strong at home and strong abroad. It is now time for Britain to step up a gear to begin the shift up to the high-skill, high-productivity economy that we can be. This Government are ready to act.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Is it not a fact that under this Government, while the Secretary of State has been in office, we have fallen two places in the research and development international league tables, behind Slovenia and the Czech Republic?

[Justine Greening]

The autumn statement saw us provide further investment for R and D. Indeed, the national productivity fund has been set up to make sure that we can fund infrastructure, including R and D, more broadly. However, it is not just through physical infrastructure that our country will be successful—we need to invest in our people and in human capital as well. Through this Budget we are investing in human capital in skills, education and training to create a strong economy that works for everyone.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Justine Greening]

If I can make a bit more progress, I will give way.

This Government are rightly focused on apprenticeships because of the huge difference that they can make to individuals, boosting a person’s lifetime earnings by 11% on average. Eighty-three per cent. of apprentices tell us that they believe it is improving their career prospects. This is already making a big difference to individuals. Last year 900,000 people were enrolled in an apprenticeship, which means that more than 3 million people have started an apprenticeship since 2010. They include apprentices such as Adam Sharp, last year’s advanced apprentice of the year, who moved 150 miles to take up a mechanical design apprenticeship in Sellafield and dreams of becoming that nuclear power plant’s chief mechanical engineer; and Becky King, who went to train at the National Physical Laboratory in London straight after college in order to develop her passion for science.

Last week I kicked off National Apprenticeships Week with Barclays in the City. I met young people on apprenticeships at Barclays who were inspiring because they were finding out just how well they could do. Apprenticeships are bringing out the underlying talent of our young people. It is cathartic for them to be able to discover their potential.

[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Earlier I met Nationwide representatives from my area keen to support women in getting more maths skills to lead businesses. Recently apprentices from Lloyds met the all-party women in Parliament group. One area where we really need to keep up momentum is with the maths skills that will make sure that our women can lead companies as well. The apprenticeship work at Eastleigh College is doing exactly that in building the basic skills for the gas fitters and plumbers we need—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)]

Order. We are already going to have to impose a time limit of eight minutes on Back Benchers right from the beginning. This debate is very heavily subscribed. If people are going to intervene, they must keep it very brief.

[Justine Greening]

I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend’s local college is doing. She is absolutely right. In order to see a change in the workplace and in careers, we have to start in early education to build the pipeline to make sure that girls, and subsequently women, are going into these careers, which have traditionally often been more male dominated.

This is not just making a difference to the people who are doing apprenticeships; apprenticeships are making a difference to our country. Employers tell us that apprenticeships increase quality and increase productivity, so investing in an apprenticeship pays out for them and their business, and it is paying out for our wider economy. This is only the beginning of our apprenticeship reforms. Next month, we are introducing the apprenticeship levy, which will ensure that by 2020 over £2.5 billion is available to support apprenticeships. Contributing to the levy will mean that employers are, for the very first time, truly fully invested in apprenticeships. This keeps us on track to meet our manifesto commitment of delivering 3 million apprenticeships by 2020.

Apprenticeships will play a key role in delivering the skills that our modern economy needs to level up, but we need to do more to meet the broader challenges that our economy faces. The most successful countries do not just rely on apprenticeships—work-based routes—to get skilled professionals. They also depend on more college-based routes—on technical courses with workplace experience and training as a crucial element. So we will up our game, looking at reforming our technical education system to make it a central plank of how to sustain a growing economy. For decades, our country has neglected technical education, despite the fact that a substantial proportion—over half—of our young people who choose not to go to university take this path. We have never achieved a sustainable strategy because it has never been truly led by employers. We need a strategy that asks businesses what a world-class technical curriculum should look like—that invests in the tools, the teaching and the skills expertise that help young people to navigate the complex web of choices on careers to find the skills and the career that is right for them.

Over many years, we have allowed the technical curriculum to emphasise quantity rather than quality. There are currently around 13,000 separate technical qualifications. In plumbing alone, a young person has the choice of 33 different courses. How on earth are they supposed to know which course is the highest quality, which one is valued by businesses, and which option is the right fit for them? This cannot be right. In recent years, we have made some important steps forward in tightening the requirements for qualifications included in school and college performance tables, but we need to go much further to ensure that technical education is high quality and meets employers’ needs. In place of complexity, this Government are following the advice of Lord Sainsbury and replacing the current system with a streamlined set of just 15 technical skills routes. Each route will be a pathway to skilled employment—from construction to digital, whether bricks and mortar or lines of code—and our standards for each route will be designed and agreed by our best businesses to make sure there is a direct flow through to the skills that our economy needs.

We know that we need investment as well as reform. At the moment, a young person working towards a technical qualification receives a programme of about 600 hours a year, but in countries with the best technical education—Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway —students train for far more hours per year. If we really are serious about becoming world-class on skills, we need to rival the commitment and investment of the world’s leading countries.

That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced last Wednesday over half a billion pounds a year of new funding for technical education. It will be used to increase the number of teaching hours for students. As the Sainsbury panel recommended, it will also fund institutions to organise a substantial, high-quality work placement for every technical education student, helping them to apply their skills in the workplace and to prepare for a successful move into employment. In total, this will mean that a student’s programme hours will increase by more than 50%, from 600 hours per year to more than 900. It is no surprise that the CBI has called this Budget a “breakthrough Budget for skills”.

The funding for extra hours will be rolled out alongside the new technical routes, beginning with the first programmes in autumn 2019. Each of the routes will lead to a new certificate, the T-level, which will be a gold standard for technical and professional excellence. The name will remind Members of another prominent qualification, and that is very deliberate. I want there to be no ambiguity whatsoever: this is the most ambitious reform of post-16 education since the introduction of A-levels 70 years ago. The investment announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor shows that the Government are committed to making it a success.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I am very privileged to have my constituency office based at Sci-Tech Daresbury, which is all about technology, innovation and skills. Will the T-level be significantly stronger than existing technical qualifications?

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[Justine Greening]

The qualification will be stronger on a number of fronts. First, it will have the commitment of, and its design will be led by, employers. Secondly, it will have more hours, so the student will simply have had a more comprehensive programme of education in achieving the T-level. Thirdly, its quality will be much higher, with more time spent in the classroom and, critically, more time spent on a quality work placement with an employer. Once the person finishes the T-level, they will come out of it ready to work and to begin their career with a high-quality qualification that employers truly value. That I why we feel this is such a significant step forward.

Building such a world-class technical education system will not just generate the skills and productivity that are the foundations of a strong economy; it will also spread opportunity and increase social mobility, helping to break the link between a person’s background and where they get to in life. It will be no surprise to the House that many young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to be on technical courses than their peers, yet such an education has not been at the level that they deserve or that our economy deserves. A report by the Boston Consulting Group and the Sutton Trust suggests that greater social mobility could boost our economy by a staggering £140 billion every year. Different young people have different talents, and if we can successfully put technical education on a par with academic routes, it will not just be good for those young people, but it will be exactly what our economy needs.

Improving the quality of technical education will boost the life chances and future earnings of those young people. This is not about designing a second chance system for the disadvantaged. I do not want technical education to be seen as a back-up to the academic path; I want parity of esteem. I want technical education to take its rightful place alongside the academic track as a totally credible path to a professional career, but we are not there yet.

[Lucy Powell]

rose—

[Lucy Powell]

Did you call me Lucy Allan, Madam Deputy Speaker? I am very much a Powell.

Labour Members very much welcome any attempt to raise the status of technical and vocational education and the esteem in which it is held, something we began during our time in government. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is often a mix or blend of the technical and the academic—in engineering, digital opportunities, the creative industries or even health and social care—that will be important in the global world of the future, and will she assure the House that people will not be separated at the age of 16?

[Justine Greening]

The key to success is strengthening the technical education routes, as I have said. Having longevity in the strategy, as was done in Lord Sainsbury’s work, is absolutely critical in giving us an architecture around which we can now build a strategy and, as we saw in the Budget, in which we can now invest. As the hon. Lady says, it is important to ensure that the whole education system fits together. That is why it is so important, as we create more national colleges and institutes of technology, that we talk with further education colleges—they will be at the centre of all this—and also with universities. Universities of course already offer degrees in areas such as engineering, but they can clearly offer more applied learning and more technical education routes for many young people. As she says, we have to make sure that that fits together.

Indeed, we want to increase the quality and availability of higher-level technical education, so that technically gifted students can continue their studies beyond the age of 19. One of our challenges is that not only are the lower rungs of the technical education ladder not as high quality as on the academic route, but there are not really the higher rungs for young people to aim for and to climb successfully. The Government’s new national colleges and institutes of technology will make sure that there are world-class institutions at which to study higher level technical qualifications.

From September 2019, we will introduce maintenance loans for students studying level 4 or higher qualifications at these institutions. This will mean that for them, just as for university students, our best technical minds will not be limited by financial circumstances or place. This approach is just as much about parity between places as it is about parity between people. Nearly three quarters of young people in Barnsley follow a technical path, while less than one quarter do so in Kensington and Chelsea. By levelling up technical education—putting it on a par with academic routes, with reform, investment and focus—we can steadily erase regional inequalities and make sure that the door of opportunity for young people in all parts of the country, whatever education route they choose that fits them, is firmly kept open.

Building opportunity and a strong economy is about having good school places as well as skills. Good schools are the foundation of economic success and social mobility. This Government are resolute in our pursuit of more good school places in every part of the country, especially where they are most needed, to power higher educational attainment. That is why almost 1.8 million more children are in good or outstanding schools compared with 2010. That means, critically, that 1.8 million more young people are getting a better start in attempting to reach their potential. However, 1 million pupils are still in schools judged by Ofsted to be inadequate or to require improvement, so there is more work to do.

Alongside the £5 million a year of investment in skills, the Budget delivers £320 million of investment to fund over 70,000 places in up to 110 new free schools, on top of the 500 free schools we have committed to deliver by 2020. That includes funding for specialist maths schools, building on the successes of the outstanding Exeter Mathematics School, which I had the privilege of being able to visit recently, and King’s College London Mathematics School, which the Prime Minister has visited. Every child in every part of the country needs access to a fantastic school place, so we have to plan ahead and leave no stone unturned in pursuit of those places.

[Mrs Miller]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case for the importance of education, but does she not share my concern about the current funding system in this country, which is based more on a postcode lottery than on the needs of schools in a particular location?

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[Justine Greening]

Absolutely. Our current approach is not just outdated but, in places, extremely unfair. We want our schools to be able to achieve the same outcomes, but we are funding them fundamentally differently in different places. There are differences for children often for no other reason than where they are growing up. No one who wants social mobility to get better should accept that, so we have to move to a more equitable funding approach. That is what we are consulting on right now.

We have to make sure that school places are there for children as they move through the system, but this is not just about the extra school places and new schools that we need; it is also about investing in the schools and school places that we already have. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has therefore put forward an additional £216 million to help to refurbish existing schools and make them fit for the 21st century. Of course, that is on top of our existing plans to invest more than £10 billion improving the condition of the school estate by 2021.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Lady accept that academic A-levels are one way in which young people can ensure that they get a good start in life, from which they can perhaps go on to great success through our university system? What will the proposals that she is outlining do for young people in Halewood and Knowsley, who have no option in the entire borough for doing academic A-levels and must leave the borough in order to study?

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady raises a profound and important point. There are parts of the country where, for far too long, young people’s educational attainment has simply not been good enough. I know that the situation she highlights is part of the much broader challenge that her local community faces in seeking to raise educational attainment steadily. It is important that alongside the investment in technical education that we have set out in the Budget, we make sure through approaches such as opportunity areas that we zone in on the places that most need additional support so that we can shift outcomes there.

The Government’s focus on opportunity does not end when someone leaves full-time education. In a dynamic, modern economy we need to foster a culture of lifelong learning, in which all of us—adults from every walk of life—are passionate about continuing to upskill ourselves.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

Before the Secretary of State moves off the issue of the fabric of schools, may I say that although the money from the Chancellor for school repairs is welcome, there is a £6.7 billion backlog of repairs to bring schools up to satisfactory condition? What does she think that backlog will be by the end of this Parliament?

[Justine Greening]

The investment that we have brought forward in the Budget will enable us to go further and faster on that backlog, but as I said earlier, it is also important that we plan ahead. We need to make sure that the demographic bulge of people who have been in our primary schools and are moving through to our secondary schools have school places and classrooms to go to when they need them. That is why balanced investment was announced in the Budget, not just in refurbishing existing schools and school places, with a particular focus on those that need it the most, but in ensuring that we have the extra good school places that our country will need in the future.

I touched briefly on why lifelong learning and the investment in it in the Budget are so important. Lifelong learning needs to become the norm in our country, and I want to ensure that people have the tools to do it. The reality is that many of us will never study again after leaving school, yet we know that in the economy of the future, readapting to new skills and continuing to learn will be vital. That is why we are making available up to £40 million over the next two years to fund lifetime learning trials. That will help us to ensure that we know what works, where it is needed and how we can change our country so that we have a culture in which more adults seize opportunities to upskill and take control of their lives.

As I said earlier, we have the highest level of female employment on record, which is a fantastic achievement, and the gender pay gap is at a record low of 18.1%, but there is still a gap. The Government are implacable in our commitment to close that gap to zero within a generation, and we know that some women find it hard to return to work after taking time out to care for young children. Many feel that they come back to work at a lower level or have to expect less progression in their work and pay. That is not good enough, and our economy cannot afford to miss out on that talent. Some employers are already running schemes to help women return to work, and we want to learn from those businesses and work with them to support more women to be able to do so. We also want to apply the same lessons in the public sector, together with improving people’s ability to take up lifelong learning.

I want to see people coming back to work better skilled than when they left to take a career break, rather than somehow having to struggle to get their career back on track. That is why I have announced that my Department will work with business groups.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

On labour market participation, the Red Book shows that funding for returnships will be £5 million, as opposed to £655 million for extending the free schools programme. Does the Secretary of State think that is an appropriate balance?

[Justine Greening]

Returnships are not widely used at the moment—in fact, they are used by just a few companies—but we know that where they have been invested in, they have made a real difference. We are at the beginning of bringing forward some pilots so that we can better understand what works and get a clearer sense of the broader strategy that we should have for the long term. That comes alongside the investment in lifelong learning, which ties into that work. Critically, we will consider how we can ensure that, as we develop those policies and ideas, they are informed by evidence. That was the reason for the investment that we announced in the Budget.

[Mims Davies]

On returners, will the Secretary of State also consider people who have stepped out of the workplace because of caring responsibilities? They are not necessarily youngsters, but include people who have given up a career thinking that it would be for the long term, but have found that it is for a shorter time.

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[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. We need to understand that flexible working must be able to adapt to the different lives that people lead today, not just at one point in their life but as it changes, which happens to all of us through our working lives and careers.

Of course, International Women’s Day was last week, and I thought it was a sign of how important that day has become in our calendar that the Chancellor chose to mark it by making it Budget day. We have our second woman in No. 10 Downing Street, and I am proud that both female Prime Ministers have been Conservative Prime Ministers. There is a long way still to go, but we should celebrate the important progress that has been made. Nearly 100 years after women were first given the vote, the Chancellor has set aside £5 million to celebrate that historic event.

This Budget continues the Government’s mission to spread opportunity to every part of the country. That mission rests on a strong, stable economy that provides the careers and jobs that will lead to financial independence and success for a new generation, and a sense of place and meaning in people’s lives. We cannot be complacent. There will be more challenges to come, but by investing in a world-class system of technical education, alongside schools, lifelong learning and returnships, the Government have taken a crucial step in underwriting the flow of skills that our country and our businesses need. We will level up opportunity. We will lift our country by lifting up our young people, and this breakthrough Budget on skills and schools merits the support of this House.