Adult Learning

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I appreciate your calling me now, Mr Robertson. I have a constituent in the House whom I need to meet in the next few minutes, but I hope to return to the debate to hear as much of it as I can. I am grateful to Government Members for allowing me to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier).

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. There are some issues I wish to raise with the Minister. I want to take the opportunity to acknowledge publicly the excellent Trafford college in my constituency, which I had the great pleasure of visiting during adult learners week earlier this summer. It was a joy to spend time with the adults who were returning to education after many years and to see the enthusiasm with which they were embracing their studies and the obvious reward they felt they were getting from participating in adult learning.

I echo my hon. Friend’s comments on student loans. I wish to ask the Minister what monitoring is being undertaken of the effect of further education loans on older students’ take-up of further education. We know from the trends in higher education that the impact of student loans on younger students has not been as significant as some of us feared, but mature students have significantly fallen away from higher education studies because they find it difficult to take on a debt obligation alongside other financial obligations that they have accrued. What trends has the Minister observed among those over 24 years old, and what further monitoring and adjusting action will the Government undertake if the loans significantly deter adults?

I wish to ask the Minister about funding for HND and HNC qualifications, which are offered in further education colleges such as Trafford. My understanding is that the qualifications are currently funded by the Student Loans Company, but that a Higher Education Funding Council for England weighting is added to fund courses that partly contribute to a degree-level qualification. I have been told that it has been proposed that the funding will switch, and that in future those qualifications will be funded by the FE loan company. Will the additional weighting—the funding supported by HEFCE—be transferred across so those courses continue to be fully funded?

I am sure the Minister will understand that those studies have particular economic importance, given what they encompass. People who take up technically complex subjects can make a significant contribution to our economic situation, and it would be a great shame if funding pressures began to discourage some students from participating.

I support what my hon. Friend said about apprenticeships, and I would be grateful to hear the Minister’s comments on the funding issues. As the Association of Colleges has observed, the current funding arrangements, in which the Skills Funding Agency funds the college and the employer pays an apprenticeship wage, amounts to a pretty significant subsidy for the employer because they get a fully-trained employee without having to contribute to their college training.

I understand that those arrangements are to be replaced by an employer contribution and a tax break for employers. Does that mean that employers will continue to receive a subsidy, and, if so, will it have the same overall effect? If there is to be a change in the funding structure for apprenticeships, what assessment have Ministers made of the likelihood that small and medium-sized enterprises will continue to offer or increasingly offer apprenticeships? SMEs are an important source of apprenticeships for the future, and it has been difficult to get them to engage with apprenticeship programmes. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what assessment has been made of the effect of the funding arrangements on SMEs’ participation.

Vulnerable adults in particular can find FE studies a flexible and environmentally suitable approach to continuing their learning. We have some good, supported training programmes at Trafford, and throughout the country, for younger students with learning disabilities. For example, some good supported internship programmes, organised between local employers and local colleges, run well. Those supported internships are not funded for over-25s, although we know that adults with learning difficulties, for example, will take longer to reach the point at which they are ready to participate fully in education and employment.

Is the Minister prepared to consider whether the effective and successful supported internship model, which works for younger adults, could be extended to older adults in those situations? It is not a quick fix—I am not asking the Minister for an instant answer—but I think that we would all appreciate hearing that he will take an interest in the subject. Those of us who have thoughts and ideas about the issue, including charities that I have worked with, might work with him to see what might be possible in this field.

Finally, let me say a little about the role of employers, particularly in relation to employer ownership of skills, which is a good idea in theory that is proving difficult to make effective in practice. I should be interested to hear how the Minister intends to improve its effectiveness. The uptake is quite low and what is lacking, if I may say so, is a strategic economic context to employer ownership of skills. I particularly commend to the Minister work done by the Greater Manchester chamber of commerce, which analysed all the many major construction projects that we expect in Greater Manchester over the next five to 10 years—High Speed 2, the Metrolink extension, an extension at the airport, new investment in Trafford Park in my constituency, the northern hub and so on—and mapped the job needs that will arise under those projects, right down to individual jobs. The work included identifying how many electricians, scaffolders, painters and decorators each project is likely to need, what level of skills will be associated with those jobs and when they are likely to come on stream.

Clearly, the next step is to start matching all those fantastic data to training and education plans in our FE colleges, schools and universities. However, there is a mechanism missing that might otherwise connect that economic analysis with the education providers, particularly FE colleges. Will the Minister comment on whether he would be interested in exploring that further, as I am sure Greater Manchester chamber of commerce would be keen to do?