Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Kate Green Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

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

It is a great pleasure to follow the Secretary of State.

I place on record my thanks to Lord Watson, Baroness Wilcox and Baroness Sherlock for their work on the Bill. I hope the House will protect some of the improvements made to the Bill, on a cross-party basis, in the House of Lords.

Over the past decade we have repeatedly heard from Conservative Members that skills matter and that further education and training are essential to our economy and our country’s future, and we heard it again from the Secretary of State tonight. We agree, but the result of that rhetoric under successive Conservative Governments, is that we have 188,000 fewer apprenticeship starts, college numbers down 26%, 9,000 fewer further education staff, adult learner numbers down 25%, and funding of adult skills still at only 60% of what it was in 2010. As the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) acknowledged, successive Conservative Governments have left further education overlooked, undervalued and underfunded.

I assure the Secretary of State that we will not oppose the Bill, as amended and improved by the noble Lords, this evening. After a decade of Conservative damage to the sector, I desperately want the Government to get skills policy right. Labour believes in a high-skill economy that delivers the opportunity for workers to train and retrain, and to gain and sustain fulfilling, rewarding jobs in which they take great pride.

That is why my Labour colleagues and I, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), have long championed further education and lifelong learning. In 2019, Labour’s lifelong learning commission set out an ambitious approach that would give all learners the chance to make the most of their learning throughout their life. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) has set out plans to buy, make and sell more in Britain, as it would support industry to deliver quality jobs in every part of the country. And it is why, at our party conference this year, the Leader of the Opposition set out Labour’s plans to ensure every young person leaves education with skills for the future, ready for work and for life.

Labour would embed the digital skills that young people need across all subjects, by providing every child with ongoing access to a device and delivering professional careers advice and two weeks’ worth of work experience. We would reform the citizenship curriculum to give young people the life skills they say they want: how to open a bank account, what “tax” means and what they will have to pay, and how to sign an employment contract—or, as one young person put it to me, how to be an adult. I think we all need a bit of that sometimes.

Labour would deliver this by engaging with employers across the public and private sectors, and I thank those who joined me and the Leader of the Opposition at our roundtable earlier this month. We would work across Government to tackle the challenge of four in 10 young people leaving education today without qualifications essential for the modern economy. At the current rate under the Conservatives, reducing that even to three in 10 young people will take 300 years. Labour will not stand for that.

We would also ensure that every adult has the opportunity to retrain and reskill where necessary, to address technological change and globalisation and tackle the climate crisis that will see the workplace constantly evolve. That level of ambition is lacking in the Bill.

Labour agrees that we need world-class vocational training routes, and we welcome the introduction of T-levels. We want them to succeed, but they will not be right for all students. By forcing students to specialise too early, there is a danger of reducing, not enhancing, student choice. The Department’s own impact assessment demonstrates that promoting T-levels through the over-hasty defunding of most BTECs risks holding young people back from achieving the qualifications they need.

It is welcome to hear the Secretary of State confirm that there will be an extension of one year before the defunding of courses takes place, but he knows that is a very short time for people to come to terms with the new T-level offer. He will also know there was cross-party support in the House of Lords for Labour’s amendment proposing a four-year moratorium on defunding. I urge him to look again at the time needed to enable these reforms to be embedded successfully and sensibly.

I noted what the Secretary of State said about removing the requirement in T-levels for GCSE English and maths, which will open up these qualifications to more students. Will he, or perhaps the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), in winding up, say what support will be on offer to students who lack these important GCSE qualifications, as literacy and numeracy skills will clearly remain important? As the measure may well open up T-levels to more young people, what is being put in place to ensure there are sufficient work placement opportunities with employers to accommodate the potential larger numbers?

It is important that we get these qualifications right, because vocational qualifications change lives. From what the Secretary of State said this evening, and indeed from what we have been hearing from Ministers for some time, we effectively have a planning blight hanging over BTECs. When he talks of some low-level qualifications at level 3 being abolished and replaced with T-levels without specifying which qualifications he means, he undermines confidence among young people, teachers, parents and employers in all the applied general qualifications.

This matters most to students in the most deprived communities. The Social Market Foundation has found that 44% of white working-class students enter university with at least one BTEC, and that 37% of black students enter university with only BTEC qualifications. Removing opportunities for those students does not sound anything like levelling up, so it is important that we have clarity from the Minister about how their interests are to be protected.

I heard the Minister suggest at the Federation of Awarding Bodies conference last week, and the Secretary of State repeated it tonight, that it will be important to keep open routes to university that include vocational qualifications such as T-levels. This comes as a surprise to the Labour Front-Bench team, and I think it will come as a surprise to universities, which have not necessarily signed up to admit students on the basis of T-level results. Will the Secretary of State or the Minister say a little more about how they intend T-levels to be a route to higher education?

Like the Government, Labour recognise the crucial role of employers in identifying skills needs and delivering training, so it is right that employers are key partners in local skills improvement partnerships, but the partnerships must be designed in the context of local economic and regeneration strategies driven by metro Mayors and local leaders. There was cross-party support in the Lords, as the Secretary of State knows, for Labour’s amendment to make mayoral authorities and local further education providers part of the local skills improvement partnerships. I am glad he has agreed tonight that metropolitan mayoral combined authorities should have a role, but he needs to go further. What about authorities outside metropolitan combined areas? What role does he now foresee for local enterprise partnerships in setting the skills agenda?

The Government may have abandoned their own industrial strategy, but at local level there is recognition that the Government and employers need to be co-leads, alongside local colleges and providers, in bringing together knowledge and expertise to meet the needs of the local economy.

I welcome the concession from Baroness Barran, especially following the conclusion of COP26 at the weekend, on local school improvement plans having due regard to meeting environmental goals. I hope we can agree, too, on welcoming the amendment to include special educational needs awareness training that is relevant to students of initial teacher training FE courses.

The Bill has reached us from the other place in an improved state, but the Government must be more ambitious. The Secretary of State spoke tonight of the Government’s plans for the lifelong learning entitlement and the Minister in the other place promised a consultation ahead of further primary legislation. It would be helpful tonight for the House to have a timetable set out for that to happen. In the debate on the Address this year, I raised concerns that waiting until 2025 for the lifelong learning entitlement to come into effect was far too slow for workers who have seen their jobs change or disappear and need urgent support to retrain. With the prospect now of further consultation and further legislation, I fear we will see even further delay.

On the wider question of the lifetime skills guarantee, which we would like to see in the Bill, will the Minister explain in winding up why 9 million jobs, a third of all jobs across the country, are in sectors excluded from the guarantee? Such sectors include retail and tourism, which have been hardest hit during the pandemic and, incredibly, lecturing and teaching. Will he explain why it excludes 65% of people over the age of 16 who already hold a level 3 qualification, preventing their retraining to gain new skills? Will the Secretary of State commit to the amendment originally tabled by Lord Johnson that would ensure a review of the impact on re-skilling of funding restrictions on those who wish to get a qualification at a level equivalent to or lower than that they already hold?

Most concerning—the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) alluded to this—is the lack of an offer in the Bill to workers needing support to gain level 2 or other qualifications to get them in the pipeline to progress their learning to level 3 and beyond. Nine million adults lack basic literacy or numeracy skills and, despite the announcements in the Budget last month, those people are excluded from the Government’s flagship policy—why? What are the Government doing to tackle the disastrous fall in apprenticeship starts since the apprenticeship levy was introduced? Why have plans for apprenticeships not been provided for in this Bill?

The prospect of further Government delays to the lifelong learning entitlement brings me, finally, to the wider proposals in the Augar review. Current and future students have seen regular backroom briefings to the press about potential fee cuts to and attacks on the quality of their courses, and regressive changes to their loan repayments that will leave them even worse off. Will the Secretary of State now bring these damaging rumours to an end and come forward with constructive, progressive proposals to support university students, so that all who wish to and can benefit from higher education have the opportunity to do so?

Young people starting work today will still be working in the 2070s and I do not think any Member of this House could claim to know what skills they will need then. It is imperative that we give them the skills to adopt new ways of working and adapt to an ever-changing and uncertain world. At the same time, we must equip our education system with the capacity for adults to train and retrain, move between jobs and industries, and gain new skills and knowledge throughout their lives. As I have said, we will not be opposing the Bill today, but nor do we think it sufficient. I urge those on the Conservative Benches to be more ambitious, to listen to colleges, universities, employers and Labour, and to match the aspirations young people and adult learners have for themselves. The Bill must set out a pathway to the future that is fit for individuals, employers and our economy. The next generation, businesses and our whole country deserve better than this.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Alex Burghart)]

As someone who has spent the majority of his life in education or education policy, it is a real honour to be presenting this Bill on Second Reading. The Bill forms a cornerstone of some historic reforms that we are bringing to the skills agenda in our country: reforms that will help us more closely align skills training with the needs of employers; reforms that will help us to help all students, at all ages and stages, find more reliable routes to employment; and reforms that will help us level up our country and build back better.

This has been a long journey, and I want to thank some of the people who have been involved in it: not least, in the other place, Lord Sainsbury and Baroness Wolf, who have done enormous work to get us here, but also my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), the former Secretary of State, who gave such an impressive speech, and my hon. and glamorous Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), the former Minister for apprenticeships and skills. I also feel the need to mention another noble Lord in the other place who wrote a report for the Government in 2012—Lord Lingfield, who is genuinely one of the unsung heroes of education reform over the past 30 years. I put on record my debt to him and to his thinking. All of their work—the cross-party work that we have heard so much about tonight—has shown us the importance of building a skills system that can work for everyone.

There have been some powerful speeches, many delivered at high speed, and some important arguments made. I will try to deal with as many as I can in the time I have available. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said at the outset, our reform agenda is about both local prosperity and global competitiveness. It is about the needs of labour market and the needs of the student, and it is about our collective need for a more prosperous future. That is why this Government are putting the money down to get the job done: £3.8 billion more for FE and skills over the Parliament, the biggest increase in over a decade; £1.6 billion more for education at 16 to 19; £554 million for adult skills, a 29% increase in real terms over four years; and £2.7 billion for apprenticeships by the end of this spending review period—all this and more, to give people the skills the economy needs.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), the Chair of the Education Committee, said that skills had often been the Cinderella service; well, tonight it continues its journey to the ball. But if it is Cinderella, I wonder who the fairy godmother is. Is it my right hon. Friend himself, is it the Secretary of State, or is it the Chancellor, who provided this money? The Opposition have talked about the state of funding over time. I taught history for quite a long time, and one of the things we learn when we study history is that the left loves to rewrite it—when it is not destroying it. Some Conservative Members remember why there was a need for austerity in 2010. Indeed, in a powerful speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Lia Nici) talked about a time when the Opposition were in power and things were not quite so rosy as they seem to remember.

[Kate Green]

This is not rewriting history but merely to point out to the Minister, who may not remember, that when Labour left office in 2010 the economy was growing, and what happened then was that it was thrown into reverse by the Government of the time’s austerity policies.

[Alex Burghart]

Rewriting history yet again: everybody knows that the last Labour Government left the economy of this country in the gutter and it required a Conservative Government to pick it up and to create the jobs miracle that we saw before the pandemic.

We want the skills system to become more responsive to the needs and knowledge of employers, creating dialogue between skills providers and industry. That is why the Bill establishes the employer representative bodies and local skills improvement plans.[Official Report, 19 November 2021, Vol. 703, c. 6MC.] Employer representative bodies will hold the ring locally on the needs of local employers, finding out what skills they are looking for and working with colleges to make sure that those skills are built up. For the first time, employers in an area will know exactly who to go to when they want providers to respond to that need. That is what I have heard when I have gone around the country in my first few weeks in this job. The other day I went to Doncaster and heard the people who are masterminding the first LSIP say that for the first time people know to come to them in order to speak to providers and get skills put on the table.

Using that sort of intelligence, ERBs will produce local skills improvement plans to nudge local learning in the right direction. An ERB is a body with a plan to help the next gigafactory, the next offshore wind farm, the next nuclear plant and the next electric vehicle factory to find the workers with the skills they need; a body to help the retrofitters, the digital networkers and the constructors of HS2 to get the skills that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) talked about in terms of the green revolution and our net zero plans; and a plan to help local areas get the skills they need to harness the talents of the people to build the infrastructure of tomorrow, led by employers, supported by Government and driven forward by our excellent further education colleges.

However, our work to align the needs of the economy with the desire of students for modern skills does not stop there. To do all this, we need technical qualifications that meet the needs of employers. T-levels—the new gold-standard qualification at level 3—have been drawn up with the input and expertise of more than 250 employers to ensure that they provide students with the right skills for the workplace—skills that will be relevant and recognised in the real world. This, we must remember, was done following the recommendations of the Labour peer, Lord Sainsbury, to whom I again pay tribute.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Tahir Ali) spoke—I refer to him because my father-in-law was from Birmingham, Hall Green— powerfully and movingly about his experience and his son’s. I have no doubt that he and his son would have been able to do a BTEC in engineering, flourished through it and been able to enjoy some of the great advantages I have seen when I have visited colleges in south Essex, Walsall and south London, where students are studying T-levels and thriving.[Official Report, 19 November 2021, Vol. 703, c. 6MC.]

The hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) made a very good speech. Putney does not have T-levels yet, but she should visit one of her neighbours that does. She will see teachers and students who are inspired, working with employers, getting excellent work placements and seeing their destination as work. These are high-quality qualifications that will meet the needs of the local community.

I was pleased to hear the Opposition support our changes on level 2 English and maths as an exit requirement for T-levels, because we want these new gold-standard qualifications to be open to as many people as possible. What we see emerging is a new pathway to work for everyone at 16-19. For students at level 3, there will be world-class qualifications designed with employers leading to degree-level apprenticeships, work and, yes, higher education, because more than 50 universities already accept our T-levels. For students who are at level 2 at 16-19, there will be, thanks to our forthcoming consultation on level 2 and below, world-class qualifications designed with employers leading to traineeships, apprenticeships or work, or, indeed, the opportunity to take up the Prime Minister’s lifetime skills guarantee at level 3 and get the skills they want, that they might not have had the chance to gain at school.

I say to the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) that there will be choices for everybody and opportunities for everyone to progress towards work. Skilling up will not end when someone leaves college. We have bootcamps of the type I have seen in Salford and Doncaster. We have the multiply programme for numeracy skills—the great half-a-billion-pound project initiated by the Chancellor at the spending review. For literacy, which was understandably raised by a number of Members, I remind the House that full funding for adults who do not already have a GCSE pass is already available. We also intend to help people who have level 3 to progress. That is why the Bill lays the foundations for the lifelong loan entitlement, which gives adults who want to get a higher technical qualification the opportunity to invest in their future, to retrain and upskill.

This is a landmark Bill that will further the cause of skills in this country. It will give students the skills they need and that the economy wants, and I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] (Programme)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 7 December 2021.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Steve Double.)

Question agreed to.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] (Money)

Queen’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:

(1) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State; and

(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Nadhim Zahawi.)

Question agreed to.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords] (Ways and Means)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the charging of fees under the Act.—(Nadhim Zahawi.)

Question agreed to.