A Brighter Future for the Next Generation

Debate between Kate Green and Christian Wakeford

Thursday 13th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

As a Scot myself, I feel pretty confident in saying that I do not think the priority for Scotland and for people in Scotland right now is a constitutional referendum. I do not think that it is the most pressing concern for young people when there are worries that they are struggling to achieve the same standards in school as we are seeing in the rest of the United Kingdom and when we see young people struggling to get—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) needs to hear what he does not like to hear. The Scottish Government are failing young people. Educational attainment is declining. We see no sign of their having taken on the seriousness of how the SNP Government have let down young people. Let us concentrate on the priorities that really matter for the future of young people in Scotland and across the United Kingdom.

Despite facing soaring unemployment and the toughest jobs market for a generation, young people in desperate need of new opportunities have been overlooked by the Government. The 16-to-19 funding for catch-up has been woefully insufficient, and careers advice and guidance will be crucial after David Cameron’s Government brutally slashed it. The Government’s proposals are too little, too late. Apprentices, and BTEC and vocational students, have been repeatedly treated as an afterthought. Unemployment is forecast to rise over the course of this year, and the consequences of the pandemic will be with us for years to come as huge parts of our economy and labour market experience profound change.

[Christian Wakeford]

Children’s attainment in literacy is going backwards, as is children’s mental health, and children are needing to go through potty training again. There are fears over people’s prospects and the jobs market. Which of the above does the hon. Lady think is a “good crisis” for people to take advantage of? Will she apologise for the comments that she made previously?

[Kate Green]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for enabling me to be able to put on record in this House my regret for those remarks. They were inappropriate and insensitive and will have been offensive to people who have suffered terribly in this pandemic, including those who have been bereaved and lost those that they loved and will be missing terribly. I should not to have used those remarks, and I thank him for giving me the opportunity to put that on record in this Chamber.

If we are to seize this generational moment and deliver the fair, low-carbon recovery that we need to tackle the climate crisis, which is imperative if we are truly to pass on a bright future to the next generation, many people will need to retrain in new industries as old jobs disappear, as the Secretary of State said. But in the Queen’s Speech and in his remarks just a few moments ago, all that the Secretary of State could announce was a months-old commitment to a lifetime skills guarantee that simply is not guaranteed for everyone. It is not guaranteed because people cannot use it if they are already qualified to level 3; they cannot use it unless they are getting a qualification that the Secretary of State has decided he thinks is valuable; and they cannot use it if they need maintenance support while they are learning. If they are already qualified to level 3 in their existing field but need to retrain for a new industry, there is nothing on offer for them. Ministers have chosen to close the door on millions of people who need to retrain, and who need to do so now. I am at a loss to understand the Secretary of State’s position on this. Can he tell the House why a promised guarantee will not in fact be available to some of those who will need it most?

On maintenance funding, we are awaiting Ministers’ response to the Government’s Augar review, which is now over two years old. Augar said that those in further education should receive the same maintenance support as those in higher education. Does the Secretary of State agree with that proposal? If he does, why is it absent from the Queen’s Speech? While everyone will agree that employers have a central role in creating jobs and training opportunities for young people, they do so in the context of local economic and regeneration strategies driven by metro Mayors and local leaders, who seem to have been sidelined in the creation of the local skills plans and with the Government having abandoned a national industrial strategy.

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, high-wage economy that offers fulfilling, rewarding work and jobs in which people will take great pride. That is why, for years, I and my colleagues in the Labour party, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition in his speech opening the debate on the Loyal Address on Tuesday and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) during her time as Shadow Secretary of State for Education, have championed lifelong learning, further education and all those who learn and teach in this sector.

In contrast, in a startling, if only partial, conversion in the Conservative party after a decade spent in power, including times when the Education Secretary and the Prime Minister sat around the Cabinet table and nodded through cuts to further education and a loan-based funding model that, by the Government’s own admission, directly reduced the number of adults in education, we have reforms that offer, at best, a mere reversal of some of the worst excesses of Conservative ideology over the past decade. It is a desperate attempt to polish the windows, having taken a sledgehammer to the foundations.