Technical and Further Education Bill (Fourth sitting)

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 24th November 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Gordon Marsden]

My hon. Friend has been in the House for only a relatively short period of time, but she is making some absolutely excellent and spot-on points. In this context, we are concerned with the specific ways in which the measure will affect people’s ability to take up apprenticeships, and that is what I will focus on.

This is about more than information in schools; it is also about who can come into schools to influence people’s career choices. I, for one, have praised a number of companies for what they have done to offer apprenticeships to adults. In terms of young people, British Gas, for example, has for a number of years had a crack team of female ex-apprentices who go into schools and colleges to break down gender stereotypes. Without suggesting that the institute should be prescriptive in that respect, I think that it could and should encourage the breakdown of gender stereotypes in terms of applications for apprenticeships.

It works the other way around, as well. There is a young man in my constituency, a nurse, who has been very active in the campaign for NHS bursaries. We need more men in the nursing professions and the caring professions, and many of those people can come through apprenticeships. Again, there is a role for the institute. Incidentally, another issue is the commitment to continuous professional development, in which the new institute, particularly the technical education side, will play a role. We must be careful there as well to extend continuous professional development outwith the usual groups of people from a professional background.

Those are some of the issues of which we must take cognizance when considering the amendment. Unfortunately, the representative from the National Society of Apprentices was unable to give evidence on Tuesday due to a family illness, but the National Union of Students —it is important to add that the NUS figures are not dissimilar to those from the Industry Apprentice Council—has stated:

“We want the…government to invest in a truly national careers system that delivers impartial careers information, advice and guidance”,

and that in surveys, 21% of apprentices said that they had never received information about apprenticeships.

The NUS draws attention to a point that will not have escaped the Minister’s attention—I know that he was questioned closely on it by the Sub-Committee on Education, Skills and the Economy. The NUS found that the current approach to careers advice is exacerbating skills shortages. Those are some of the arguments that we believe it is important to take on board when considering the amendment.

I had a similar discussion in Committee with the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation. We did not always agree, but we came to some convergence of our views. It is important when establishing a new organisation to give some direction or guidance in the Bill establishing it, in this case in schedule 1. There should be some emphasis on the signals sent to the outside world about what sort of organisation it is going to be. Will it simply be a bog-standard Government quango or non-departmental public body, or will it be a forceful campaigning institution? We had a debate this morning about how campaigning it could be with a relatively modest workforce, but that makes the issue all the more important. Given the references that the Minister made, perfectly reasonably, to the range of people who will not be members of the institute but will be supportive, it is extremely important to send out the message in the Bill that the institute must have regard to that function.

That is extremely important, because governance in this area is relatively underdeveloped, when compared with governance in higher education, which the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation and I discussed during the Higher Education and Research Bill Committee. It may have been reasonable for him to have told me in that Committee that there was no need for me to worry about putting a measure in the Bill regarding the OFS, because the Government had been doing all these other things for years in that area. I did not agree with him, but he had a point. The point about this measure is that although we are not exactly in the stone age when it comes to access and participation, we are certainly nowhere near as far down the line as in higher education.

Amendment 10 continues that theme, but in more specific fashion. It would require the Government to specify in its apprenticeship targets the proportion of new apprenticeship starts for those who were looked-after children, and for people with disabilities. It would ensure that the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education increased the number of apprenticeship starts by care leavers and people with disabilities, so it is linked to the strategy arguments for access and participation that we put in amendment 9.

It is curious how targets are sometimes set; the Government already have targets to increase the proportion of black and minority ethnic apprentices by 20%. It might make sense for them to do the same for people with disabilities and care leavers, though I do not say what the proportion should be. We also seek clarification from the Minister on the progress on the BME targets, if he has those figures to hand. Those targets were set under the previous Government and were never formally incorporated in legislation. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that the Government were still working to meet those targets. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), having fought the good fight, with others, on apprenticeship funding in disadvantaged areas—the Minister listened to his arguments—has also been pressing on these issues due to the nature of his constituency.

The Government’s apprenticeship funding proposals last month recognised that 19 to 24-year-old apprentices who had previously been in care, or who had a local education authority health and care plan, might need extra support. The majority of respondents to the Government survey supported that, with more than twice as many agreeing with the proposal than disagreed: 53% to 26%.

I make a more generic observation that it would be helpful for the Minister to consider: in recent years, in debates on apprenticeships and where they should be focused, a dichotomy has often been proposed between adult apprenticeships for those who are over 24, and apprenticeships for those who are 16 to 18-year-olds, with a greater focus on the latter. I have sometimes felt that we needed to shine more light on 19 to 24-year-olds generally as a target area, because that range often includes people who have had all sorts of problems, sometimes of their own making, and sometimes absolutely not; I am thinking of family circumstances and issues of bereavement, and a number of them have been carers. I know of nearly 1,000 young people in Blackpool who are actively caring for family members.

I have always taken the view that the 19-to-24 range is a crucial cohort from which we should be recruiting apprentices. Even though those young people might have fallen by the wayside before 19 for whatever reason, they often bring with them zeal, experience of hard knocks, and a desire to do even better during the apprenticeship period. That is particularly important. Of course, the Government have recognised the importance of looked-after young people by extending the remit of their care plans up to the age of 25. I pay tribute to the Minister for Vulnerable Children and Families for that. It is a good start, but it is important to guarantee that every necessary step is then taken to ensure access and opportunity for care leavers.

Looked-after children achieve less highly at GCSE than their counterparts and often miss out on parts of education. There may be a history of abuse in their background.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I am interested in my hon. Friend’s comments on looked-after children. They may have been held back in education not because of a lack of ability, but because of their disturbed personal circumstances. Given a secure environment, they can in fact progress, probably more rapidly than others, and become very effective employees and good citizens.

[Gordon Marsden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He raises a whole subset of questions that we cannot go into this afternoon about the strength of support in schools for young people in those circumstances. That ties in with what I was coming on to say. The Special Educational Consortium, which has submitted evidence to the Committee, along with Barnardo’s, has made some important points. There are real challenges, because less than half of disabled people are in employment, compared with 80% of the non-disabled population, and only 5.8% of adults with a learning disability who are known to local authorities are in a job, which underlines the importance of the Maynard review. On top of that, the proportion of apprentices with learning disabilities has decreased: it was 11% in 2010-11 and is only 8% now. But the good news is that for all apprentices, the success rate of completing their frameworks has risen considerably, and that is true for those with disabilities as well.

The climate for advice on apprenticeships for those with disabilities has declined markedly. Jobcentre Plus’s own disability employment service has a ratio of only one adviser providing support for every 600 disabled people, which was a key cause of concern highlighted by a Work and Pensions Committee inquiry in 2014. In answer to a written question in October 2015, Ministers revealed that the number of jobcentres employing at least one full-time equivalent disability employment adviser had fallen from 226 in 2011 to just 90 in 2015. The Minister may be familiar with the comprehensive Little and Holland review that in 2012 made some 20 recommendations in this policy area. We are not here today to solve the problems of the Department for Work and Pensions or jobcentres, but all that underlines the importance of those targets being firmly in the mind of the institute and, indeed, in the minds of the Minister and his colleagues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I just want to add a few comments about disabled people, which will come as no surprise given my former role. I echo the comments on the importance and, crucially, the opportunities that apprenticeships provide to predominantly younger disabled people. That context is right: 81% of non-disabled people in this country expect to be in work, and for those with a disability that is 48%—up 4% since we came to office and an increase of 590,000 jobs in the past three years. That equates to about 500 to 600 extra disabled people into work a day. For those with a learning disability, though, the figure is about 6%.

All political parties and Governments of all persuasions have tried tweaks but very little changes. I saw on my visits that those with a learning disability need patient, one-to-one support to get them into work, and to me, that was an apprenticeship. That is the whole point of an apprenticeship—to give those tangible, real-life skills. I went on some brilliant visits to places that provided the equivalent of an apprenticeship, such as Foxes Academy hotel near Bridgwater. As many as 80% of their students remained in work at the end of their three-year course. The only limitation was that the third year in-work training—the equivalent of the apprenticeship —did not qualify for apprenticeship funding and it was too expensive to have an unlimited cap on those numbers. Of that 80% who stay in work, 48.8% were paid. Not all of them were paid or in full-time work but, having spoken to their parents, I know that that made a real difference to each and every one of them.

That is why I triggered the review carried out by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). I was delighted to see the outcomes. The then Minister for Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), and I signed it off three days before the reshuffle because we had a feeling that it was important to do that quickly in case something changed. I would welcome an update from the Minister on how he will ensure that the institute prioritises spreading that information. My understanding is that someone who has a learning disability will be exempt from the requirement for a C grade in Maths and English GCSE, which is a hurdle too far for many of these young adults.

During consideration of a previous amendment there was some talk about a target. I understand targets; I did A-level maths, so I get quite geeky with numbers—that is how I remember all these stats. However, I gently caution Members that we need to learn the lessons of HE figures. At each general election, each political party used to suddenly announce that we would have a slightly higher proportion of people going to university. It was like an arms race with students. The reality is that some people who have gone to university to meet those targets would have been better served doing something like an apprenticeship. The wheel has gone full circle, and here we are now.

We do not want to shoehorn some people artificially into doing what we think is the right thing when it is not right for them. A lesson I learned as Minister for Disabled People is that each and every person is an individual with their own unique challenges and opportunities. As tempting as it can be to have targets, because they focus minds, I would be more assured if the Minister committed to meet institute representatives twice a year with this matter the first item on the agenda, and if we as individual MPs met these organisations and sought to hold them to account.

The hon. Member for Blackpool South made a fair point about disability advisers, but the DWP did listen and make changes. Disability advisers are now returning to every single jobcentre—there are roughly 500 more—so we are basically back to where we were at the very beginning. We can call that a score draw. Even when the Department reduced the number of disability of advisers, it was not to have less support for people with disabilities; the idea was that all staff would be trained to be fully disability-aware, but it has been recognised that having somebody with specialist skills in every jobcentre is probably better, so things have gone right back to how they were.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair again this afternoon, Ms Dorries. I strongly support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South and the case he made for them. I am also sympathetic to what the hon. Member for North Swindon said.

I have some knowledge of these issues. In general, it is so important for all citizens to have a sense of worth, and having some form of education or having a job gives us that. Without that sense of worth, we can become not only alienated and miserable, but difficult people in society. All sorts of problems arise when people do not have a proper role in society. Even if one has disabilities, to be able to have a real role among one’s fellow human beings is so important.

I particularly wish to discuss adults with moderate learning difficulties. Some 15 years ago or so, a friend invited me to speak to a class of young adults with moderate learning difficulties at my local college. I spoke fairly briefly about politics and about what I did and then they asked questions. I have to say that I could not answer the first two questions, which were very perceptive and intelligent. One was about benefits—they were very conscious about benefits and the rules governing them. I was not up to speed on that, so I was in difficulty there. The young man’s second question was why Tony Blair had abandoned socialism. I have to say that on both counts I was completely floored. I had to say that I could not speak for the Prime Minister, but that I had not abandoned socialism.

That experience showed me that these young adults were not daft. They had things to say and they had an understanding of the world. With the right courses and, if possible, the right apprenticeships, they could find some employment at some point. For example, recently, in one of our supermarkets, the young man who collects the trolleys and pushes them to the collection points for customers has moderate learning difficulties, but he has a job; he is a character; everyone knows him and he is happy. We ought to organise the world so that such things can happen.

Amendments such as the one tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South ought to be on the face of every Bill relating to education, training and employment, so that it becomes deeply embedded in our culture. Some employers and teachers, although they would not necessarily discriminate wittingly, might do so unwittingly without such things in their mind. They need to be aware that they must be fair and provide equal opportunities. Some employers are notorious for discriminating against women. That is changing, but we still have some way to go to ensure that women have equal shares with men. We do not have equal pay yet.

We have also talked about minority ethnic communities. Again, it is particularly those who are unemployed and live in poorer areas who sometimes get into difficulty or trouble. If they had jobs, it might be different. There was a time in my own town when anybody could literally knock on the door at Vauxhall and get a job. It might not be a very skilled job, but they could get one.

On the difficulties on the streets, an interesting statistic featured in The Guardian some years ago: when unemployment rose to 3 million in the early 1980s, street disorder and street crime took off like a rocket. It is not surprising. All those young men whose energy would have been absorbed putting wheels on cars or doing whatever they would have been doing were on the streets, with nothing better to do than cause trouble. I have always been a passionate believer in organising society to ensure full employment. Some years ago, I was chair of a Back-Bench group with outside members called the Full Employment Forum, started by the renowned Bryan Gould, one of the leading Labour politicians, who is still a friend.

On looked-after children, I said in an intervention that it is important for them to be given extra advantage, because they have had disadvantages in early life. Perhaps their education has been disrupted by their being absent from school, moving house or being generally disturbed and unhappy in education, but they might have abilities way beyond the level of education that they received, so it is important that they are given an extra boost through an apprenticeship or a college education. Providing them with security, hope for the future and a stable and predictable environment in life is important to giving them a sense of optimism and increase their self-worth.

I think these two amendments should, in one form or another, be made. I hope that at some point—maybe today, or maybe not—such amendments can be incorporated into the Bill in its final form. I am happy to support them, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on moving them.

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries. I will respond to some of the issues raised. The hon. Member for Batley and Spen talked about careers guidance in schools, and I agree with her. The first ever speech that I made in the House of Common was about the problem of careers guidance in schools not encouraging people to do technical education or apprenticeships. We must consider the issue holistically, from primary school all the way through. Although it is not part of the Bill, I am considering from the start how we deal with the issue.

That said, we are investing £90 million in careers. The Careers & Enterprise Company has 1,190 enterprise advisers and a £5 million careers and enterprise fund. I have seen myself how they go into schools to boost provision on technical education and apprenticeships, to encourage work experience and to build links between businesses and schools. There is also a separate £12 million mentoring fund, which I am very keen on.