Further Education Colleges (North-east)

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing this debate. She outlined what is self-evident to many of us in the north-east: we have a good network of further education colleges.

I do not have a further education college in my constituency. My learners access Derwentside College in Consett and New College Durham. They also travel further afield to Newcastle and Sunderland and to other colleges in the region. As my hon. Friend outlined, some go to Darlington and Teesside. The colleges are an asset to our region. It is clear to anyone who speaks to or visits any of them that they are not inward-looking institutions—they are dynamic and forward-thinking. Derwentside College has a good liaison with local engineering companies, both large and small. It not only engages in recognising and understanding what further training is needed, but actively takes part in encouraging young people and adult learners to think of a career in engineering.

New College is an outward-looking institution that sponsors two academies: one in Stanley in my constituency and one in Consett, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass). That initiative was spearheaded by John Widdowson, who is the chief executive of the college. He is working well to build the link between the school sector and the FE sector. He is giving great opportunities in Stanley to many young people. In addition, New College has 200 international students from across the world who come to study there.

I had the privilege last year of visiting Newcastle College’s new railway engineering academy. That initiative came from the college, which recognised that there is a skills shortage in the rail sector. It is now providing well-qualified people for jobs—in some cases, those jobs are highly paid—in the rail sector. That college is taking the initiative. In the north-east, we have colleges that are not just allowing the world to pass them by; they are taking the initiative to understand what the business community and their local communities require.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

While my hon. Friend is acknowledging some of the work across the region, will he pay tribute to Middlesbrough College’s work on its remarkable new science, technology, engineering and maths centre? That was launched recently, very much with the involvement of local employers, the manufacturing base and the supply chain.

[Mr Jones]

Yes, I will. It is a good example of how local colleges are taking the lead, not by just putting on courses that they hope people will come to, but by working with employers to ensure that the courses they offer are needed by young people and adult learners and by local businesses. This might be an old-fashioned thing, but in our region, the colleges and the education sector are raising awareness that careers in engineering and manufacturing are a way forward and not a thing of the past.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend raises an important point: further education colleges in the north-east already work together and are forward-looking. Newcastle College is engaging with new industries, such as the aeronautical industry and the energy industries. Does he share my concern that the area-based reviews may take the focus away from what is best for our industry and our young people? Too much time may be spent focusing on how to respond to the review. I would like to see more work on adult education in the north-east, particularly given the cuts to local services.

[Mr Jones]

I agree with my hon. Friend, because one of the important points is collaboration between colleges. Looking back, one of the problems in the further education sector was where we had competition between different colleges. That network of working together, which provides opportunities for young people and adult learners, is important. Speak to anyone in the industry and they will say that the 16-year-old leaving school today is unlikely to be in the same job when they retire at 65 or 67 or whatever the retirement age will be when they come to retire. They will need constant on-the-job training and will need to re-access the education system, so the further education sector is vital.

I chaired a meeting last night at an event organised by the Industry and Parliament Trust to talk about the aerospace sector, which has huge potential for growth not only in engineering skills, but in the soft skills of process management and other areas as well. All our colleges, certainly in Durham, are encouraging not only engineering apprentices, who are vital, but the growth sector of tourism in the north-east. I know that Houghall college and also Northumberland deal with land skills and agriculture, which people might think are industries of the past, but they are very important to rural communities in the north-east, and certainly the tourism sector is a growth area across the north-east.

I understand that the Government will want to tackle bad performance, and I support that. If a college or any institution is failing its learners, it needs to be dealt with, but I am not sure how the review will fit in with the rest of the education system. For example, I have already mentioned New College’s sponsorship of two academies, because it saw a clear need to link back into education. The sector is not separate from the rest of the education system, so I want to know how local schools and suchlike will be involved in the process.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland mentioned travel, which is a stark issue in my area and many rural areas. Many young people have to travel quite long distances to access courses. It might be easy in large cities such as London or Birmingham where there is a choice of providers close together, but in my constituency and in hers—for example, in Northumberland—people have to travel long distances, so the issue is not just about the number of colleges, but where they are. I totally agree with her that the abolition of the education maintenance allowance had a huge effect on young people’s ability to access courses.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend recognise the problems in Northumberland? Northumberland College in my constituency is 60 miles from the Scottish border and 20 miles from the nearest fantastic city of Newcastle. Northumberland College has got fantastic results with 1,000 apprentices and £2.5 million invested in a new STEM centre. We have got fantastic results like we have never had before and a good rating by Ofsted. If there is any reduction in financing, or rationalisation, mergers or closures, does my hon. Friend agree that Northumberland could not be a part of that?

[Mr Jones]

I agree, but that is where the problem lies. I sympathise with the Minister. Having been a Minister myself, I accept that civil servants sometimes look at things through a London—not even a south-east—prism and think that if something is not happening in London or the south-east, it cannot be happening elsewhere. The idea that my hon. Friend has an outstanding college in Northumberland is perhaps something that they cannot comprehend. Any changes need to be right. One size will not fit all. We have a dynamic group of colleges. The issue is not about competition. That would be a retrograde step back to the bad old days when people were literally competing. That is not a good use of resources and not good for the learners themselves.

Another aspect that is important for the further education sector is to raise aspirations. If we are going to get people into engineering or hospitality and tourism, one thing that the north-east needs more than anything—the further education sector has a key part to play—is to raise aspirations. Sadly, in my own constituency, and in other constituencies as well, we have the problem of—it is a horrible word—NEET: not in education, employment or training. It is difficult to find out the numbers. There are individuals now who are not included in any statistics anywhere. They are not in the education statistics; they are not claiming benefits; and they do menial, part-time, casual work. That is okay while they are young, but they are missing out on the opportunities to get the qualifications that they need for the future, and in many cases they put themselves at great risk working on building sites or in conditions with no health and safety provision or any care for those individuals. Those are the people we need to reach. Sometimes, when the school system has failed them, the further education sector is a good way to access them.

I want to address two other points and how other Departments’ policies impact on the further education sector. Just outside my constituency, in the City of Durham constituency, is Finchale Training College. It was set up in 1943 for the rehabilitation and retraining of ex-servicemen. It does fantastic work with veterans who have mental health problems and physical disabilities. It has a long tradition of retraining them and getting them ready for work. It has also done other training work in the wider further education sector. It was a residential college until 2015 when the Government changed the rules in a move away from residential colleges, and we can argue the pros and cons of that.

In September 2015, the Department for Work and Pensions introduced the specialist employment service to help individuals who need extra help because of disabilities or other training needs. They would have gone into the residential system, but are now—I think positively—in the community. The system set up to deal with this is not only bureaucratic, but it has a detrimental effect on colleges such as Finchale. Contracts were issued nationally and large organisations such as the Shaw Trust, Remploy and others got the contracts. They have sub-partners and Finchale is a sub-partner for the Shaw Trust. The pathway for the people who need extra help into the system is via the disability employment advisers in local jobcentres. There are only two full-time disability employment advisers in the entire north-east; the rest are part time, and there is a problem. Access is gained through a computer-based system. On the first working day of each month, a number of places and contracts are put out. The employment advisers then have to match people to those.

In theory, there is a regional cap, so there should be 18 for the region, but that does not work in practice. So Finchale, which would have expected 70 students over the last period, has only got two, because as soon as a jobcentre in Croydon or south Wales logs on and gets in early, it can upload all its applicants to fill the places. So the idea that Finchale will access learners from south Wales or Croydon is not the case. There are an estimated 200 people in the north-east who need help.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is giving an excellent speech, but he has gone on now for 15 minutes. Several people want to speak, and I want to get everybody in, so can he now bring his remarks to a close?

[Mr Jones]

Will the Minister ask his Department for Work and Pensions colleagues to change the system? The system needs to have a regional cap and to allow for people at least to access it, because at the moment it is having a detrimental effect on colleges such as Finchale.

Finally, I would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on regional devolution. We are told that post-16 further education will be devolved to the new regional body, whatever that will be. Will he guarantee that, if that happens, any cash will be ring-fenced or immune from cuts? When the public health budgets were devolved to local government, the first thing to happen was that they were top-sliced. One of my fears, I think rightly, is that the devolution agenda being pushed by the Government is more about devolving responsibility—without the cash to go with it—and then the blame when the new local authorities have to make the cuts. I am interested to know the Minister’s thinking.

We have world-leading colleges and further education institutions in the north-east. The Minister needs to work with them and not to try and implant in the north-east some blueprint that might look nice on his civil servants’ spreadsheets. If something is not broken, why try and fix it?

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

We have a number of people wishing to speak. Please keep your speeches down to less than six minutes.

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[Nick Boles]

Hon. Members have asked a great many questions, and I want to try to answer as many as I can.

First, as well as seeming to think that my own educational background was a subject of interest for the debate, the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland suggested that I have no understanding of rural areas and the issues they face. I point out to her and the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) that the constituency of South Holland and The Deepings neighbours—indeed, borders—my own. Your constituency, Sir Edward, also does. I, too, have a very rural constituency. I, too, have a constituency in which there are three towns that are more than 20 miles apart, so I entirely understand the issues. I am afraid that in Lincolnshire, fine and wonderful county though it is, we probably do not have much better public transport between towns than in the north-east, so to suggest that I have somehow brought an urban or south-east view to area reviews is ludicrous.

Secondly, the whole point about area reviews is that they are locally based. They are run locally, with local colleges taking these decisions. We of course accept that for the lower level of training in particular—level 1, 2 and 3 training—it is simply impossible to expect people to travel significant distances if we want them to continue in education. We do want them to continue in education, so we will absolutely not be looking to do that.

Opposition Members might want to ask themselves why the great and much admired Newcastle College is able to do so well. One reason is that it is big. In a single year, it secures £38 million of grant funding from the Skills Funding Agency alone, whereas many other colleges in the north-east receive £2 million, £3 million, £4 million or £5 million. “Merger” does not necessarily mean the closure of sites. In fact, what makes the closure of a site much more likely is a small, financially challenged institution that simply cannot cope with the overhead costs of running a college for very low volumes of training—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

rose—

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

Thank you very much, Sir Edward, for confirming my understanding of Standing Orders. I just want to conclude by reassuring hon. Members—[Interruption.] I just want to conclude my argument by reassuring hon. Members that area reviews are not top-down impositions. They are not going to come up—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

On a point of order, Sir Edward. I have never seen a Minister fail to accept any interventions. When time is not on a Minister’s side, it is fair not to, but we have eight minutes left and he has refused to have any Opposition Members challenge him on anything he has said, which is absolutely outrageous.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Well, that is not a point of order, but there we are.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Boles]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has asked the question again. He is right, of course, that sometimes when there are changes to banking arrangements, fees arise, but those will be visible and transparent, and a college will only undertake an operation that might trigger those fees if it considers that, overall, doing so is in its interest. He will be aware that the Chancellor made it clear in the spending review process that there will be a facility to provide transitional funding for the implementation of area reviews. We will have access to that facility if we need it to support, for instance, a merger or some other arrangement; but ultimately, we will only support such a merger or arrangement if the colleges believe that it is worth doing, even if there are some transitional transaction fees. I hope that helps a little.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am glad that, despite the Minister’s arrogance, he has been shamed into accepting interventions. He is trying to portray the north-east colleges as somehow stuck in the mud and not wanting to change. I assure him, however, that he could not meet a more dynamic set of leaders who actually want change. I want to ask him specifically about the point I raised on the specialist employment service. Although I accept that that is a Department for Work and Pensions responsibility, will he assure me that he will raise it with his colleagues at the DWP?

[Nick Boles]

Of course, I am very happy to raise that with DWP colleagues; I regularly meet the Minister for Employment and actually I will meet the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People soon. May I just make it clear on the record that at no time have I suggested that colleges in the north-east are stick-in-the-muds? Indeed, I have singled out several as exemplar colleges. I absolutely have said that some Labour Members who have spoken in the debate seem to be stick-in-the-muds and attached to defending existing arrangements, and I happy to repeat that claim.

[Mr Jones]

What the Minister is highlighting is that it seems as though he has made up his mind what he wants: he thinks big is beautiful. He rightly argues, as I said in my contribution, that Newcastle College is a good, forward-looking institution, but he clearly wants large colleges with satellites. That is not what local colleges in the region want; they want to co-operate with one another, so I am sorry, but he is being disingenuous if he is suggesting that he has somehow not made his mind up even before he started this review.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. Will the Minister give Helen Goodman a couple of minutes to wind up, please?