Access to Further Education

Leigh Ingham Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)]

Investment in our colleges is essential to this country’s future and to our manufacturing sector, our house building targets and our NHS. In Stafford, it is clear that we have no shortage of ambitious young people—I know this, as I meet them weekly—but we must invest in their futures. We must invest in our colleges to make sure that their futures are all they can be. I am proud of what this Government’s investment has delivered so far. Our advanced manufacturing tech is going to change the landscape in Stafford, and that work, done in combination with our local employers—hand in glove—shows exactly what can be achieved by an ambitious Labour Government.

I want to take this opportunity to raise something put to me directly by my local college and by Make UK, because it gets to the heart of the problem of how we fund our manufacturing and technical education. Right now, the payment per pupil is the same regardless of whatever course is being delivered, so an A-level student doing three A-levels in a classroom attracts the same funding as a student on a technical engineering apprenticeship, despite the fact that the equipment, the facilities, the staffing and the delivery costs are so different. At a place like Stafford college, which genuinely excels in exactly this kind of high-cost, high-value technical provision, that is really unfair and a direct disincentive to deliver the courses that matter most. If we are serious about making technical education genuinely world class, we have to fund it as though we mean it.

That is why I am so pleased and it is such an honour— I talk about it all the time—to have the best college in the country in my constituency. [Interruption.] It is widely accepted to be the best college in the country! I am also very pleased that the Government have taken substantial steps to invest in further education and vocational courses, so I would like to ask the Minister: what further investment is planned in our college estate, and how can the course funding imbalance be addressed to ensure that we have the best facilities and the best staff, and that we create the best possible opportunities?