Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Lia Nici Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

It is an absolute joy and delight to be here to talk about this Bill, which I wholeheartedly support. It speaks to places such as Great Grimsby. To level up properly, we really need to support technical education. That is something we have needed to do for decades now. Despite the caricature by Opposition Members, I got a BTEC myself and I taught in further education for 22 years, but not all BTECs are equal; some are very high quality, and some are not such good quality. That is why we need to take a really good look at the whole provision.

I taught in further education when new Labour had its mantra of “education, education, education”, and I can tell the House that that actually decimated technical education. HNCs and HNDs virtually died overnight, and towns such as Great Grimsby, which has fantastic further education provision—we have the Ofsted grade 1 Grimsby Institute and the Ofsted grade 2 Franklin Sixth Form College—were utterly gutted by what happened in education then. That proves that this is about not the amount of funding that we put in, but where we put it and where our priorities lie.

It is absolutely key that we put employers at the centre of this policy. That makes employers realise that they have the power, and they will work with our educators to make sure that we are getting the right kinds of qualifications. In Grimsby, our biggest employer is our seafood sector, but we have a dearth of qualifications in that sector. That is why it is fantastic that we are developing our apprenticeships provision, which is utterly needed.

However, I want to make sure that we include everybody in our local skills improvement plans. That includes all types of employer—our large employers, our small and medium-sized enterprises, our sole traders—as well as our educators. I was happy to see in the Bill that we have not specified the type of designated employers’ groups that should come together. As other Members have said, we have some weak groups and some strong groups, and we need to make sure that we are able to account for that. I am heartened that the Secretary of State will sign off the LSIPs, because that will make sure that we align them with the skills we need locally and not the skills that suit the providers, which is what has happened for the last few decades.

As a further education ambassador, I am delighted to work with the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and I look forward to seeing the Bill go through the House.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill (Second sitting)

Lia Nici Excerpts

Committee Debates: 2nd Sitting & Committee stage
Tuesday 30th November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Alex Burghart]

On supported internships, I was very interested to hear about what the hon. Gentleman has seen going on in his constituency. I assure him that we are continuing to work to improve supported internships in England, including updating our guidance and, through our contract grant delivery partnerships in this financial year, developing a self-assessment quality framework for providers and helping local authorities to develop local supported employment forums. I respect his desire to see supported internships improve and go further. We share his ambition, but we are not putting every particular intervention that we favour in the Bill, so we will not single that one out for special treatment.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

We already know that these kinds of activities are happening. I declare an interest as the chair of the apprenticeship diversity champions network. Employers are recognising that they need to offer these skills and support already. I am sure that the Minister knows that that is already happening.

[Alex Burghart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The Government are also developing an adjustments passport that aims to smooth the transition into employment and support people changing jobs, including people with special educational needs and disabilities. That goes back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich made. When I was on the Work and Pensions Committee with the great Frank Field, that was exactly the sort of thing that we were calling for. I am very pleased that this Administration have seen it go out.

The 12-month pilots of the adjustments passport that are under way in HE and post-16 provider pilot sites are capturing the in-work support needs of the individual and we hope that they will empower individuals to have confident discussions about adjustments with employers. It goes back to my point about breaking down barriers both for the individual and for the employer. More broadly, the Government’s national disability strategy sets out how we will help disabled people to fulfil their potential through work, to help reduce the disability employment gap further.

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[Lia Nici]

Is not the argument that the Opposition are making that the public and quasi-public sector is not necessarily making it work now? We do need employers. Employers constantly say that they want to take the lead, and that is exactly what the Bill enables.

[Mr Perkins]

As I said previously, we support the principle of local skills improvement plans. Having something that everyone understands is of real value. We are not saying that there should not be any localisation. This is a probing amendment to help us understand. Colleges tend to have a specified area. The Government decided that the local enterprise partnerships would all have their own area. We cannot be, as we used to be in Chesterfield, across two different local enterprise partnerships. We are in one area. The Government have attempted to put firm lines around it, but it has been made slightly more fuzzy.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

Things get a little bit messy. I was nervous when my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington mentioned health trusts, because my own health trust, Tameside and Glossop, crosses the county boundary, although that will be sorted out by the Bill currently going through Parliament. That is the only bit of non-coterminosity I have.

These boundaries matter because if we draw up strategies, plans and proposals, and we want to collaborate with business, education providers, local government and the wider public sector, then we have to have a defined set of boundaries. The closer those boundaries match, the easier it will be to get a strategy in place.

[Lia Nici]

Employers and jobs are not coterminous in a particular area. In southern Humberside and Lincolnshire, we want to ensure that our local skills plans cross those borders, because that is where the jobs are. Coterminosity with local government and quasi-local government does not work, and it will not work for employers. Realistically, it needs to be where the jobs are and where people can travel to.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I know it is probably an unpopular thing to say of her neck of the woods, but I think the hon. Lady has just made the case for Humberside.

[Lia Nici]

Not at all!

[Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill (First sitting)

Lia Nici Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 30th November 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Perkins]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We feel very strongly that we need investment in skills, but we also need a strategic approach that brings in different Government Departments and recognises that skills are the responsibility of not just the Department for Education, but of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury. There has to be recognition that this is about the kind of economy, as well as the kind of skills system, that we are looking to build. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point on the Labour Government’s approach, and the investments they made.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I was a college lecturer in the era that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington mentioned. Curriculum 2000 was an absolute, unmitigated disaster. AVCEs—advanced vocational certificates of education—were withdrawn very quickly. The money that was pumped in was pumped into all the wrong places, and we ended up in a situation where people went to university because there were no proper options for BTECs at level 4 or level 5, or Cambridge technicals or City and Guilds, or anything else. It is not just BTECs but the Pearson monolith we are talking about here.

[Mr Perkins]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I accept that she has a long track record in this sector, and that is an important contribution to this debate. The investment in skills then was on a different level from the investment that has taken place since. I am very happy to spend the entire debate talking about the previous 20 years; it would be interesting but not entirely fruitful. I accept that she feels, as she said on Second Reading, that changes to higher national diplomas were damaging; she was negative about the drive towards university education. Like the Labour Government, I believe that we should recognise that it is a brutal world for those who do not have skill. A drive towards university education should not be at the expense of college education; they should be two hands working closely together.

[Lia Nici]

The reality is that university education is not skills education. That is the problem. We have people doing lots of different types of degrees, and they are leaving, as graduates, with no skills, and are not employable in the majority of places.

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

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

Lia Nici Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd December 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Perkins]

I appreciate your iron grip on the debate, Mr Efford. I will confine my contribution to the amendment, as I was doing before I was so rudely interrupted. There is a link between youth unemployment and apprenticeships, and it is precisely that link that the amendment, which I tabled with my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington, seeks to address. The current funding arrangements are failing small organisations. It is important that the Government acknowledge that and take steps to recognise that problems exist. We are not seeing anything that suggests that they realise that there is a problem with the apprenticeship levy.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not see some irony in his speech? The reason why the Bill introduces LSIPs, and so on, is that we want employers to take control and understand more about apprenticeships, because there are lots of jobs and apprenticeships available, unlike when Labour was last in Government and we had 25% youth unemployment.

[Mr Perkins]

I do not see a lot of irony in my speech, but I saw quite a bit in the hon. Lady’s intervention. The truth is that we have had 11 years of a Government that told us that every single reform that they took was about putting employers in charge, and yet, at the same time, apprenticeships have fallen. I will not repeat the figures.

[Lia Nici]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Perkins]

Let me destroy the intervention that we have just had before I take another. If we accept that there is real value in apprenticeships, surely—given the fall in the number of apprenticeships, and the 11 years of reforms intended to put employers in the driving seat—anyone would think that continuing to do something that keeps failing is the definition of insanity. That is why we have tabled amendments to address that.

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[Lia Nici]

I extend an open welcome to the hon. Gentleman to join a meeting of the apprenticeship diversity champions network, where we have more than 100 employers—more are joining—who are doing fantastic things with apprenticeships. I assure him that he will be able to hear lots of positive stories from them.

[Mr Perkins]

I would be delighted to attend that, and I look forward to receiving the invitation. I have already seen many examples of great apprenticeship programmes. I do not for a second decry those that exist, and I always enjoy seeing employers, in my constituency and elsewhere, who offer good apprenticeship programmes. It is because I recognise their value that I am so angry that apprenticeship starts have fallen from 494,000 in 2016 to 322,000.

One of the things that really concern me about the Government is that they operate by anecdote. They see something great, and it convinces them that everything is all right with the world. Actually, although there are superb apprenticeship programmes around and a lot of employers are committed to them, overall the numbers are going down. The number of them at levels 2 and 3 is going down. The number of small businesses offering apprenticeships is going down. The availability of apprenticeships in crucial sectors such as construction is going down, and so is the availability of people to get on to them, particularly in smaller towns that do not have major employers. That is what we are trying to address with amendment 32.

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

Lia Nici Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd December 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Perkins]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I know from what he said on Second Reading that this is a matter of significant personal interest to him because of his own and his son’s history with BTECs, which he outlined. I am in exactly the same position. My son did a level 2 and a level 3 BTEC, having not done particularly well in GCSEs. He subsequently went on to university, completed his bachelor’s degree and is now in the process of completing his master’s. The BTEC provided a pathway and a bridge from—not to put too strong a point on it—failure in mainstream schooling to academic success. We know that BTECs have a history of turning around the lives of people up and down the country. This needs to be handled extremely carefully before decisions are taken that undermine those qualifications.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman allowing me to intervene. Do he and his colleagues not understand that BTEC is just a brand name of the Pearson group? Those high quality qualifications, those outcomes and those assessment criteria will go into things such as T-levels. They will just have a name change. Importantly, they will be led by employers and they will include essential work placements. We talk to members of the public about BTEC, but the only reason we do so is because BTEC is a brand name that has been out there for a very long time. Vocational and technical education will continue to be important.

[Mr Perkins]

What an interesting intervention. If the hon. Lady is saying that T-levels are simply a rebranding of BTECs—

[Lia Nici]

No, I did not say that.

[Mr Perkins]

I will allow the hon. Lady to clarify, because it is important.

[Lia Nici]

With respect, I did not say that. I said that BTECs are an overarching brand name. We have Cambridge Nationals, City & Guilds and so on, but what is important is the content of those qualifications. I am sure that what is of high quality in BTECs will be included in new qualifications such as T-levels.

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[Mr Perkins]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes an important point.

[Lia Nici]

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene?

[Mr Perkins]

If I may, I will respond to my hon. Friend, who makes an incredibly important point. Even more worrying is the fact that the Government initially went out there and said, “This qualification is broken and we are going to replace it,” but when the sector more generally—86% of respondents to their consultation—said, “This is a huge mistake”, the Government said, “Okay, we will only get rid of some of it, not all of it.” When we ask which bit they will get rid of, they say, “The low-quality bit,” but when we ask which bit that is, they say, “We do not know; we are going to do a review.” That is no way to do policy. It needs to be done the other way around. Identify which of the qualifications are not working, do all the research, find out where people are not getting on to the courses and then start talking about why we are getting rid of the qualifications.

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[Mr Perkins]

That is an important point, and the amendment seeks to push the Government on it. They need to identify what those high-quality qualifications are, and quickly.

This is a point of real importance. The Government have started to undermine BTEC qualifications. It makes me genuinely angry, because people are studying for those qualifications now, and they are being told, “That thing you are doing may be pretty worthless and it might not take you anywhere. We don’t know yet, because we haven’t done the review, but we generally think that BTECs are not that great.” At the same time, employers out there are saying, “Well, I have trusted this qualification over many years and I think it is okay.” The Government are performing a review over three to four years. Students will be going on to the qualifications not knowing whether they will be undermined.

The Government really need to show us the evidence; do the research, if they have not yet done it; and come back with a list of the qualifications and what is going to be taken forward. That is what the amendment is designed to achieve.

[Lia Nici]

On the point about quality and outcomes, we want employers to lead this initiative, along with partners from training and education, because, as the hon. Gentleman has stated in his eloquent and long speeches, we want to ensure that people are trained in skills that are relevant to jobs. We know that we have a huge skills mismatch. We want our employers to be able to lead on that and say, “These are the training areas we want, now and in the future.”

[Mr Perkins]

I do not disagree with that sentiment, but when the vast majority of employers responding to the Government’s consultation say, “Don’t get rid of BTECs”, how does the hon. Lady arrive at the position that we are getting rid of them because that is what employers want? That is not what employers are saying. I agree that we must make sure have qualifications that are relevant, but parroting that does not alter the fact that employers say they support BTECs.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

I support the amendments because, as I alluded to earlier, I feel passionately about the role that BTECs can play. The way in which the Government have handled the whole withdrawal of BTEC qualifications is a lesson in how such things should not happen.

I therefore support including in the Bill that the Secretary of State should appoint, through regulations, a body other than the institute to withdraw the approval of technical education qualifications. It is important that, before moves such as those we have seen on BTECs, we have a proper and thorough assessment of the qualifications, in particular when they are well known and respected by not just the general population, but academia and employers. That is the whole point of BTECs: everyone knows what a BTEC is and people know what the different levels relate to. BTECs are accepted as a standard qualification in academia and in employment.

[Lia Nici]

I am concerned that the Opposition are concentrating on BTECs. BTEC is a brand—it is a commercial brand. In ordinary parlance, we might use it as a throwaway term for level 2 or level 3 qualifications, but I am concerned that the Opposition are supporting one brand when we have a multitude of brands. I wonder whether they have been pushed by the brand owner’s lobbying—why are we talking constantly about BTEC and not about other level 2 and 3 providers as well?

[Andrew Gwynne]

I find that quite offensive—to suggest that Opposition Members have been lobbied by Pearson to support a qualification. It was not always Pearson’s. The hon. Lady talked about a brand, but it was Edexcel before Pearson, and before that it was the Business and Technology Education Council, which is where the term BTEC comes from. The reason that I am standing here to defend BTECs is that I have BTEC levels 3, 4 and 5.

[Lia Nici]

With respect, so do I.

[The Chair]

Order.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am not giving way to the hon. Lady, because I am still answering her. I have BTEC qualifications at levels 3, 4 and 5. I am proud to have gone through the BTEC route, and I want to ensure that the next generation of young people and, indeed, adults have the opportunity to go through the BTEC route, which is well respected and recognised by academia. I think only one university in the whole of the United Kingdom does not accept students with BTEC qualifications. I tell the hon. Lady that any lobbying I have had has come from the local colleges in my constituency, because they are incredibly concerned that withdrawing the qualification completely takes away a route to university for many people.

[Lia Nici]

indicated dissent.

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Lady can shake her head, but I invite her to Ashton Sixth Form College and Stockport College, and she can get into the real world.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that BTEC is not a brand.

[Lia Nici]

It is a brand.

[The Chair]

Order.

[Andrew Gwynne]

From a sedentary position, the hon. Lady says that it is a brand. It is not a brand; it is a qualification. I took BTEC qualifications when they were managed by the Business and Technology Education Council. The gown that I proudly wore at Stockport College’s graduation ceremony in Manchester Cathedral was my BTEC higher national diploma gown—exactly the same gown that BTEC HND graduates wear today, even though it is a Pearson qualification.

[Lia Nici]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Gwynne]

We have heard enough from the hon. Lady. If she has nothing positive to add, I will not give way to her.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I would like to think that the hon. Lady does have something positive to contribute. I say that as an act of decency, really. Like many Members in this room, I am sure, I found inappropriate the accusation that myself and other Opposition Members could have received money for making claims in favour of—[Interruption.] Or that we were being lobbied to speak positively—

[Lia Nici]

On a point of order, Mr Efford. That is not what I said at all. However, there are other level 2 and 3 providers. We constantly hear about BTECs. There are high-quality providers of other qualifications. We want to move towards T-levels. That is what this is all about.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

I agree with my hon. Friend. That is what I said in answer to the hon. Lady when she made the assertion. I will happily give way to her if she will withdraw those remarks.

[Lia Nici]

Thank you very much for allowing me to intervene. I reiterate that Pearson is the owner of the BTEC brand, and because BTEC was being used again and again, I suspected that lots of lobbying was going on. I did not say that any money was changing hands or that anything corrupt was going on. I did not say that.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I will accept the half-hearted withdrawal from the hon. Lady if she says that she now accepts that we have not been lobbied by Pearson in the way that she implied. She makes the very real point that there are other qualifications at this level. I have a City & Guilds qualification and a Royal Society of Arts qualification at those levels. She is absolutely right that other really good qualifications are available to people to study at levels 2 and 3, and beyond. However, the main and most respected set of qualifications at this level is currently BTECs. I get that the Government want to introduce T-levels, and I support the concept of T-levels, but the hon. Lady and other Government Members must understand that there are some young people for whom T-levels will not be suitable but for whom BTECs are. Having the opportunity to study at BTEC level will allow them to progress to higher education or employment. To take those choices away is a retrograde step.

We are not here to debate the rights and wrongs of what the Government want to do. We are here to debate a sensible amendment that would ensure that, if the Government want to change the framework of qualifications in the way that they say in respect of T-levels and BTECs, there is a thorough assessment of the need to do that.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

No, and I said clearly that that is not the intention of Ministers, but it is already happening de facto on the ground. Although colleges do not need to consider whether someone has English or maths qualifications, some are saying that they want people to have them. We have to ensure that that does not happen. At this early stage, the Minister can use his influence to ensure that colleges stick not only to the spirit of what was said on Second Reading but to the letter of what we want, which is no young person missing out on the opportunity to follow the BTEC further education route, as is currently the case.

Lastly, I will talk about depriving people of the right to take two BTECs, AGQs, diplomas or extended diplomas. In the good old days, when someone left school and went to work in what was likely to be their job for the entirety of their working life before they retired, these things did not matter. Today, the workplace and employment market are incredibly fluid. We cannot guarantee a job for life in 2021, and we certainly cannot guarantee that there will be a job for life in a decade’s time, or even two decades’ time. People going through college now cannot be guaranteed that they will remain in one job for the whole of their career. The reality is that they will have lots of jobs. The world of work will change, the challenges for people in the workplace in the future will change, and the way we work will change, so the way we learn about advances in technology and new job opportunities has to change as well. It may well be that somebody is currently employed in an area that will not exist in 10 years’ time. Are we seriously going to deny them an opportunity to reskill in a whole new area of work that is currently unforeseen but might develop? Are we really going to be so rigid as to say that somebody cannot go back to college to do a qualification at the same level as the one they got 20 years ago but is no longer relevant to modern-day work?

I support the Lords amendment. It is absolutely sensible for the future, because we do not know what the future holds. Are we really going to hold back a proportion of the workforce who might have to retrain or start literally from scratch and do another level 3 qualification in a whole different area because the level 3 qualification they did 20 or 30 years ago is no longer relevant to the modern world of work? That is absolutely crazy.

[Lia Nici]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I have been bobbing up and down a lot. I feel that I need to bring a little bit of balance to proceedings. I am concerned that people listening to the debate will be full of fear and dread about what may be happening. My concern is that the mantra has been that BTECs are going, it will be terrible, it will hold everybody back and working-class young and older people will not be able to do anything. That really is not a proper representation of what is happening.

We have had A-levels in our education system for many decades. They are not a brand. They are a qualification. T-levels will mean that vocational qualifications will be better understood. Not only will they be high quality, but they will have been shaped in part by our LSIPs and employers.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

Is it the case, like it is for me, that when my hon. Friend talks to employers in her constituency they often say, “We’ve got the jobs, but haven’t got the skills locally”? The Bill will play a big part in changing that.

[Lia Nici]

My hon. Friend is right. A huge number of jobs are available. What we need to do now, and the Bill will enable us to do it, is pivot on an axis to ensure that employers are fully involved. We have some very good education providers in post-compulsory technical that work with employers, but a lot more work needs doing. When I go to see employers in my constituency, they all say that they have jobs available but cannot get people with the right skills. We have to do something about that, not only for our employers and our economy but for our constituents.

My constituency of Great Grimsby is the most wonderful place to live, but our skill levels are not where they need to be, for people in and out of work. If we are to level up for everybody across the country, particularly in my home town of Great Grimsby, T-levels will be a fantastic way for us to move forward. Apprenticeships are also extremely valuable, as people can earn while they learn. I am extremely concerned that we seemingly have a moral panic to try to get headlines to worry young people. I say to young people, and older people who are looking to train to level 3 qualifications, that it is not the disaster that it is being portrayed as for the sake of headlines.

There is a reason we do not want a long moratorium on such things as BTECs, which the Opposition are mentioning over and over again. I have worked in further education for 22 years. I have taught secondary school students and lectured at higher education level, and I happen to have a diploma at level 3, level 4 and level 5—a higher national diploma—one of which happens to be a BTEC. We want to ensure that education providers know exactly what is happening with a deadline. They are now ready to pivot on that. I have been talking to my biggest provider, Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education, and its experience of T-levels so far is utterly outstanding.

[Tahir Ali]

The hon. Member mentioned jobs in her constituency. I am aware that fishing is a significant sector in Great Grimsby. Will there be a T-level in fishing or swimming?

[Lia Nici]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Great Grimsby has a history of fishing. Actually, it was the Icelandic cod wars and joining the EU that ended our fishing industry. We still have a very important fish processing industry that employs around 5,000 to 6,000 people in the town directly. I am working with the fishmongers’ association, Seafish, and my local colleges and industry to look at new apprenticeships and T-levels, so he is right: I am working on that. It is extremely important, because we have lots of people in our communities who are working at extremely high levels and have no qualifications. We need to consider not only people who are new into the workplace but those who are working and are specialists in their field. I see them every week when I am out and about. They talk passionately and are very knowledgeable—to level 5, 6, 7 and beyond—and they worked their way through. We need to ensure that qualifications can do that as well.

[Andy Carter]

My hon. Friend mentioned the importance of engaging with colleges and employers. Does she agree that it is also critical that we engage with young people and hear their experiences of T-levels? Priestley College in my constituency was one of the first in the UK to undertake T-levels, and one of the best visits I have had in my almost two years of being the Member for Warrington South involved sitting with T-level students and hearing their experiences of going out into the workplace and learning in a very different way from what they expected. We have been able to gather a tremendous amount of insight, and we can build on that. My hon. Friend made the point earlier that Opposition Members’ suggestion that vocational qualifications are moving in a direction that is perhaps not advantageous for young people is simply unfounded.

[Lia Nici]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that extremely important point. I speak to T-level students who are absolutely and utterly convinced that this is the way to go forward. I spoke earlier about my career in education and did a quick tot up of how many young people I have put through diplomas at level 3. I think about 45,000 students have been through my classrooms, studios and workshops, and they now work all over the world in a whole range of different roles within their specialism. It is really important to say that we do not want to put people in an absolute state of panic, because there are really good qualifications and jobs out there.

I will make a couple of points before I finish. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish said that the Conservative party does not like competition, but I think there is a misunderstanding here. T-levels are not a brand; they are qualifications. All those different organisations, such as Cambridge, Pearson and the City and Guilds, will all be able to feed in and offer T-levels.

I want to pick up the point about the Wolf report, which said that BTECs are high quality. The Wolf report came out in 2011, so I would be cautious about looking at something that was published 10 years ago.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I want to quiz her on the assertion that BTECs are a brand. I studied for a BTEC national certificate in business and finance, and I qualified in 1992. Is that a qualification or a brand?

[Lia Nici]

Actually, the hon. Gentleman has a diploma, which happens to be accredited by the examining board of BTEC. That is what I am trying to explain. Although this has been a very interesting debate, I felt that I had to stand up and say something because there was some misrepresentation and some panic being put into this, which I really do not think is a positive thing for young people and their parents and carers, or for more mature students who are looking to do level 3.

[The Chair]

Order. Could we come back to the amendment? We have dealt with whether T-levels and BTECs are brands—we have been around that circuit already. I do not think we need to repeat that part of the debate.

[Lia Nici]

Thank you, Mr Efford. People will still be able to study on day release and part time. I know that everybody is passionate about this issue, but we need to be balanced. We all want our young people and older people to be able to study for qualifications that are high quality and that will help them to go on to further education or to get good-quality jobs, and I believe that the Bill will do that.

[Mr Perkins]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Lady, whose contribution I did not entirely agree with. However, it has been so rare in our debates to have contributions from Conservative Back Benchers, so I do not want to discourage them when they take place.

There are a few things that I want to say. First, the hon. Member for Great Grimsby says that she is interested in providing qualifications that employers will value, but 86% of those who were consulted on the Government’s review agree with the amendment that the Lords put in and disagree with the Government’s intention to take it out. If her purpose is to do what employers want, she should be voting for the Lords amendment rather than against it. She says it was her belief that the BTEC was simply a brand, but it is clearly a qualification. To “other” BTECs as if they are somehow lesser than A-levels and T-levels is a considerable mistake. The amendments are very much undermined.