Newcastle Upon Tyne, North Tyneside and Northumberland Combined Authority (Adult Education Functions) Order 2019

Lord Beith Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests as a Newcastle city councillor and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

For an area such as the north-east with high levels of unemployment, enhancing the availability of adult education is an important objective. The more our residents acquire skills and education, the greater will be their confidence and that of employers in the region or contemplating investing in it.

It is a matter of regret that this order is confined to the three North of Tyne authorities, given in particular the proximity of Gateshead and South Tyneside—that is not a choice of government; it is unfortunately a factor in the local government world of the north-east. Ideally, the authority should include the whole north-east region, sharing as it does many of the same needs, not least given the likely impact of Brexit should we be unfortunate enough to suffer the Prime Minister’s resolve to leave without the deal that he purports to be pursuing.

The current adult education budget for the authorities concerned is £22.7 million. Do the Government envisage increasing that budget and, if so, by how much and over what period? How does it compare per capita with other combined authorities or other individual local authorities providing adult education?

The North of Tyne Combined Authority intends to use the opportunity to make its own decisions in targeting resources and providing its residents,

“with the skills, education and confidence to benefit from the opportunities that will follow”.

Drawing on the adult education budget, it aims to drive up educational standards by working with post-16 pupils and skills and training providers, and it sees it contributing to the north-east strategic plan and the local industrial strategy.

The combined authority has developed a strategic skills plan and is engaging with the providers of adult education. It has declared its expectation that providers will develop the curriculum and support they offer and focus on learning progression. The combined authority would like to see the Government go further, with a commitment to devolve other functions, especially an educational achievement challenge for the area, as exemplified in London between and 2003 and 2011. Perhaps the noble Lord will indicate whether that is something he would regard as worth pursuing.

The combined authority also seeks greater flexibility in the local provision of skills for residents and businesses. Will the Minister look sympathetically into these suggestions? Can he confirm that budgets will be maintained or, even better, enhanced, given the needs of the area, and will capital funding be protected or enhanced? Will the apprenticeship levy be reformed with a view to regional oversight of a more flexible skills levy?

Important though the provisions of this order are, we must not forget the enormous pressure our schools are under following years of cuts and the effective displacement of local authorities from the provision of the education service, and the enhanced role for academies, many of which have proved to fail their pupils and the communities they were supposed to serve. This was highlighted for me earlier this year when I approached a school in the ward I represent on the city council about a possible grant from a local charity. Expecting a request for something extra, I was dismayed by a request with which to buy books.

School budgets are under enormous pressure, as are staff members. The ratio of staff to pupil numbers has fallen, the proportion of staff making it to retirement has halved and working hours have lengthened. In Newcastle, in the period 2015 to 2019, 74 schools out of 85 have suffered cuts to per-pupil funding of £24.4 million, or a loss per-pupil average of £259. Unaccountable academies, many of which have failed abysmally, dominate the provision of the service in the area.

Welcome though the provisions of this order are, the Government have failed for nearly a decade to protect a key service—key to the life chances of our children and to the future of our economy and our country. Adult education should not be seen as a means of repairing the failings of an underfunded and overstretched school system. Having said that, I repeat the welcome for this provision, but it has to be seen in the context in which it takes place.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I support this order but, as has been indicated by the speech your Lordships have just heard, it is founded on a far-from-ideal devolution scheme for Northumberland, Newcastle and North Tyneside. It was a scheme with the wrong boundaries, because it excluded Gateshead and South Tyneside. It had the wrong name; it was referred to, not even colloquially but officially, as North of Tyne, when two of the main towns in Northumberland are south of the Tyne—Hexham and Prudhoe. It came with an unwanted elected mayor, which was a price that Cornwall did not have to pay but we did in order to get any devolution at all. But it is what we have, and I hope that the additional control of resources for FE, which this order provides, will be put to good use.

I want to refer to the basic problem for rural and remote areas. Colleges, the main centres, are concentrated in the south-east of the combined authority’s area, in Newcastle, Tyneside and Ashington. There is some FE provision in Berwick, in Hexham and at Kirkley Hall—where my son was an agriculture student. Berwick also has provision in areas, for example, related to the construction industry and in hairdressing, and there are now new initiatives for the performing arts centred on the Maltings theatre in Berwick. But for so many other courses, a 50 or 60-mile journey each way is a severe disadvantage and deterrent to taking part in further education. That is what students in Berwick or Bellingham face to get to Northumberland College or Newcastle College. Northumberland College has now merged with Sunderland College, which, of course, is outside the area—a merger that was pressed upon it by Ofsted in its very critical report.

A few years ago, the Liberal Democrat administration in Northumberland introduced free transport to Newcastle College, which was ended when Labour took over. I am glad to say that it has been reintroduced in a form by the current administration. This has led to a sevenfold increase in travel to further education on public transport. However, it is a scheme with limitations because there is a requirement to go to the nearest college. That does not really make sense if you can go to Newcastle in 45 minutes on the train or, slightly nearer, Ashington in about three hours by a series of buses. I also point out that Northumberland College does not offer A-levels or GCSEs at all, so a student needing A-levels not provided locally in order to get into higher education has to go to a more distant college.

These examples illustrate my concern that the combined authority, with its enhanced control of resources, must put behind it the competition and rivalry between neighbouring authorities and neighbouring colleges and set out to provide boundary-free access to further education, with particular regard to the transport needs of those in rural areas and more distant parts of its area. That should also include cross-border transport to Scottish institutions such as Borders College, which is much nearer to those in the north of Northumberland. There are serious inequalities in access between rural areas and the urban south-east of the area which need to be addressed by the combined authority.

The Explanatory Memorandum points out, at paragraph 14.1, that the authority has to engage in,

“an extensive programme of monitoring and evaluation”,

which has to be agreed with Ministers. Has that programme yet been agreed by the Government, and if it has not, will it soon be agreed, and will it involve the department making sure that rural needs are addressed?

I support the order, but I want to make sure its powers are used to tackle the weaknesses in our present FE provision and in access to it.