Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox of Soho, is appearing remotely. We can see her but we cannot hear her.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, is sorting her out.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)]

We will go to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes.

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[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to take part in this debate. I begin, as many others have, by paying a tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Black of Strome, who made a fascinating and somewhat gruesome maiden speech. I look forward to hearing her again on those subjects and in more detail. I long for the day when this Chamber is full again, when we can have a proper debate, without too many colleagues Zooming in.

I will concentrate on one issue in particular, which is an aspect of the construction industry, about which the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, spoke with some passion and deep knowledge. I declare my interest as the founder and chairman of the William Morris Craft Fellowship programme and the first vice-president of the Heritage Crafts Association.

As many of your Lordships know, I am passionate about restoring buildings, particularly this one and Lincoln Cathedral, which I look at from my home every time I am back on the weekends or in recess. I am acutely conscious that great buildings, such as this one, Lincoln Cathedral and churches around the country—often focal points of their local communities—are in greater danger than they have been for many a long year. It is partly a consequence of the pandemic: many churches have been shut for months and have deteriorated. Many are bat-infested, which is a real problem that I have talked about in your Lordships’ House before. We owe these buildings to craftsmen and, more recently to crafts men and women, through the ages. One evening every month in Lincoln Cathedral, when we generally pray for those who have been benefactors or achieved great things, we pray for the unknown by name who created that great building. It is the same here and in every parish church in the country.

We founded the William Morris Craft Fellowship, named after that great pioneer—also a great socialist, but I will not talk about that—in the 19th century because of his dedication to the arts and proper restoration. We sought to find mainly young crafts men and women around the country who showed enormous potential but who had all been through a long apprenticeship. I say in parenthesis that one of the things that disturbs me about the Bill is that it does not confront “apprenticeship” properly. The word has been too loosely used in recent years, even attached to flower-arranging courses that last nine months—although I say nothing against flower arranging.

To master a craft is a long, arduous and challenging business. We were looking for those who had done so, who had shown great interest in kindred crafts—because you cannot be master of your own unless you understand others—and who showed the potential to be able to take charge of important sites. Over the last 35 years since we founded this fellowship, we have chosen well over 100 mainly young men and women who have gone on to do all manner of things, including writing notable books about the subject.

That is why I am so much in sympathy with my noble friend Lord Willetts when he talked about not having an artificial distinction between the academic and the vocational. I am a great believer in vocation. I consider that those of us in this place, and in the other place where I had the honour to serve for 40 years, are following a vocation to public service. It is desperately important that we encourage more and more young people to realise that by working with their hands they are also using their brains and helping to create or preserve things of great beauty.

I mentioned the other day, when we were we were talking about the Environment Bill, the importance of constructing buildings of quality today—I cited the Prince of Wales on Poundbury—but the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, was right: there are not enough who have mastered their crafts. I share the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, about the delay in the implementation of aspects of the Bill, but I hope there will be a real emphasis on encouraging young people to embrace real crafts and to help to create or preserve those buildings of beauty in which the history of our country is embodied and will continue to be built.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Report stage
Thursday 21st October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I have not participated in any of the proceedings on this Bill, partly because I chair the Economic Affairs Committee and we are looking at central bank digital currencies at the moment. But I bumped into the noble Lord, Lord Layard, who pointed out to me that this amendment is entirely in line with the recommendations made by the committee in its report, Treating Students Fairly, which was published in June three years ago. I shall not repeat the arguments so eloquently put by my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke of Nottingham, with every word of which I agree, but it was set out clearly in that report, more than three years ago, that the apprenticeship levy was not working. Indeed, we found that larger employers who were running very effective apprenticeship schemes had simply abandoned it, treating the levy as a tax, and done their own thing.

My noble and learned friend spoke about the way in which all the financial incentives are to keep people in schools and send them on to universities, where they do courses which do not enable many of them to use the skills and achieve the kind of living standards which they aspire to. In short, we probably need more plumbers, electricians, specialists and engineers than we do people who are experts in media studies. I am not saying that media studies is not a serious subject—well, actually, I do think that it is not a serious subject, but that is probably going to get me a lot of abusive emails. I am disappointed that, as this matter was discussed in Committee and as there has been so much about it in the all-party unanimous report, the Government are still dragging their feet on the matter.

When we discuss future topics in our committee, one thing that is regularly suggested is that we look at productivity. We always reject it, on the grounds that it is such a broad subject and so difficult, but this matter is absolutely central to productivity and, even more importantly, offers a future to so many of our young people. So I hope that my noble friend will consider this amendment. I take the point about providing flexibility.

One thing that struck me—and I know that the Government have taken some action on this—was that one of the officials who gave evidence to us proudly announced that the apprenticeship scheme had been used to send her to business school. Of course, that is the antithesis of what the scheme should be. I am not up to date on what has happened since, but there were some 400 different types of rules for different organisations, and the whole thing had become utterly bureaucratic.

The noble Lord, Lord Layard, referred to the Robbins committee. Those of your Lordships who have not read the report should just read the introduction; it is written in the most beautiful prose. It sets out the objectives, from all those years ago, and this amendment is central to achieving them.

When we were looking at treating students fairly, one thing we got in evidence was a diagram showing all the initiatives that had been taken by various Governments for training, and all the changes in names and so on. It is an unbelievably complicated process—not just YTS; there are literally tens and tens of different initiatives. What we need, in the words of Her Majesty the Queen, is perhaps less talk and more doing in this area. This amendment is a very important step forward if the Government decide to accept it.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I had not come to speak in this debate but to listen. However, some things said by my noble friend Lord Forsyth provoke me to make a short intervention. I do so because I am the chairman—I was the founder—of the William Morris Craft Fellowship. Every year, we award craft fellowships to craftsmen working, for the most part, on historic buildings, including stonemasons, plumbers and bricklayers; people who have gone through a proper apprenticeship in the past and who we select because we think they have the potential to oversee a great project. Your Lordships all know the sort of thing to which I refer: a great parish church or cathedral, or a country house in the possession of the National Trust or privately owned. These places are at risk because of the very few people who are coming forward and getting a proper apprenticeship in this modern age.

My noble friend referred to the young woman and the business qualification that she claimed to be an apprenticeship. I have met people who have claimed to have apprenticeships in flower arranging. But I am talking about young men and women—and there is an increasing, though not overall great, number of women— who have spent four, five, six and sometimes seven years learning and mastering a craft. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on the Front Bench opposite, is a great devotee of Durham Cathedral, as I am of Lincoln and indeed all our great cathedrals. Their survival depends upon having men and women who are accomplished and able enough to master these crafts, which go back centuries. And they are in danger.

I am also a vice-president of the Heritage Crafts Association, which represents crafts men and women who very often work individually, at home, producing something, in the William Morris idiom, that is both useful and beautiful. We have produced only recently a red list of endangered crafts. I give you but one example: we are down to the last sporran maker. It might sound slightly amusing, but—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

It is very serious.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

It is serious, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth knows better than most. Not only is it serious but it is outrageous that, to provide sporrans for a Scottish regiment, the Ministry of Defence has recently gone to Pakistan, whereas in Scotland they can still be made.

I will not go on; I hope I have made my point. Apprenticeships are desperately important, and they are not second best. A young man or woman cannot work with his or her hands unless they have a brain that functions—although, rather interestingly, many people with dyslexia are particularly good crafts men and women. We need them, and we must have proper apprenticeships that enable them to become accomplished.

I am very taken by the amendment moved by my old noble and learned friend Lord Clarke. We began in politics together, way back in 1964, fighting in adjacent constituencies. I think he has performed a service to the House by moving his amendment, so ably seconded by the noble Lord, Lord Layard. I very much hope that my noble friend who winds up will accept the thrust and logic of what has been said and give us a comforting reply.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to agree with almost everything that has been said about the importance of apprenticeships. This is the right moment to be pressing for reform, as both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are emphasising the importance of skills in the post-Brexit economy and in levelling up, as the noble Lord, Lord Layard, indicated. However, there are some problems with this amendment as it stands—notably, the lack of clarity as to what it would cost, and exactly where the funding would be found for proposed new subsection (1).

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[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think that the Government’s priority is to see this measure working in practice. Many of your Lordships have far greater experience than I do of how attempts have been made to reform this area, including through legislation, which have not delivered the outcomes that noble Lords across the House violently agree we want to see. So, our focus—

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

I apologise. We are all on the same side here. I understand my noble friend’s powers personally and understand that she has a big document with “resist” written on it, but why can she not talk to her ministerial colleagues and say, “We’ll seek to come forward at Third Reading with something that reflects the concerns expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Clarke, my noble friend Lord Forsyth and others”?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I can assure my noble friend absolutely that I am in regular and detailed dialogue with my ministerial colleagues. I will certainly share your Lordships’ concerns with them but, if I may, I would like to progress in responding to these amendments.

Turning to the other aspects of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, I agree that the list of qualifications in the free courses for jobs offer should be updated regularly and reflect labour market need. That is why we keep the list under review and accept suggestions for additional qualifications twice a year from mayoral combined authorities, the Greater London Authority and qualification-awarding organisations. For example, we added hospitality qualifications to the offer in July to ensure that it meets key needs in that sector.