Skills: Importance for the UK Economy and Quality of Life

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, as ever, I declare my interest as a state secondary school teacher in Hackney. I join the chorus of thanks to my noble friend Lord Aberdare for this opportunity to debate the issue, and I congratulate him, as ever, on his hard work, his opening speech, and the fact that he has acquired the skill of speaking Welsh, which he kept very quiet. He is an inspiration to us all.

I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Marks of Hale, and Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell, on their excellent maiden speeches. They were able, thought-provoking and delivered with a high level of skill.

I also thank all the organisations that sent me briefings for this debate, and admit that I read none of them. Because I do not think we needed to. Everybody agrees that skills are vital for the success of the UK economy and for the quality of life of individuals.

I am honoured to be among so many people with so much experience, particularly those responsible for the Education for 11-16 Year Olds Committee report. I described in an email how, having read only the first page of the summary, I had punched the air three times. Thinking about it further, the report does not go far enough. Perhaps that is why the Government rejected pretty much all of it.

In our schools, we are confusing knowledge with skill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, pointed out. They are not the same. The knowledge-rich curriculum is teaching students the art of learning large amounts of facts rather than skills. Some are obviously transferable; many are not. We are all aware that students lack the skills for life today. We decry that fact that they lack the basic skills for work or adulthood, yet we persist in doing nothing about it. We consider much of the vital work as extracurricular, or cram it, once a term, into PSHE day.

Our curriculum and methodology have changed very little since Victorian times; filling our heads with facts so that students go off to work in banks or the colonial service, or march unquestioningly across no man’s land. Why do we insist on memorising so much when we have the internet to hand? How many people can truthfully say that they do long multiplication these days? They have a calculator on their phone. Genuinely, who sits down in a sports hall and writes by hand for three hours?

I am fully aware that many noble Lords will be forming the words “hippy-dippy” in their minds, and deciding, “We tried that in the 70s and look what happened”. No, we did not.

We need to concentrate on what matters. Mental arithmetic needs to be hammered in, and grammar, punctuation, and good oracy skills, need to be the bedrock of any education. But rather than long division—which you can do on your phone—would it not be better to have an intuitive knowledge of how to design, populate and interpret a spreadsheet? Would it not be better to teach students about their bodies, so that they can look after themselves and save the NHS billions? Rather than study the plays of Shakespeare, would it not be better to write, produce, act in and record a film? I have said in this place before that I believe that every student should leave school having started at least one business. Dare I say that this might be fun to learn, and fun to teach.

These things would give students real-world skills that can be honed in tertiary education, or used instantly in the workplace. Add touch-typing and a high level of Microsoft Office skills and you now have a cohort who can hit the ground running when they leave education. The joyous thing is that this would actually save the nation money in filling the skills gap and helping with student attendance, teacher retention and student attainment.

To quote from one of my favourite films, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, on the subject of university,

“I didn’t go myself. I couldn’t see the point. You see, when you work in the money markets, what use are the novels of Wordsworth gonna be, eh?”


I have not even started on my own subject, design technology, which the noble Lord, Lord Baker, very kindly talked about, or craft skills. As far as I know, AI has not learned to change the fuse in a plug yet or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, repaired something. It cannot do sports, or loads of the other skills we need. The winds of change are coming. We have a once in a lifetime chance to start a revolution. Will the Minister join me in storming the barricades?