Education and Skills Reform

Lord Hampton Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Obviously, we are still working on the details of that but no, it does not extend to the growth and skills levy provision for apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds. It will cover the 16 to 19 budget as it applies, for example, to post-16 qualifications, including classroom provision in colleges.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a working teacher and I beg the House to wish me luck in teaching jollof rice to year 8s tomorrow. I broadly welcome this Statement and its ambitions, but I am slightly confused. The Becky Francis review promised us “evolution not revolution”, while the new Secretary of State has said there will be “an education revolution”. Has the curriculum review been superseded and are we evolving or revolting?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I have no doubt that, with the noble Lord’s skills, year 8 will thoroughly enjoy jollof rice and come out of his class with renewed enthusiasm for cooking and, I hope, a whole range of other things.

As I made clear in my first answer, we are building on the successes of the last 30 years in our education system but we are recognising, as Becky Francis did in the Curriculum and Assessment Review, where we have overly narrowed the curriculum. In some cases, we have forced out things that many people would consider to be important skills and opportunities for young people. We will reintroduce those, but we are also determined to do something that many previous Governments have expressed a commitment to, yet none has really delivered so far, including me in my former incarnation: genuinely good, high-quality, high-standard technical and vocational opportunities for young people. That is one of the opportunities that we have through these reforms and it is an important part of the focus of the work that we are doing.