Part-time and Continuing Education and the Open University

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I declare my interests as set out in the register. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, on securing this debate and on the way in which she introduced it. I, too, was lucky enough to serve alongside her on the Artificial Intelligence Select Committee, and what we all saw from the noble Baroness there was that it will be a long time before artificial intelligence gets close to the brain power stored in her skull. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Bryan, and her excellent maiden speech.

In the time that I have, I will focus on two areas: the fourth industrial revolution and unpaid internships. It seems clear that we are in a time of tumultuous change, where everything is changing: the tools we use, how we work, where we work and when we work. If this is indeed the case, it seems clear that education—higher, further, primary, secondary—needs also to change, not just to be relevant but to address the ongoing needs of individuals. Everything that education should have been, it now absolutely needs to be. It seems that flexibility needs to be at the core of that.

I take every opportunity to crowbar unpaid internships into every debate, and I got my Private Member’s Bill through your Lordships’ House. How can someone, if they are forced to do an unpaid internship, hope to undertake part-time or further education? It is most likely that the people who most want to secure internships and part-time and continuing education—if we believe in social mobility, which I do and which the Government and Prime Minister have stated a commitment to—will not be undertaking unpaid internships or part-time, continuing education. They will be locked out of both routes to social mobility, locked out of both routes to being able to play their full part in our society, and we will not be able to address all the social, cultural and spiritual issues, and address the productivity crisis, that we have.

On those people whom the figures show are not able to continue part-time education and have dropped out, I ask the Minister what research the Government have done on who is in those groups. What are they now doing, and what is the Government’s view of that situation? Does the Minister agree that it is all about flexibility? Without that flexibility matched with relevant resource, people will continue to be unable to participate.

Do the Minister and the Government believe that the current student finance system is fit for purpose? Is the 6% rate in any sense realistic, satisfactory or designed to achieve the policy objectives and educational outcomes that we all want?

Ultimately, it seems pretty straightforward. We either have part-time education, continuing education, higher education and further education founded on flexibility, or we fail.