Skills: Importance for the UK Economy and Quality of Life

Lord Lingfield Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lingfield (Con)]

My Lords, while also thanking the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, I remind your Lordships of my registered interest as chairman of the Chartered Institution for Further Education. The institution, the only royal chartered body exclusively for further education, was founded in 2015. Its chief aim is to improve skills education in the UK by creating what could be called, in shorthand form, a Russell Group of further education colleges and providers—the best that we have in the country. It has certainly succeeded in doing so. Aspiring members have to satisfy a council of their peers of the high quality of their governance, leadership and management, teaching and learning, and their financial strengths, including reserves, as well as student satisfaction and, above all, the employment destinations of their students. Typical of our members is Burton and South Derbyshire College, which was very recently adjudged “outstanding” by Ofsted in all areas. I pay tribute to its principal, Mrs Dawn Ward, for her wholly distinguished leadership.

The chartered institution has developed a number of projects aimed at spreading good practice in the vocational sector: for instance, its skills update licentiate programme requires participating college lecturers, such as in automobile engineering, to revisit their industries regularly over a full year to gain the most contemporary know-how that, for instance, Mercedes, Toyota or Jaguar have available, which then may be passed on to students so that their skills are wholly up to date. This year, we also launched an initiative with the Association of Apprentices to enable those successfully completing to be recognised with a post-nominal designation.

I want to touch on T-levels for a minute or two. These present a prime opportunity to elevate professional and technical education, but there are some real concerns that need addressing. T-levels have rightly been mapped against technical jobs that are in high demand; they require a common vocational core in the first year and then an occupational specialism in the second. For instance, engineering T-level has three routes: design and development for engineering, which has four specialist pathways in the second year; maintenance, installation and repair for engineering, which leads to five; and engineering, manufacturing and processing, which has four. Adding them up, there are 13 highly specialised engineering career pathways among which a school leaver, in principle, may choose. In fact, even assuming that the student has the knowledge at 16 with which to make that choice, the chances of finding, even among the best colleges, one that can provide more than a couple out of the 13 is very remote. It is clear that the provision is far too complicated and ought to be rationalised.

In spite of this Government’s impressive record on improving numeracy and literacy teaching, far too many young people in school are still unable to achieve adequate GCSE results in English and maths. To progress to T-levels, they have to retake them at FE colleges, which distort the main vocational mission of those colleges. Alas, even with significant support, resitting learners do very badly; only 14% pass in maths and 22% in English, so T-levels will be wholly unavailable to them. Also unavailable to them next year, when funding ceases for level 3 vocational trade programmes, will be any kind of advanced qualification in, say, carpentry, joinery or bricklaying. These young people will be marginalised, and their chances of employment much diminished. As the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, said, we need to revisit the decision to end funding for vocational level 3 programmes, while T-levels are being developed and their glitches removed.

All T-level students are required to spend 45 days of their courses at industry placements. There is evidence from colleges that employers are suffering from fatigue with T-level work experience—as well as with apprenticeships, as the noble Lord, Lord Harrington, told us. Placements are becoming very difficult to find, particularly in rural and deprived areas. We badly need to look again at funding schemes to support and incentivise employers to engage in placements, especially in SMEs.

Finally, I remind your Lordships that March’s joint report on restoration and renewal says that

“businesses in all four nations of the UK will also benefit from the work … that restoring the Palace will generate. Jobs and opportunities will be created”,

while skills and trades will be revitalised. Many of these will be heritage crafts, of course. I am delighted that representatives of the programme board have approved in principle a Palace of Westminster apprenticeship scheme that I have been proposing since restoration and renewal was first debated in this House. It will, of course, be a huge opportunity to showcase apprenticeships and to emphasise the importance of skills for the UK’s economy. We must take advantage of it.