Qualifications Reform Review

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement, which, she will be aware, has been broadly welcomed by the sector. There has been considerable uncertainty while the Government put the previous Government’s decisions on hold, particularly as the terms of reference of the review have not been published. The decisions bring some short-term certainty to the sector, but they raise longer-term questions.

A significant number of qualifications have been extended to 2027, so before very long there will be more hesitancy among providers about what happens beyond that. The Minister understands far better than I how much the sector needs certainty. I would be grateful if she could set out the Government’s vision for the technical education landscape. If she is not able to do that today, perhaps she can give a sense of when the Government will be ready to do that.

The Statement talks about keeping a mix of T-levels and other qualifications, but it is not clear—if I have missed something, maybe the Minister can clarify for the benefit of the House—what the Government see as the end point in their aspirations. It would be really helpful to have a sense of that. The Minister is acutely aware of the concerns across the House regarding the IfATE Bill and the risk that momentum is lost on delivering the skills strategy, which the Government rightly talks about as a key priority. I hope very much that, in considering this issue, she will take seriously the concerns raised all around the House, including on her own Benches.

In the Statement, the Secretary of State talks about keeping funding for engineering and manufacturing qualifications that had previously been identified for defunding, and keeping those qualifications until 2027. Can the Minister add anything more about the Government’s plans for new qualifications in these areas, which are obviously critical for our economic growth?

Finally, there are real concerns among providers about the recent increase in employers’ national insurance and the negative impact that that may have on colleges, which risks negating the very welcome £300 million uplift in funding which the Government announced. Can the Minister give the House an estimate of the impact of those changes?

[Lord Storey (LD)]

On these Benches, we very much welcome this Statement. We got a flavour of what was to come when the Minister, in a recent opinion piece in Further Education Week, struck a more conciliatory tone and indicated that the Labour Government now see a bigger role for applied general and other qualifications, alongside A-levels and T-levels.

We on these Benches have consistently opposed the scrapping of BTECs. While there is always some value in rationalising qualifications from time to time, forcing students into a choice between A-levels and T-levels will narrow the choices of the students at a time when we need a range of ways for them to gain the transferable skills needed in future careers. BTECs are popular with students, respected by employers and provide a well-established route to higher education or employment, so it is hard to understand why the Government wanted to scrap most of them and force young people to choose between studying A-levels or T-levels from the age of 16. We are concerned that removing the option of BTEC qualifications will adversely affect poorer students in particular.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, a particular difficulty for schools and colleges has been uncertainty. It is impossible to plan for a course, have the right staff on hand and have timetables planned if you are unsure whether a course will actually run. For many students, this is very unsettling. Will the Government undertake to provide certainty for colleges, schools and pupils? Secondly, we can all recognise the teething problems that T-levels have had, with low student satisfaction, complex assessments and major work experience requirements. What will the Government be doing to tackle these issues moving forward?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their response to the Statement. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, says, we have been clear, in making this Statement, that we are providing certainty for colleges and sixth forms up to 2027, which was certainly one of the sector’s requests.

The noble Baroness asked about the future vision for technical education and the skills system, which I have been able to expound at some length in the consideration of the IfATE Bill. Fundamentally, our view is that skills are essential to this Government, particularly given their mission-led approach. The skills system has a crucial role to play in training the workforce needed to deliver our missions of greening the energy system, rebuilding the health service and delivering safer streets, and is a core component of growing the economy and ensuring that everybody has opportunities to succeed throughout their lives.

We are in the process of developing a comprehensive strategy for post-16 education and skills, to break down barriers to opportunities, support the development of a skilled workforce and drive economic growth through our industrial strategy. At the Association of Colleges conference at the beginning of November, I was able to outline some of the key principles that will apply to that strategy. I hope that we will be in a position to publish more information about the principles and vision of the strategy soon, and then work collaboratively with noble Lords, and, importantly, the sector, to bring forward the details of that.

One of the reasons for providing certainty on qualifications to 2027 is to enable the Government’s curriculum and assessment review to carry out its work, and to do so in a way that will inform further consideration of ensuring that the qualification options for level 3 students—those between 16 and 19—deliver on the fundamental need for appropriate choice and high-quality qualifications, with support from employers and others to ensure that the qualifications, particularly in the technical and vocational area, deliver the skills needed to grow the economy.

I am looking forward to Report stage of the IfATE Bill after our Christmas break, when we will all come back refreshed and ready to re-engage in this important legislation. I have been reflecting hard on the points made by noble Lords in Committee about clarity on the role of Skills England, and the ability for noble Lords to see more clearly how the functions transferred to the Secretary of State to be invested in Skills England will be implemented. I look forward to sharing those views and bringing forward what I hope will be helpful changes to provide assurance to noble Lords when that Bill comes back.

The noble Baroness asked in particular about engineering and manufacturing. It is probably worth while saying that one of the new ways that we have approached the qualifications review is to take a route-by-route look at the options available to students. The reason for the decision to keep the applied qualifications in engineering and manufacturing is precisely that the occupational standards in this area—where employers play a crucial role in identifying what those are—are in the process of being updated. We want to make further decisions and invite reform to qualifications in the light of those improved and updated occupational standards when they emerge.

On national insurance contributions, the Chancellor announced at the Budget that public bodies will receive support to help with the costs of the employer national insurance contribution increase, and we will set out in due course what support will be available to colleges.

In addition to asking about certainty, the noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about T-levels. As we made clear in the Statement, T-levels are high-quality qualifications, and we want to extend the opportunity they provide to as many young people as possible. We acknowledge that T-levels are large programmes of study and cannot always meet the needs of all learners who want to study in the occupations that they cover, which is the argument for leaving alternatives. However, where a student wants to study a large qualification equivalent to three A-levels’ worth of study in the routes that T-levels cover, T-levels should be the qualification that is offered to them.

We have already taken specific action on one key issue with respect to T-levels, the industrial placements, which are enormously popular with students. When I talk to T-level students, I find that they are enormously enthusiastic about the opportunity to carry out a 45-day placement, but to grow T-levels, we need to ensure that those placements are in place. That is why we have introduced flexibilities around the way in which the placements can be offered, to enable the continued growth of T-levels.

In certain T-levels, of which digital is a good example, the awarding bodies are now looking at the assessment within the T-level to ensure that, while it remains the rigorous qualification that it should be, it is more manageable for those providing it and for students, while enabling students to demonstrate what they have learnt.

I thank noble Lords opposite for their questions. I hope that we now have a period of certainty where students will be able to benefit from the choice of a range of qualifications, with an assurance that this Government will continue to ensure that they will be as high-quality as possible in order to support students’ opportunities throughout life and to meet the need for skills to help us grow the economy.

Maintained Schools: Term Dates

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Under regulations, schools are expected to be open for 190 days, or 380 sessions, each year. As I suggested in my initial Answer, it is also important that there is local co-ordination around holiday dates in order to support parents and to ensure consistency, in the way the noble Lord described.

I think the noble Lord started by saying that this makes it more difficult to recruit teachers. Of course, while it is important that children have a fixed week and a specified number of days, it is of course possible, as has been the case, to develop more flexible ways in which teachers can work. The department is keen to promote that by, for example, funding a programme focused on embedding flexible working in schools. I hope that will be one of the things that will enable us to improve teacher recruitment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thoroughly agree with everything the Minister has said. She is right that schools must be open for 190 days—195 days for teachers, so they can do the five days of in-service training. There has to be flexibility for such things as religious holidays in faith schools and wake walks in Lancashire; you have to be able to deal with those changes. The real problem occurs when academies with headquarters in, say, the London area but schools in the north-west try to standardise the holidays and do not take those regional variations into account. Of course, travel companies shoot up the prices during the main school holidays, and it becomes very difficult for families to afford those prices.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I simply reiterate what I said: it is important that there is co-operation at a local level to cover the types of schools where parents might have a child in each, to ensure consistency in school holidays. But I take the noble Lord’s point about that possibly differing from place to place. In the end, we need to focus on what is the best arrangement and the appropriate amount of time for children to be in school, so that they can get the best possible opportunity to learn.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Lord Storey Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Storey]

18: After Clause 8, insert the following new Clause—
“Report: functions transferred to the Secretary of StateWithin six months of the day on which this Act is passed and annually thereafter, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report, explaining how they have discharged the functions transferred to them by virtue of this Act.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament at regular intervals detailing how they have used powers transferred to them by virtue of the Act.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I offer my apologies for not being able to be present at the first day in Committee, but I have read the Hansard of that day.

My amendment is very similar to lots of others in the various groups, and I think they all point to the same thing, really. The Minister talked about the “narrow IfATE model”. I would have thought an executive agency within her department is a very tight model, and I can perhaps see why from her point of view, whereas on these Benches we would prefer a wider, more inclusive model. Having said that, I understand and can see the driving force behind what the Minister wants to achieve from the comments she has made. She said that the Government want

“to move away from the current, narrow IfATE model. Creating any further requirement for parliamentary approval before Skills England operates fully would frustrate the intentions of the Bill to enable a smooth transfer and the delegation of functions to Skills England”.—[Official Report, 21/11/24; col. GC 96.]

I suppose we are all anxious for progress in this area. The skills shortages are frightening. You have only to look at any particular industry. I have spoken to the construction industry, and the number of job vacancies and areas where it just cannot get skilled labour are holding back not just that industry but the country.

Given that we are where we are, and that I, no doubt like my colleagues, trotted along to the Bill office and said, “I’d like to put an amendment down on this”, to be told, “Oh no, it’s not in the scope of the Bill”—the Bill is very tightly written, so we are frustrated in that we cannot talk about or suggest for improvement some of the things in the area of skills that we wanted to—mine is a simple amendment. It simply says that the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament at regular intervals how they have used the powers transferred to them. It is a supportive and helpful amendment because you do not want, in 12 months’ or two years’ time, to say, “Do you know what? I’ve been let down by my executive agency. It has not delivered”. But if you are able to report to Parliament on a regular basis—it does not specify a time—then we can share those successes and concerns and maybe, from time to time, we can make some helpful suggestions.

I should add that I added my name to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Knight, which I also support. I beg to move.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, this is part of a range of amendments all essentially about reporting and, as he accurately described, any number of us were wrestling with how to get something that looks like Skills England into the Bill. A way involved a reporting requirement— I was not allowed to mention Skills England in my amendment—in which I lifted some of the detail in paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d) from statements that the Government have made about Skills England and what they want it to be able to focus on and achieve. Hence the amendment lists:

“identification of skills gaps … the provision and funding of training to meet the skills needs of employers; … the development of occupational standards; …work with regional and local bodies to improve the skills of the workforce in England”.

I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for managing to get in something around the green skills agenda, which I tried to get in in my amendment but failed to draft it as skilfully as he clearly was able to do in order to get that in. I also support having a specific mention of the responsibilities in climate legislation and its relationship to green skills.

As I understand it, IfATE has a requirement to report to Parliament annually. It does so well and has shown its success, so the capacity is there, assuming that IfATE’s capacity will successfully transfer into the executive agency. So I do not see this as onerous, and it is important that we as Parliament should receive a report on the additional things that IfATE does not currently cover that would be covered by Skills England.

It is, incidentally, important for Parliament to have an opportunity to scrutinise the really important work that Skills England will be able to do. The annual report is a common mechanism that we all use when we are trying to get a little more traction for Parliament, but I think it is merited in this case. I hope that, reflecting on this group and the next, which is also about reporting in slightly different ways, the Minister will be able to give some consideration as to whether this is a relatively straightforward crumb of comfort to give some of us who have been slightly anxious about the absence of Skills England in the legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope I have provided sufficient reassurances of the ways in which the Government will ensure, through either Skills England or the Department for Education’s usual business, that information on skills gaps and the steps taken to address them will be made available. I hope I have provided some reassurance to noble Lords about the seriousness with which this Government take the parliamentary and public accountability of Skills England and the measures we will put in place to ensure that this is available to all and accessible for noble Lords rightly to hold Skills England and the Government to account for the delivery that we have set out. I therefore kindly ask the noble Lord, Lord Storey, to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I listened with great interest to what the Minister said and will read Hansard carefully—particularly her comments about accountability and accessibility to all. But, at this stage, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 18 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 30 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, partly because—I remind the Committee of this—I worked for City & Guilds for 20 years. I was working for it when national vocational qualifications were introduced—1990, I think—precisely to reduce the complexity in the qualification system. There are times when one feels that one has been around too long, but that was exactly it.

Those qualifications came in with levels 1 to 5 in order to be a simple way in which people could understand practical qualification levels. Levels 6 and 7, covering managerial and degree-level subjects, were then introduced as well. The qualifications were called “vocational” because we always wanted to include craft qualifications as well as technical ones. I worry now about what is happening to the encouragement of craft qualifications, which are vital to the economy of the country. I am not suggesting that we go back to NVQs again—they had their day and they went—but it worries me that memories are so short on this. It is a complex system because anything as complex as the myriad variations of employment inevitably will be so, but having a simple way in which one can measure levels of expertise seems to have some advantage to it.

This made me wonder how much discussion there has been with the awarding bodies. City & Guilds has been around for well over 100 years, as I say. Obviously, apprenticeships have been around since the Middle Ages, but I am not suggesting that we go back to then to find out what they did with them. The BTEC has been around for at least 50 or 60 years, I think. There is a mass of expertise there, yet they do not seem to be referenced or involved; I wonder why this is because they have some very useful skills to offer to this Bill.

I just felt that I needed to go down memory lane when I saw that the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, had referred in his amendment to reducing

“the complexity of the qualifications system”.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I added my name to the important amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. I was fascinated to hear that he actually read the Labour manifesto; that is very impressive. I also support my noble friend Lord Addington’s amendment.

It is quite important that the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, mentioned mayoral combined authorities—the noble Lord called them pan-regional partnerships, which I had not heard before—and local skills improvement partnerships. Can the Minister tell us how those will feed into the department or how she will consult them?

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, my amendment follows on nicely from what the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, said earlier. He put it very well: devolution is really good and something that we can all support, but it creates joins that we then have to knit back together. We have to consider carefully how we do that knitting together, which is what my Amendment 36B is aimed at.

I shamelessly copied Amendment 27 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which I support, in order to do this. However, I made one slight tweak to include the regional perspective, which I mentioned in our debate on the previous group, so that pan-regional partnerships are consulted; that refers to partnerships such as the Midlands engine and the northern powerhouse.

At Second Reading, I set out my concern that local areas that are not part of a combined authority or have other devolution deals could lose out under the proposals that the Government are putting forward. I listened carefully to the Minister’s response at Second Reading, which allayed some of my concerns, but I would like to test this issue in some additional detail.

Taking the Midlands, where I live—I live in Derby—as an example, following welcome devolution in recent years, we are now blessed with two really good combined authorities. We have the West Midlands Combined Authority and, as of recently, the East Midlands Combined County Authority. Although these combined authorities cover areas of the west and east Midlands, they account for less than half the population in the Midlands region, which is around 11 million people.

As I said at the start, this highlights something of a problem with the devolution agenda. The combined authorities have been successful at working with governments to unlock additional funding for their areas, but this has meant that those living outside combined authorities have sometimes been left behind. As an example, for many years, the East Midlands has lagged behind the West Midlands on many indicators, for example when we look at transport spend per head or public investment per head of population. This will be partly remedied by the new East Midlands Combined County Authority, but many areas of the Midlands are not covered. I am concerned that the same pattern will follow with skills, so the question is: how will Skills England ensure that the approximately 6 million people in the Midlands who do not live in a combined authority area are considered?

The Minister has stated that Skills England will consult regional bodies but it would be helpful for her to clarify how that governance structure will operate; that is the subject of my amendment. Pan-regional partnerships such as the Midlands engine are set up to consider these regional issues. They would be well placed to pull together those plans and to co-ordinate combined authorities and other areas of local government in order to ensure that regional skills needs are met; they could also act as a focal point for regional skills needs in working with Skills England.

In this way, the Government can unlock the benefits of an integrated regional skills approach, flowing up from local areas to the regions and to the national view that Skills England will have, and ensure that no areas of the regions are left behind or inadequately represented. The Government could also benefit from the powerful data capabilities of pan-regional partnerships such as the Midlands Engine Observatory. This would align with the approach I set out in the previous group on regional skills hubs and the work already ongoing there. The pan-regional partnerships are helping to facilitate those regional skills efforts. It would also be a means of achieving the join-up of local skills improvement plans that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, referred to on the previous group.

Home School Education Registration and Support Bill [HL]

Lord Storey Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 15th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Storey]

That the Bill be now read a second time.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank noble Lords for taking part in the Second Reading of the Home School Education Registration and Support Bill. There have, to my knowledge, been two previous Private Members’ Bills on home education —one Labour and one Conservative. Both, sadly, ran out of parliamentary time. During and since Covid, the number of home-educated pupils has increased considerably.

I thank the numerous people who have emailed or written to me on this subject, some expressing their concerns about the Bill and some supporting it. I am particularly grateful to the LGA for its extensive briefing and, of course, to our own Library. I have had a regular email correspondence with Rabbi Gratt, who has told me in no uncertain terms that the Bill will have serious effects on religious freedoms and teachings. I have assured him that this is completely unfounded and that the Bill will do no such thing.

We believe that parents and children must have an ironclad right to choose home education when they feel that this is the right decision, whether that is because the school system has failed them or simply because they are dissatisfied with formal education. This might be because of special educational needs or for religious reasons. That should be their right, but with rights come responsibilities. We have grave concerns that thousands of children’s whereabouts are simply unknown because they have never attended school, or because parents said they were going to be home-educated and then simply withdrew them from school. By ensuring that local authorities must keep a register of home-educated children and that parents and guardians register for home education, we would know which children are home-educated and where they are, and safeguarding would be assured.

We estimate—and that is the crucial word—that between 125,000 and 180,000 children are being home-educated, but we do not know the exact figure and, in many cases, we do not know where those children are. It must surely be a concern that any parent can simply say that they are teaching their children at home and that is an end to the matter. We have no knowledge of whether education is taking place or whether the children are safeguarded.

Of course, thousands of children are home-educated by their parents very successfully, and those children thrive and develop. The Children’s Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, only in the last few days has expressed concern over the rise in the number of families educating their children at home, citing unmet needs in schools, particularly among children with special educational needs.

I emphasise again that this Bill is in no way an encroachment on home educators and their autonomy. The Bill will fix the non-existent oversight of this area of education and ensure that authorities have accurate records of how many children are educated at home, where they are and that educational requirement are being met. If required by the parents, local authorities can offer support and advice where needed, always with the best interests of families and children in mind. It is worth noting that, currently, many local authorities have developed and resourced great support material for home educators, and built up trust and confidence with those home educators they know about, and work with them incredibly well.

The Bill seeks to establish a thoughtful and balanced regulatory framework that ensures effective oversight in the regulated institutions and protection of the rights and freedoms of home educators. It encourages a greater level of co-operation and fosters an effective working partnership between local authorities and home educators. With greater transparency provided through a clear structure and a framework, we can expect to see a rise in public trust in this country’s education institutions. I have ensured that the Bill is thoughtful and measured, so as to ensure that respect for home educators is maintained.

Ultimately, the Bill is a step forward in ensuring the quality of education for the children of this country. It should be viewed as an opportunity to develop the education system for the better, with a clear message of benefiting the children and young people of the nation. I commend the Bill to the House and look forward to future discussions in Committee. For the avoidance of doubt, the Bill does not deal with the vexed issue of unregulated schools, which is, I hope, a matter we will be able to deal with in the long-awaited education and children’s welfare Bill. If that Bill deals with home education then this Private Member’s Bill of mine will not be needed—hallelujah.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords and noble Baronesses for taking part in this Second Reading. I have learned a number of important things. The issue that comes out for me, on top of the need to register, is the importance of knowing where our children are. I struggle with this, because when I was a head teacher the Blair Government brought in what was called the “unique pupil number”. The idea was that every pupil had a number and, when a child moved school, the head would notify the new school or educational setting and the number would go with that child. I never knew what happened to that. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, is right. It is not just about registering home-educated children; it is about registering children right across the educational spectrum.

The second issue, which we have been quite nervous talking about—I quite like the Minister’s phrase “illegal schools”—is that of unregistered schools. I am absolutely horrified at what Ofsted has told me about unregistered schools that do not teach any basic subjects at all. From the age of eight, there is a curriculum or a time spent entirely on religious teaching. In one school inspectors found that somebody teaching children was on the sex offenders register, and in another there was somebody with a criminal record. Ministers will know this—but it is very difficult to close those schools down. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, will correct me if I am wrong, but I thank that in the last 10 years we have managed to prosecute only one school, because as soon as pressure is put on them they quickly regroup and go somewhere else, or they say that they are going to home-educate. There is a real problem of illegal schools, to use the term, and we must grasp that nettle as well.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Education: Early Years Attainment Gap

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is right about the progress that was made under the last Labour Government, and she played an important role in that Government in this area of policy. I assure my noble friend that, as well as the plans that I have outlined, the department is working on an early years strategy that will give consideration to all the areas that she has outlined.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, this is a hugely important Question. I wonder if the Minister would take a moment to think that it is not just about provision; it is also about the quality of that provision and of the staff. Does she agree that all nursery staff working with children from the ages of two to four should have a relevant qualification, or be working towards that qualification, in early years?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that the quality of staff is fundamental, but so is the number of staff. We have a big challenge to ensure that we have sufficient staff in place by next September to deliver the outlined entitlement. We are working to provide additional training for staff. I take his point about the training and ongoing support that we need to provide for the staff who do such an important job at the beginning of children’s lives.

Higher Education Reform

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, after relative silence in the Budget about the higher education sector, we on this side very much welcomed yesterday’s Statement from the Secretary of State for Education, but it raises a number of questions. I appreciate that the noble Baroness may want to write on some of them, but I hope that others require just a yes or no.

In the Statement, the Secretary of State talked about being “crystal clear” with students that their monthly repayments, once they graduate, will not increase. She was less than crystal clear about the fact that their total repayments will typically go up over the life of the loan. Can the noble Baroness confirm that I have understood that correctly? Have her officials calculated how much more the average student will repay once they have graduated?

The Secretary of State also talked about how she will

“secure the future of higher education so that students can benefit from a world-class education for generations to come”.

In his recent blog, Nick Hillman of the Higher Education Policy Institute took figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies on how much the income of universities will increase as a result of the changes announced yesterday and the increase in the national insurance contributions they will need to make as a result of the changes announced in the Budget, as calculated by the Universities and Colleges Employers Association. He estimates that the net benefit to universities will be about £18 million, or £45,000 per institution.

The noble Baroness said earlier today that we on this side of the House need to understand that you have to raise money to fund public services. I assure her that we understand that very well, but the serious point is whether the two decisions the Government have made in recent days will make a material difference to universities or not. It would be helpful to be clear on that. There is also the impact of cutting fees for foundation-year courses. Is there a figure for the impact of that? Can she clarify what this means for undergraduates who have already started their course, as there was some confusion in Wales when fees were increased recently and it played out differently in different institutions? It would be helpful to know whether this will be applicable to those already part-way through their studies. The Statement was also silent on how this impacts postgraduate student fees and the disabled students’ allowance. It would be helpful to understand those changes.

In the Statement, the Secretary of State spoke of her ambition to spread opportunity to disadvantaged students, which every part of this House will firmly agree with. However, she then asserted that:

“The gap between disadvantaged students and their peers in progression to university … is the highest on record”.


I looked at the data that the department helpfully published recently and, while she might technically be right, the spirit of what has happened and the reality for disadvantaged students is very different. I am not quite sure why she chose to use free school meals as the definition of “disadvantaged” rather than the POLAR4 quintiles. Leaving those technicalities aside, if we look at what has happened in access to higher education between 2013-14 and 2022-23 for disadvantaged students using the Secretary of State’s definition, there has been a 43% increase in the percentage going to higher education compared to 25% for their peers. For high-tariff universities, the numbers for those on free school meals are up 109% compared to 48%. The percentage of more advantaged students is much bigger than that of disadvantaged students, but opportunities for disadvantaged students, which we all care about, have really improved. I hope the noble Baroness will acknowledge that.

The Secretary of State talked about a “renewed drive for efficiency” and said that the Government will not accept “wasteful spending”. We agree in principle, but can the noble Baroness give the House a sense of where the Government see waste in the sector and whether they have an estimate of what it amounts to. Can she reassure us that this will not threaten the independent status of our universities?

The Secretary of State talked about an uplift of £414 on maintenance loans. I would be grateful if the noble Baroness could confirm that this was calculated on a maximum loan for a student studying and living in London and that the average will be closer to £223 per student or 61p per day.

Looking to the future, the Secretary of State promised a policy paper on HE reform. Can the noble Baroness confirm what colour it will be—white, green or neither? Can she give the House any sense of the Government’s thinking on improving access to universities for those who have worse access today? Will it be a positive focus on particular groups or through new penalties?

Given the delay in the introduction of the lifelong learning entitlement, it would be good to hear that the Government remain committed to that, and to the work on sharia-compliant finance.

As my remarks have shown, the Statement left many unanswered questions, and I hope we see more in the forthcoming policy paper. However, despite the rhetoric in the Statement, the bottom line is that the net financial impact is hard to see for universities, so the policy paper will need to come quickly and tackle the real issues they face.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we welcome the Secretary of State’s Statement on universities in the Commons yesterday. Labour introduced student loans, and in opposition Keir Starmer wanted to abolish them. No doubt he cannot because of the £22 billion black hole.

We know that in 2015, the Liberal Democrats paid the price for making a pledge on tuition fees that we could not keep, but our reforms at least made the system fairer by giving more support to pupils on low incomes and ensuring that the least well-off graduates repaid the least.

Now, our universities are crying out for government to look at their funding, which has remained frozen for eight years. The Conservative Government, while espousing their importance, did nothing but abolish the maintenance grant, so that living costs became a barrier to university learning for disadvantaged students. The previous Government also cut the repayment threshold to £25,000, so that today’s students have to repay hundreds of pounds more per year than older graduates on the same salary. They lengthened the repayment period from 30 to 40 years, so today’s students will still be paying back their loans in 2066.

Does the Minister agree that the crisis in funding must be addressed, and have the Government considered how to support universities without raising fees? Will the Minister look at the benefits of international students and give universities stability in this area of policy? Finally, will the Minister look at how universities spend their allocation of £10,000 per student, so that students get value for money and a good university education experience, and the money is spent as efficiently as possible?

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I welcome the positive response to yesterday’s Statement and announcements. I think we all understand that this country is blessed with a world-class university sector whose teaching, research, contribution to the staffing of our public services, international reputation, earning and impact are significant and something we want to defend and ensure continues into the future.

Sadly, on coming into government we feared that the crisis in the funding of higher education put all these things at risk. That was the reason for taking the action we announced yesterday: to increase tuition fees by 3.1% and to reflect the challenge that students have faced, particularly from the cost of living, by increasing maintenance loans as well. We were also very clear that alongside that increase in investment that students will make in our higher education sector, we also expect to see considerable reform, which I will come on to in a moment.

Let me respond to the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. First, on repayments, she is right that the way in which both tuition and maintenance loans are repaid means that no student will pay more per month. Of course, no student pays anything, up to £25,000-worth of annual income. The total amount a student pays depends on whether they repay within the 40-year time limit for the loan. Any student who currently would not repay within the 40 years—because they were on a low income or had gaps in work—will not pay any more with the increase in tuition fees. It is of course right that anybody who would have repaid during that time period will now have a larger debt to repay; but to reiterate, that is no cost upfront and no higher repayment per month after graduation.

On the impact of both the national insurance contributions and the changes to foundation degrees, we will publish an impact assessment alongside the statutory instrument that will bring about the increase in the fees, and we will spell out the analysis at that point. Regarding students who have already started, the intention is that the tuition fee increase will apply to new and existing students, but that could depend on the contract and arrangements made between the university and the individual student. We will make further announcements on the changes to postgraduate support and the disabled students’ allowance in due course.

The noble Baroness also raised the issue of the gap in respect of disadvantaged students. I think she conceded, as my right honourable friend stated yesterday, that this year the gap between those who are more advantaged and those who are more disadvantaged has widened. Although there are more students, both advantaged and disadvantaged, going to university now, it is not good enough to rest there: not only have we been incapable of closing that gap, but it has widened in the last year. That is why, as the first of the elements of the reform programme, we will undertake serious work with the sector, with those who support students in applying to higher education and with schools, and think about what more we can do to support anybody who could benefit from and wants to take part in higher education, so that they can access it.

We are determined to close—

Schools: Absenteeism

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to identify the scale of children who are both missing school and, in the case of those who are severely absent, missing more than 50%. We have seen those figures continue to rise, unfortunately. I am open to the idea of targets being the right approach, but I absolutely assure him that we are working extremely hard with a range of policies: the breakfast clubs that I have outlined, the specialist mental health professionals, the new guidance expecting close working between schools and local authorities, and the work on data and better analysis of those who are absent. That was started by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and we are absolutely determined to build on it to make sure that we bring those figures down.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I entirely agree with the Minister that we should ensure that children are in school and get the best possible learning opportunities. However, we have a system whereby any parent can take their child out of school and say, “I am home educating them”. We have no checks on whether that home education is taking place, on its quality or on whether children are safeguarded. After Covid, we have seen children go back to school, not like school and say, “Can I be home educated?” “Yes.” Is the Minister prepared to support my Private Member’s Bill on home education?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is of course talking about a slightly different issue from absenteeism, which is where somebody is already on a school roll and is not attending. He makes a valiant plug for his Private Member’s Bill, which I am delighted to say I will respond to on 15 November. It is probably also worth saying that of course, through our children’s well-being Bill, we will legislate to introduce children not in school registers, to improve the visibility of children and young people who are not on school rolls, including those getting unsuitable home education.

Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (Transfer of Functions etc) Bill [HL]

Lord Storey Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank all the organisations that sent excellent briefings. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, on his maiden speech. I was fascinated by his final comment about traditional skills, which we often forget. I know that Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral is desperate for masons to repair the sandstone blocks. When I drive round Cumbria, I always wonder where we are going to get the skills to repair those dry walls.

The Minister kicked off this Second Reading by referring to harnessing opportunities for our young people. I thought we would all be agreeing with each other and was quite surprised that that was not the case. However, on reflection, we did in our own ways agree with each other, albeit from different angles. My noble friend Lord Addington talked about what to do when things go wrong and how to make sure that they are put right. The buck will stop with the department that takes all these powers.

The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, referred to things being rather cosy, with Skills England, the director-general and the Civil Service, which does not have any public profile and operates behind closed doors. Where is the grit in this figurative oyster? That was also picked up by the noble Baroness, Lady Evans. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds talked about apprenticeship levies and how it was difficult to navigate around them. I shall come back to that in a moment.

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, was very sure that Skills England needed the independence, the force and the fundamental clout to make things happen, although there are two powerful Ministers in charge of delivery—a Minister in this House and a Secretary of State.

I am always fascinated when the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, talks, with his knowledge of state education. He went off-script a little bit and rightly asked where we were going to get these 1,000 new teachers from. My mantra has always been that one thing that is holding back the creative industries has been the wretched EBacc. We were promised that T-levels would be a practical opportunity for some young people, and perhaps they are too technical.

I, too, pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady McGregor-Smith. Perhaps the title IfATE, given what its fate was to be, was a bit ironic. She talked about apprentices being passionate about what they do, but foundations are being put in place there that are going to be hugely important to the future and where we go.

My noble friend Lady Garden was, as usual, in her own inimitable style, very direct. She talked about the potential power of Ministers in this regard, and rightly raised the issue of lifelong learning, which matters now more than ever, and what will happen to lifelong learning entitlements.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, started off by saying that, like me, he thought this was one of those few uncontroversial Bills, and like me he was quite surprised by the tenor of some of the comments made. I thank the noble Lord for raising the issue of Scotland and Wales. I scratched my head about that and thought, “Is this yet again a purely English thing?” But I did not know about Clause 10 of the Bill—so I thank him for raising that.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, talked about the jobs that we need. Not just in his sector but in all sorts of sectors across the UK, there is a huge skills shortage and jobs shortage. He wanted to know how Skills England would operate at a regional level.

I was absolutely fascinated by the point that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made that the Government need to set up metrics for how well we are doing so that we can evaluate progress. I want to come to that at the end of my contribution. I hope that, if they do that, that metrics or evaluation will be published on a regular basis.

As a nation, we develop and prosper by nurturing, educating and training our young people. We have been very successful at developing those young people of an academic disposition but less so for those young people who want or need to follow a vocational route. At a time when we need people with particular skills and have skill gaps in many industries and businesses, we seem constantly to wrestle with the problem, slow in identifying the skills needed and even slower in providing the training and opportunities for those skills.

I am still scarred by Objective 1 in Merseyside in the 1970s. Merseyside was one of the poorest regions in Europe, measured by its GDP, and as a result it received literally millions of pounds from the EU. But in terms of training, Objective 1 money was spent on hairdressing and beauty courses. Why? Because those courses could easily attract and enrol students and give a much-needed income stream to the FE college. The college that needed the revenue did not have the financial security to develop courses that would provide the skills for the developing industries. That is, I hope, a lesson that we have now learned. I relate that historic situation because it shows that FE needs to have resources, finance and flexibility to provide skills not just for today but also for tomorrow.

We are probably not aware of the skills that are required for the future. We were not aware of AI five or 10 years ago. We probably thought that it was a Geordie expression, “Wey aye, man”. That did not go down well—I shall refrain from doing jokes; it is not my forte. We are not opposed to the Bill, but we have concerns and we would like reassurances. We also have ambitions that could be picked up by this Bill.

Currently the institute is responsible for bringing employers together to develop the apprenticeship standard and what apprentices need to learn—in short, the apprenticeship plan. They are good at this and the employer input is very important to ensure that consistency in training, assessment and outcomes. I ask the Minister: who will set the apprenticeship standard and who will regulate assessment plans developed by awarding bodies?

We need to avoid inconsistencies of outcome. We need to be reassured that Skills England develops a partnership with business skills bodies to secure that quality and consistency of apprenticeships and that there is a partnership involving employees, giving industry skills bodies a formal role in the skills system, to set standards and assessment requirements.

We were getting to the position of seeing the regions working with FE, understanding the needs of industry and understanding SMEs. We have to be sure that the new arrangements do not lead to unintended consequences and that the progress and working relationships that are beginning to be successful are not lost.

The Government need to invest in skills and training. Any business will tell you that the apprenticeship levy does not work. They often cannot get the funding they need to train staff and the ridiculous situation whereby hundreds of millions of pounds of training funding goes back to the Treasury at the end of the year if it is not spent is absolutely crazy.

We also believe that the lower minimum wage for apprentices should be scrapped and that they should be paid the same minimum wage as those other employees of their age. Apprenticeships are critical for social mobility and ensuring that people from a diverse range of backgrounds can access high-quality training. They can tackle skills gaps and help learners of all ages to upskill and reskill. The Open University, interestingly, carried out a survey that found that 72% of apprentices received a pay rise on completion, and 71% gained promotion.

When the apprenticeship scheme was conceived— I think it was by the coalition Government—it was aimed very much at 16 to 18 year-olds. But, over the years, the number of 16 to 18 year-old apprentices dropped dramatically, and they are often the ones in the most vulnerable situations. I hope that the new Government will try to ensure that there are plenty of opportunities for that age group.

To go back to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, at the end of his contribution he made the point that if the Government got this right and delivered what they said, it could be one of the major successes of this Government, which will be lauded for generations to come. We want this to be successful. We are not here hoping that this will not work, we want it to be successful and, never mind turning around the health service, it would be absolutely amazing if they could turn around the skills sector and the skills shortages. It would be something that would be remembered for years to come.

Early Years Provision: Bell Review

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Importantly, having made it clear that we want to deliver the entitlements set out by the previous Government, this Government have started the hard work to put in place the action necessary to do that. It will not be easy; I am afraid that we inherited a pledge without a plan to deliver it. Having ensured that 320,000 children have been able to take up this year’s additional entitlement, the Government’s focus is to make sure we have the places and workforce to enable the growth of that entitlement, which we will try to deliver in September 2025. However, it will be a difficult task, made more difficult by the planning failure of the previous Government.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

Sir David is clearly a man of integrity, great educational experience and knowledge. We understand that because the report was leaked, he decided that he was not going to continue and publish it. However, I hope that some of the key elements of that report—not least introducing a new qualified teacher route—will be included in legislation that comes before us. In fact, after Questions, we will be considering the Minister’s Statement on early years. Can the Minister confirm that the proposal to increase the early years pupil premium, whether it came from Sir David or not —it has not yet been published—will be considered at some point?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

While we are ambitious for early years and childcare, we will need to consider the outcome of the spending review in thinking about where we can focus our resources. We intend to produce an early years strategy early next year, which will certainly build not only on what we have learnt in government and our work engaging with stakeholders and the dedicated staff in early years and childcare, but on Sir David’s recommendations.

Government’s Childcare Expansion

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I welcome the Statement made in the other place last week on the Government’s childcare expansion, although I note that it might have been more constructive had the Minister acknowledged the transformation in childcare provision implemented by the previous Government and I hope the Minister can acknowledge that for the House today. I remind your Lordships that there were five major stages of that expansion. In 2010, we extended the entitlement for three and four year-olds, commonly taken as 15 hours a week for 38 weeks of the year. In 2013, we introduced 15 hours a week of free early education for disadvantaged two year-olds. In 2017, we built on that by doubling the entitlement for three and four year-olds to 30 hours a week and then in 2023 we announced measures to give working parents 30 hours a week of free childcare from nine months until the child starts school, building up over two years. This constituted the biggest expansion of childcare by any UK Government in history.

I would like to ask the Minister a few questions. First, the previous Government, now on this side of the House, are delighted that the Government have committed to continuing our expansion of childcare, but I was concerned that the tone of the noble Baroness’s comments when answering an earlier Question on this subject sounded like a pitch-rolling to cut the offer and I wonder whether she could just reassure the House that that is not in the Government’s plans and set out the Government’s commitment. Certainly, there was a sense that the communications around this September’s rollout were perhaps more muted than we had expected. It is obviously critical that parents are aware of their future entitlements.

If I may, I will try to ask the Minister again whether Sir David Bell did recommend in his review of early years to continue with the previous Government’s approach to childcare and whether she could confirm when the Government will publish the early years workforce strategy. Also covered in the Statement were the Government’s plans for implementing breakfast clubs and that the Government were taking a test-and-learn approach. I was puzzled by that, given that the previous Government already had a national school breakfast programme that was active in almost 2,700 schools and, as the Minister knows, many primary schools offer breakfast clubs already, I wonder what particular aspects the Government feel they need to test and learn from.

Finally, in relation to school-based nurseries, can the Minister give the House a sense of how confident she feels about the Government’s target of opening the first school-based nurseries by September 2025, with the new funding? It looks like quite a short period to turn that around. Also, what assessment has been made of the impact of the imposition of VAT on the nursery provision of independent schools that have that provision?

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the proposals; they are very much in line with our manifesto at the last election. I believe that all three parties, in perhaps slightly different ways, have a real desire to develop childcare provision. I want to tease out from the Minister the most important thing for early years childcare provision: the quality of the staff and the staff feeling valued. That means not just the salary but the training opportunities they get.

Over the last decade or more, we have seen staff in nursery and early years settings feeling that they are there just as glorified helpers. One nursery nurse said to me, “I could get more stacking the shelves at Lidl than I get in my job in a nursery”. If we want brilliant early years education, we need staff who feel motivated and want a career in that line of work. I had a 100-place nursery in a primary school and I remember how the staff were absolutely devastated when their names were changed from “nursery nurse” to “NVQ level 4”. They hated that. There had been no consultation with them at all; it just happened as part of the skills agenda. That is my first point.

My second point is that, while we welcome the commitment on top-up charges, we have also to recognise that the income generated in private nurseries sometimes caused real problems for them; but doing away with top-up charges is absolutely correct.

I like the notion that we increasingly put nurseries in primary schools, where there is capacity. Why? Because the primary school can provide all the other things that are available there: advice on special educational needs, and a whole host of other opportunities.

I am pleased about childminders—although I do not actually like the title “childminder”. They do not just mind children; they develop children. They get them to play, to interact, to talk, to learn and to discover. They do more than just minding—but I suppose we are stuck with that title. Childminders were very concerned several years ago when there was a movement towards doing away with single childminders; they had to be part of a company or a group. I thought that was wrong. So I recognise and welcome the proposals on childminding. It should not be a sort of privatised provision. Anybody who has the qualifications and experience should be allowed to do it.

I want to make a final point. There is an aspiration to go to 30 weeks’ provision, but that provision does not cover a full calendar year. Nurseries—particularly private nurseries—find it very difficult because, at the end of the 30 weeks of provision, some parents, especially those from deprived communities, cannot pay the additional money, so they withdraw their children for that period. The nursery or early years setting then finds it difficult to financially survive. So, we need to look at how we ensure that there is equity for the provider as well.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord. I am very happy to accept that there has been an enormous transformation in the country’s attitude to childcare and in the extent of childcare available. When I entered the other House in 1997, following a considerable period of Conservative rule, we in Worcestershire were infamous for having the worst childcare provision across the whole of Europe. I am glad that people have seen that childcare and early years provision is important for people’s ability to go to work and, at this moment in time, to support people with the cost of living, but I think that the additional area where we need to focus more attention is that good early years provision is absolutely fundamental for children’s development and giving them the very best possible start in life.

The noble Baroness suggested that the Government are pitch-rolling away from the pledge to entitle working parents to 30 hours of childcare a week from 2025; that is absolutely not the case. The Government are committed to providing that, but we are being transparent and honest about the challenge it will bring. As we said last week, it will mean another 75,000 childcare places and over 30,000 more staff will be necessary; that is a big challenge that needs a plan, not just an aspiration.

I am sorry that the noble Baroness thought that the comms at the beginning of the school year were a little on the quiet side; I did a whole morning media round on this and shouted it from the rooftops. I am pleased that we were able to celebrate 320,000 more parents getting their childcare entitlement this year, but there is certainly more that we need to do. That is why we will work to look more strategically at what we need to do to develop the early years sector and have undertaken to develop a strategy, which I expect us to publish and bring to this House next year.

The noble Baroness asked about breakfast clubs. A few weeks ago, we were able to announce the 750 trailblazing breakfast clubs that will be open by next year, which will build on previous work to get breakfast clubs into schools. However, we are also making a stronger commitment both to providing these free for all primary school pupils and to ensuring that the childcare element of the breakfast club is also in place—that is a very important way that we get children to school early and ready to learn, which does not necessarily happen just if you have a breakfast club, despite the excellent work those breakfast clubs are doing.

On school-based nurseries, the noble Baroness is right that we announced last week £150 million of funding which schools can bid into, so that we can develop up to 300 school-based nurseries as part of our objective to have 3,000 of those over the course of this Parliament.

The noble Lord is absolutely right that, if we are to achieve quality early years provision, we need to develop even further the brilliant staff who are working in early years and childcare. That means we need to reset our relationship with the childcare workforce, ensure that there is appropriate status for that role and think about training. We have already begun to provide, for example, more guidance around how to identify special educational needs, and we will want to continue that work.

We are taking action on ensuring that mandatory extra top-up charges are not levied on parents who take up government-funded childcare places, and we will be working with the sector and with parents in order to make sure that we strengthen that guidance.

Childminders do excellent work, but we have seen a halving of the numbers of childminders over recent years. The flexibilities, including the additional flexibilities announced last week, will help to ensure that childminding remains an important element of the childcare environment.

The noble Lord raised a point about flexibility for school holidays. It is already the case that quite a lot of childcare provision, including that provided around schools, continues into the school holidays. However, in thinking about our overall development of provision and our strategy, we will certainly want to think about how we can ensure that that is as flexible and well supported as possible for parents to be able to use all year round because of the enormously important impact that it has on those parents and, more importantly, on children’s best start in life.