Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Lucas

3rd reading
Friday 25th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I am honoured to have been chosen by my honourable friend Mark Jenkinson to take this Bill through. It is seemingly small but it will benefit a lot of people in a very important way. I must say that for 30 years in this House it has been my ambition to achieve that; Mr Jenkinson has achieved it in one short Bill. I therefore congratulate him and I am grateful to the Government for their support. I beg to move.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, we welcome the Bill and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on continuing the good work of the honourable Member for Workington. I particularly welcome the fact that the Bill includes academies, which is an important aspect of increasing its chances of reaching the maximum number of children to begin their preparations for a career and the world of work. For so long we have been told that academies are often literally a law unto themselves, and the terms of their funding agreements mean that in many aspects of their provision they cannot be told what to do. The Bill demonstrates that in fact they can and that all that is required is a stroke of the Secretary of State’s pen. A precedent has thus been created.

I will not rehearse the powerful arguments advanced by my noble friend Lady Wilcox at Second Reading on the need for effective, regular, independent careers guidance. However, I feel that I have to draw something to the attention of the Minister—if her eyes roll as I start this, frankly, I would not be surprised, because it is about the consistency of government policy again. Yesterday I raised with her the fact that the Levelling Up White Paper talked up mayoral combined authorities at the same time as she was advancing a government position that effectively talked them down in terms of local skills improvement plans. We had the Chancellor talking up the need for an apprenticeship levy review just a month after the Government had voted down a Labour amendment in another place asking for just that. This Bill talks about year 7; it lowers the start of career guidance from year 8 to year 7. Yesterday the Minister said:

“We question the value of provider encounters in year 7, before those students can act on them”.—[Official Report, 24/3/22; col. 1139.]


That is what this Bill does. I may not be alone in being not just perplexed but slightly irritated at the Government’s apparent inability to present consistent policy. It is absolutely right that year 7 should be where it starts, but it was right yesterday in our discussions on the skills improvement Bill as well and I very much regret that that was not accepted.

Finally, the concession on the skills Bill that the Minister made this week in respect of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and his clause, shows that the Government have finally determined that they will make careers guidance more effective and meaningful and they are supporting it further in this Bill. That is why we welcome the Bill and look forward to it becoming law.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Watson of Invergowrie and Lord Lucas

Report stage
Tuesday 12th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 11, which I have put my name to, and regret that the rules on Report do not allow the noble Lord, Lord Watson, to launch into his exposition of it before the end, unless he wants to rise now.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord. I did intend to speak before the end of the debate.

I will speak to Amendment 11, which has cross-party support and has also been endorsed by the Local Government Association and the Association of Colleges. We support the Government’s ambition to give local employers a strong role in the skills system through local skills improvement plans, but we believe that it should be done as part of an integrated place-based approach to deliver sustained outcomes for local people and local businesses.

I cannot understand the Government’s determination to exclude major players in the localities where the employer representative bodies are based. There needs to be a much more clearly defined and significant role for local and mayoral combined authorities, as well as colleges and other training providers. There has to be an appreciation of differing labour markets, and the way they have developed and are likely to develop. Surely that is best understood at local and regional level. I suggest, as I did in Committee, that it is impossible to prescribe the skills needed for the whole of England from DfE headquarters, yet that is what the Bill’s measures effectively currently propose.

There has been a change since then because we now have a new Secretary of State, who, we are led to believe, has less centralising tendencies than his predecessor. Making the role of local authorities, MCAs, colleges and training providers clear and more effective would be a positive sign by the new Minister to that effect.

To achieve the best outcomes in every area, local authorities and providers should be named as a core and strategic partner in the LSIP process alongside employer representative bodies. To that end, Amendment 11 would provide for ERBs to develop LSIPs—sorry about all these contractions—in partnership with local authorities, mayoral combined authorities and further education providers to ensure that they reflect the needs of learners, employers and, as I said, the local community. Adults and young people have the right to expect access to quality education and training opportunities provided by a joined-up, place-based employment, skills and careers system. Integration at the local level will be vital to support the skills talent pipeline and to join up those skills and occupational pathways of progression.

Amendment 11 would also require local skills improvement plans to consider social and economic development strategies in the local area and long-term national needs that may not apply to local employers. Unless local authorities have a meaningful role in the development and approval of LSIPs there is a risk that these reforms could create further fragmentation within the skills system, which may result in further education providers being subject to different skills plans, disruption of progression pathways for learners and a lack of local democratic accountability, which I do not think we should lose sight of.

I can tell the Minister that local and combined authorities are ambitious to do more to join up local provision to create integrated skills and employment offers tailored to the needs of local economies and residents. This amendment would make use of local government’s expertise to deliver the best outcomes for every community.

Finally, Amendment 11 would require LSIPs to identify actions that relevant providers and other local bodies can take regarding any post-16 technical education or training that they provide. This is drafted to avoid being too prescriptive but would allow LSIPs to work closely with other agencies, including Jobcentre Plus and careers advisory services. As Amendment 12 from the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, says, bodies providing careers information, advice and guidance, and independent training are also crucial to the development and success of a local skills improvement plan.

I want to mention the LSIP trailblazers. Less than 24 hours ago, the Minister circulated to noble Lords a 20-page draft guide for employers on LSIP trailblazers. This was promised by her predecessor in Committee 12 weeks ago, so I have to ask why we received it quite literally at the 11th hour, which was not helpful. I do not claim to have gone through it in depth, partly because I was still trying to digest the 69 pages of additional policy notes I found on the DfE website last week that had not been drawn to our attention—yes, I do sometimes have trouble sleeping. There are ways in which communication of some of these papers could be improved, not least in their timing.

Colleges and employer representative bodies in the recently announced successful LSIP trailblazers and strategic development fund pilots will be considering how best they can work in partnership and how they can work with other key partners. There is considerable scope for the sector to lead the way in building new linkages between colleges, universities, schools and other providers; strengthening relationships with mayoral combined authorities and local government; and embedding the voice of students, staff and the wider community in all of this, in so doing demonstrating and strengthening the new environment that they want to operate in. The Government should do everything that they can to facilitate that. It would be to everybody’s benefit.

I am very sympathetic to Amendments 10 and 66 in the name of my noble friend Lady Whitaker, who is yet to speak to them, which aim to ensure that the DfE has a plan for closing the attainment gap and that employer representative bodies have regard to it. The latest annual report from the Education Policy Institute found that the gap between what poorer pupils and their richer peers achieve at school had stopped closing even before the disruption of the pandemic. Disadvantaged pupils in England are now 18 months of learning behind their peers by the time they finish their GCSEs—a huge gap, but the same as five years ago. Disparities at primary school age are also widening for the first time since 2007.

However, a plan will not be worth the paper it is written on unless it includes substantive proposals backed by funding. Noble Lords will be well aware that the Government’s education recovery plan has been roundly criticised as insufficient, including by Tory Members of Parliament and the Government’s own, now departed, Education Recovery Commissioner, Sir Kevan Collins, who said that it did not come close to what was needed. I do not expect the Minister to answer me on that point now, but it is an issue that had an impact on Oral Questions earlier today and which must be taken forward and dealt with if the full effects of the pandemic are to be dealt with. I like to think that we might see a much-needed policy change shortly in the spending review, although, like other noble Lords, I obviously will not hold my breath.

Finally, the development of local skills improvement plans must be inclusive by demonstrating an awareness of and commitment to equality and diversity. It is crucial that those with learning and other disabilities can benefit from the measures in the Bill and that support for schemes that help, especially supported internships, are on the face of the Bill. It requires a focus on making all the so-called three ships—traineeships, supported internships and apprenticeships—more accessible and widely available, opening up pathways into long-term employment for people with a learning disability. Apprenticeships need to be made more flexible; this should be included as part of reforms to the post-16 education offer. Additionally, we want to see more of a commitment to people with education, health and care plans, as well as those who have disabilities but do not qualify for such care plans. Leaving these groups out will only further entrench the current barriers that people with learning disabilities face in finding sustainable paid employment.

There is much for the Minister to respond to in this group of amendments. I do not expect her to respond to all of it in detail but it would helpful if she could follow up on some of my points by letter after the debate. However, let me be clear: we want both employer representative bodies and local skills improvement plans to be successful but we believe that, as it stands, the Bill will limit what can be achieved. There are so many people and organisations with much to offer. They should be encouraged to play their part fully in developing skills for the future.