Education: Lifelong Learning

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for ensuring that we debate this issue, as well as all those who have participated. It has been a fascinating debate. I was as inspired as the noble Baroness by Irene’s story. We could all recount similar stories. I am a primary school governor, and I could recount the story of a canteen manageress who has gone from nothing to doing her foundation degree. That just shows the latent talent and potential that are within people.

I want to look at some of the targets that we set ourselves, when I was a member of the previous Government, to tackle the adult skills gap, to increase the number of adults with skills required for employability and progression to higher levels of training and to improve the basic skill levels of 2.5 million adults between the launch of Skills for Life in 2001 and 2010, with a milestone of 1.5 million in 2007. It is interesting, looking at the progress that we made on that, that against the 2001 baseline the latest outturn showed that the 2007 milestone of 1.5 million adults benefiting from improved basic skill levels has already been exceeded, with over 1.7 million learner achievements. That represents really good progress towards the 2010 target. When we talk about those basic skills, we are talking about literacy and numeracy. Without those skills, we know that adults are not going to make progress in employment; indeed, they are going to stunt their life chances.

The participation in Skills for Life courses remains strong. Over 4.7 million people took up over 10.5 million learning opportunities between 2001 and July 2006, and we expect to report that we have exceeded 2 million achievements when we receive the next update from the Learning and Skills Council. There was an interim target of an additional 1 million adults in the workforce to achieve level 2 between 2003 and 2006, and that was reached in 2006. We now have 74.7 per cent of the economically active workforce qualified to at least level 2, which represents approximately 18.2 million adults, compared with 16.1 million adults in 2001. There is, however, a very challenging growth trajectory to 2010, requiring an increase in publicly funded first level 2 achievements from 148,000 in 2005-06 to almost 400,000 in 2009-10.

More than 2 million people have started an apprenticeship since 1997. We have started to tackle the employment prospects of those at the greatest distance from work through new strategies such as valuing employment for people with learning difficulties. I know that the Train to Gain service received some criticism from the NAO; nevertheless we believe that it has been very successful, engaging with more than 143,000 employers and enabling more than 1 million people to start learning programmes at work. The feedback from employers and learners has been very positive, with 71 per cent of those learners achieving success. That does not mean to say that we should not seek improvement, but I hope that we will not denigrate Train to Gain because it achieved an awful lot, especially given that there was a time when two-thirds of our employers were doing no training at all.

A number of noble Lords stressed the importance of the role of trade unions. The Union Learning Fund, which the previous Government introduced in 1998, has a budget of £21.5 million a year to help unions build their contribution to workforce skills development. More than 23,000 trade union learning reps helped more than 220,000 workers into learning last year. Trade unions are often criticised, but sometimes we fail to recognise the vital work that they do. My noble friend Lady Hayter talked about the work of Ruskin College and mentioned John Prescott. Alan Johnson and I, who once headed up the Communication Workers Union, both left school at 15 and owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the trade union education facilities. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for reminding us of the key role of the Workers’ Educational Association, which often provided the tutors for trade union education colleges.

I was looking at the Government’s recent consultation paper, which I welcome, called Skills for Sustainable Growth. It says in a paragraph on funding entitlements:

“Currently there is a legal entitlement for people to receive free tuition for certain basic literacy and numeracy skills, a first full Level 2 qualification and, for people under 25, a first full Level 3 qualification.

We have concerns that the current system of entitlements acts against colleges’ freedom to respond to what employers and learners really want and discourages private investment”.

We paid a lot of attention to ensuring that we responded to what employers told us they needed, such as bite-size courses in management skills, or whatever.

I ought to welcome the Minister to the Front Bench. I am sorry that I did not do it earlier. It is a pleasure for me to do so—well, almost. I would rather be on the government side, for obvious reasons. I would welcome an assurance from her that those legal entitlements for free tuition will be maintained by the Government.

One of the important things that we did was to introduce adult apprenticeships, which have been very successful. They address the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, about the need for workers to reskill and upskill.

As for how one can assist older or more mature workers, I want briefly to address the digital divide. The previous Government realised that ICT courses were clearly important to prevent digital exclusion, making free courses widely available online throughout the UK. More than 2 million people regularly use the centres, supported by funding of around £12 million each year from the Government. At present we are unclear about the extent to which we are meeting the need for basic ICT skills. We have asked my noble friend Lady Morris to review provision in this important area. I hope the Government will look at that review and maintain the funding in that important area.

I was interested in the comment of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn about the networks formed by the church. I would concur with that. Another group that has not been mentioned is the University of the Third Age, which encourages many people to involve themselves in imaginative ways and draws on the vast reservoir of skills and experience that resides in the more mature members of our society. The right reverend Prelate made the point that, yes, of course people volunteer, but we also need some basic investment in these networks. I hope such investment will be maintained. My noble friend Lady Wall talked about the importance of lifelong learning and parental involvement. I am reminded that parents who start out doing a basic task in schools, such as listening to children read, are often inspired to go back into work by becoming teaching assistants. My noble friend Lord Hunt again drew to our attention the importance—if we are serious about community cohesion—of ensuring that people can speak English, and of investment in that area.

We know that we must make cuts in some areas. We never suggested that we would not address the deficit. The difference is in the pace at which we would address them. I hope that the Government will recognise that, in the current climate, investing in adult and further education is an investment for the future. If we do not get it right, we will endanger the recovery. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, in responding, will address the points that several noble Lords and I have raised.