Education: Further Education Colleges

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp—although I was tempted not to, just in the interest of time. This is a bit like speed-debating on a serious and complex issue. I also congratulate her on her report, which had the benefit of being succinct as well as interesting in its analysis.

The noble Baroness’s timing for this debate is right too. Ed Miliband’s speech, at a certain conference that I was at last week, focused on the important issue of skills and training. He also set out a clear vision. A Britain that recognises high-quality skills training is just as important to our modern economy as academic qualifications. Our concern about the Government's approach to education and training relates to its inconsistencies. Michael Gove wants to bring back two-tier academic exams—but I will not pursue that issue any further now, in the interest of time. However, we think that that is an antiquated view of education in the light of the needs of a modern economy.

We believe that we need to meet the challenge of every young person staying on until 18 by making maths and English mandatory for all and creating a new gold-standard technical baccalaureate. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s attitude to that proposal. I was pleased to see that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, welcomed it.

We must once and for all get rid of the perception of vocational qualifications as somehow second class—an attitude which I think persists. If I have one criticism of the report it concerns the comment about colleges opting,

“to retreat to the low-risk areas of 16-19 provision and apprenticeships”.

When I read that I thought, “Hmm, they’re not always low risk”. One of the problems with apprenticeships is, unfortunately, that there are some examples of low-quality apprenticeships that undermine the brand value that we have spent a lot of time trying to restore. I do not say that in an attempt to score any points, I think that it is a really serious issue. I think that apprenticeships are currently getting the attention and merit that they deserve, with more and more companies actually treating apprentices, when they finish their apprenticeships, as though they were graduating. That is what we want to encourage.

We have concerns about the Government's record. The noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, talked about the scrapping of EMAs and the trebling of tuition fees. Support is being withdrawn for people aged 24 and over who are taking A-level equivalent courses and above—that is level 3 and higher, which includes apprenticeships. Loans of as much as £4,000 are also being introduced for FE students. We cannot help but feel that that will act as a deterrent at a time when we want to encourage more retraining, more reskilling and lifelong learning.

I do not have the opportunity to pick up all the key points made today but I endorse many of them, especially the point made by my noble friend Lady Warwick about ATAs—I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response on that—and the point about group training associations, which are a key part of encouraging more companies to offer apprenticeships. The UK’s track record on that is still abysmally poor. Only about one-third of FTSE companies offer apprenticeships, and only 4% to 8% of companies offer them. That is an abysmally low figure. The Government are failing to lead by example by not ensuring that apprenticeships are a key part of the contractual liability when government contracts are let. We did that when we were in power and that is why we ended up with nearly 400 apprentices in the Olympic contract as well as with another 400 in Crossrail. I cannot understand why the Government do not want to go down that particular road.

I am conscious of the time and do not want to incur the Committee’s wrath, so I will conclude with just a couple of quick points. As I said, lifelong learning and upskilling of our workforce is central to producing a modern, high-wage, flexible economy. I agree with the points made about the importance of the careers service—it is not good in its current form. I also agree with noble Lords who made the point about FE colleges being better represented in local enterprise partnerships. As for the idea of the dynamic approach, when I looked at the diagram I thought for a minute that the Liberal Democrats had embraced nuclear power—but then I realised that it was just a metaphor. Nevertheless, it is a good one.