Adult Learning

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) on securing this important debate. We have some excellent FE provision in my area, but I want to make a few comments about two FE providers in particular and the challenges they face.

North Warwickshire and Hinckley college is the provider of most of the practical and vocational technical education to my constituents. Over the past five or six years—probably since 2009—its budget has, as the hon. Lady mentioned in relation to provision in her constituency, been reducing year on year. To be fair to the organisation, it has coped well and has been positive.

One of the most positive things that the college has done—obviously, it has had to reorganise—is to make a change towards supporting the local economy more, aligning its strategy with that of the local enterprise partnership. That is now paying dividends. It is also now far more engaged with local employers; it is in constant discussion with them, trying to see how the jobs market will be and how it will serve that market in providing skills. That approach has been particularly positive in relation to apprenticeships, which have increased by 78% in my constituency during the past four years, helping us to reduce youth unemployment in my constituency by 40% over the past 12 months.

We must not get away from the fact that, despite the good work done by North Warwickshire and Hinckley college in difficult circumstances, we need to ensure that we fill a growing skills gap, particularly in engineering and other types of manufacturing and the construction industry. If we do not think carefully about how we are going to deal with that, we could leave organisations such as North Warwickshire and Hinckley college unable fully to fulfil the potential of young talent and fill the skills shortage. We should deal with that, rather than go down the route favoured during the last economic upturn—of having many people from other parts of Europe, particularly, and other places abroad, come in and do jobs instead of ensuring that we gave the right training and skills to our people here. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister is listening to what I am saying about the support needed by colleges such as North Warwickshire and Hinckley college.

King Edward VI college is a dedicated sixth form provider that has been through the same difficulties in relation to funding changes since 2009, and other circumstances have made things difficult. First, the presumption in favour of outstanding schools also being able to open sixth forms has challenged the offer that it has been able to provide; the previous Government started that and the present Government have, to an extent, carried on with it. That continues to be an issue for this college. There are also issues about inequity to do with VAT rules relating to dedicated sixth form providers, which my hon. Friend the Minister no doubt knows about. The college has also had an issue in relation to changes to funding for providing sixth form courses for 18 to 19-year-olds who perhaps have not had the best start, for whatever reason, or have not achieved as well as they expected.

King Edward VI college has also been badly let down by the Skills Funding Agency, which has not supported its providing part-time adult A-level courses, leaving a gap in my area with virtually no provision for people who want to do part-time A-level study after work.

Despite all the necessary, difficult decisions that have been made to start dealing with the budget deficit left behind by the previous Government, what has been achieved has been positive. However, my argument is based on a warning for the future. We need to be careful about how we approach funding for sixth form and FE colleges, to ensure that we have those skills to take our economy forward, beyond the positive start that this Government have made.