BTEC Qualifications

Mark Hendrick Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Before we start, I want to say something about the exceptional heat. While the heat remains at this level, I am content for Members not to wear jackets or ties in Westminster Hall. Mr Speaker has announced similar arrangements for the main Chamber. When the House returns in the autumn, Mr Speaker and the Deputy Speakers will expect Members to revert to wearing jackets and will also strongly encourage male members to wear ties when speaking in the main Chamber and in Westminster Hall.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 592642, relating to BTEC qualifications.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Mark. The petition, entitled “Protect student choice: do not withdraw funding for BTEC qualifications”, aims to reverse the plan to withdraw funding for most applied general qualifications, such as BTECs, and guarantee that they will continue to play a major role in the qualifications landscape.

The petition is about choice, and not forcing students to choose between studying only A-levels or T-Levels from the age of 16. I begin by acknowledging and congratulating the #ProtectStudentChoice coalition, an unprecedented gathering of 30 organisations from various sectors, including the Association of School and College Leaders, national teachers’ unions and the National Union of Students, for its brilliant campaigning against the defunding of BTECs.

The strong level of support—including the petition, which gathered over 108,329 signatures, leading to today’s debate—is credit to the brilliant work done by the coalition and, in particular, by the petition’s creators, Noni and James at the Sixth Form Colleges Association. The fact that the Government have had to make changes to their plans—although those changes still do not go far enough—shows the power of the work of the coalition and the value of the petition. I also want to say a special thanks to St Francis Xavier Sixth Form College and South Thames College in my Battersea constituency—two brilliant institutions providing BTECs for young people in Battersea and neighbouring constituencies.

Many of us are here because we are passionate about ensuring that the education system provides young people with the skills employers need. As we come out of the pandemic, we need students to finish education well equipped to progress to further training or to get skilled jobs, allowing businesses to recover and young people to flourish. That is why I am extremely concerned about the Government’s proposal to remove funding for the vast majority of BTECs. That will remove choice for many young people and may lead to some missing the opportunity to go to university.

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[Vicky Foxcroft]

I absolutely agree. Studying performing arts taught me that I loved history and geography and taught me about team working. There are so many other skills that are important in life.

BTECs are engines of social mobility. Research from the Social Market Foundation found that 44% of white working-class students who enter university studied at least one BTEC, and 37% of black students enter with only BTEC qualifications. It has already been said that research from the Nuffield Foundation found that a quarter of students now enter university with BTEC qualifications, and are likelier to be from disadvantaged backgrounds. The vast majority of BTEC students complete their studies successfully, with 60% graduating with at least a 2:1. I must confess I only got a 2:2. My question is simple: why do Ministers want to take this second chance away from young people and others up and down the country, when it is evidence based?

To end, I state once again how strongly I oppose the defunding of BTECs. We all know that the scrapping of BTECs will be disastrous for social mobility and for the economy. The Government should rethink their plans to scrap those valuable qualifications and guarantee that funding will not be removed from any BTEC unless an impartial, evidence-based assessment has concluded that students, universities or employers do not value it; we know that at the moment they do.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

I call Fleur Anderson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark—

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry, I called Fleur Anderson.

[Munira Wilson]

I am sorry, Sir Mark, I thought you said Munira Wilson. I misheard you; my apologies. I will sit down.

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[Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Mark, particularly as you are a fellow north-west MP. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) on bringing an important issue to the Chamber. I hope that the Minister will give us a reasonable response.

I place on record my gratitude to all teaching staff and support staff in my constituency and across the country and the world. The last two and a half years have been challenging for all of us, but teaching staff, support staff and people who work in the catering teams—everyone—have gone above and beyond. All hon. Members present will agree that we are very grateful to them for their significant contribution.

I have received correspondence from Aquinas College and Stockport College in my constituency. My constituency was one of the top 10 constituencies where the petition was signed, because some 639 constituents signed it. Nationally, 108,349 people signed it, which is a serious number. I often attend debates in Westminster Hall with just two or three hon. Members, but there are several MPs here from pretty much all the political parties, which reflects the subject’s importance.

Aquinas College in my constituency educates more than 2,200 young people every year, and its principal Danny Pearson has written to me on the matter. Stockport College is part of the Trafford College Group and educates more than 5,500 young people across several boroughs. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who is a good friend and who made an intervention earlier, and I work closely with the Trafford College Group to ensure that those young people, and some older people such as me, have the opportunities that they need, that our economy needs and that Greater Manchester needs.

James Scott, the principal of Trafford College Group, wrote to me. I found his contribution quite serious and that is one reason I am here. Mr Pearson and Mr Scott both expressed serious concerns about the Government’s plans to remove funding for these qualifications. Lots of constituents have also contacted me in the last few days regarding this debate, so it is a serious issue.

The Government talk a lot about levelling up, but actions speak louder than words. We need to invest in our young people and our education system to make sure that people are given the opportunity for education, further education and skilled employment. We do not want a race to the bottom and zero-hours contracts; we want skilled, well-paid jobs that people can rely on so that they can have dignity and survive in this brutal cost of living crisis.

I will not repeat at length the comments of several hon. Members, but BTECs have made a significant contribution to the local economy and social mobility in the UK. Defunding them will leave many young people without a viable pathway, which will in turn have an impact on their progress to skilled employment or higher education.

Several hon. Members have made the point about the disproportionate impact that the cuts will have on disadvantaged young people. That point is covered in the Department for Education’s equality impact assessment, which the Government should not ignore—although I am not hopeful that the Government would not ignore their own equality impact assessment. I would welcome some comments from the Minister on that point.

I am a proud Labour MP and trade unionist. The National Education Union, the University and College Union, Unison and NASWUT all support the campaign, and as I and several hon. Members have said, almost 110,000 people signed the petition, so it is a serious campaign. I could repeat the points that have already been made by colleagues, but although the debate can last up to three hours—you look concerned, Sir Mark, but do not worry—I will not.

Social mobility is important, and we need investment. The cuts have not been properly thought out and will have a serious impact on Greater Manchester and the north-west. I hope that the Minister will take our comments on board and that her response will be useful to our constituents. Thank you for calling me to speak, Sir Mark.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Thank you. I taught for four years at a college in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, so I concur with a good amount of what he said. I call Munira Wilson.

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[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I thank all those who pushed for today’s debate—particularly the Sixth Form Colleges Association and the Association of Colleges, which have been particularly vocal in standing up to the anti-BTEC orthodoxy that threatens to take hold in ministerial offices at the Department for Education.

This has been a really excellent debate with valuable contributions from both sides of the House. I will reflect on a few of them before I get into my remarks. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) presented the subject excellently and set up the debate. She said that a quarter of students who end up going to university do so through a BTEC. That is an important statistic, and Social Market Foundation research, which my hon. Friend and many other hon. Members raised, shows that 44% of white working-class students who attend university studied a BTEC. That point was repeated by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) and for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), and the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson). It was one of the major themes of the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) reflected on the fact that her daughter had done a BTEC. My son also went through the BTEC route and ended up going to university. I think it is safe to say that, without BTECs, he would not have got that university education.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford spoke passionately and movingly about the difference that a BTEC made to her life and her life chances. My right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar) spoke about the importance that these qualifications have, alongside T-levels, to employers in the west midlands.

The hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow) spoke about the important role that BTEC played in addressing the shortage of nurses in her community, and the need for those people to stay locally. Controversially, she spoke about the value of evidence-based assessment. I warn her that she needs to stop that kind of talk if she wants to get back into this Government, but a lot of us appreciated that point, which was well made.

The hon. Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) spoke about the equalities impact assessment and made the incredibly important point that, if these qualifications disappear, many students simply will not have the routes that are currently available to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) spoke about neurodivergent students, and it is important that their needs are reflected. There is not a single one of us who is not regularly contacted at our constituency surgeries by the parents of neurodivergent students who are absolutely at their wits’ end. These courses enable such students to access the life opportunities that others take for granted, and they say that they really help them and matter to them, so we should take that incredibly seriously.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green)—I know from her time as the shadow Education Secretary that she is incredibly passionate about vocational students—said that the Government should end their obsession with saying that all students are either academic or vocational, and that they should recognise that some students want an approach that gives them a broad choice. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford paid tribute to her local college and said that this decision makes a mockery of levelling up. That is a really important point. It was obvious to anyone who watched the Conservative party leadership hustings last night that levelling up seems to have disappeared entirely from the lexicon of the potential Conservative leaders. It may be that they have decided to distance themselves from the mockery that my hon. Friend highlights. Many of us appreciated her contribution.

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) said that, once they are lost, these qualifications cannot be easily replaced, and she reflected on the fact that many of her local institutions had contacted her with their concern about the approach that the Government are taking. Of course, that should not surprise us, because when the Government conducted their own consultation back in September, they found that 86% of respondents disagreed with the approach that they were proposing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) said that his constituency was one of the top 10 constituencies in the country in terms of the number of people from it who signed the petition. I know that all of us have had large numbers of constituents contacting us about this issue, but it seems like many of us have a lot to do if we are to catch up with Stockport in terms of the level of interest in this issue.

The hon. Member for Twickenham reflected on the comments of Lord Baker in another place, who described the situation as absolutely disgusting. Lord Baker also described this move as

“an act of educational vandalism.”

That should be reflected upon.

It is important to recognise that the broad coalition that is spearheaded by the #ProtectStudentChoice coalition and backed up by organisations such as the Sixth Form Colleges Association, Youth Employment UK, MillionPlus, the Apprenticeship Network and an array of employers and trade unions has forced the Government to change their position. It is important that we all make the point that the Government could look again at what they propose, but it is also important to recognise that there has been a significant U-turn from where the Government were back in September last year. The Labour party and I are pleased to have played our part in that campaign, urging Ministers to rethink their decision to axe these courses.

It is also worth recalling the history of the Government’s shambolic and damaging approach to this question that we are considering today. It started with Ministers besmirching the reputation of BTECs. The Skills Minister at the time, the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan), who was the one before the one before the Minister here today—well, it was 10 months ago, of course—described BTECs as poor-quality qualifications, when announcing that they would be scrapped to make way for T-levels.

In September 2021 the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who was the brand-new Education Secretary at the time—he was the one before the one before this week’s one, who is the fourth Education Secretary we have had in the space of a year. It is said that a year in the life of a human being is like seven years in the life of an Education Secretary. That appears to be the case. We get this dazzling array of new Education Secretaries, so I can only imagine how busy the person responsible for the board at the Department of Education must be, as they constantly have to change the name and the picture up in reception that shows the Education Secretary.

Returning to the point that I was making, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon, told us when he was Education Secretary that the Government would conduct a review. Many of us believe that the Government ought to have conducted the review before they sent out the message to students and lecturers that the qualification they were working towards was poor quality. Then the Government announced that they would defund 150 level 3 qualifications, which, in truth, is less than 10% of all of the level 3 qualifications out there.

We are pleased that the Government have performed something of a U-turn on this issue. In the final analysis, however, if they continue with their current policy, they will have scrapped less than 10% of all the level 3 qualifications currently on offer but, within that, they will have scrapped several courses that both employers and educationalists have real concern about. For example, the health and social care BTEC offers students a strong general introduction to the career opportunities available in the healthcare sector, and over 13,000 new students enrolled to study for it last year. It is important to reflect that if BTECs are scrapped, as the Government currently suggest they will be, a huge number of students will not have the breadth of options available to them.

There are a number of important questions for the Minister to respond to. Many colleges are deeply concerned that the amount of work experience required to replace even the limited number of BTECs being replaced cannot be found. The Government have already downgraded the work experience requirement in the early years of the T-level qualification. If it becomes apparent that providers in many areas are unable to find the amount of work experience required to deliver the number of T-levels, the Government will have a choice. Will the Government reduce the work experience demand further? Will they allow BTECs that do not have the work experience element to continue? Or will they accept that many students will be shut out of accessing a career for which there is a widespread skills shortage. Which one is it?

Secondly, if the Government’s view is that T-levels are more rigorous than BTECs, and they are scrapping BTECs, what is the plan for those students who previously would have been able to study a BTEC and will now not have a level 3 qualification at the age of 16 or 17? What assessment have the Government made of which students are likely to miss out, as has been reflected by so many contributors to the debate? Is it not the truth that it will mean more students from deprived communities, more white working-class boys and girls, more BAME students, and more students from rural and small-town communities will likely not have a level 3 qualification in place? If so, what plans are in place for those students?

Early feedback shows that T-levels require considerably more time studying and working. Many students, particularly those from deprived communities, are expected by their families to work alongside their studies. T-levels make that much more difficult, and that is being cited as a barrier to poorer students accessing them. What assessment has the Minister made of how that barrier could be addressed? Does it strengthen the case, in her view, for some sort of student subsidy, along the lines of the education maintenance allowance, to enable T-level students to afford to take up this opportunity? Does she accept that it was a huge mistake for the Government to denigrate a qualification that students were in the process of studying for before having completed their review? Given that so few courses are being replaced, will she apologise on behalf of the Government to the students, their lecturers and the employers, whose achievements the Government have belittled?

Finally, I have met many students studying T-levels. Although it varies from coast to coast, many clearly see them as a route to university. T-levels were initially envisaged as a route towards work. Does the Government accept that for many students that will not be the path they pursue? On that basis, is it still sensible for T-levels to be so narrowly focused on a single discipline? Should the Government not recognise that a broader qualification would allow students to learn which is the correct path for them from a position of knowledge?

The Labour party welcomed the introduction of T-levels. We want them to be a success and we hope that a future Labour Government will address the current flaws within them. I urge the Government, even at this late stage, to think again about the decision. We know that they will come back in September. There are a number of popular courses where educationalists and students tell us it would be deeply damaging if they were abolished. We want to ensure that our system of post-16 vocational and technical education is fit for purpose. Every MP in this debate, alongside the organisations championing the #ProtectStudentChoice campaign, want this too. Let the Government pause and put this decision on hold, and ensure that we have an evidence-based approach to its replacement. Let us not lose the qualifications that have real value to both employers and students.

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Just before I call the Minister, I declare an interest. I left school at 16 and eventually got to higher education through vocational qualifications. I have the privilege of sitting here today because of that. The Minister has been extremely patient, listening for nearly two hours to the contributions. I am quite sympathetic to the position she is in, but I am sure that she will handle it well.

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[Andrea Jenkyns]

I completely disagree. To me, the most important thing is outcome. There is choice there. We have said that if people—[Interruption.] Let me finish, thank you. There is choice. Look at apprenticeships. To me, the most important thing is the outcome, as I have said. If people can have better quality and higher paying jobs, that is a better start in life than taking courses that do not have the same outcomes.

I am going to conclude. I thank all colleagues, from across the House, for their contributions today. It has been a real pleasure to discuss the importance of developing our skills system. Transforming post-16 education and skills is at the heart of our plan to build back better and level up the country. We are ensuring that students everywhere have access to the qualifications that will give them the skills to succeed. T-levels are a critical step in the quality of the technical offer. They have been co-designed with more than 250 leading employers and are based on the best international examples of technical education. But these reforms will have their full benefit only if we streamline and address the complexities and variable quality of the broader level 3 qualification.

As a former BTEC student myself, I understand the benefits of technical education. [Interruption.] I will continue. I want to reassure everyone across the House that we are not withdrawing funding for all BTECs. Students will be able to take BTECs and applied general qualifications alongside A-levels, as part of a mixed programme, where those qualifications meet the new quality and other criteria. We want every student to have confidence that every qualification on offer is high quality—that, rather than choice, is so important: high quality, which will lead them into jobs—and to understand what skills and knowledge—[Interruption.]

[Sir Mark Hendrick (in the Chair)]

Order. Let the Minister speak.

[Andrea Jenkyns]

Thank you, Sir Mark. We want students to understand what skills and knowledge a qualification will provide them and where it will take them, and our reforms will deliver that.