Careers Guidance in Schools

Debate between Mike Amesbury and Toby Perkins

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the provision of careers guidance in schools.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Ms Rees, and I welcome the new Minister to her place.

In 1985, I left school. I was living in a mining community at the time, right at the end of the miners strike. At the end of my school year, a careers officer told me—I stress, told me—that I should either go down the mines, go down the pit, or join the Army, one of the two. It was not so much advice as an instruction; those were the only two options open to me, according to the careers officer. I was not that politically switched on at the time, but I was definitely aware, at the end of a year-long strike, that the pits were not exactly the industry of the future, so I did not do as I was told.

Instead, I went on to become the first in my family to get a degree. Later, I became a careers adviser myself. Eventually, I became a manager of career services, as well as an assessor for those becoming and training to be professional careers advisers. It was a vocational choice grounded in that experience of receiving poor careers advice and being told that my options were limited. I did not—I still do not—want anyone trying to decide on a career or a change in career to have the experience that I had.

I am pleased to say that things have progressed since my school days. Barriers to good-quality careers provision remain in place and the quality of careers advice varies hugely from school to school. When good careers advice is not provided, that often hits the pupils from poorer backgrounds the hardest. It costs individuals and, as a nation, it certainly costs us our economic wellbeing.

“Levelling up” is a term whose future is unclear all of a sudden, but some young people are still not getting the impartial information that they need about the opportunities open to them. The Social Market Foundation, in its recent report on careers advice, argues that levelling up careers provision would make the country fairer. As parliamentarians, we all desire the country to be a fairer place. Careers advice was named as part of the northern powerhouse strategy, but it has not been named as part of the levelling-up agenda. When the Minister responds, will he say whether careers guidance should form part of any upskilling strategy for left-behind places?

Between the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, the Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Act 2022, which will shortly come into force, and the new statutory guidance, there has been much greater effort to ensure that careers advice is open to all pupils throughout secondary school. As someone who worked in the field, I welcome the extension of careers advice from year 7 to the age of 18 or, for those with additional need, to 25. However, may I ask the Minister whether there are plans to ensure that all schools are subject to the statutory guidance, rather than just maintained schools, some academies and some free schools? If we are serious about all pupils being given first-class careers guidance, we must ensure that all schools are governed by the statutory guidance.

Additionally, does the Department have plans to introduce a new careers strategy, given that the previous strategy lapsed in 2020? Given the legislation that has been implemented since then and the huge challenges to schools brought about by covid, it is clear that we need an up-to-date strategy to respond to the challenges that we face now, that pupils face now.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I am greatly enjoying my hon. Friend’s contribution and he brings his experience to bear. He made a point about the statutory guidance and to whom it refers. Does he agree with me that, although the guidance is in statute, evidence shows that at least 25% of schools are failing to achieve the minimum standards of careers guidance, and that guidance is only one part of it? The other part concerns enforcement and assessment regimes, to ensure that the good intentions that the Government put forward are delivered on the ground.

[Mike Amesbury]

I agree with my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. Resources will have to follow statutory guidance. The pandemic has had a significant impact on schools’ ability to deliver careers advice. According to recent research by the Sutton Trust, 75% of teachers in state schools said it had a negative impact, far more than the proportion of similar results returned from private schools.

There is an increasing concern that we have arrived out of the pandemic to a different world, one that students are not being prepared for. With the jobs market evolving faster than ever, Teach First has found that nearly 80% of teachers believe their students to be less ready for the world of work than in previous years. Again, more disadvantaged students will be disproportionately impacted by that, with more than half of teachers saying that they feel the pandemic has impacted disadvantaged students’ perceptions of their potential careers.

Well informed and realistic careers decisions cannot be made if careers provision is socially patterned, as evidenced by the Social Market Foundation. Essentially, pupils from schools in affluent areas opt for university while those in less affluent areas take vocational options. That needs levelling up.

The Baker clause strengthened the legislative framework, stating that schools must allow colleges and training providers access to help pupils make informed choices. If careers provision is resourced to the tune of £2 per student—less than a cup of coffee—quality will be found wanting, as argued by Careers England. Ensuring that schools, teachers and employers feel supported to meet the needs of students will be vital for improving the quality of guidance given. With only 17% of year 13 telling the Sutton Trust that they have learned about careers opportunities in their local area, there is considerably more to do to connect businesses and schools.

Although the Careers and Enterprise Company has done some excellent work connecting schools and businesses in some areas, including schools in my own, only half of heads report that their schools are part of the CEC careers hub. That clearly needs to be scaled up. Since the abolition of Connexions in 2011, 2 million children and young people have not had access to independent careers professionals.

I would argue that we need massively to improve access to work experience, with only a third of pupils having completed work experience by the age of 18. A statutory duty, with resources to support a two-week placement, should be put in place. Where possible, we need to ensure that the work experience that a young person undertakes is relevant to their future ambitions. Beyond giving the important experience of the work environment, work experience should help those students better frame their future ambitions and make informed careers decisions.

That was brought home to me recently by a year 10 work experience student called Kevin, who chose to work in my constituency office because he felt it would be more interesting than the other opportunities on offer, but it was pretty clear that he wanted to be a firefighter. I have now put him in touch with our local fire service, and he used his experience to do a bit of research in my office when he was on placement there.

It is essential that any new Government strategy on careers advice focuses on work experience and ensures connections between schools, local authorities and local businesses. That will mean that pupils get more opportunities for their two-week work experience, which will help them make informed decisions. It will also help us, as legislators and politicians, to ensure we have a growing economy.

A new strategy must also deliver on one of the areas that we most need to change when it comes to careers guidance, which is apprenticeships. Although most students feel that they get plenty of guidance about university courses, only 10% feel the same way about apprenticeships. Too often, support for students considering apprenticeships or vocational education is much weaker than for those considering academic education. In some schools, every student creates a UCAS account by default, cementing the idea that higher education is the default option. We need to ensure that within careers advice apprenticeships and further education are put on the same footing as university education. We cannot continue with the disparity in information, advice and therefore access that we see all too often.

Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Debate between Mike Amesbury and Toby Perkins

Report stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Perkins]

My hon. Friend characteristically raises an important point, and she is entirely right. When I go and speak to FE colleges, there is widespread concern about the availability of the amount of T-level work experience that is required. Particularly in some communities that do not have high numbers of larger employers and for the smaller colleges, we think there will be real difficulty getting the amount of work experience that is currently envisaged. I suspect that if we look at this qualification in two or three years’ time, it will not have the same demands for work experience; that remains to be seen. However, I share my hon. Friend’s concern.

The amendments proposed by the Opposition and many of the 29 other amendments proposed by hon. Members on both sides of the House seek to make substantive changes to the Bill that could make a real difference and offer a possibility that it will fulfil the proud boasts we have heard from the skills Minister, and his predecessor about the scale of reform proposed.

The other huge disappointment that many of us feel about the Government’s approach to this whole question is their failure to get what further education and vocational education is all about, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) mentioned a moment ago. Further education is magical and transformative. For so many people who leave our statutory educational providers disillusioned and uninspired by education, FE has been life-changing. In my family, it was learning in FE that changed my son’s life and career opportunities; the same thing happened 20 years before for my sister, and I know it has happened for so many other people in all our constituencies. Yet the Government’s approach to this sector has been to inflict eye-watering cuts on it while continually repeating the same lament about employers not being in charge.

As we listen to the latest skills Minister’s claims about his reforms, it is worth recalling what went before them. In January 2011 the then skills Minister, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), said that the entire focus of our Government’s skills strategy was in

“building a training system that is employer led.”

In 2015 the former Chancellor, George Osborne, told us that we now had a system in the hands of an employer-led institute of apprenticeships, and his skills Minister at the time said of the levy:

“At the heart of the apprenticeship drive is the principle that no one better understands the skills employers need than employers themselves.”

Two years further on, in 2017, the Government said:

“The Apprenticeship Levy is a cornerstone of the government’s skills agenda, creating a system which puts employers at the heart of designing and funding apprenticeships to support productivity and growth.”

A year later, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) described local enterprise partnerships as

“business-led partnerships…at the heart of responding to skills needs…that will help individuals and businesses gain the skills they need to grow.”

So if the reforms in 2011, 2015, 2017 and 2018 all put employers in the driving seat, and if putting employers in the driving seat is the solution to addressing our productivity and skills crisis, why are the Government now coming back saying that there has been a generation of failure?

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I was a BTEC graduate and I went to Wakefield College. Does my hon. Friend agree that hollowing out further education to the tune of 40%, and the gold standard of apprenticeships, goes against the very essence—the very notion—of levelling up? The Government should ensure that they are a driving force behind that with employers, and they are falling short.

[Mr Perkins]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Government have been at pains to denigrate BTECs. They should be very careful before they do that, particularly before they are absolutely clear that the thing they intend to replace them with has come through its pilot and they fully understand the consequences of the introduction of that policy.

It seems that after 11 years of reforms, all of which we are told have failed because the Government now need to make reforms to put employers in the driving seat, the Government’s approach is to abandon devolution and to outsource responsibility for skills policy to local chambers of commerce in the form of local skills improvement plans. We are used to this Government believing that services can be run better by the private sector than by Government, but they are now even outsourcing policy. We have real concerns about the way that LSIPs are envisaged in their current form. Of course employers, private and public sector, must be sat at the table, but so too should educational establishments, including independent providers and FE colleges, so too should those with local democratic accountability—local authorities and metro Mayors—and the voice of learners must be heard. Our amendment 14 seeks to do just that, ensuring that employer representative bodies will not just consult but reach agreement with metro Mayors, LEPs and local authorities prior to the publication of the LSIP. There are many concerns that LSIPs as currently envisaged will focus on strategies to help those closest to the labour market who can most easily slot in and solve employers’ skills shortages. Our amendment 16, inspired by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, seeks to ensure that local skills improvement plans list specific strategies to support learners who have had a statement of special educational needs or an education, health and care plan, which will include supported internships.

Since 2010, the Government have consistently undermined the sector with the scale of their funding cuts, particularly to adult education. By scrapping Connexions, they left a generation of schoolchildren without careers advice. The introduction of the levy has seen starts decline, priced small and medium-sized enterprises out of the system, seen entry-level apprenticeships plunge, and prevented many 16 to 24-year-olds from gaining their first rung on the ladder. That is why we have proposed amendment 13, which enacts the policy announced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) at the Labour party conference that reintroduces statutory two weeks’ worth of work experience and face-to-face careers guidance for every pupil, which was foolishly abolished by the 2010-15 coalition Government. We also seek to ensure that schools are assessed and recognised for the quality of their work experience and careers guidance offer, just as they are on other aspects of their provision.

I will not go through all the remaining 29 amendments proposed by hon. and right hon. Members, but I express particular support for new clause 2 in the name of the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and others. Without that, there is no lifetime skills guarantee. We should recall what the Prime Minister said in his much-heralded Exeter College speech in September 2020:

“Of the workforce in 2030, ten years from now, the vast majority are already in jobs right now. But a huge number of them are going to have to change jobs—to change skills—and at the moment, if you’re over 23, the state provides virtually no free training to help you.”

I agree. Yet this Bill, which seeks to give legislative form to that speech, would exclude the very people that the Prime Minister was referring to. Indeed, we believe that the right hon. Member for Harlow’s amendment does not go far enough, and we tabled an amendment in Committee more closely aligned with new clause 7, proposed by the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), but at least new clause 2 would make a lifetime skills guarantee for the first level 3 qualification a statutory right.

We also support the right hon. Member for Harlow’s new clause 3—the so-called Baker clause—which would ensure that every pupil had three meaningful interactions with the world of work at each of the three key phases of their education. This would ensure that more students would have more informed choices about their career options and the wide range of opportunities open to them. The right hon. Gentleman has been outspoken about the ways in which the current Baker clause, which he oversaw in his time in Government, is not working, and we support his intention to address it today. He, and the right hon. Member for Kingswood and the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), propose amendments that ask very valid questions of Ministers. I hope that their lordships will take notice of the level of support that there is for strengthening the Bill and preventing what is currently set to be a huge missed opportunity. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) has once again brought to our attention his new clause 13 concerning sharia-compliant loans, while in her new clauses 14 and 15 the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) poses some important questions concerning the lack of a coherent energy transition strategy.

This Bill remains a huge missed opportunity that will not offer the reform needed for our country to tackle the very real skills shortages that blight our local economies and damage the life chances of individuals across our communities. We hope that the Government will recognise that Opposition Members, and many of their own Members, wish to help them strengthen the Bill—the same is true of Members in the other place—and that they will look kindly on our amendments without the need for them to be pressed to a vote. We also hope that an approach will emerge that sees employers, metro Mayors, local authorities and others work collectively to develop a skills and qualifications system fit for purpose and able to compete with the very best across the world.