Technical and Further Education Bill

Mims Davies Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I am pleased to give the hon. Gentleman that guarantee. The panel will be set up by April. I believe it would be pointless to have an Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education without proper apprentice representation, but I want to see what the best format is. I am sure it will work and be a success, but I just want, as I said, to see how it pans out. We expect the institute then to do something similar for technical education students.

I agree with the motivation behind the amendment, but I am concerned about enshrining the establishment of panels in legislation. I do not want to put the institute in a constant straitjacket of legislative red tape that reflects every good idea there may be on how best to fulfil its responsibilities. I therefore think the amendment is unnecessary and would undermine the institute’s power to regulate its own governance and perform its duty.

On new clause 4, the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) made a remarkable speech in Committee on a careers strategy. She cares passionately about this, as I do, but I think we do have meat on the bones. It is not just words. The hon. Member for Blackpool South talked about budgets. We are spending £90 million, which includes the work of the Careers & Enterprise Company. A separate £77 million is being spent on National Careers Service guidance just this year. I am going further. I am looking at a careers strategy from the beginning to ensure that we address our skills needs, and to look at how we can help the most disadvantaged. I am looking at how we can ensure widespread and quality provision, and how that leads to jobs and security. I will set out my plans on careers over the coming weeks.

On the investment in the Careers & Enterprise Company, the hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest that there was no activity in London. I have been to a school in east London supported by the Careers & Enterprise Company and the local enterprise partnership. It is doing remarkable work. Some 1,300 advisers are connecting schools and colleges. They are slowly creating a way to connect with 250,000 students in 75% of the cold spots around the country. There is also money for mentoring. He talked about a famine. I would not say there is a feast, but substantive and serious funds are going in. I could spend a lot of time listing the different moneys, but if he looks at this carefully and fairly, he will see the work that the Careers & Enterprise Company is doing.

We will monitor carefully the impact of our work. In January 2017, destination data will be included in national performance tables for the first time, ensuring an even sharper focus on the success of schools and colleges in supporting their students. Before my time, we legislated to ensure that schools gave independent careers advice on skills and apprenticeships—that was done by my predecessor. Work is being done in schools. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s thoughtfulness in proposing the new clause, but it is my view that it is not necessary because of the action we are taking, the careers plans I am developing and the money that is being spent, which I have highlighted.

As the hon. Gentleman said, amendment 4 would require the institute to have regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity. I welcome the opportunity to debate that. I know why he tabled the amendment and why it is important. It is crucial to widen access and participation, and to ensure that apprenticeships and technical education are accessible to all, which is why I was glad that, for this year, we have our £60 million fund to help to encourage apprenticeships in the most deprived areas of our country.

I reassure the House that the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education will have to have due regard to widening access and participation. We carried out an equalities impact assessment before publishing the post-16 skills plan, which concluded that the reforms are likely to have a positive impact on individuals with protected characteristics, in particular those with special educational needs or disability, those with prior attainment and those who are economically disadvantaged. The economic assessment concluded that all learners would benefit from the proposed technical education reforms, which will give people access to high-quality technical education courses.

I believe that the need to promote equality of opportunity in connection with access to and participation in further and technical education already exists in legislation under sections 149 and 150 of the Equality Act 2010. It is expressly set out in section ZA2 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 that the institute must have regard to

“the reasonable requirements of persons who may wish to undertake education and training within”

its “remit”. The Secretary of State has the power to provide the institute with further guidance under that section. I hope that that explanation gives the hon. Gentleman confidence. I am committed to ensuring that people of all backgrounds have equal opportunities. As he will know, over Christmas we removed the need for apprentices who have serious hearing difficulties to do functional English—they can do sign language instead. That is an example my commitment, as is the extra funding we are giving to employers and providers to get more apprentices who are disabled.

[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that bringing together oversight of apprenticeships and technical education in one place will bring coherence into the system, which will ensure and protect diversity and equal opportunity because there will be clearer guidance on all opportunities for career progression?

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[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that I am still a trade unionist. That is a good idea. The board is independent, but I will suggest it. I am very impressed and supportive of the work that Unionlearn does, which is why we have agreed to fund it by £12 million. It works to promote training and apprenticeships.

The institute will consult the Apprenticeship Delivery Board and other bodies but, as I have said, we do not need to straitjacket the institute with so much red tape that we stop it from being independent. The delivery board is not intended to have any special legislative standing or corporate identity. It would be unusual to name it in legislation, but the institute will consult the board along with others.

Amendment 6 would require the institute’s expenditure in any one year to exceed that raised by the levy. It is important to clarify that the institute will not have responsibility for the apprenticeship budget, which resides with the Secretary of State for Education. Although the institute is not a funding body, it will be asked to advise on the pricing of apprenticeship standards and allocation to funding bands. The institute’s operations will be funded by my Department and not from the levy funds. It follows that the institute should not be obliged to spend funds raised under the levy.

On devolution, which the hon. Member for Blackpool South mentioned, it will be up to the devolved authorities how they spend the money. If we were to tie the spending explicitly to the levy receipts, there could be adverse funding consequences for the programme as a whole. The budget for spending on apprenticeships in 2019-20 for England and the devolved Administrations totals in excess of £2.9 billion, whereas the projected levy income is £2.8 billion. Having certainty over the funding for apprenticeship training is preferable to linking the funding on a year-by-year basis directly to the wider performance of the economy.

[Mims Davies]

Eastleigh College, which is the third-largest college providing apprenticeships in England and trains over 9,000 apprentices, is particularly interested in how the funding formula for the institute will work and how that will support its work with communities, so the Minister’s clarity today around the levy, the funding criteria and how it will be delivered is very welcome.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my hon. Friend. It is brilliant that her college is providing such training, and I would be pleased to come and see its training programme when I am next in the area. That it is doing this means that it will also be receiving significant funds. I congratulate the college on the work it is doing on apprenticeships.

Amendment 7 would limit the power to confer new functions on the institute to “state funded” apprenticeships and technical education. All the institute’s current functions in part 4 of, and schedule 4 to, the Enterprise Act 2016 and in schedule 1 to the Bill apply to all reformed apprenticeships and technical education qualifications, not just those that are state funded. We would therefore expect that any new functions the institute is required to carry out should also apply in the same way, to ensure that they are fully effective and do not treat some apprenticeships and technical education courses differently in accordance with how they are paid for. We want to ensure that as many people as possible can undertake an apprenticeship or technical education course, and we would not want this to be restricted to those that are state funded purely because the institute’s functions have been limited.

On amendment 8, it is important that the institute considers what apprenticeships might be appropriate for 16 to 24-year-olds. We know that apprenticeships are incredibly important to school leavers and are making sure that anyone from the age of 16 will have an offering of either an academic or technical education or an apprenticeship. The occupational maps that the institute will put together and which will guide apprenticeships and technical education qualifications will be based on information about the skills needs of the country. They will focus on occupations that can help to increase the UK’s productivity and meet the needs of employers. Putting any constraint around the development of the maps and the occupations included, such as by focusing on a particular group of the population, could damage this overall aim.

My Department runs a number of highly successfully promotional and advice services to help to ensure that young people access the right apprenticeship for them. A significant number of 16 to 18-year-olds take up STEM subjects.