Adult and Further Education

Neil Hudson Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

My hon. and learned Friend is making a passionate speech, focusing on key land-based educational issues. He mentions courses such as agricultural engineering, animal handling and equine studies. Does he agree that we need flexibility of approach to protect and preserve the specialist courses that are so important for animal health and welfare, for the agricultural industry and for food security?

[Edward Timpson]

It comes as no surprise that my hon. Friend is absolutely right. With his veterinary background, he knows a lot about this area. He will know that such flexibility allows us to shape the demand that we place on our land and the skills that will be required to work the land as the technology changes. Reaseheath is at the forefront of that work and wants to continue it, but the Government strategy needs a level of flex to compensate for the transitional changes that do not always take into account the nuances that we can see at Reaseheath and elsewhere across the country.

We need to make sure that the strategic vision becomes a reality. For the last century, places such as Reaseheath have embodied the ladder of opportunity which my right hon. Friend the Minister has so long championed. With the right support, they can do so for the next.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir David Evennett]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I welcome what she has told us: it is an exciting time. We are in an era of change and we should glory in that. She has raised an example of a college development in an area of the country that is looking to the future.

The Government have invested £286 million of capital funding in the financial years 2023-24 and 2024-25. I realise that we would all like much more per-student spending, but for 16 to 18 education, it is set to rise by 9% in real terms by 2024-25. In 2021, the Government allocated an extra £900 million in funding for adult education and apprenticeships. That is something else in which we should glory. We are creating more and more apprenticeships. We all know that our excellent Secretary of State for Education took an apprenticeship rather than going to university to start with, and then she subsequently went—and what a success she has been, and what a great job she and the Education team are doing! The Government’s extra investment will boost colleges’ capacity to train and upskill more and more students and improve facilities. It is not just the students that we have to think about, but the facilities, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher) mentioned.

Of course, more needs to be done. I welcome what the Government are doing, but an increase in funding is necessary. Perhaps a three-year funding package is the answer, because that would help colleges and institutions to develop and know how much money they have to play with in the next couple of years. One-year funding is always difficult. We all know that from our own personal budgets. If we knew what we were going to get, things would be so much easier.

Recruitment and retention of FE lecturers remains a major challenge. Colleges such as our college in south-east London are dependent on skilled tradespeople and industry experts to teach their courses, but the salaries are not good enough to attract people in to do this work. The Institute for Fiscal Studies reports that 25% of college lecturers leave the profession after one year, compared with 15% of schoolteachers. I know that 15% of schoolteachers is too many, because we need good schoolteachers. We have good schoolteachers, but we must retain them. However, 25% in the college sector is a huge number, which is such a disappointment. The fact is that replacing them is a big issue; they are talented people.

We have heard that teachers earn much more than college lecturers. That cannot be right if we are looking at investing in young people and not-so-young people to develop their careers and be of real value to our economy. How can it be right that we do not offer a decent salary that is commensurate with what people can earn in a school? We have heard the figures. There is an £8,000 difference between schoolteachers and the average college lecturer, but college lecturers are also specialists. They are specialists in the field that we need—real life specialists. They are specialists in industry, in commerce and in veterinary skills, and we need those people who have practical experience to be able to enthuse our young people post 16. Dr Parrett from my college said:

“Staff pay is constraining colleges from delivering both on government priorities (including T Levels, Higher Technical Qualifications and apprenticeships) and from meeting employer need and learner demands.”

Those are key points that we should take on board.

Of course our south-east London colleges have been impacted by the lack of investment in further education and the current FE workforce crisis. I have highlighted the fact that we are losing staff and that we need talented people, with experience outside academia in the practical skills that we want people to deliver and learn. I will not repeat the list of wants from the Association of Colleges, although there are a couple that we have heard repeated across the Chamber. Reclaiming VAT seems to be an essential part of what we are looking for, as well as increasing the prices. Everything is going up and yet colleges’ funding rates are not going up in line with inflation.

That is a huge disadvantage if we want to encourage colleges to be innovative and to develop as fast as they can to meet the challenges of our economy and our society. My right hon. Friend the Minister, who has been a friend of mine for a long time and has always talked sense on education—on higher and further education—needs to be supported. We are trying to do that, and to encourage him to ask the Treasury to look at the very important points that we have all raised this afternoon.

Further education colleges work superbly and effectively in the community and make a huge difference. Mine covers the boroughs of Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich, and it is pivotal to the success of south-east London that we have colleges training the workforce that we need in those areas.

[Dr Hudson]

My right hon. Friend is making a passionate speech from his personal and professional perspective, having worked in the FE sector. On the equality of opportunity for our young people that FE colleges provide, we ask our young people to be in training or education until they are 18, but local authorities are not mandated to provide transport. In my constituency, I have had to campaign and put pressure on the local council to free up half a million pounds to provide bursaries for young people to get to their next stage of training. Does he agree that we should mandate local authorities to use central Government moneys to allow our young people to take their life decisions and go on to their next stage of training, as we are asking them to do?

[Sir David Evennett]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is something that colleges and local authorities should look at, because it is important that we should not restrict choice, but increase opportunity. The way to do that is to ensure that people can get to the college, that they can take the courses and that there are the staff there to teach them. It is a joint effort.