Oral Answers to Questions

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that schools such as Priory Lane primary in my constituency, where the governing body wants to take the school forward by academising, should be given a choice of at least two academy sponsors to find the appropriate fit to take the school community forward?

[Mr Laws]

We always pay due regard to the views of individual schools and governing bodies, but it is vital that when we academise schools that have been failing in the past, the Department discharges its responsibility to select the sponsor which we believe will be most effective.

Technical and Vocational Education

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

What an excellent list of characteristics that was, and it is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin). I welcome today’s theme, because too often we focus on the part of our education system in which there are the fewest problems—the more academic routes. We should spend more of our time on the vocational routes that the majority of the population go through, which, as hon. Members have said, are harder to navigate. Those routes need to be made more navigable, and need to be linked closely to the needs of employers and the long-term earnings potential of the people who take them, whether they are young or not.

The Education Committee will soon launch its dedicated inquiry into apprenticeships and traineeships for 16 to 19-year-olds, so this debate is of particular interest to me and the rest of the Committee. Too often, vocational courses have been the Cinderella element in our education system, and denied the limelight given to academic qualifications that are sometimes perceived as more glamorous and socially transformative. This is a timely opportunity for the House to discuss how to change that.

Under the previous Government, getting as many young people as possible into university sometimes appeared to be an end in itself, regardless of whether that was necessarily a good deal for those young people, employers or wider society. I do not think that Ministers then thought of it that crudely, but that was the message that went out. It is important that we get the message right, so that the next generation has the right signals to make choices that will make the biggest difference to them.

It is regrettably true that overall, youth unemployment rose by 40% under the previous Government, and it did not go down in the boom years. That challenge was not new to the Labour Government, but there was a long-standing problem. Other countries such as Austria, Germany—famously—and the Netherlands had the same social problems and challenges, but managed to have fewer people ending up in unemployment, but even in the boom years we had high numbers of people in unemployment.

When I sat on the Children, Schools and Families Committee in the last Parliament, I used to challenge Ministers and ask them what counted as educational success. Was it the PISA—programme for international student assessment—tables, for example? One crude proxy would have to be ensuring that the educational system did not leave anyone completely behind, trapped in poverty for life and without a job. That is exactly what we had. It is so important for whoever is in government after next May that we get this right.

It is a priority to work out how to improve the offer made to the hundreds of thousands of young people who take vocational courses and enter the workplace every year. As I say, if anything, they face greater complexity than those who take academic courses. The Government inherited a remarkable 3,175 equivalent qualifications on offer in schools for 14 to 16-year-olds alone. As Alison Wolf reported, some of them were not worth the paper they were written on, so it was right to change that.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Does the Chairman of the Select Committee recognise, however, as Alison Wolf did, that the most widely used qualifications, such as BTEC first and BTEC national, were valuable and necessary to the overall panoply?

[Mr Stuart]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, whose expertise and interest in this issue is of long standing and dates from long before he came to this House. He is, of course, right in what he says, but in too many cases, institutions were putting young people on courses that they may or may not have known were of limited value, but that were in fact of little or no long-term value, because it suited the interest of the institution, rather than the interest of the young people. That is why it was right to look carefully at that problem.

When Professor Wolf published her review, she warned:

“The staple offer for between a quarter and a third of the post-16 cohort is a diet of low-level vocational qualifications, most of which have little to no labour market value…Among 16 to 19 year olds, the Review estimates that at least 350,000 get little or no benefit from the post-16 education system.”

That was a pretty terrible inheritance, with more than a third of a million people being educated at great public expense, with no benefit to themselves or the country as a whole. Both literally and metaphorically, Britain cannot afford to continue to fail young people in that way, and it is to the Minister’s credit that a considerable amount of work has been done, including the commissioning of the Wolf report.

Almost 100 university technical colleges and studio schools have been established. I hope there will be a Humber UTC in the not-too-distant future, and I know that the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) is working hard, championing it. I hope there will be involvement from companies such as Able UK, Total, Centrica Storage, Tata Steel and Clugston.

The Government have published a new 16-to-19 accountability framework, the headline measures of which focus on pupil progress, attainment, retention and destinations. Elsewhere, as others have commented, the apprenticeships programme has had rocket boosters put under it. It has been lengthened, and there have been improvements to quality.

Returning to the question about the number of apprenticeships raised by the shadow Secretary of State, if there are fewer 16-to-18 apprenticeships, more of them are a year long or longer; a year is now the minimum length. Overall, I do not know—I hope our inquiry will find out—whether the package for 16 to 18-year-olds is better than it was, in respect of quality and long-term impact. Whatever happens, we need to keep wrestling with the question—that is why my Select Committee will look further into it—of how to get more people in the young age group on to high-quality apprenticeships, particularly in view of concerns raised about the way in which some employers were training people who were already in their employ. Morrisons was criticised for some pretty short-term apprenticeships in supermarket skills that were unlikely to have been income-transformative—a point I raised earlier.

I am mindful of the time, so I shall try to conclude. I hope that we will keep focusing on vocational qualifications. It is the route that most people in this country follow. It is therefore the route that this House should focus on. Notwithstanding the excellent personal experience of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the truth is that Members of all parties have little personal experience of the further education sector and associated sectors. That is all the more reason why we need to focus on them, read about them, conduct inquiries into them and make them better. Our problem as a nation has not been the way in which we have educated the academic elite; it has been the fact that we have failed to make decent provision for a decent education, whether academic or vocational, that gives people an entitlement to the riches of our civilisation and access to the jobs market. Whoever is in power after next May, I hope this House will remain focused and determined to serve the part of the population that has most often been let down historically.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. There have been some good contributions already this afternoon. The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) is consistent in reminding us, as he was when I was a member of the Committee, that we spend a lot of our time focusing on those students who succeed at whatever they do. It is right and proper to focus on students who sometimes find it more difficult to succeed. I hasten to add that those are not necessarily students in vocational and technical education, but we often neglect that area as well. His laser-like approach to keeping up that consistency is very important.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), in a powerful contribution, reminded us of the need to dispose of the politics of grievance and grab the politics of hope.

In the 1990s, I was running the then Conservative Government’s technical and vocational education initiative in the north Lincolnshire area. I mention that because it is a reminder that this country has been grappling with technical and vocational education for a long time. In fact, that was one of the best initiatives that came out of the Thatcher Government, as it used carrots to incentivise change. It put forward many of the things that we now take for granted in our education service.

Whenever we look at education in the UK, we always ask which areas of the world have performed better in relation to technical and vocational education. In fact I put that very question to the Business Secretary this week. The answer was the one I expected: Germany. In some ways, the German football team, as we saw last night, is a metaphor for how Germany gets things right. Over time, Germany ruthlessly puts things together in a cross-party way that engages across generations and across parties, whereas too often we flip-flop around instead of building on the positives.

I do not accept that things were disastrous in 2010, because they were not. We had had the biggest investment in education for a generation, building on other investments, such as the one under the previous Conservative Government. Politicians, educationalists, students, parents and others took education to a different place, where it was performing far better than before. That does not mean that everything was right and rosy, but the secondary curriculum at the end of that period was delivering better outcomes for young people than ever before by using a mix of vocational and technical qualifications, such as BTECs, alongside the necessary and appropriate increased rigour on maths and English. We saw schools, on a two-year lag, beginning to improve on their number of five A* to C grades with maths and English, by changing the culture of aspiration, which makes a profound difference to performance.

The Government have built on certain things effectively, and I welcome their commitment to furthering the delivery of apprenticeships. I welcome the introduction of destination monitoring and the increased rigour and focus on maths, English and science, but frankly the move to prioritising things such as the EBacc will have negative consequences because, as the Chair of the Education Committee said, it is not the area to which we need to be paying attention. We need to be focusing our attention on what we are discussing today.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

The hon. Gentleman has just praised Germany, but in Germany all students study EBacc subjects to 16.

[Nic Dakin]

I taught in Sweden, which has a similar baccalaureate system up to 16, but it has far greater breadth than the narrowness of the EBacc. The problem is that the EBacc could have been a good vehicle for taking things forward if it had been a proper curriculum developed with careful thought, instead of focusing on certain things that will have consequences. School timetablers only have so much curriculum time, and if we narrow that down by producing more geography and history students, it will have consequences for other things.

[Elizabeth Truss]

That is precisely what the Progress 8 measure is all about. It is about ensuring that students are studying EBacc subjects, as well as important technical, arts and creative subjects. That is precisely what they do in Germany, of which the hon. Gentleman is a big champion.

[Nic Dakin]

I have another quick point. We need to have greater “earn while you learn.” In countries such as Netherlands, Switzerland and Denmark, 52%, 48% and 49% of young people respectively earn while they learn, whereas in our country the proportion is down at 22%. Why do we not set a target of being in the top three of that table? There is a lot of evidence that work experience, which the Government have taken out of the key stage 4 curriculum, is beneficial for job readiness and furtherance into jobs. I will leave it there, because I am aware that other Members want to contribute.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing representatives of the aluminium industry to see me in the Department. It is important that we in Britain do not lose out on such investment. We have already paid out some £30 million of compensation to 53 of the most electricity-intensive companies and we will continue to press for further reform in Europe.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is good that some support is coming from 2016, but energy-intensive industries need support now in the challenging times they face. It is good that the Government have finally got their package of compensation for their unilateral carbon floor tax through Europe, but the Minister has previously given commitments to get that backdated to 2013, as promised to business. What progress has he made in getting that compensation backdated?

Oral Answers to Questions

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I will not say gently to the right hon. Gentleman that, given that his party was in power for much longer than that, this could have been addressed by him. I will, however, accept the serious point he makes that we need not only to move to a national fair funding formula when we know the long-term spending plans, but that it will make sense for the next Government to consider all the different forms of deprivation funding, including a prior attainment area-based funding, to make sure that there is a coherent whole. I am very proud of what we have done on the pupil premium in this Parliament, but we ought to look in the round in the next Parliament.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

On fairer funding, is it acceptable that, according to a London Economics report today, academies have approximately £1,600 more to spend per sixth-form student than sixth-form colleges?

Birmingham Schools

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the active role he plays in ensuring that all the faith communities in his constituency are effectively represented and can contribute to modern Britain.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

In an education landscape of university technical colleges, free schools and academies run directly from Whitehall, will the Secretary of State’s welcome review of what the Department has to learn include a thorough analysis of weaknesses in the current accountability system?

[Michael Gove]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. I think one of the things that is clear from the action that has been taken in schools today is that academies, and, for that matter, free schools, are subject to a higher level of accountability than local authority schools. One of the things I will be looking at is how we can ensure that local authority schools are held to a similar level of accountability in the future, not least for the discharge of public money.

Free Schools (Funding)

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Part of the progressive changes that have been introduced by my Department and which have been championed and designed by the Minister for Schools has been an increase in funding for the parts of the country that have suffered in the past. In particular, the delivery of the pupil premium ensures that disadvantaged children, wherever they are, enjoy not only a high quality of education but additional investment in a better future.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Why has £62 million been spent on nine 16-to-18 free schools, with little evidence of need and at a time when sixth-form colleges are experiencing very deep funding cuts?

[Michael Gove]

I take funding for 16 to 18-year-olds seriously. That is why I am delighted that the London Academy of Excellence in east London, which was visited and indeed praised by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central, has helped to ensure that children in a part of east London who did not always have access to a high-quality academic education now enjoy it. Of course, my door is always open to the Association of Colleges and others to ensure that the great work that sixth-form colleges and that sixth-formers throughout the country do remains supported properly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Indeed, it is a major industry. My figures suggest that we have some 600,000 jobs directly or indirectly affected. It is a massive industry. We believe in it, and it is important that it is able to compete on a level playing field. That was the purpose of the changes announced in the Budget and we are now actively pursuing state aid clearance to make sure that these compensation mechanisms go through.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State now recognise that the Government’s ill-thought-through carbon floor tax was a mistake?

[Vince Cable]

Absolutely not. The only concern from the industrial point of view is that energy-intensive industries should have those costs offset. Under the mechanism the Chancellor has proposed, which we are now pursuing through the European Commission, they will be offset.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I am not proposing an entry requirement for Parliament, but perhaps that is something he might put forward. We have new maths and English skills tests for primary school teachers. We are also giving bursaries to maths teachers for primary school. One of the things we have been looking at in Shanghai is having specialist maths teachers in primary schools, which is an interesting model.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Are the Government meeting their targets for recruiting teachers into maths?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I think that we are at about 90% of our target for this year. It is vital that we get more people into maths teaching, so we have removed the cap on maths teacher recruitment and we are awarding the highest level of scholarships and bursaries to maths. Importantly, we also need more people doing maths at A-level, and we now have record numbers under this Government. We also have record numbers doing further maths at A-level and doing maths degrees. That will increase the supply of maths teachers in future.

School Funding

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Cambridgeshire parents will not forget the underfunding under the previous Government, and they will also be worried about what would happen if a Labour Government came back in, because there seems to be a complete absence of commitment to these changes on the part of Labour Members.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

It is good finally to get this statement, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) said, the devil will be in the detail in relation to where the money comes from and where it goes to. Given that 16 to 18-year-olds are already funded 22% less than five to 16-year-olds, does this change mean that they will be funded even less, or are they also captured in the concept of fair funding?

[Mr Laws]

This is an announcement for schools and it is covered by the schools protection provisions.

[Nic Dakin]

There are a lot of 16 to 18-year-olds in schools.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. There should be one question and no comments from a sedentary position—not from a Whip.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nic Dakin Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend is right that if we are to sustain real increases in wages whether at the minimum level or above, there have to be productivity increases and many of the problems in the low-paid sectors like catering and care are to do with the fact that productivity levels are very low. I gather, for example, that in some of the lowest paid sectors the minimum wage is already 90% of the median. That reflects the low productivity in those industries.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

21. With families £1,600 a year worse off, has the Secretary of State got any plans to follow Labour’s lead and incentivise employers to pay the living wage?

[Vince Cable]

We have already made it clear that we would encourage companies to pay the living wage if they could afford it, but we need to be very clear that this is not a mandated system. Indeed, the Low Pay Commission has expressed considerable care in its recommendations to be sure that in promoting a higher level of wages at the bottom, which we want to see, we do not force large numbers of workers out of work.