Adult Learning

Debate between Nicholas Dakin and Pat Glass

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

He was never lowly.

[Pat Glass]

Indeed.

We have heard that FE is the Cinderella tier of the education service. Although successive Governments have attempted to put additional funding into the primary and secondary sectors and—perhaps to a lesser extent—into higher education, tertiary or further education has long been underfunded and undervalued. However, all previous neglect pales into insignificance when compared with what we have seen since 2010.

It is becoming clear that the pace and scale of the most recent FE cuts is having a devastating impact on adult learning and the long-term economic future of this country. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has cut spending on the adult skills budget by 35%, with total spending falling from £3 billion in 2009 to £2 billion now.

The Department has, I acknowledge, chosen to protect a number of areas financially, and I welcome that. Community learning, offender learning and financial support for individuals have all been protected, and those who receive benefits or take courses at the lowest qualification levels continue to receive free courses, but I think—perhaps cynically—that that is more about massaging the unemployment figures than it is about improving learning. Funding for apprenticeships has been protected, so that the number of apprenticeships for those aged 24 and above has increased, but arguably it has increased far too quickly and at the expense of good outcomes, quality and younger apprentices. All that is forcing FE colleges to subsidise free training for adult apprenticeships at the expense of younger students. Even with all that, employers are still not prepared to deliver on their responsibilities. The Government have transferred £340 million to the employer ownership of skills pilots up to 2015-16, but so far only 20,000 students have started a training course through those pilots.

We have already heard about FE loans, so I do not intend to say very much more about that, except to bring Members’ attention to the recent research commissioned by the Association of Colleges, which highlights that the number of students on advanced and high-level courses who now require a loan, but did not in the previous year, has declined by 20%. It has gone from 107,200 students in 2012-13 to 84,300 in 2013-14.

In addition to the cuts imposed directly on FE colleges budgets by BIS, the Department for Education has also cut funding for students aged 18 and above. Although that is operational across the educational sector—it affects schools, special schools, sixth forms and so on—the most vulnerable students will be hardest hit, and most of them will be in the FE sector. Students over 18 on courses funded by the Department for Education are most likely, as we heard, to have missed periods of education, or have special educational needs, or be those who just need an additional year; a little more time to get the GCSEs that their peers were able to achieve at school. They are the young people closest to being NEET, and the evidence shows that such students will primarily be in the FE and adult learning sectors. When I questioned the former Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), he said that he regretted the decision to cut 18-plus funding, but that it was the best worst option. The former Secretary of State left office with a £1 billion overspend on free schools and academies, but still saw the best worst option as being to cut funding to the most vulnerable students, the people closest to being NEET and the most likely to cost this country dearly over the next 45 to 50 years if we do not get it right for them now.

We have a strong higher education sector in this country, with a strong research base that is recognised internationally, but only 40% of our young people go to university. For the remaining 60%, good quality alternatives to full-time degree study are reducing. We need a rebalance towards technical and vocational education, and that is vital in ensuring the continued and sustainable growth of the economy. The last 50 years have seen a continuous gravitational pull towards academic education, which has accelerated since the conversion of polytechnics to universities. Academic is seen as good and vocational as bad, and anyone with any sense knows that we cannot build a sustainable economic future on that kind of foolishness. We have a skills shortage across the economy, and it is not going to be filled by a couple of city technology colleges and the odd engineering-based free school. We need a sustainable and high quality route to technical and vocational education, and that route is being systematically damaged through unsustainable FE cuts and the march towards the amalgamation of FE colleges.

Adult learning is at the heart of bridging the skills gap, and FE colleges are perfectly placed to deliver in a skills shortage. They are experts in the area. Following years of investment by the previous Government, many have state-of-the-art facilities, are widely respected by local employers and are at the centre of their communities. We need to maintain that, stop cutting the heart out of our adult learning and FE systems and recognise their role in our recovery.

Teacher Training and Supply

Debate between Nicholas Dakin and Pat Glass

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I congratulate my colleague and fellow member of the Select Committee on Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), on securing the debate. It is a pleasure to follow my colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who, like me, spent several decades of his career before coming into this place teaching and working in the education sector.

Until recently, the system of initial teacher training in this country was relatively simple and worked relatively well. I am the first to accept that schools have complained to me for decades that students coming out of university have to be taught how to teach, but when I have pressed them on the matter, they will accept—reluctantly, sometimes—that things have improved, that HE providers work well with schools, and that student teachers spend most of their final training year in classrooms teaching.

Until 2010, it was the job of the Department for Education, through the various reincarnations of the Teacher Training Agency, to decide each year how many teachers were needed and in what subjects. It was the job of the university-led teacher training institutions and schools, working together, to make sure that teachers in training had the right skills, knowledge and professionalism to work in our classrooms. Newly qualified teachers’ satisfaction with their courses was at an all-time high in 2010-11, which is the last year for which data are available. They rated their university courses as good or very good in 90% of cases. The proportion of graduate entrants holding a 2:1 or a first-class degree had been increasing steadily for years, prior to 2010. That is not perfect, and nor is there room for complacency, but it is a reasonably good picture, overall. There is recognition across the profession and, I think, throughout the House that we have a better, more qualified, knowledgeable and skilled teaching work force than at any time in our history. That is down to many things, not least of which is the quality of our ITT, which was recognised nationally and internationally as outstanding.

The Education Committee, on which I serve, looked into and reported on the issue of teacher training in some depth in the spring of 2012 as part of its “Great teachers” inquiry and report. I am sure that the Minister has studied it. We recognised the various and diverse routes into teaching and the role of the higher education institutions as well as school-based providers. It was clear to us that a sharp move from higher education and school-led partnerships to largely school-led provision was highly contentious and fraught with difficulties, not least because the school-led sector was not yet robust enough and did not have the capacity to replace the higher education sector. The Minister will no doubt say that he does not intend to replace the higher education ITT sector with school-led ITT, but that will be the outcome if the higher education-led ITT sector is not sufficiently funded and supported. Universities will simply reduce or withdraw from the market, closing their schools of education. As the Minister knows, that is beginning to happen.

As part of the inquiry the Select Committee visited Finland and Singapore, countries that are recognised as among the best in the world for ITT, and which the Secretary of State regularly cites as jurisdictions from which he wants to learn. They both have university-led teacher training and recognise that a knowledge base in education and child development, with a research-based dissertation through a university, are required to produce the best teaching force. In 2012 the Select Committee cautiously welcomed the extension of School Direct, but it had serious reservations that it wanted the Government to consider.

University-led ITT in England is recognised internationally as outstanding. Ofsted has confirmed that through its own inspection. If we truly believe that we need to learn from what is internationally outstanding, why would we not hesitate before putting the quality of that provision at risk? The Committee welcomed more school involvement in ITT, but we had reservations about whether schools are equipped to deliver the programme on their own and, in many cases, to lead it. We were particularly concerned about the time scale. Change is a fact of life, but to change too swiftly the balance from higher education-led to school-led ITT is to run the risk of damaging what is already a good—even outstanding—system. In the long run it will create a teacher shortage, which is exactly what appears to be happening.

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is making a sound contribution to the debate. Does she feel that the Select Committee’s prescient alertness to what was happening, and its warnings, should have been heeded? We would not then be in the position that we are in now.

[Pat Glass]

I entirely agree. If the Government had attended to the warnings of the Select Committee in spring 2012 we would not be facing the crisis that my hon. Friend’s colleague and friend spoke about at the weekend. Since the Committee considered the issues it has been apparent that there is a worrying future for ITT in England, and for the future sufficiency of the teacher work force. The historical context is that every recent Tory Government has left office with a teacher shortage.

Some but not all School Direct places will offer an academic qualification such as the postgraduate certificate in education alongside qualified teacher status. However, accredited providers are accountable and responsible for the conferring of any academic qualification and QTS. In view of that, it is not surprising that students prefer to have an academic qualification including QTS from a university, rather than from a school, albeit one that is linked to a higher education provider. That is, if nothing else, an issue of status. All things being equal, what good maths graduate is going to choose school-based QTS over that awarded by a prestigious university? In that matter, I have some experience.

The problem is that Government policy is shifting funding from universities to school-led provision so quickly that, while universities may not be short of students applying for their teaching courses, they no longer have the funding to deliver courses of the quality and in the numbers that they have in the past. Universities are particularly concerned about the impact of the next round of ITT allocations on their ability to sustain teacher training. That includes the ability to sustain support for school-led routes such as the School Direct programme.

In 2013-14, as we have heard, ITT allocations and acceptances by Government have shifted by 25% to School Direct. More than 90% of postgraduate and undergraduate courses through universities were filled across the country and, in some cases, across subject areas, but only 66% of places allocated to School Direct have been met—well below the target allocation. In addition there has been over-recruitment in subjects including chemistry, history and PE, and that has masked much larger shortfalls in subjects such as maths and physics. Overall recruitment is 43% below target in physics and 22% below target in maths. The shortfall has been made worse because the Government have chosen to reduce allocations to HE institutions and universities, the bit in the system that we know works well and that has already been judged outstanding, while significantly shifting allocations to the School Direct programme, the bit in the system that is new, in many cases experimental and, as we now know, falling well short of targets. I understand that they have refused to shift the under-filled ITT places in School Direct to universities.

Energy Prices

Debate between Nicholas Dakin and Pat Glass

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Thank you for calling me to speak in this important debate, Mr Deputy Speaker. This subject is of huge interest to the energy-consuming public, and these are matters of real fear and anxiety to many of them. We should remember that many of these British companies that are making big—even obscene—profits right now are the same utility companies, energy companies and communications companies that used to be owned by the British people. Whatever artificial market situation successive Governments put in place to try to manage those companies’ profits and markets, they continue to operate as a virtual oligopoly. There are few suppliers in the market, and entry into that market is virtually impossible. Those suppliers’ actions therefore have a disproportionately negative impact on prices.

The bottom line is that those companies were nationalised for a good reason—namely, to stop them using their strategic position to drive up prices. Ironically, we now find that our most strategic energy, water and communications companies are foreign-owned and are demonstrably using their position to drive up huge profits for a small number of senior staff and shareholders. We have moved from a position in which all of us owned and benefited from those companies to one in which only a small number benefit massively while the rest of us lose out big style.

I am not suggesting that we should renationalise those companies, but the present situation is clearly not working for the consumers of this country. It needs urgent reform. I am really pleased that the Government are supporting the Opposition’s motion today, including the part that calls on them to

“reform the energy market to break the dominance of the Big Six by requiring them to sell power into a pool, allowing new businesses to enter the market, increasing competition and driving down energy bills for families and businesses”.

To me, that means breaking up the big six, and I hope that that will be the Government’s policy. I also hope that the Opposition will hold them to account on that.

It is the greed of those energy companies that has brought about this situation. This year, they have fallen over themselves to announce big increases. British Gas went first, increasing its gas prices by 18% and its electricity prices by 16%, but that was quickly followed by similar increases from Scottish Power and the other four. This might not be a cartel as we know it, operating in smoke-filled rooms, but it appears to be a cartel that operates by watching Sky News to see who is going to go first before rushing in with similar price increases. To me, that is still a cartel, and it is the British consumer who is losing out.

British Gas defends its massive price increases and blames us, the customers. It tells us that we are not paying enough to reflect the increased cost of gas and electricity on the wholesale markets, and that that will depress its profits for the first half of this year. Not surprisingly, organisations such as Consumer Focus and Which? disagree with that, telling us that wholesale costs have actually gone down and are still about one third lower than their 2008 peak, yet the energy companies’ profits have risen substantially over the same period. So, costs on the wholesale market have gone down, and energy profits have gone up. For example, British Gas has had a 44% increase in its gas profits and a 21% increase in its electricity profits. Last year, British Gas’s residential business—not its whole business; just the residential part—made £740 million profit. I am not against companies making a profit, and I believe that everyone is worthy of their hire, but that is obsessive, and it is the poorest people in this country who are paying most.

All that leaves British energy consumers facing massive increases in the cost of energy at a time when wages are being frozen, food prices are rising, petrol and diesel prices are soaring and travel costs are ever increasing. About 9 million households in Britain face an average dual fuel increase of £190 a year. We were told last week that the energy companies made £120 profit from the average family on a dual fuel deal, increasing from £15 in June this year. That is nearly a 700% increase for the average family.

The Prime Minister’s response, therefore, is disappointing to say the least. He had the energy companies in on Monday, but instead of showing them the instruments of torture, he seems to have introduced them to the tea and coffee-making facilities. It is just not good enough. We desperately need the Prime Minister to start taking these people on. It was an opportunity wasted.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument to show how these massive energy cost rises are having an impact on the individual consumer. Does she agree that there is also a negative impact on British business, particularly on high-energy-using British manufacturing businesses, so it is yet another struggle for them in these difficult times?

[Pat Glass]

I agree, and it is not just businesses either; it is schools and colleges, too, that are being driven hard by these increases.

The Energy Secretary’s response has been equally disappointing. He has given us a White Paper on reform of the electricity market, but in my view, it is big on complicated legal mechanisms while saying nothing or very little about the impact of these increases on households. He has given us a list of his meetings with small providers and he has launched yet another Ofgem review into energy prices—the 18th such review so far. Personally, I do not find that impressive; I think the Energy Secretary should be doing more.

Finally, we are moving towards another winter and the nights are drawing in with temperatures beginning to drop. My constituents are telling me in my surgeries—not just now and again, but every time—that they are having to choose between putting the gas on or feeding the kids. Frankly, in the sixth biggest economy in the world, nobody should have to make that choice. I am pleased that the Government are supporting the Opposition motion, but they need to get a grip on this problem—and fast.