Careers Guidance

Debate between Nic Dakin and Simon Hughes

Thursday 16th May 2013 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I am very happy to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton, and I am also very happy that the Chairman of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), is back. Like others, I wish him well for a complete recovery.

I thank the Education Committee for its report. I am not on the Committee, as colleagues know, but I pay tribute to all its members of all three parties, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward), who cannot be with us today. I am glad that the Committee was able to go to Bradford.

I have been a Member of Parliament for quite a while, and I came here with several clear views about the careers service. First, the careers service was patchy—Connexions had mixed success in different parts of the country. Secondly, the careers service was clearly not doing enough in my south London constituency to give young people the advice, information and guidance that they needed to be able best to maximise opportunities. Thirdly, that was probably the case across the country, too.

After the debates on higher education tuition fees, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister asked me to do a bit of work in the first six months of 2011 to consider access to further and higher education in England. I went to Merseyside, the west and east midlands, Cornwall, Hampshire and Kent, and I talked to people in London. I went to schools, colleges and universities. I spoke to people outside the school, college and university systems, and I spoke to parents, teachers and so on. I presented my report in July 2011.

I think that this is the first time I have quoted myself in a debate, for which I apologise, but I was told some very clear things. I was told almost universally by the young people I met that the careers advice, information and guidance that they received was not up to standard. Across all those places—from the most remote, rural communities to the most urban, deprived communities and the most affluent, home counties communities—people said, “We are not getting the careers service we need.” I was therefore fairly robust in my recommendations to the Government. The document is available for people to look at, and I think it is still on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills or Cabinet Office website.

Recommendation 3 states:

“At the age of 13 and 14 (in English schools year nine), every student should have made available to them information on all future pathways through education to employment, including clear information about which types of careers different educational choices can lead to.”

That point is then amplified.

Recommendation 4 states:

“The government should act urgently to guarantee face to face careers advice for all young people in schools. Government should also guarantee careers information, advice and guidance up to 17 and then 18 in line with the increase in the compulsory schooling age.”

Recommendation 5 states:

“The government should urgently publish a plan of how it intends to maintain the expertise of current careers professionals between the closures of local authority careers services…and the beginning of the all age-careers service”.

Lastly, recommendation 6 states:

“All schools should have events for parents and carers dedicated to careers and further and higher education”.

That recommendation would bring people together, and it makes the point that parents and carers often also need to be educated in the world of careers, because, as the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) said, parents naturally come with their own prejudices and historical recollections, and they do not always understand either that the world has changed or that the technology and processes of getting a job have changed, as they certainly have. It is better that people have their parents, family, peer group, brothers and sisters on board with them in the process, rather than leaving them behind thinking that they cannot benefit from the process.

A couple of things have since happened. In October 2012, my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) introduced a private Member’s Bill on careers advice in schools. The Select Committee published its first report and then its robust second report.

I will concentrate on the issue that most exercised me and colleagues in both Houses during the passage of the Education Act 2011, on which we had to fight like fury to get the Government to agree that schools should have any duty to provide a face-to-face careers service to anyone. Eventually, mainly as a result of pressure in the Lords, concessions were made so that children on free school meals or with special needs would be guaranteed face-to-face careers advice, but the rest would not.

The Select Committee has clearly recommended that there should be at least one opportunity for face-to-face careers advice. I will pause for a second, because the Government and particularly the Secretary of State for Education—this relates to the Department for Education, not the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills—resisted and held out against that recommendation, and he is wrong. That is not helpful.

First—again, this point was made by the hon. Member for Calder Valley—careers advice does not mean only trying to big up opportunities for further or higher education, particularly the latter; it also means considering alternatives such as apprenticeships or training and ensuring that young people understand that the route through life might start by going off into work from school and then back into training or apprenticeships. It may later go into further or higher education qualifications, or it may go different ways. I have family members who have done just that. They have effectively gone from school into the services and then into work. My younger brother then went to university and had a very successful academic and professional career. Other people do the same. We must ensure that schools big up destinations other than just higher and further education qualifications. Apprenticeships and training should be equally valid as places to go.

Secondly, people need to think laterally these days. Someone sitting in the county I was born in, Cheshire, or the county we moved to, Herefordshire, or the constituency I represent in south London has a predetermined view of things, depending on their circumstances, their location and the local industries and occupations. It is not sufficient to be told how to write a CV and to think that sending it, possibly by e-mail, will mean that it will be looked at, picked up and the writer’s brilliance will be discovered.

The important point therefore is that the process of self-presentation and maintaining up-to-date information requires personal contact. It is not enough to think that going on to the web or phoning someone will give people the support, confidence, mentoring and back-up that they need. I am not talking about children with parents who have no academic qualifications; children with two teacher parents, for example, may also need someone who is not their parent to help them in their route of deciding what to do.

My plea is that the Government reconsider their view that there should not be face-to-face careers advice, information and guidance for everyone. The Select Committee recommends that that should happen once, but as much advice as is needed should be given. I am certain that it would make a significant difference if there were well qualified experts to support young people as they navigate this and sometimes to help them as they fall back and realise—the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness gave such an example in his introduction—that a career in the fire service, police service or armed services, or whatever it might be, may not be an option because they are not recruiting but shedding people. Sometimes, people have to confront reality and think again.

[Nic Dakin]

The right hon. Gentleman is spelling out his case very well. From a lifetime of working with young people, I know that, although they might be technically able, they are unconfident when navigating such choices. However able they are, they need face-to-face support to work through what are very difficult questions for any of us.

[Simon Hughes]

I absolutely agree, and I respect the hon. Gentleman’s expertise on the matter.

I have two final points. First, if someone wants to go into the construction industry to be a plumber or builder, actually knowing the best way to go from their secondary school to get the relevant qualification, knowing which college is the best place to do an FE course and knowing which company might give them the best learning is not something that they will necessarily pick up accurately just because their uncle happens to work for a building firm or their elder brother happens to be self-employed and has his own firm. It does not happen like that. People need to have wider experience.

This point may be controversial, but I am clear about it. We are having a big debate in this country on immigration. It is abundantly clear to me that people from outside this country are often employed because they are better qualified. When there is competition, as in Lincolnshire or elsewhere, between a Lithuanian or Polish immigrant and someone from Boston, for example, offering their skills, we are failing all those young people who lose out because they are just not as competent or qualified—they have not got to the same place as the immigrant. If we are to show that we are providing the opportunities for our young people to get the jobs in this country and abroad that we want them to have, we must give them the careers advice to set them on the route to do that.

We cannot complain when we discover that, at the end of the day, they lose out because they have been unsupported. I am dealing with constituents who are now in their 20s and 30s, and I can testify to the fact that if people do not get the right support, it is doubly difficult for them when they are 21, 25, 29, 32 and 35 to get into the jobs market. If they did not have the support and encouragement to be at work when they were 16, 17, 18 and 21, it is really difficult later, and we set back a generation. So I ask the Minister, who is a new Minister and as far as I know a good thing, to persuade his boss in the Department for Education to rethink, to drop the ideology and the right-wing philosophy and to pick up on the evidence and support careers guidance for everyone in every single school in England.

Jobs and Growth in a Low-carbon Economy

Debate between Nic Dakin and Simon Hughes

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

No. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) knows, we have that capacity and I have argued consistently that it is possible to have clean coal and to ensure that we use the modern technologies through carbon capture and storage to achieve it. If we have a proper energy grid across Europe, we can capitalise on the solar power from the south and the hydroelectric power from elsewhere. It is entirely possible to do that—although that is, of course, a matter of dispute.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman was very clear that there should be no subsidy for nuclear. Does he not feel, as many people do, that the carbon floor price, as it is currently constructed, acts as a subsidy for nuclear?

[Simon Hughes]

A very lively debate is going on about that point in the context of the European energy policy, which, as we heard the Prime Minister say earlier, will at last be delivered by 2014. We must ensure that we apply the same rules in that context as we do in all others.

When the coalition Government were formed, we set 23 objectives for energy and climate change policy. I hope that Ministers might either now or by the second anniversary put in the Library a report on how far they have gone towards achieving those objectives. Many have already been achieved and Ministers have set out down the road towards achieving the others. We already have £60 million invested in world-class offshore wind conversion in our ports to produce jobs and many people are being trained as apprentices to work on the green deal. We have a green deal energy efficiency initiative for homes across the country and a decision on the green investment bank, the location of which will be announced soon. Let me repeat what I have said publicly in the past: I do not think it should be in London. It should be elsewhere in the United Kingdom so that the benefits can be spread, and I say that as a London Member of Parliament.

We have a legally binding target for a 50% reduction in UK carbon emissions by the mid-2020s. We have the establishment of the low-carbon technology and innovation centres, a 25% improvement in energy efficiency standards for all new buildings, support for green buses, subsidies for the purchase of electric vehicles, a reduction in carbon emissions from central Government buildings of an almost incredible 14% over 12 months and—I pay tribute in particular to my right hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne)—very successful participation in the climate conferences in Cancun and Durban, which has ensured that we are at last on the right road to international agreement and making up for what we did in the past.

Ministers also took difficult decisions after listening to what the public were saying about fuel costs. Fuel duty was cut last April, the automatic fuel duty escalator was scrapped, the planned rise this January was postponed to August and the next planned increase was cancelled. Petrol and diesel are, on average, 10p per litre cheaper than they would have been had the original plans gone ahead. Such decisions are always controversial in the environmental movement and the real world, and fuel prices obviously keep up with other prices, but the Government have responded to meet people’s concerns about their family budgets. The saving for the average motorist will be £144 and the average haulier will be £4,400 better off. Labour raised fuel duty 12 times while in office and planned for six further fuel duty rises after the election. We have done better than that.

I commend what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said on taking office about the Government’s plan on solar power. He wants to ensure that many more people benefit so that it can continue to be rolled out as a successful project. Combined heat and power equally has a very important role to play.

In conclusion, may I give the newly led administration in DECC my shopping list? First, will they ensure that we have the skill base to deliver the green economy, which is so important? That needs apprenticeships and good training. Secondly, will they ensure that we have energy efficiency in our schools and public buildings, including converting waste to energy more efficiently? Thirdly, will they incentivise community energy? Fourthly, will they not allow themselves to be distracted by the nuclear power persuaders? And finally, will they support the biodiesel industry in the future?

Tibet

Debate between Nic Dakin and Simon Hughes

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hughes]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He and his party have always been good on the issue, which has united people throughout the parties and the United Kingdom. I have had the privilege of meeting His Holiness three times in this country and the Tibetan peace garden, which he opened on a previous visit, is in my constituency—in the grounds of Geraldine Mary Harmsworth park over the river from Parliament.

I appreciate the presence of the Minister, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), and hope that he can give a positive response to the request made not only by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) but by all of us together.

I have not been to China, other than to Hong Kong when it was still under British rule, although I would very much like to go. I have therefore not been to Tibet, although all my life, since I was a little boy—I just about remember the uprising in Lhasa, the Chinese invasion and the flight of the Tibetan people from Tibet—the country has mattered to me and to many in the UK.

Not surprisingly, in 1959, the same year as the uprising, the Tibet Society was formed in this country to argue the case for the proud and historic nation of Tibet and its people and for their rights to be upheld. I pay tribute to the Tibet Society, which has done consistent and effective campaigning work, and to its president, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker). I also pay tribute to its chair, Ricky Hyde-Chambers, who is a constituent of mine, and to its chief executive, Philippa Carrick. With their staff, they are a really effective team. They supported us in our visit to Dharamsala this year and have done so at other times in the past.

I want to come to history and politics in a second. When we were in Dharamsala, we were privileged to meet the new Kalon Tripa. This year, for the first time, His Holiness the Dalai Lama announced that he would give up all political authority, while retaining spiritual authority. There was an election among Tibetans worldwide and, on 8 August, Dr Lobsang Sangay was elected as the new political leader. We had the privilege of welcoming him only recently, as part of his tour of Europe and the States; he had been living in the States, but is now back in Dharamsala.

An important issue for our country is to keep in constant dialogue with such elected representatives, who are enlightened and engaged in their international contacts. I salute them, together with His Holiness, for what they have done already. In a way, we are in the Chamber to pledge our commitment to go on and to work better with them.

I do not pretend to be a great historian of China or Tibet but, put simply, Tibet has a proud independent history. We can argue whether it was completely independent but it was perceived as effectively independent by the British, who have had a particular link over the years, especially in the previous century. It was only in 1959, after the Chinese invasion, that the people of Tibet turned their loyalty to the Dalai Lama, who had to flee the country. They have remained loyal to him.

All the evidence is that the overwhelming majority of the people, not only in what the Chinese call the autonomous republic of Tibet, but in greater Tibet, which goes beyond what the Chinese recognise, have an independence that is both ethnic and cultural, in language and in faith. It is one that they want to be able to exercise. The present view of the Dalai Lama, which he has held for many years, and of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, is not that they want total independence—they are not making that argument—but that they want to have the autonomy that already exists in other parts of China.

For example, Hong Kong and Macau have a certain autonomy, which was negotiated, and parts of mainland China have a certain autonomy. The Tibetan Government-in-exile are asking for that autonomy, as well as for the freedom not to be told how to live their lives, how to worship and who to worship, and how to go about their own cultural activities.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gale. I also declare my interests set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) is clearly outlining a difficult situation in Tibet. Does he agree that in all the representations from Lobsang Sangay and the Dalai Lama there is clarity about the desire for a peaceful settlement, and recognition that everything that can be done to cease the troubles in Tibet, particularly self-immolation, should happen peacefully? People are being urged to cease those terrible events in Tibet.

[Simon Hughes]

Not only—[Interruption.] I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun, who was with us in October.

Not only is my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe right about that, but the whole ethic of Tibetan Buddhism is peacefulness, non-aggression and non-violence. That is why it is such a terrible indictment of the Chinese regime that it will not allow those peaceful people to express themselves in their peaceful way. I have nothing against China and its people; I represent one of the largest Chinese communities in this country. That is not the issue. The issue is how the Chinese behave at home towards that different group of people in its territory.

Over the years, a number of colleagues have persistently raised the issues here, and I pay particular tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes, who, when he was not a Minister, was able to raise these matters. He did so in March 1999, on the 40th anniversary of the 1959 uprising; on 28 June 2005, just ahead of the EU-China summit, which was under our presidency; and on 1 April 2008, when he opened by saying that he was angrier, sadder and less hopeful then than ever before.

That was before what was probably an understandable, but in the end rather unhelpful, clarification of policy by the then Foreign Secretary. It was not well received in Tibet. Whatever our politics and understanding of how we want to build and cement links with China, the fact is that the then Foreign Secretary said:

“Our ability to get our points across has sometimes been clouded by the position the UK took at the start of the 20th century on the status of Tibet, a position based on the geopolitics of the time. Our recognition of China’s ‘special position’ in Tibet developed from the outdated concept of suzerainty.”

He hugely disappointed people among the Tibetan community in exile and in Tibet when he then said on behalf of the then Government:

“We have made clear to the Chinese Government, and publicly, that we do not support Tibetan independence. Like every other EU member state, and the United States, we regard Tibet as part of the People’s Republic of China.”

The statement was, of course, more balanced, because it went on to say:

“Our interest is in the long-term stability, which can only be achieved through respect for human rights and greater autonomy for the Tibetans.”—[Official Report, 29 October 2008; Vol. 481, c. 30WS.]

I pay tribute to the fact that Ministers have gone on arguing that case under the Labour Government and the present Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government. I also pay tribute to the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne), and to the Minister on the Bench, as well as to the Foreign Secretary, who has been robust about human rights issues.

I want to take the Chamber to where we might go. Many hon. Members have persistently expressed their concern. A litany of colleagues on both sides have asked questions, including, from the Conservative party, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Tony Baldry), for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood), for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) and for Witham (Priti Patel); from the Labour party, the hon. Members for Bassetlaw (John Mann), for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson), for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—he is in the Chamber—for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), for Leeds North East, for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) and for Scunthorpe, all of whom I am happy to call my hon. Friends; and from the Liberal Democrat party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). There is a real desire in this place to try to make progress.

I want to end by making some suggestions to the Minister on ways in which we might be able to take on the debate and to influence the outcome. We must try to persuade the Chinese that it is in their interests to deal with the issue because it clouds and affects all the perceptions of China in the democratic world.

Careers Service (Young People)

Debate between Nic Dakin and Simon Hughes

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

Let me be absolutely straight with the right hon. Gentleman: I understand the Government’s wish not to burden heads and schools with over-prescription. I am chair of governors of a primary school, and a trustee of a secondary school, so I understand that completely. However, some things have to be guaranteed, and in my view we have to guarantee the opportunity of work experience during secondary school time, and we have to guarantee face-to-face careers advice. I say that not because I have some theological view about it, but because the evidence that we have heard, and that I collected, is that youngsters are overwhelmingly saying, “We’ve had bad careers advice and bad work experience.”

In a tight economic situation, people even more need both careers advice and work experience. The figures that I collected show that there are more than 4,000 different qualifications that a young person can gain between the ages of 14 and 18. There are millions of combinations of qualifications that they can end up with. Navigating a way through that requires more than a person’s ability to go online and discover what they think they might want to know; that, bluntly, is different depending on how bright the person is, what family support they have, and other things. It is about more than having some books to look at; it is about speaking to somebody who can relate to them where they are, and engage with them.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) said to me when the debate began, in the end what is required may be more than one half-hour session; there may need to be follow-up—mentoring, support, and continuous commitment. That might mean a local employer—PricewaterhouseCoopers could step over the river to my constituency—coming into a school to continue to support somebody as they work things out. It might mean working out how somebody who fluffs some exams, and does not start very well academically, can recover and be told, “You haven’t lost everything just because you had a terrible year when your parents separated and your family situation was a disaster.” We have to understand that people have only one school time in which they can do work experience.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman must be commended for speaking with great foresight and spelling things out with great common sense. Does he agree that there is real urgency, as is reflected in the motion? Young people have only one chance, and getting things right tomorrow is no good for today’s kids. We need to get things right now. There is a transition gap; to be fair, the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning has recognised that that is an issue in talking to me. That gap needs to be addressed immediately.

[Simon Hughes]

I do not disagree with that; I said it in my report, and I remind the hon. Gentleman to go back and look at it. I just have time to list the recommendations and give my conclusion on where I think we should go.

The second recommendation, which is relevant, is that the Department for Education should continuously consider how best to support schools and colleges in their access activities, and in building up much more available information.

The third recommendation is that at the age of 13 and 14—in year 9—every student should have available to them a proper, broad base of information on what the pathways are. Indeed, it is not just the young people who need that information; their parents do, too, so that they are not prejudiced by their own experiences and past.

The fourth recommendation is that the Government “should act urgently”—those are the words on the Order Paper—to guarantee face-to-face careers advice for all young people in schools; that should be taken up to age 17 and 18, as the school leaving age increases.

We need a plan on how to keep the expertise of current careers services providers, given the change in the system. I welcome the change in the system—Connexions was often not successful, but we must make sure that we do not lose the expertise of the people who delivered the service. We must hold events for parents and carers to make sure that they understand that. Someone in each school—not the independent provider—should be responsible for access issues and someone for careers issues. Finally, Ofsted should evaluate the careers service given to the school and report on it, and how it makes use of destination data.

I am grateful for the Minister’s courtesy and his Department’s consideration. I can hold back my colleagues from voting with the Opposition only because of the undertaking he has given. [Interruption.] No: the Government are going to respond to all the recommendations, not one. I accept absolutely the point about urgency made by Back Benchers. Our Liberal Democrat colleagues in the Lords feel equally strongly that we must ensure the provision of face-to-face guidance.

I represent a strongly working-class constituency. If we believe in social mobility, we must additionally assist those who do not have the advantages of privilege and finance, which is why the Government must deliver. I await the recommendations and their response, but there must be a yes to the proposal.

Localism Bill

Debate between Nic Dakin and Simon Hughes

Tuesday 17th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

I will be literally a minute, because many colleagues wish to speak. This is not quite the way I would have chosen to spend my birthday evening, but there we go.

I want to ensure that the Minister has not ignored my amendments 371, 372 and 370. The first two would require planning authorities to be more effective in their consultation on a planning application, and I suggest that within a quarter of a mile radius of the application site is a much more precise definition than just “the vicinity”.

I welcome the abolition of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, and the fact that the arrangements will be taken back into a democratically accountable planning system. In the case of a big scheme such as the one that we may have coming down the track in Southwark for the great Thames sewerage main, I hope that we can still allow local authorities the ability to make the planning decision where there is a large structure in a borough on a particular site that is a unique part of the development. Of course there must be a bigger authority taking a strategic national decision, but where there is a local site of significance, the local authority should have a supplementary power to make that decision too. I hope that at some stage I will get positive noises from the Minister and that we might get appropriate changes at the other end of the building.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to my amendments 11 and 12, which are to do with the right to be heard and equalities. It is very important that individuals and groups have the right to be heard in neighbourhood planning. I am grateful for the Minister’s comments. I think he was saying that there would be a presumption in favour of this, but I would be keen to see what criteria people will be using to guard against that happening for a mischievous purpose, or whatever. If the Minister is saying that there is a presumption in favour of oral representation where people want to take that option, that is very important.

On equalities, it is important, under the Equalities Act 2010, to demonstrate that certain people are under-represented in the decision-making process. In 2010, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its first triennial review “How fair is Britain?”, which identified the decline in opportunities for individuals to contribute to decisions that affect their lives as a major risk factor in moving towards a fairer society. I think the Minister said that there is no need for concern about this but that he will consider it further and ensure that equalities legislation is operable in these terms. If that is the case, I welcome it.