Black Country University Technical College

Nick Boles Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) on securing this debate on a very important issue for his constituents, as well as for those of the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) and of other hon. Members from the surrounding area. I thank him for organising this debate because it is very important at the start of a Parliament to look at the university technical college programme and to ask whether it is as successful as possible before we launch into the process of opening more institutions like this one, which we as a Government are firmly committed to do. I will try to answer his questions, but if at any point he wants to intervene to press me on any particular question, I will be happy to take such an intervention.

I welcome the fact that the hon. Gentleman acknowledged the importance of providing high-quality technical education in all parts of the country, and particularly the need to create new institutions to focus on technical education in a different way, to a different level and with a different focus from what has perhaps been available in existing institutions, whether schools or further education colleges. That is why it is very welcome to hear him and other Labour Members say that they, like us, support the principle of university technical colleges. We feel that these new institutions can make a real contribution.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that, when we are trying to improve and innovate, we have to take some risks. We have to be willing to set up new kinds of institution that have not been tested within the system and try new ways of doing things. It will always be right for the Government to back certain risks, as long as they are calculated, well monitored and well judged. If, unfortunately, the risk does not pay off, there must be proper investigation so that we understand what went wrong, what failed and what lessons should be learned for future projects.

I will now go into the particulars of the university technical college that closed, so sadly, in the hon. Gentleman’s area. It is a matter of huge regret that the college has been forced to close so soon after it opened, after so much taxpayers’ money was invested in creating it and, more than just money, after so many hopes were raised in his area about the potential for the college to contribute to the chances of its young people.

The Government would not disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s judgment that the communications about the possible closure were not handled as we would have liked. Not least—although I am sure this is not the only source of his complaint—we feel that it would have been proper and advisable, as it was an election period, for the governors to contact all the parliamentary candidates for the constituency in which the college is located and, perhaps, parliamentary candidates beyond the constituency in advance of the public communications, so that he and others did not have to read about it in the news like everyone else.

[Mr Winnick]

My not being notified is not my No. 1 complaint by any means. I wonder whether the Minister will answer a question that I did ask. Was the Department for Education notified of what was happening over the past two or three years? Did the Ofsted report come as a complete surprise or did the Department, although he may not have been involved at the time, know what was occurring? Did the Department communicate with the college and say, “This doesn’t seem very good. Taxpayers money is involved. What steps are being taken to improve the situation?”

[Nick Boles]

I was going to come on to what we knew in this specific case and to set out the monitoring process more broadly. I will start with the closure and work backwards, if I may.

The first that the Department heard about the possible closure being proposed by the board of governors was on 17 March, which was after the second Ofsted inspection that produced such a damning report. The trust that was running the college approached the Department to discuss possible closure. The Department, through the regional schools commissioner, who has responsibility for all the schools in the region, including the UTCs, looked at alternatives for the UTC. Obviously, it would have been hugely preferable, if it had been possible, to transfer the UTC into another academy group or into a relationship with other more successful institutions, so that it could have remained open. It was quite proper that that process happened swiftly. Obviously, it was getting very close to the start of purdah and the election campaign. Nevertheless, that work was done.

On 27 March, the governors formally requested the termination of the funding agreement. Ministers agreed to the request the same day, immediately before the pre-election purdah period. There was therefore a period of just less than two weeks in which the regional schools commissioner made contact with other institutions to see whether there was an alternative to closure. Ultimately, the conclusion was drawn that there was no alternative.

The hon. Gentleman asked, very properly, about our general oversight and communication channels. Because the university technical college programme is a small and relatively new programme, it receives quite a lot more regular attention in the Department than ordinary schools, of which there are many thousands around the country. There are regular monitoring meetings at the officials level and Ministers also get involved in regular monitoring meetings, which look both at the proposals for new university technical colleges and at any university technical college that seems to be having problems, whether those are financial problems or problems relating to Ofsted inspections, the quality of the education or the recruitment of students.

It would therefore not have been a surprise to the Department or officials that the college was in trouble, but it was perhaps not until the second Ofsted report that the trouble crystallised as a threat to its very survival. Relatively swiftly after that, the governing body reached the conclusion that it should close the college. I believe that the communication of that could have been better handled, and I fear that one reason why it was not handled as well as it could have been was the fact that the purdah period had started and Ministers were off on election campaigns. I regret that, but I do not think the ultimate decision to close the college could have been avoided.

I would like to answer the question that the hon. Gentleman properly asked about the position of the 158 students who were on the roll at the time of closure. I understand that 93% of them, which is 152, have offers of places at other educational institutions or of alternative arrangements, such as apprenticeships. Pupils continuing with their education have received offers from a range of providers, including local academies and colleges. Those wishing to continue with engineering or a technical education have been offered places at Walsall college and four other nearby university technical colleges—Aston; the JCB Academy; and West Midlands Construction UTC and Health Futures UTC, both of which are due to open this year. Siemens has provided financial support with transport costs for students to be able to transfer to those UTCs. Although I promise to keep a fairly close eye on what happens to those young people, to ensure that their education is not interrupted more than is necessary and that they are given great opportunities for the future, I am reasonably content so far that it looks possible that everybody will find a good place in a good college.

Finally, I will reflect briefly, as the hon. Gentleman invited me to, on what the Government can do to learn lessons from this unfortunate experience and the one in Hackney. We want to ensure that the university technical college programme, to which the Government are firmly committed and which has great support from the main Opposition party, flourishes and creates institutions that are educationally and financially successful, so that they can recruit sufficient numbers of young people and give them a great education. I can promise him that, as the Minister who has just been asked to take over responsibility for the programme, I am looking at all the questions about how a UTC works; who it recruits and when it recruits them; what specialisms are involved; what its partnership and sponsorship arrangements are; and how it involves universities and employers, and which ones are getting involved. I am determined to ensure that the programme ends up producing fantastic institutions that offer great opportunities for young people to receive a technical education.

[Mr Winnick]

As I said, my view is that there is a case for pausing, but clearly that will not happen. Does the Minister feel that it would be useful if he visited the college before the closure takes place and spoke to the staff and some of the students? He could also arrange a meeting with the governors, which might be on the same occasion. It would be useful if he went himself to see what is happening and to discuss the situation. Perhaps lessons could be learned that otherwise would not be.

[Nick Boles]

On the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion of a pause, there is a natural pause in a sense, because there are certain times at which we solicit bids for new university technical colleges. We are currently considering what the appropriate time will be to open up a bidding round, and I can assure him that there will be a number of months before that in which we can consider all the lessons from this and other experiences.

I would be very happy to meet the outgoing principal or members of the governing body if the hon. Gentleman would like to arrange such a meeting. From the Dispatch Box, I cannot absolutely promise to visit, because I would need to check with the Whips, who seem to want to keep Ministers in Westminster at the moment. I also need to check on the appropriateness of doing so. I can guarantee the hon. Gentleman that I will get a report from the regional schools commissioner about what lessons he thinks we should be learning, but I would be happy to meet anyone else the hon. Gentleman would like me to meet so that we learn the lessons of this experience.

We must together guarantee that the 158 young people who had made a commitment to the institution receive a superb education, as they were properly hoping to receive. We must also guarantee that the university technical college movement, which has been so ably spearheaded by—among many others—Lord Baker and Lord Adonis, is a success and that the institutions created through that programme can thrive, prosper and create great opportunities for young people.

Question put and agreed to.

Vocational Qualifications Day

Nick Boles Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

Sir Roger, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship during my first outing in Westminster Hall since the election and my reappointment as Skills Minister.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) on securing this important debate. He congratulated the Edge Foundation on setting up this day of celebration of all that is good in technical and professional education, and all those people, young and not so young, who take advantage of those opportunities to secure qualifications that enrich their lives and promote their careers. This is an excellent debate with which to kick off the deliberations in this five-year Parliament. Technical and professional education has an important role to play in making our economy more productive and providing opportunities for all people in all parts of the country.

Before getting into the meat of my argument, I want to deal with a few issues raised by hon. Members. First, it is important to say that the 24% cut in the adult skills budget—in the allocations offered to colleges and providers —is obviously an average figure and, more importantly, relates to the non-apprenticeship portion of the adult skills budget. It does not take a genius to work out that if the overall scale of a budget is reduced and the size of an important element in it is doubled, there will be larger reductions in what is left. Even I could work it out. That is what has happened to the non-apprenticeship portion of the adult skills budget. We have reduced the overall budget and doubled the spending on adult apprenticeships funded out of that budget. That has necessitated rather larger cuts in that particular area.

[Nic Dakin]

Does not the Minister agree that by doing that certain activities currently very much valued by employers will disappear from the offer that is available locally?

[Nick Boles]

I fear that cuts often require difficult choices to be made. Colleges are all trying to ensure that they make economies chiefly through efficiencies and in areas of lower value. Following on from that, I should like to correct something said by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who is no longer in the Chamber, about the relative value of full-time FE courses and apprenticeships. I am not for a minute suggesting that full-time FE courses do not have a positive impact—they do—but their positive impact on people’s earnings between five and seven years later is not nearly as high as the positive impact of apprenticeships. We have just done one of the biggest data studies undertaken by Government, matching people’s education performance and their earnings as recorded by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Almost 500,000 individuals were covered by this study, which found that a level 2 apprenticeship leads to approximately a 16% improvement in the individual’s earnings five to seven years later, whereas the impact for a full-time level 2 is roughly 6%. At level 3 it is 16% for those on an apprenticeship, against 4% on a full-time course. There are positive impacts from full-time courses and some of those courses—not least the BTEC mentioned by my hon. Friend—may well have a higher value, but the averages suggest that it is sensible to do what the Government have been doing and shift resources out of full-time FE courses into apprenticeships, while continuing to invest in full-time FE.

My neighbour, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), mentioned the in-year cuts to both the DFE and BIS budgets. Although I cannot go into detail, because it would be way above my pay grade to do so, he should not assume that the only way of cutting the unprotected part of the DFE budget is by cutting funding for 16 to 19 education, including funding for FE colleges. He should also not assume that the only way of cutting the part of the BIS budget that has been subject to in-year cuts is by cutting funding for FE colleges. No doubt everybody will have to make a contribution, but he should not assume that those cuts involving large figures will fall entirely on the sectors that he so admirably represents in the House and in this debate.

We are at the start of a five-year Parliament, so we have a bit of time to think and plan and be strategic, and to try to build something that addresses some of the problems that have afflicted us as a country for decades. There has been a huge amount of agreement across the House about the nature of the productivity challenge that we face as a country. We have lower productivity—all that means is how much value people are producing for every hour that they work—in part, I am glad to say, because we manage to find jobs for people with very low skills who are less productive. Of course, a large number of the least productive workers in countries not too far from here are not employed, and by necessity that means that their average productivity per hour of employment is higher. I prefer to live on this side of the channel rather than on the other side, where that is so, but that does not in any sense diminish the challenge to us of ensuring that the productivity of everybody, whether relatively low-skilled or high-skilled, is improving so that they can command higher wages, pay higher taxes and have better lives for themselves and their families. That is, of course, a fundamental challenge for this Parliament.

The Opposition spokesman was right to say that Members of all parties have long bemoaned our inability to create a system of technical and professional education that commands the same level of understanding in the country, and in families and schools, and in this House—not to mention the level of respect—as the academic education system, which is admired around the world. He is absolutely right to challenge the Government in these early weeks to grapple with the problem systematically, rather than in a piecemeal way, and I hope and intend to rise to the challenge.

I will resist the temptation, long though my legs are, to show too much of them in my response to the debate. That is not because I am coy, because I am not naturally that coy, as you may have noticed, Sir Roger, but because it is a little premature for me as a Minister, although I was in this post for 10 months before the election, to start rushing to judgment. I would like to hear from others, and it has been tremendously useful to hear the contributions of my hon. and right hon. Friends and Opposition Members on the elements of the system that they see as needing to be reformed, changed or improved.

I also want to learn from other countries. The Opposition spokesman referred to the example that we always beat ourselves over the head about: the German system of technical education. He is right to say that we honourably and admirably had some part to play in creating that system, but it is also right to observe that it is the product of a deep economic, educational and social culture that is somewhat different from ours. We need to ensure that we are looking to learn from relevant examples that are, in a sense, transferable and applicable to our system. I am keen to look at—I encourage Members to come forward if they have better example—the Dutch example. The Dutch economy is more similar to our own in culture and approach than the German one. It is smaller, but it has what we would see as—I am not sure that the Dutch would accept this—Anglo-Saxon features. As the Opposition spokesman said, they seem to have a better system of clear routes through education to high, degree-level qualifications.

[Liam Byrne]

The Minister is absolutely right to sound a warning that it is impossible to import one system wholesale to one economy from another. The key thing we have to learn from the German system is that smooth pathway through. A couple of things have been mentioned in the debate that are important to incorporate into some of the Minister’s research, of which one of the most important is the growth in self-employment and enterprise. There are superb colleges up and down this country—not least Sheffield College and others in the Peter Jones network—that are doing a first-class job in encouraging an entrepreneurial revolution among our young people. They are a good example of how we cannot simply import a system from a country such as Germany that does a much less good job at fostering a culture of self-employment, the skills for self-employment and a yen for enterprise, too.

[Nick Boles]

I thank the shadow Minister for that; it was very interesting and I entirely agree with him. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud raised this, too, but when people are working for 50 or 60 years of their lives in a fast-changing economy, we have to consider the kind of qualifications that are relevant by being sufficiently flexible to cope with the different employment situations that a person is likely to want to go through, which may well include working for themselves, setting up their own business and acting in a whole range of different circumstances.

My new and fantastic Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris)—she is the Select Committee’s loss, but my gain—is also operating as the PPS for my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science. If any Member here would like to come through her with any suggestions or answers to the following questions to which I will be seeking sensible and systematic answers over the next few months, I will be incredibly grateful. The first question is: what do people think should start at 14 and what do people think should start at 16? That is an age-old debate that will not be settled in this parliamentary term, but we should have it again, not least when we look at the work of the university technical colleges and Lord Baker in introducing to the system some education that starts at 14. Should that become a common thing or remain an exception to the rule?

The second question is about the institutions. We have all talked with affection, admiration and praise about the further education colleges in our constituencies, and I am lucky enough to have two such institutions. Are those institutions in their current guise equipped for all the demands that we are going to place on them and the financial pressures that are inevitable, even if we can maintain funding broadly at the current level? Should they specialise more? Should some of them focus more on higher level skills and others more on training for people who have not received an adequate education at school? What institutions do we need, what institutions have we got and how can we get from one to the other? That naturally leads to the question of who should be making such decisions. Should it be the Minister in his Whitehall office with the help and guidance of the Skills Funding Agency, should it be local enterprise partnerships, or should it be combined authorities on the Greater Manchester northern powerhouse model? Who is properly placed with a sufficient understanding of the local economy to decide what institutions are needed locally to meet the full range of young people’s and employers’ needs?

The final question, although it is only the final one because I will probably run out of time soon—there will be many other questions—is on qualifications. The shadow Minister raised it, as did several other Members who talked about the different qualifications and how badly known and badly recognised they are among parents and young people. Do we have the right set of qualifications? Have we been prescriptive enough? We have weeded out a whole lot of very weak qualifications, and I think we can all agree that that was a necessary and a good step, but do we need to be more prescriptive about the combinations of qualifications that denote a sensible route to a high-quality career and so should receive the benefit of taxpayer funding?

The questions about who should be involved in making the decisions about local institutions and qualifications will lie at the core of the long-term system plan that the shadow Minister has urged on me. While I know that he will be forensic and at times even a little brutal—I know, because I have witnessed it before—in his examination, I also know that he and all other Members will make a positive contribution, because ultimately we want the same thing: a country where everyone can get the skills they need, at whatever point in their life that they feel the need for them, so that they can prosper and have fulfilling lives.

Zero-hours Contracts

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

It is a great honour to be speaking at the Dispatch Box on this, the first day of the new Parliament. I suspect that it will be the only time in my life when Her Majesty the Queen has the first word and I the last, although we can agree that her audience was somewhat larger and that she was a great deal better dressed.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) on securing this debate on an important subject that thankfully, now that the election has passed, we can shed real light on. We can discover the facts and pursue the examples of bad practice that he outlined. He is right to say that zero-hours contracts are in and of themselves nothing new and that a relatively small proportion of the workforce are on such contracts. He also rightly referred to a recent study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which found that 60% of zero-hours workers were satisfied with their contracts and 65% of them were happier with their work-life balance because of those contracts. He described a number of situations involving individuals who actually welcomed these contracts because of the flexibility they gave them and the ability they provided to respond to other responsibilities, goals or ambitions that they had in their lives.

However, that should never be an excuse for complacency or for a belief that this is good for everyone and that every employer who makes use of these contracts is doing so responsibly. My hon. Friend gave a number of important examples of abuse. I hope he is pleased to know that one of my first decisions as Minister responsible for employment law was to implement the provision in an Act passed in the previous Parliament by my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), that banned exclusivity clauses in zero-hours contracts. Exclusivity clauses did something simply outrageous. The point of a zero-hours contract is that it does not guarantee a specific number of hours of work in any period of time. To then require that the person makes themselves available constantly, waiting for a phone call, preventing them from going out and earning income from other work, is simply outrageous. It was happening, I am glad to say, with a relatively small number and small percentage of zero-hours contracts, but it was quite intolerable and we were right to ban it. I am very glad that we have implemented that ban. We will be making sure that that ban is not simply symbolic but is enforced.

I am happy to look at examples of other abuses. My hon. Friend described very eloquently the case of a young man—the son of one of his constituents—who was called into work, kept on standby and not paid. My hon. Friend speculated that this practice was already illegal. While I do not know the full details of the case, if it is as he described I can reassure him that he is absolutely right—it is already illegal. If his constituent would like to approach him, and he would like to pass on to me the specific details of that employer and that young man, I will be very happy to get HMRC and any other enforcement authority to come down like a ton of bricks on that kind of abuse. It is against the law, it is inhuman, and it must not go on.

My hon. Friend has asked for some further, very specific commitments. He is always cheerful and affable, but he never gives up as a Member of Parliament, as I know both to my cost and my pleasure in my previous role as planning Minister. If, in this Parliament, we see a revolution in the number of people who are able to secure a plot of land to build their own home, it will be very largely thanks to his doggedness on that issue. I have no doubt that he will continue to be as dogged on the issue raised in tonight’s debate.

On my hon. Friend’s first request, without absolutely committing to a working group—because I would want to know what its composition was—I can promise him that I will keep a very close eye on this. I assure him that I have already asked officials to look into other kinds of abuse of zero-hours contracts to explore whether there is something further that we can do to root out such exploitation of working people.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

As a practical solution, would it be possible at some stage, not necessarily tonight, for the Minister’s Department, or for him, to say where people should email or telephone if they have a possible abuse to report, so that there is a central place to collect this information, not necessarily for action on every case but at least to gather it together?

[Nick Boles]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue, which was the subject of the third request from my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk. I was going to say that I do not know what the whistleblower arrangements are, but I will undertake to find out tomorrow and make sure that they are better publicised to citizens advice bureaux and to relevant charities that can make sure that people are able to report abuse.

My hon. Friend’s second request, which will give me great pleasure to fulfil, is to work closely with the Minister for Community and Social Care, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). He is one of the most popular Members of Parliament and former Ministers, who I am delighted to say will now be on the Front Bench again. He is a deeply humane man, and I know that he will want to make sure that the people looking after the most vulnerable in our society are not exploited by their employers.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister also look at firms that employ temporary agency staff and at their rights? Those I spoke to on the election trail told me that their rights have also been diminished.

[Nick Boles]

I am happy to look at that. If I may, I want to extend to the hon. Gentleman, as well as to hon. Members from all around the House, an invitation to bring me specific examples of bad practice—ideally with the identities of the employer, but if not, nevertheless with such examples—and I will try to find out what we can do about such practices if we have not already banned them, as was the case for the worker put on standby unpaid.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk asked me to get in touch with HMRC about the pursuit of breaches. He will be pleased to know that the previous Government, of which we formed a major part, introduced the idea of naming and shaming employers who breach national minimum wage laws. We will continue that, and I am very happy to direct officials to look specifically at breaches of national minimum wage laws in the care industry, where, as he has rightly highlighted and others have agreed with him, there is a problem.

On my hon. Friend’s fifth request, he is right that the whole question of the design of housing falls outside my ministerial portfolio. However, he knows that I share with him an absolute passion for the issue of housing—about how we must build more and better houses that work for modern families in all their shapes and sizes. I will continue to work with him as a private citizen and as a Member of this House to further that aim.

It has been a great pleasure to wind up this debate on the first day of Parliament. May I conclude by saying that today we have had a model of democracy and free speech? I know that all hon. Members from whatever party will be as dismayed as I was to learn that one of our number, the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell), was attacked outside by a group of, frankly, hoodlums simply because they disapprove of his views. I think that that is shameful. The hon. Gentleman is a man I like and respect. I think he is hugely misguided and that he is in the wrong party—I think he is beginning to realise that—but he has the right to express himself freely and openly, as we all do, and this House must defend the rights of hon. Members to do just that.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Boles Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of steps taken by his Department to encourage more young people to obtain qualifications leading to careers in engineering.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

Apprenticeship starts in engineering and manufacturing technologies have increased by 52% since 2010. In 2014, there was a 10% increase in new students studying engineering at university, following an 11% increase in 2013.

[Sir Peter Luff]

I welcome that very positive response from the Minister. However, given that continuing shortages of engineering apprentices and graduates will cost the economy as much as £27 billion a year in lost output, undermine our competitiveness and threaten our security, can he think of better words to inspire a new generation of young men and women to become engineers than those of the railway engineer who wrote:

“I am an engineer. I serve mankind by making dreams come true.”

[Nick Boles]

It is entirely fitting that my hon. Friend should conclude his parliamentary career on such a poetic note, championing a cause he has consistently championed. It relates directly to the earlier question from the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), who is also bringing her parliamentary career to a close by championing the same cause. We have a huge amount to do, but inspiration is the key. We need to inspire young people that engineers are the people who go out and build things and make things happen in our society. We need many more of them.

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) has a question down on engineering. He is very welcome to come in on this matter now if he wishes, but he is not obliged.

[Sir Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

13. It’s all right—it’s not a difficult one. Further to my hon. Friend’s excellent and encouraging answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Sir Peter Luff), whose departure from this House we will all regret, may I point out that a company in my constituency, a very successful business called Technetix that I went to visit some time ago, drew to my attention the fact that it was having to recruit engineers from abroad because it simply could not find enough here. The figures I asked for in a question show that in 2004 5,630 electronic and electrical engineer graduates appeared, but that in 2013-14 only 5,500 appeared. The Government are doing a great deal and the call for inspiration is worthy, but we need to deliver many more people to engineering.

[Nick Boles]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have made good progress, but from an unbelievably low base, having taken over from a Government who told people they only needed to do media studies or some such waffle to have a good career. We are picking up from a disastrous inheritance and making good progress, and with his support I know we will make further progress in the next parliamentary term.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I was at a school in my constituency on Monday where the students told me of the difficulties they had studying engineering and other STEM subjects. The school said the problem was it could not recruit the teachers. There has been a shortfall in the number of teachers recruited to STEM subjects in the last few years as well. Does the Minister agree that this is a fundamental problem and that the action taken by the Government on teacher training has not addressed it at all?

[Nick Boles]

It will not surprise you, Mr Speaker, to hear that I do not agree at all. Through the outstanding Education and Training Foundation, we have invested a great deal specifically to put further education teachers into a position to teach the vital skills of English and maths. Take-up has been substantial, and as a result further education colleges can continue to teach people maths through to 18 if they have not achieved successful results. We have also set up more university technical colleges—a great deal more than the last Government. These are long-term plans to turn around the situation that the hon. Gentleman’s Government did nothing to deal with in 13 years.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

4. If he will bring forward legislative proposals to ban the practice of firms being asked by large companies to make agreements to pay to become or remain approved suppliers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

7. What steps he is taking to ensure that more adults gain basic English and maths skills.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

A good grasp of English and maths is the vital passport into the world of work. Of course, people should ideally acquire that good grasp of English and maths not as adults, but at an earlier stage of their education. That is why we have made English and maths essential components of college study programmes, apprenticeships and traineeships.

[Alex Cunningham]

Two weeks ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) and I met the principals of the Tees Valley further education colleges, who pressed for an end to the funding disparity between FE colleges and other parts of the education system. They were particularly concerned about English and maths, but they were also worried about further cuts in funds for school leaver and adult funding, and asked whether the FE loans programme could be extended to people over 19 who were on level 3 programmes. I do not know whether the Secretary of State plans to be in government after 7 May, but if he has any influence, what does he or the Minister think can be done to address the issues raised by our principals?

[Nick Boles]

When it comes to further education funding, we are emphasising the stuff that works. Apprenticeships deliver the most value to the people who do them, much more than any other further education. English and maths are vital—[Interruption.] We are funding them. We are funding them to the tune of more than £300 million a year. That is what we are spending on the provision of English and maths as part of study programmes.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Many businesses recognise that the best way of gaining new skills is to upskill their current work forces. How are the Government supporting companies that want to invest in the skills of their own workers?

[Nick Boles]

We are making an unparalleled investment in apprenticeships, which—notwithstanding the criticism from the Opposition—companies sometimes use to help existing employees to gain new skills and realise their potential. We are also making advanced learning loans available to people who want to invest in their own skills so that they can command higher salaries in the workplace.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

14. Funding for non-apprenticeship adult education courses is dropping by 24% this year, and the adult further education budget has been cut by a third in the last five years. Can the Minister confirm that, by definition, apprenticeship courses serve those who are working—albeit for only part of the week—and that many of the courses that will be cut provide vital basic skills for the unemployed, and vital support and education for those who want to improve their skills when employers are not supporting them?

[Nick Boles]

Unlike the previous Government—and no doubt the Government that Labour would form were they to get into office again—we follow the evidence, and the evidence is clear. We published a report in December that looked at the destination data of young people taking different kinds of further education course and apprenticeships. A level 2 apprenticeship provides an 11% increase in income three to five years later. A level 3 apprenticeship provides a 16% increase in income three to five years later. No other FE course provides more than a 1% or 2% increase in people’s income. We are investing in what works: apprenticeships and traineeships for people who are not yet ready to take on an apprenticeship or a job. That is the right investment for any Government to make.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

What discussions does my hon. Friend have with his counterpart in the Department for Education to ensure sufficient numbers of young people are going through schools with a maths background so that they can eventually teach maths in further education?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that one of the great tragedies is young people, at a very young age, making choices whose impact they do not realise and closing off routes into engineering and maths teaching. That is why we have introduced the EBacc to prioritise those subjects—sciences, English and maths—that open doors and open possibilities for all young people.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

22. Does the Minister accept that if we are to improve basic maths and English, a key step is to bring forward, with some urgency given that the Government are about to go to the electorate, a number of proposals already in the Department, such as the disadvantaged learners fund and proposals to ensure our FE provision is completed—in my case at Basford Hall FE?

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Gentleman has been a champion for his constituency, and not just a champion but an initiator and a creator of very good ideas and programmes. We are very keen to work with him to support disadvantaged learners in the outer Nottingham estates in the way he has outlined. We are currently looking at how we will fund that, but he has my commitment that we will be working with him to achieve his goals.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the business potential of marine energy for UK suppliers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

T7. In the time that he has been in government, East Berkshire college has lost 40% of its Government funding, and the courses that have been hit, while apprenticeships have been protected, are technician-level courses, so we will not have the nursery nurses, the lab technicians or the IT technicians that business and industry desperately need. What is he going to do about it?

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

What we are doing is investing more in apprenticeships than any previous Government, and apprenticeships create lab technicians and nursery nurses—[Interruption.] They do. They are very successful, and they are much more valuable than full-time college courses. An apprenticeship for a nursery nurse or a lab technician is a much better way to go for a young person than any other.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

Although the Department has created many opportunities for business, one of the biggest concerns in my constituency is late payments to small business. What steps have the Government taken to address that problem?

--- Later in debate ---

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

The Skills Minister seems reluctant to answer questions about cuts in adult learning opportunities amounting to 35%, so there are a million fewer adults receiving such training. East Durham college in my constituency has warned that if the Government continue, adult further education will, in effect, be a thing of the past. Why are the Government undermining lifelong learning and hindering opportunities for adults to retrain and obtain qualifications that they need to meet the demands of the labour market?

[Nick Boles]

I am not denying anything, but the Opposition seem incapable of recognising that, first, this Government have created more jobs than any Government in the entire European Union, so many of the adults that the hon. Gentleman is talking about are now in work and happily so, and secondly, that we have invested more money in apprenticeships, and apprenticeships are the best and most productive form of training. I note that his college’s performance on apprenticeships is woeful and is declining at a time when we are offering colleges more money every year to help adults also into apprenticeships.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Recently, Georgie Hall, my 23-month-old constituent, lost her short fight against meningitis. Her parents Matt and Paula Hall are understandably devastated. Given the impasse over the meningitis B vaccine, can my hon. Friend the life sciences Minister use his best offices to resolve the issue between GlaxoSmithKline and the Government? Will he consider looking at a new framework for drug procurement to avoid this type of impasse and future tragedies like the one that the Hall family has suffered?

MG Rover

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) on securing a debate on a matter that is of such painful importance to so many of his constituents and the communities he represents.

It is perhaps rare but also important that we do not just talk about what is happening today and over the next six weeks—it is easy for us all to become caught up in that—but that we look back at the past and try to make sure that we are always learning lessons from things that went wrong to ensure that they do not happen again. It is obvious that the collapse of MG Rover and the closure of the Longbridge plant was a devastating blow to the community and to the many thousands of people and their families who depended on the jobs they had in that company.

It is a matter of great regret that the people who took over MG Rover when there was an earlier threat of collapse did so without, frankly, proper intentions to build the company and secure its long-term future. Instead, they acted in ways that led to their disqualification as directors or managers of limited companies. Their conduct as directors was found to have fallen well short of the standards of commercial probity and the general conduct befitting the director of a limited company. Frankly, I hope that their part in such a shameful episode that caused so much pain to so many people, and such loss to the community that the hon. Gentleman represents, is a matter of great personal shame to the individuals he has named. I also hope that he agrees that the disqualification penalties that those individuals suffered were appropriate, but he is right to point out that they have not suffered financially in the same way that many of his constituents have. I completely understand why he and many of his constituents feel an abiding sense of injustice at the distribution of the penalties for the failure of MG Rover between those who ran it and those who worked for it so loyally for so long.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the Financial Reporting Council investigation into the action taken by the company’s auditors, which led to a fine that the auditors then appealed. He is right to say that the appeal is ongoing and it is not yet clear what fine will be imposed. He suggested that, when that fine is finally levied, the Financial Reporting Council should consider making the proceeds available in some form to the local community. He will understand that the Financial Reporting Council is an independent body established by the accountancy profession, so it would not be proper for me as a Minister to issue any direction or even guidance, but I will say that he made a very strong argument with which many people with a sense of natural justice will have sympathised. I have no doubt that, when the fine has been determined and is about to be levied, the members of the Financial Reporting Council will have heard him and will no doubt want to respond directly with their thoughts on the matter. I can think of no better use for such a fine than the one he suggested.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the Pension Protection Fund. I agree that it was a fortuitous fact for which we should all be grateful that the fund was introduced in advance—just—of the failure of MG Rover, so that many people were at least able to benefit from that level of protection of the lifelong savings that they had worked so hard to put aside. He also asked about the indexation rates. I am afraid I am not an expert on that, but I will encourage officials in the relevant Department to respond to him directly on his concerns about the indexation rates that apply in that scheme.

The hon. Gentleman asked how, had they been in force at the time, the current rules on access to employment tribunals would have affected his constituents following the failure of MG Rover. That is another subject on which a different Department, in this case the Ministry of Justice, leads. Nevertheless, he will know—and it is important that the public know, so that they are not unnecessarily afraid of the circumstances, should they become victims of a company’s failure—that people can apply for an exemption from or reduction of employment tribunal fees. That way, people with limited means are not excluded from seeking redress. About a third of applications for fee remissions by people making a tribunal claim are successful. He made a reasonable point when he said that one consideration in assessing such applications could well be the circumstances that had led people to go to an employment tribunal, such as the failure of a company in the manner he described.

[Richard Burden]

I am grateful to the Minister for the spirit in which he is approaching the debate. I recognise that the matter does not fall under his portfolio, but my point is that although remission can be awarded, the problem is that it is all retrospective. People need confidence when they lose their jobs, not afterwards.

[Nick Boles]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. He referred to the role of trade unions. Perhaps to the surprise of some members of the Labour party, I am generally a supporter of trade unions, because there are occasions—he has outlined one of them—when they have a very important role representing their members and bridging any difficulties that they have in accessing justice. The hon. Gentleman is aware that the Government have announced a review of tribunal fees. I would not want to prejudge that, but he has made a powerful argument about how they might operate in circumstances such as those at MG Rover.

What I am about to say will not necessarily come as much comfort to the individuals who lost their jobs at MG Rover, because although many—indeed, most—found other jobs, the pain and loss that they experienced will never be removed from their memories. Nevertheless, it is important that we reflect on the wider success of the automotive industry, including some at the Longbridge site, as well as of the communities that the hon. Gentleman represents and the wider west midlands. It has been a remarkable feat, almost entirely the work of the people he represents. They have managed to pick up the automotive industry from a pretty dismal place and turn it into one of the most successful automotive industries anywhere in the world. Would that it had happened within the form of MG Rover and without the traumatic experience that so many of his constituents had to undergo, but I am sure that he too would like to thank and pay tribute to those who have managed to rebuild British car manufacturing to its current position and to celebrate the rapid growth in manufacturing employment in his constituency and the broader west midlands region. Long may it continue.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I know that time is tight for the Minister, but in acknowledging the role of the companies and the work force, will he also pay tribute to the constructive long-term work of the unions in bringing about that success?

[Nick Boles]

I am happy to do that. Revivals of this sort are never the work of one party or another; they are almost always the result of effective collaboration between far-sighted investors, hard-working and committed employees and trade unions that want to achieve success for everyone because that creates jobs and increasing wages. I am therefore happy to pay that tribute. We can all look forward to continued growth, more jobs, more exports and better wages for people working in the automotive sector and its supply chain in the west midlands.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Boles Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

11. If she will take steps to promote the establishment of more sixth-form colleges.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

We have supported the creation of new sixth-form schools, such as Exeter Mathematics school, the London Academy of Excellence in Newham and Sir Isaac Newton sixth-form school in Norwich, but we do not currently plan to promote the establishment of more sixth-form colleges.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The Minister will have seen the statistics showing that sixth-form colleges outperform other providers of 16-to-18 education on every measure of academic success and in value for money. Does he not therefore agree that an intelligent Government would seek actively to establish many more sixth-form colleges, instead of allowing their numbers to reduce?

[Nick Boles]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s support for and admiration of the work of sixth-form colleges, which are generally fantastic institutions producing great results, but I disagree with him on this obsession with particular forms and structures. I agree with him that schools that are dedicated to teaching 16 to 19-year-olds in sixth forms do very well, which is why we have supported the creation of so many sixth-form schools, but whether they are schools or colleges is a second-order issue.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I can assure my hon. Friend that in the Sixth Form college in Farnborough we have one of the finest structures in the country. However, sixth-form colleges are facing a challenge because they are eligible for VAT, unlike sixth forms in mainstream schools. Will my hon. Friend do something to remedy that anomaly because it is really having an effect on not only my sixth-form college but many others around the country?

[Nick Boles]

We absolutely recognise this “anomaly”, as my hon. Friend calls it, which also applies to further education colleges. It goes along with other freedoms that schools and academies do not have—sixth-form colleges have the freedom to borrow in a way that academies do not—but we nevertheless recognise that this issue is of concern to a lot of sixth-form colleges, and we are actively discussing ways in which we might ameliorate it. However, to get rid of the problem entirely would cost many tens of millions of pounds, which would require us to identify savings that we cannot find at the moment.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I understand that the Minister, who recognises this “anomaly”, has in his rather amiable way when visiting sixth-form colleges been encouraging some of them to consider going for academy status. When that happens, however, his noble friend Lord Nash says, “This isn’t on mate”. Which is right? Can colleges go for academy status or not?

[Nick Boles]

Lord Nash and I are not only great friends but we agree entirely on this issue. It is legally possible under existing provisions for a college to convert to academy status, but there are issues around how the VAT will be dealt with, and how any debt that it has already amassed will be dealt with on its balance sheet. Those issues are tricky, but we are looking at them.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

Successive rounds of cuts to sixth-form and further education colleges are having a devastating effect. One principal of a college in the west country—a college recently judged by Ofsted as outstanding and a beacon college—recently told The Times Educational Supplement that

“cuts have taken us to the edge”,

and added that any further cuts would threaten the services the college offers.

Will the Minister commit to Labour’s pledge to protect the education budget in real terms?

[Nick Boles]

I will not commit to a pledge that is as unfunded as every pledge that Labour has made since 2010. Labour Members think that they will pay for all this out of a tax on bankers’ bonuses that has so far been used about 27 times. There was no money left according to the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and that is because Labour has absolutely no idea how to run a budget.

[Charlotte Leslie (Bristol North West) (Con)]

12. What support her Department is providing for the establishment of a college of teaching.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

15. How many state secondary schools and colleges in England engage alumni to support students.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

We encourage all schools to involve former students in advising young people about career opportunities and the course choices that can lead to them. Future First does excellent work in helping schools to do this.

[Ian Swales]

St Peter’s school in my constituency is in one of the most deprived communities in the country, yet it has produced the current head of performance engineering at the Williams Formula 1 team and the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark). Does the Minister agree that such alumni can play a valuable role in raising aspiration in the next generation?

[Nick Boles]

I agree with my hon. Friend absolutely. It is hard to know who I admire more: my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells or the other gentleman he refers to. One of the key tasks of the new careers company being set up by Christine Hodgson is to help every school in the country to have an enterprise adviser, a current or recently retired local executive, who can help the school and the students identify opportunities in the area for their future career.

Careers Advice (14 to 19-Year-Olds)

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. This has been an excellent debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) on securing it and congratulate all hon. Members on their contributions. However, I am clearly not able to respond to every question asked and every point raised.

I start by observing that, as the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) said, there has never been a golden age of careers advice and guidance. I think we can all agree about that. He is a former Minister in this field and took office at the end of a long Government full of largesse, so I think he will have noted that large Government budgets have not proved to be the solution to the lack of advice and guidance. He made a perfunctory reference to Connexions, but nobody has come up to me, either since I was elected to Parliament or since I was appointed to this job, and mourned the scrapping of that service. There may well have been good intentions behind it, but the reality is that it achieved very little, with a relatively large budget. When we faced the largest peace time budget deficit in our history, it was a right and proper economy to make to get rid of Connexions as it was then constituted.

There was never a golden age and, certainly, the previous Government did not manage to produce a system of careers advice and guidance that led to high-quality advice for young people throughout the country and in all schools. We as a Government have recognised that, thanks to the good work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chairman of the Education Committee, and others, and have taken steps to ensure that schools are more focused on their responsibilities. Hon. Members have mentioned the introduction of statutory guidance requiring schools to provide independent advice and guidance. We certainly recognise that too few schools are doing so. There were many calls from Opposition Members for proper resourcing for this. However, there is a difficulty here, because proper resourcing means more money either dedicated to or ring-fenced for the provision of careers advice and guidance and the employment of more careers advisers. In that case, Opposition Members have to answer questions—I know they never like doing so—about what other things they are going to cut, what taxes they will raise or what borrowing will be increased to provide that resourcing; otherwise, that resourcing will have to come from within the existing schools budgets.

The reality is that good schools of all kinds—grant-maintained schools, academies, and all kinds of schools—realise that it is critical for them to make an investment from their budget and employ a careers adviser or co-ordinator. Lots of different models work. Good schools realise that this is a priority and there is nothing stopping any school deciding to invest some of their resource in proper advice and guidance.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Just for the record, the Committee did not call for additional money. It recognised that, in an ideal world, it might have been a good thing, but that the most important thing was to change the incentives for schools, because the fact that 20% of schools can find the budget—they tend to be successful schools delivering outstanding academic results as well—shows that it can be done. In fact, those things are mutually enhancing.

If the Minister wanted a crude proxy for the success of the education system—I remember saying this to the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) when he was a Minister in the Labour Government—it would be how many young people end up as NEETs. I am pleased that the number in the shadow Minister’s constituency has gone from 900 when Labour left office to 140 today.

[Nick Boles]

Of course, I am always particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committee. I will come on to his point on incentives, which is a good one.

Probably the most useful thing I can do for hon. Members who participated in this debate is to answer some questions about the new careers company, because I understand that although people are broadly and in principle supportive of it, they question how it will fit into the landscape and particularly what its relationship with or functions relative to the National Careers Service will be.

The key point about the new careers company is that we observed that there is no shortage of organisations offering high-quality activity. Straight after this debate I am meeting the people who run Inspiring Futures, which is an excellent programme with speakers for schools and any number of online resources. Of course, the National Careers Service provides high-quality advice to lots of young people as well as to adults. There is no shortage of provision, but schools face great difficulty understanding what is available, what is high quality and what would really meet the identified needs of their young people.

The point of the careers company, under Christine Hodgson, is to create a structure whereby every school has somebody it can ask to help it through this forest and identify the resources and the providers who will help provide a much better range of experiences and inspiration to young people. It will focus initially on mapping what is out there, because people have to know that before they can start offering guidance. It will then focus on Lord Young’s excellent idea, in his report to the Prime Minister, of appointing an enterprise adviser. That person will be a current or recently retired local executive from the public or private sector, who will be attached to a school and whose role will be to help it identify local businesses and employers that can come in to the school and provide work experience, and resources relating to programmes relevant for the school. A school will identify that local enterprise adviser with the help of their local economic partnership.

I agree with those who have said that local economic partnerships have an obvious role to play in helping schools understand who out there can help them deliver on their duty. I do not think many teachers or head teachers are failing to provide careers advice and guidance because they do not believe in it; it is because they are busy and not particularly qualified to do it. It is no criticism of them to suggest that. They need some help. As we have heard, a plethora of local business executives is only too willing to get involved. However, we need some structure of brokerage in that regard and some guidance to schools on how they can give better advice and guidance to their young people.

Those will be the two main priorities for the careers company. It will have a small pot of money of about £5 million—a small part of the £20 million—from which it will be able to back new ideas for new kinds of experience and advice and guidance. That will act more as a sort of seed fund or a venture fund. It will also work more long-term on Lord Young’s other idea, which is for an enterprise passport that would probably be an online record of all of the non-formal educational achievements of a young person—all the volunteering and holiday jobs they have done, all the clubs they have joined and all their other extracurricular achievements at school—so that employers have an objective record of the full range of a young person’s contribution to their community when judging their fitness for school.

In the final minutes of this debate I should like to focus on the point of careers advice and guidance, although I am happy to answer in writing any questions from colleagues about the careers company. The point of careers advice is to lead to a career, and the point of every career is to have a series of satisfying and fulfilling jobs. I hope that every hon. Member of every party will recognise the signal achievement of this Government, which is to have created more jobs in Yorkshire—as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Employment reminded us—than have been created in France, and to have created more jobs in the United Kingdom than have been created in the whole of the European Union.

The key to a career is having an economy that creates jobs—new jobs in new sectors, requiring new young people with new skills. Of course, they need advice and guidance, and of course they need clear data that help them understand which choice of qualifications leads to which possibilities regarding a career. However, ultimately, without an economy that is creating employment at the speed we have been doing so in this country, there is no point having even the best careers advice and guidance in the world. Right now, even with fantastic careers advice and guidance, someone who has the misfortune to be a young person in Spain will have a pretty small chance of having a fulfilling career because youth unemployment there is pushing 40%.

Let us remember the point of careers advice and guidance, which is to guide people on to a path that will give them a satisfying range of jobs in the economy, creating jobs like no other.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Boles Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to increase the number of engineers.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

We are investing in engineering skills at every level in higher education through apprenticeships and in further education, but perhaps the most important initiative is the university technical college initiative. We have opened 30 university technical colleges and a further 27 are in the pre-opening phase.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

As we know, we are going to have increasing demand for engineers nationally over the next few decades, and this will be no more acute than in Basildon and Thurrock. Will my hon. Friend therefore work with me to explore the possibility of establishing a university technical college in Basildon to meet our local needs and to encourage and enthuse young people to look at engineering as a valued career?

[Nick Boles]

I would be delighted to do that. I know my hon. Friend has been leading the process of trying to set up a UTC in his constituency. I urge him to make contact with the excellent Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which developed the concept of the UTC and will provide invaluable advice on how to make sure that my hon. Friend submits a successful bid.

[Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

The Minister will know that the largest manufacturing industry in the country is food and drink, and that it has one of the biggest export potentials. Will he recognise that engineering disciplines that are ancillary to that industry also have enormous potential, whether it be agricultural engineering, food processing, food storage requirements or food transport? Will he look at technical education from the point of view of where the export potential is, particularly in the developing world?

[Mr Speaker]

Minister Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles.

[Nick Boles]

Mr Speaker, thank you! You have slightly thrown me off my course.

I welcome what my hon. Friend has said, and I hope that he welcomes the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor when launching our long-term economic plan for the south-west, in which he encouraged a proposal to come forward for a university technical college specifically focused on agriculture and related industries. I hope that my hon. Friend will be involved in promoting that.

[Mr Speaker]

I apologise to the Minister, the full munificence of whose name I was simply seeking to capture for the edification of the House.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

This year, China will produce something like 2 million graduates in engineering and engineering-related subjects. Engineering firms in my constituency tell me how difficult it is to recruit engineers, particularly female ones, and that when they train them up, they often lose them to larger firms. What can the Minister do to make sure we have a better join-up between business requirements and education so that engineers stay in this country and produce for our economy?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the desperate need for more engineers, but we have been making good progress. Since 2010, the number of people starting an engineering-related apprenticeship has gone up by 52%, and since 2013 the number of people starting an engineering degree has risen by 6.5 %. If we can get a better supply coming through the pipe, companies will be less inclined to poach from each other and will actually invest in developing the talent themselves through an apprenticeship.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

4. What steps he plans to take to safeguard the universal service obligation for the delivery of mail.

--- Later in debate ---

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

T6. Ninety-three per cent. of those aged 25 or over who completed apprenticeships last year already worked for their employer. If this is not just a rebadging of existing training programmes as apprenticeships, what is it?

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

One of the most extraordinary steps the Opposition have taken is to tell us that if someone is employed by a business we do not care about the process of giving them new skills, and that it is inappropriate for the Government to invest in giving them those skills. It is entirely reasonable for businesses to employ someone for a time and then see that they have the aptitude and potential to complete an apprenticeship. Apprenticeships have to last at least 12 months and they involve a substantial investment by employers, so it is not for us to stand in the way if employers want to invest in upskilling the staff they already have.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

The economy in northern Lincolnshire has had much good news in recent weeks, but a bit of a damper was put on that this morning by the announcement from Lindsey oil refinery that there will be 180 redundancies. That follows 90 redundancies announced last week by Cristal Global. Will the Minister assure me that everything possible will be done by his Department and Government agencies to support the workers at this difficult time?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

There were a wonderful 850 apprenticeship starts in Kettering last year, led ably by Tresham college in my constituency. Is the Skills Minister satisfied that LEPs are working as well as they might with local further education establishments in pushing the apprenticeship agenda?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is right to suggest that LEPs should take this seriously. Some are doing better than others on this, but our message is clear: they have a key responsibility, working with local businesses and colleges such as the one my hon. Friend referred to, to ensure that as many businesses as possible take up the opportunity of an apprenticeship. because that is the way to build the skills that his constituency and others need for the future.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The Minister gave a progress report on the Government’s dealing with late payment, but, according to a recent small business seminar in my constituency, it remains a bugbear. One international telecommunications company was cited which not only charges a fee to be a supplier, but has 180-day payment terms. What more can we do to name and shame and make transparent these obscene practices, which clobber small businesses?

Apprenticeships

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

It came as a bit of a surprise to learn that the Opposition were proposing a debate on apprenticeships, because as we have heard during this excellent debate, the Government can point to a remarkable record of success in their apprenticeship programme. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) that the number of apprenticeships in his constituency was 80% higher in the past year than in the last year of the previous Government, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) told the House that, through his efforts to create jobs fairs and no fewer than three apprenticeship fairs, unemployment in his constituency was now 50% lower than it was when he was elected to Parliament. We heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller) that her local college, Basingstoke college, was keen to invest more money every year to create more apprenticeships, and I will of course be delighted to meet her and the college principal to discuss ways in which the college can bid more effectively for money in-year when it can identify ways to grow its programme.

I was particularly pleased to hear from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), who brought to the debate the enormous advantage of having completed an apprenticeship himself. I have no idea why he chose to give up that honourable trade for the one that he is now pursuing, but I am nevertheless full of admiration for him. He made an important contribution —compared with the woolly and glib thinking of those on his Front Bench—in pointing out the crucial importance of level 2 apprenticeships, particularly in construction. It would simply be wrong to tell the young men and women who are doing a level 2 apprenticeship in bricklaying that it was no longer going to be called an apprenticeship, even though they were employed, working hard, going to college and training, and even though they were securing valuable qualifications, of which many more are needed.

We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who made the particularly important point that there was a key link between apprenticeships and the industrial strategies that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has brought in. He also said that we needed to work with local economic partnerships to create apprenticeships that support the local growing sectors in his constituency and elsewhere. I am sorry that I have not yet been invited to his festival of manufacturing and engineering, but I look forward to receiving an invitation to the next one when he is re-elected in May.

We have heard from my right hon. and hon. Friends about the good record of this Government. We have our record to be proud of, but Conservative Members also have a clear plan for the future. Unlike the Opposition’s proposals in the motion, our plan is fully costed and fully resourced.

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

[Nick Boles]

We will continue to improve the quality of apprenticeships through our Trailblazers programme by getting groups of employers to develop apprenticeship standards that deliver the skills that they need. We will also offer young people a clear choice: to earn or learn—to get a job or to go to university—or to combine earning and learning through an apprenticeship. It does young people no favours to let them start their lives in subsidised inactivity, neither earning nor learning, so we will restrict the benefits that young people receive and use the money saved from that and from the proceeds of a reduction in the benefits cap from £26,000 to £23,000 to fund 3 million high-quality apprenticeships between 2015 and 2020.

By contrast, what we have heard from the Opposition has been hopelessly vague. After the comprehensive demolition of the shadow Secretary of State’s policy on tuition fees by university vice-chancellors, he has clearly decided to try his luck with apprenticeships, but yet again we see that the right hon. Gentleman is better with atmospherics than with policy detail.

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The Minister is not giving way, and neither did the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) when he was at the Dispatch Box. I must point out that the Front-Bench speakers in this debate have spoken for well over an hour, which is why Back Benchers have had very little time to speak. The right hon. Gentleman has had his chance. I call the Minister.

[Nick Boles]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Opposition motion refers to an aspiration that there should be as many people starting apprenticeships as there are going to university. Treasury officials—not Ministers—have costed this policy and advised that it would cost £710 million in 2015-16. But when challenged about how they would pay for this, what tax they would put up, what other spending programme they would cut, answer came there none.

The Opposition motion also promotes the fantastically deluded idea that all apprenticeships should be level 3 and should last a minimum of two years. Treasury officials—again, not Ministers—costed this policy too. They advise that it would cost £680 million in 2015-16. Can the shadow Front-Bench team explain how they would pay for that, who would pay more tax, whose services would be cut? Of course not.

It is especially disappointing to see this policy soufflé survive the exacting inquiries of the Opposition’s very own Masterchef, the shadow Minister. He has a razor-sharp mind and a real zeal for reform, but I am afraid it is clear that he has been relegated to the sidelines, allowed out only on high days and holidays and, as we have just heard, forced to read from the Leader of the Opposition’s lazily profligate script. The flimsiness of the Labour party’s proposals for apprenticeships might be harmless enough in the early years of opposition. That, of course, is where the shadow Secretary of State has learned his trade. But in government, it would create chaos.

Employers, training providers and young people are making big decisions when they decide to invest in creating apprenticeships and in creating the training programmes to support apprenticeships and, as young people, deciding to commit to an apprenticeship. They need certainty and clarity if they are to have the confidence to make a long-term commitment to apprenticeships. They need a competent Government with a clear plan and a clear understanding of how much their plan will cost and how they will pay for it.

If there is a Conservative Government after 7 May, we will invest in apprenticeships, which will be jobs and will last more than 12 months. Every apprentice will have an employer. There will be 3 million of them between 2015 and 2020 and we will pay for them by reducing other areas of Government spending so that, as we have in this Parliament, we can increase our investment in the apprenticeships programme. I urge Members to support those parties that really understand how to grow apprenticeships, and to oppose the motion.

Question put.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Boles Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

4. How many apprentices aged 16 to 18 are paid the apprentice minimum wage.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

The 2014 apprenticeship pay survey found that 76% of 16 to 18-year-old apprentices were paid at or above the minimum amount. On average, they were paid a basic hourly rate of £4.34.

[Diana Johnson]

Non-compliance with apprenticeship minimum wage is highest in the sectors that young women traditionally go into, such as hairdressing and child care. I think that with hairdressing a third do not receive the minimum wage and with child care it is a quarter. There are obviously issues there around gender inequality as well as poverty pay, so will the Minister tell us what he is going to do about them?

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Lady is quite right to say that it is perhaps especially unacceptable that this should impact on women in particular, although it is always unacceptable for an employer not to pay the national minimum wage. That is why we have increased the Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs enforcement budget from £8 million in 2013-14 to £9 million this year and to £12 million next year. In 2013, we introduced the naming and shaming of those companies found not to pay the minimum wage. We repeated that last week and have now named and shamed 92 employers. We will continue to do that and I will make sure that we look particularly at cases where young women are affected.

[Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The card is in the post, Mr Speaker.

The number of people taking up apprenticeships in Basingstoke has doubled under this Government. Fujitsu is guaranteeing a permanent job to all apprentices who complete their training. Of course bad employers should be taken to task, but given that the Government have got this in hand, does the Minister share my concern that the Opposition risk casting apprenticeships in a bad light at a time when we should be talking them up as an option for young people in school?

[Nick Boles]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, particularly about the fantastic work of Fujitsu, which is one of the best apprentice employers in the country, and I am delighted about that as it is to the benefit of her constituents. She is absolutely right to say that we should all be selling the advantages of apprenticeships to young people. Most employers of apprentices pay dramatically more than the minimum wage—and quite right, too, because they value young people and their efforts—but this Government will always bear down on those who fail in their responsibilities.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

As the Minister saw for himself at Abingdon and Witney college last week, we have seen a superb 63% increase in apprenticeships in my constituency. In fact, local employers and apprentices told us that the main barrier to an even better performance going forward was the historical local bias towards university education. What work is the Minister doing with schools to ensure that apprenticeships are seen as a good career option?

[Nick Boles]

I thank my hon. Friend for organising this visit, which was fascinating and very encouraging. Perhaps we all understand why there might be a bias in favour of university in the city of Oxford, but nevertheless a huge number of young people in my hon. Friend’s constituency decide, quite rightly, that they can benefit even more from an apprenticeship. We are investing in a marketing campaign to ensure that their teachers and parents have the same understanding of the value of an apprenticeship as many enlightened young people do themselves.

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

5. Whether her Department monitors local education authorities’ adherence to its statutory guidance on school organisation.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

16. What steps she is taking to improve the status of vocational education.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

We have removed thousands of low-quality qualifications from performance league tables, introduced the requirement to carry on studying English and maths for young people who have not yet achieved Cs at GCSE and invested in 2 million high-quality apprenticeships since 2010.

[David Morris]

Will the Minister join me in praising the fact that last month we celebrated having more than 2 million apprentices? What else are the Government doing to promote apprenticeships in areas such as mine?

[Nick Boles]

I had the great pleasure of meeting the 2 millionth apprentice, a young woman working in an extraordinary business whose work I could not understand because it was so complicated. She is doing something very clever in engineering near Oxford in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood). We are supporting smaller employers who create apprenticeships with a grant worth £1,500 and we are working closely with the fantastic apprenticeship ambassador network, led by David Meller and championed in this House by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) and the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle)—[Interruption.] Not that David Mellor.

[Mr Speaker]

That is a great relief to all of us to learn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

T2. More than 10,000 people have now signed an e-petition urging the Government to introduce a VAT refund scheme for sixth-form colleges. Does the Minister now accept that it is time to drop this learning tax on sixth-form colleges, which does not have to be paid by schools, academies and free schools?

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

I am aware of this long-standing issue, which the last Government also failed to correct. One of the things that I am looking into is the possibility of enabling sixth-form colleges to change their status if they are willing to link up with other schools. But that is something that has to be brought forward by sixth-form colleges themselves, and it is still subject to discussions with the Treasury, which is always pretty fierce on these matters. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Campbell, calm yourself. All that hot curry in the Kennington Tandoori is making you fierier than ever. I have never known anything like it.