Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Boles Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

2. What assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the appointment by the Church of England of its first female bishop; and if she will make a statement.

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

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and I congratulate Libby Lane on becoming the new Bishop of Stockport and the first female bishop in the Church of England. I am delighted to see the Church of England moving into the 21st century, at least in this respect.

[Mike Freer]

Does the Minister agree that at last we have a great role model for the Church of England and girls in this country?

[Nick Boles]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. Role models such as Libby Lane are very important, which is why the Government are supporting schemes such as “Your Life” and “Inspiring Women”, which is led by the formidably impressive lawyer, Miriam Gonzales. I believe that her husband has a job, too, but I think we can all agree that she is the role model in that family.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

3. What steps she is taking to close the gender pay gap.

Direct Selling Industry

Nick Boles Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) on securing this debate on an industry that is not only important to his constituency—although, as he rightly pointed out, it could easily claim to be the centre of direct selling in the UK—but to communities across the whole country.

We in our profession should have a particular affinity with anyone in the direct selling industry, because what are we politicians ourselves other than direct sellers, going—particularly in the next few months—from door to door and trying to persuade people to buy a product from us? We do not do so for profit, but we often have to use many of the same skills and methods as those who succeed in the direct selling industry. We all know that, simple though it sounds, summoning up the persuasive powers and reserves of charm necessary to persuade a sceptical person on the doorstep that they should give us a little time so that they can listen to our message and understand what we are proposing is not the easiest thing in the world.

It is a huge credit to the people engaged in direct selling that they are as successful as they are and that they are able to build sustainable incomes for their families. My hon. Friend told the wonderful story of Brenda, Sally and Victoria, three generations of one family, all of whom—including Brenda, who is now 81 but still active—are direct sellers; I believe it is for Amway, which is obviously the most famous direct selling company in the world.

Those three formidable ladies provide particular lessons for us. The first lesson is that the income is sustainable. Direct selling is not just something that people do perhaps for a year or two at the start of their careers, although it could be that. It can provide a sustainable income and be a business that provides a livelihood for a family—not just for decades, but across generations.

The second lesson is that, as my hon. Friend pointed out, this is an area of business and entrepreneurial activity that is perhaps particularly attractive to young women, especially those trying to combine work and enterprise with bringing up children. That is because it has a key, innate flexibility. A direct selling business is one that they can run from home, devoting whatever hours in whatever days of the week suit them. What matters is their results, not how they achieve them.

That is why it has been so important that the Government have been focused, and remain focused, on making it easier for people to set up and run businesses from their homes. Of course, not all businesses run from homes are direct selling businesses, but a great number of them are. Previously, there were some pettifogging bureaucratic rules that made it harder for people to set up and run businesses from home—rules on tenancy agreements, meaning that people required a specific change to them, with the agreement of their landlord, before they could set up a business to run from home. We have changed the law so that landlords can agree to home business use without in any way affecting or undermining their residential tenancy agreement.

In addition, there were rules relating to business rates and planning conditions that also militated against people setting up businesses to run from home. Consequently, we have made sure that, in the majority of circumstances, home-based businesses will not attract business rates. We have published revised business rates guidance to clarify that point. That is important, because if someone is setting up a home business they probably do not have a great deal of capital to set it up; perhaps one of the attractions of the direct selling industry is that it does not require a huge amount of start-up capital. However, if they face the prospect of being charged business rates instead of council tax, that could be very off-putting. The change that we have made will help to make the prospect of setting up a home-based business more attractive to people.

Finally, we have published a guide for anyone who wants to set up a home-based business, so that they can find in one place all the information they need to ensure that they are acting properly within the law and to understand what support they get from Government as start-up businesses, as well as what opportunities there are for start-up loans and other financial support from the British Business Bank.

We believe, as a Government, that we have a good record of supporting anybody who wants to set up a business—particularly a business from home. I am sure that that record has played a role in the substantial increase in home-based businesses. The number of home businesses has increased to 2.9 million, a 500,000 increase since 2010. That increase is enabling people who previously either did not have any work or had a job that was not satisfying to them and was incompatible with their other responsibilities to take charge of their lives and provide for their families in a way that suits them.

My hon. Friend made an important point in saying that this way of working enables people to have independence and to run their lives in a way that suits them and their families. It can also suit their broader responsibilities, providing them with an opportunity to develop a business and earn an income that is flexible and fits with the pattern of their lives. I am happy to give my hon. Friend an assurance that we will continue to take into account home-based businesses—particularly direct selling businesses—in the formulation of policy.

My hon. Friend mentioned an interesting study of attitudes towards home-based businesses and direct selling businesses in different countries. He singled out Denmark as a place where attitudes were most positive. He conjectured that that might be a result of the fact that Denmark requires every young person to be offered enterprise education from the age of 16.

I hope that my hon. Friend welcomes—I am sure that he does—the work by the noble Lord Young, who has held a central and distinguished position in a series of Conservative Governments going back over many decades and who is passionate about enterprise education. Lord Young recently produced a report for the Prime Minister called “Enterprise for all”. He proposes specifically to establish a network of enterprise advisers—current or former executives with local businesses—attached to schools, whose job it would be to co-ordinate bringing people into schools who could inspire young people with the possibilities of enterprise and of setting up their own businesses.

That policy is welcome and has now been given over to the new careers company that Christine Hodgson is setting up and leading, to which the Government are committing £20 million. We hope that within a couple of years we will have a network of enterprise advisers across the country and that every school will have somebody with real business experience, embedded and implanted in the local business community, who can bring into schools speakers, programmes and work experience offers that will enable young people who think they might be interested in setting up a business to get some experience and talk to people who have done it.

I say to my hon. Friend’s constituents who are senior executives in the direct selling businesses, and to individuals running direct selling businesses and members of the Direct Selling Association, that they could make contact with their old school, go back as alumni and talk to young people about what direct selling and setting up their own business from home has done for their lives. They could say how it has enabled them to fulfil their dreams and establish financial independence for their families. That would be as powerful a message as any.

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this subject to the attention of the House. It is certainly one that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is focused on.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Boles Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

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

3. What steps his Department is taking to increase the number of apprenticeships.

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

We have achieved our ambition of 2 million new apprenticeships since 2010. The apprenticeship grant for employers is helping smaller business to take on new apprentices. From April 2016, employers will not be required to pay employer national insurance contributions for apprentices under the age of 25.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Will the Minister join me in congratulating the nearly 800 people in my constituency who started an apprenticeship last year? However, it is not just about quantity; it is also about quality. What steps is he taking to raise quality as well as quantity?

[Nick Boles]

I am delighted to congratulate those who started apprenticeships in my hon. Friend’s constituency this year. There has been a 40% increase since 2009-10 in the number of people starting apprenticeships in his constituency. They are higher-quality apprenticeships than those that existed under the previous Government. They have to last at least 12 months, and they have to be a real job with a real employer. That is a key part of the economic plan that is improving conditions for young people in his constituency.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

The most recent figures show a fall in the number of apprenticeship starts in the north-east. What explanation can the Minister offer for that concerning trend and what does he intend to do about it?

[Nick Boles]

The previous Government created a great number of Mickey Mouse apprenticeships in order to massage the figures. There were apprenticeships for which people did not need an employer, and apprenticeships that lasted way less than 12 months. Under this Government, there is substantial growth in real apprenticeships—those that last more than 12 months and that give people real skills that will improve their earnings. That is why the number of people not in education, employment or training is lower than it has ever been.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

The Government should be congratulated on what they have achieved with regard to apprenticeships, but the Minister will be aware that in rural and economically challenged areas such as mine in west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, it is quite difficult to advance apprenticeships, particularly in small and micro-businesses. What will the Government do to ensure that small and micro-businesses can enjoy this success?

[Nick Boles]

It is incredibly important that apprenticeships are created not just by the largest employers who obviously have the resources and capacity to engage with the scheme. That is why we introduced the apprenticeship grant for employers, which is specifically focused on small businesses and pays them £1,500 for the first new apprenticeships that they create. We are also looking at ways of making it easier for small businesses to get the Government’s money and to decide with whom they want to work as a training provider. But it is critical—only about 10% of employers are creating apprenticeships; if we could just double that, we could more than double the number of apprenticeships.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Should we not give the Minister the opportunity to withdraw his unfortunate remarks about Mickey Mouse apprenticeships, which really are very disrespectful to all those who worked hard and did a good job in important apprenticeships in the years to which he was referring? Is it not true that most of the increase under this Government, which Members from all parts of the House welcome, has taken place not among 16 to 18-year-olds but in the 20-year-olds-plus group, and we now need apprenticeships that will encourage the younger group into them?

[Nick Boles]

It gives me great pleasure to disagree with literally everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. I certainly will not withdraw my suggestion that the last Government was conning young people. An apprenticeship that lasted less than 12 months and did not even have an employer was a fraud on them, because it was not preparing them for a life of work or giving them relevant skills. It is a bit strange for the Opposition to suggest that nobody over the age of 24 deserves any investment in new skills or any chance to acquire a new ability. I welcome the fact that people over the age of 24 are taking up apprenticeships more than ever before.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

One of the benefits of the real apprenticeships that the Government have brought in is that they provide long-term avenues into work. I recently visited a small business in Worcester that was taking on its 13th apprentice. Every single apprentice that had been through had been given a full-time job by that business. But there is still a challenge in persuading careers advisers that apprenticeships provide real value. What can my hon. Friend do to encourage them to support apprenticeships more generally?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is often careers advisers and teachers who, perhaps for the best reasons in the world, just do not understand the opportunities out there in apprenticeships, or the fact that someone can now get a degree through an apprenticeship or rise to almost any position in the senior management of a company. It is no longer about a young lad under the bonnet of a car; it can still be that, but it can also be about a young woman who has just got a first-class degree at BAE Systems through a higher apprenticeship. We are trying to get that message out in every way we can.

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

This Government have contrived to create a country where this generation of young people is now the first generation for a century to be poorer than the generation before them. Young people now face an unemployment queue that is three quarters of a million long; graduates now face £44,000-worth of debt; and from figures published by BIS before Christmas, we learned that the number of apprenticeships for the under-24s has not gone up but down. Social mobility in this country is in reverse, and we need more apprenticeships for young people, not fewer. The Opposition have an ambition that by 2025 as many people should be going into an apprenticeship as are going to university. Is that an ambition that the Minister will match?

[Nick Boles]

What I hope to hear from the right hon. Gentleman is whether that pledge, which we have costed on a reasonable basis, received the approval of the shadow Chancellor. My understanding is that the shadow Chancellor has not approved the approximately £700 million of extra spending, entirely unexplained, that it would cost to support that ambition. The Government are very clear what our ambition is. We will create 3 million new apprenticeships in the life of the next Parliament. Those apprenticeships will be for all people who would benefit from them. Unlike the Labour party and the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), we do not discriminate against people over the age of 24.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

4. What estimate he has made of the contribution net trade will make to GDP over the next four years.

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[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

15. If he will make greater use of Government procurement to increase apprenticeship places.

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

We are keen to look at ways that procurement of major infrastructure projects such as HS2 and new nuclear power plants can drive investment in construction and engineering skills. High Speed 2 will create up to 2,000 apprenticeship opportunities and Crossrail is on track to deliver its target of at least 400 apprenticeships during construction.

[Mr Bailey]

In their response to a Business, Innovation and Skills Committee report on this issue, the Government said that they were

“working on guidance to encourage best practice amongst local authorities”.

This National Apprenticeship Service guidance was subsequently published in July. It was eight pages long, and the first six pages were devoted to problems in securing this policy and case studies of failed projects. Does the Minister agree that if we are to realise the policy’s full potential, we need a far more robust and proactive approach by the Government?

[Nick Boles]

I certainly agree that there is more to be done, which is why I have had several meetings with Lord Deighton, the Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, to work out exactly how we can make it an integral part of the procurement process for all major infrastructure projects that there is a clear commitment by all successful bidders to invest in skills training and in the creation of apprenticeships.

[Mr Spellar]

I recognise that the Minister is new to this place, and that point scoring has its place, especially at this stage in the political cycle, but a previous answer of his did not match the seriousness of the situation. He referred to real apprenticeships leading to real skills, but we still have a huge skills shortage across the economy—for example, in construction, engineering, health and haulage, to name but a few areas. Will he make it a contractual requirement that bidders for national and local contracts have proper ratios of training places, and will he enforce those provisions if bidders fall short?

[Nick Boles]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving me an opportunity to clarify that. I think that it should absolutely be part of the procurement process for all major infrastructure projects that bidders are expected to make appropriate investments either in some form of skills training or, ideally, from my point of view—I am the apprenticeships bore—in the creation of apprenticeships. I hope that he, having criticised our record, will welcome the enormous number of apprenticeships that have been created in his constituency —50% up on 2009-10.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Is this Government policy applicable to all Departments? Will the Minister specifically have a word with the Ministry of Defence, which perhaps does not know about it?

[Nick Boles]

I have the greatest respect for my hon. Friend and am always nervous about implying that his comments are in any way unfair, but the armed forces in fact create more apprenticeships every single year than any other organisation in the country. I want this to be an integral part of the procurement for major infrastructure projects and, to the extent that the MOD is involved in such projects, it will absolutely apply to it, but the MOD is leading the way in creating apprenticeships, and we should pay credit to it for that.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

7. What steps he has taken to support manufacturing in the renewable technologies sector.

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[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

12. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the number of apprenticeship starts for people under 19; and if he will make a statement.

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

In 2013-14 there was a total of 119,800 apprenticeship starts for people under 19—5,300 more and a 4.6% increase compared with 2012-13.

[Heidi Alexander]

Last month, the Government’s own apprenticeship pay survey showed that one in four young apprentices are not receiving the legal minimum wage they are entitled to. In 2013-14, how many 16 to 18-year-olds did not receive the £2.68 per hour they are entitled to?

[Nick Boles]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out very clearly what we are doing to improve enforcement of the national minimum wage. One of the things that is clearly happening is that, given the complexity of the different rates—the rate changes both if someone becomes an apprentice and as they get older—many employers simply get it wrong because people’s ages change as they go through an apprenticeship scheme. That is one of the reasons we have written to the Low Pay Commission strongly suggesting that it should simplify the system and improve the minimum wage rate for 16 to 17-year-olds in apprenticeships. That would deliver a £1 increase, but it would also simplify the system, which would improve enforcement. I am happy to write to the hon. Lady with the detail on the figures she desires.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

13. What recent steps he has taken to support small businesses.

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[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

16. What support he is providing to businesses wanting to take on apprentices.

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

Some £l70 million has been made available between 2014 and 2016 to fund more than 100,000 additional payments of the apprenticeship grant to employers, and the Government’s planned investment in apprenticeships in the current financial year totals £1.5 billion.

[Rehman Chishti]

Will the Minister join me in welcoming the news that in Gillingham and Rainham there were 450 intermediate, 230 advanced, and 20 high-level apprenticeship starts in 2013-14, meaning that 700 young people gained invaluable skills and experiences for future careers? Will he join me in congratulating businesses such as Jubilee Clips and Delphi in my constituency on providing excellent engineering apprenticeships?

[Nick Boles]

Businesses such as those my hon. Friend mentions are leading this country into recovery and ensuring that that benefits everyone in his constituency. Since 2009-10, there has been a 73% increase in the number of new apprenticeships in his constituency, and that extraordinary figure is testament to local employers, colleges, and the local Member of Parliament.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

17. What position his Department took at the Competitiveness Council discussions on 4 December 2014 on the product safety and market surveillance package and the provision of mandatory origin marking on consumer products manufactured or imported.

--- Later in debate ---

[Heidi Alexander]

May I press the Minister further on the question of apprenticeships? Not only did the pay survey expose some concerning trends, it also showed that one in five apprentices do not actually receive any training. Given that most people’s idea of an apprenticeship is a placement that combines on-the-job work experience and a specific training programme, I find that deeply concerning. What percentage of the Government’s apprenticeships are not really apprenticeships at all?

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

There is confusion because sometimes employers will call something an apprenticeship that we do not recognise as an apprenticeship and for which we provide no financial support. They are free to do that: we do not own the trademark of an apprenticeship. We make a choice, however, about which apprenticeships we support, and we have a clear policy that we enforce—they have to last longer than 12 months, they must pay the minimum wage for apprenticeships, and they have to involve training. If the training is not external—some big employers will have internal training arrangements—they have to be Ofsted inspected, like every other training provider.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

T5. What plans do the Government have to strengthen the prompt payment code to stop larger organisations taking advantage of their suppliers?

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[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

T6. There have been more than 500 apprenticeship starts in my constituency in the past year, but I want to increase that figure. What more can we do to ensure that businesses support, and schools promote, apprenticeships?

[Nick Boles]

The level of creation of apprenticeships in my hon. Friend’s constituency is fantastic, but more can always be done. The best possible advocates for apprenticeships in schools are the people who have just finished doing them. They are discovering that they are getting great jobs with better pay than their peers. Getting recently graduated apprentices back to their schools to talk to young people about the choices they are about to make is the most powerful way of persuading them of this opportunity.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

T2. Five hundred of the City Link redundancies are in Scotland. Does the Secretary of State share the outrage of the Scottish people at the way the workers have been treated and the fact that the taxpayer is expected to pay for part of the multimillion pound redundancy bill? What is he doing to help the workers and their families, in Scotland and across the UK, who have been devastated by this news?

Business Investment (Outer-City Estates)

Nick Boles Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2014 Westminster Hall

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

I, too, am delighted to be serving under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, if not for the same reasons as the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins).

I am particularly pleased to be given an opportunity to respond to another debate of my honourable friend, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen)—convention has it that we are not Friends, but we are friends nevertheless and will remain so. The hon. Gentleman had a debate on my first day in the post of skills Minister, so it is particularly interesting for me to return to the subject with some understanding of the problems, the various Government programmes and the history of Government interventions in the area, both successful and unsuccessful.

There are different kinds of Members of Parliament. The basic job is the simple one of representing constituents as Parliament deliberates and makes laws. The best kind of Members of Parliament, however, are themselves community leaders and social entrepreneurs. No one fulfils the latter function better in the hon. Gentleman’s community than he does. I would put him in a category with some of the newly elected Members of my own party, such as my hon. Friends the Members for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and for Bedford (Richard Fuller), who both aspire to fulfil the same sort of role in their communities as the hon. Gentleman does in Nottingham North.

I accept that the fulfilment of such a role by the hon. Member for Nottingham North is a tribute to, yes, his moral purpose, but also to the needs of his constituents. Many of them live difficult lives in a country where much seems to have improved over many decades, although not for them—indeed, for some, things have even got worse. It is extremely welcome that he takes on himself the role of initiating, leading, stimulating, chivvying and prodding local and national Government to get them to act in the interests of his constituents.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman accepts that his task would be even harder were the broader economic context not one that was improving. The challenges faced by his constituents have stretched over boom times and busts—the challenges are not creations of recent years—none the less, were the economy not growing and creating jobs at an extraordinary rate, one far higher than in the rest of the European Union, his challenge would be far greater. I am sure, without wanting to tempt him into any partisan positions that might sit uncomfortably with him, he would nevertheless agree that the absolute prerequisite for making any progress at all on the issues that he highlights is to have a sustainably growing economy, which of course itself rests on having a Government with a long-term economic plan.

A phrase much used by politicians, in particular those of a glib cast of mind, “the rising tide lifts all boats”, is more revealing in the senses in which it is not true than in those in which it is true. It is clearly true that no boats will be lifted if there is no rising tide. So there has to be a rising economic tide for any progress to be made anywhere in communities that the hon. Gentleman represents or that you, Mr Davies, or I represent. But it is also clear that when we have a rising tide it is easier to identify those boats that stubbornly refuse to rise, and—I am stretching the metaphor to its limits, I feel—those whose structural flaws are so profound that they need direct intervention. That is exactly what he is proposing through his work with the Rebalancing the Outer Estates Foundation and a whole range of other partners.

I will address—briefly and very specifically—the particular schemes that the hon. Gentleman is currently proposing and working on with Government. I hope that I can give him a fairly positive response. He referred to the bid by Rebalancing the Outer Estates and its partners to the youth engagement fund for support for the employment of careers advisers or work-life coaches—whatever one wants to call them—in every secondary school in his constituency. Although he will understand that the rules for such schemes mean that those are not decisions that I can make, I will happily put on the record my support for his bid. So long as it meets the criteria for that fund I would strongly encourage those who are in charge of making those decisions to support that bid. If we are looking for a place where proper engagement with young people is urgently required and where proper advice for them about the different opportunities available to them is desperately needed, it is hard to think of a better example than Nottingham North.

I would make a similar comment about the second project that the hon. Gentleman discussed, the bid to the disadvantaged learners fund for a pilot project.

[Toby Perkins]

Just before the Minister moves on, I welcome what he said a moment ago. Does it reflect a slight softening of the Government’s approach to careers guidance that suggests that they now recognise its value on the ground and face to face? Is he saying that they recognise that that sort of careers guidance should happen, particularly in areas of greater deprivation and, if so, are we likely to see that change of approach more generally across the board?

[Nick Boles]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for asking that question because it allows me to remind him and other hon. Members of the Government’s announcement just last week of a new careers company. That company is specifically charged with identifying those areas of the country—sadly, too many—where, frankly, the headline duty on schools to ensure the provision of independent advice and guidance for young people, to inform their choices both of qualifications and for further progression in the education system and into the world of work, is not being properly met.

Schools need to provide that guidance—it is extremely explicit that they should—although we have tried not to be too prescriptive about how they should do so. When any of us visits a good school, of whatever kind, in whatever community, we find that it provides that guidance. It is not, therefore, something mysterious to those running schools, but unfortunately not all schools do it. There are different ways of doing it; it is not necessarily the case that every school will want to employ its own full-time careers advisers or work-life coaches—it may be that schools will want to work with some of the many social enterprises and charities that do such work. But it is clear that, for schools and communities facing the very particular, deep and deeply entrenched challenges that schools in the constituency of the hon. Member for Nottingham North face, it is right to look to try to support that kind of very specific project to employ work-life coaches; of course, that particular project will have to prove itself and have benchmarks and a data review to see whether it has had an effect. If other schools choose to use their direct schools grant, which we have been able to protect despite the cuts elsewhere in public expenditure, they will not hear any criticism from me.

I turn back now to the disadvantaged learners pilot. I am looking vaguely at the officials in the box to see whether that is something over which I have more influence, as I do not know, but I suspect my influence is still none—one of the great discoveries on becoming a Minister is how little power one has, not how much. However, again, I say that I cannot think of a better place for that money. To be honest, the figures that the hon. Gentleman has shared with us make it quite clear that it is hard to think of a place where learners are more disadvantaged than in Nottingham North. So again, if the project proposed and being worked on by the local economic partnership and Rebalancing the Outer Estates is able to meet the criteria, I will be a strong enthusiast for it.

I want to respond to one final specific point. The hon. Gentleman said that he felt that the reform of qualifications—he himself acknowledged that that was much needed—with its winnowing out of soft and unproductive qualifications, had caught up some courses and qualifications, particularly those related to employability skills, that he thought had value. If he, or indeed anyone else—it is a general invitation—writes to me with specific details about a qualification that they think was valuable, and can provide evidence of how, I am always happy to have another look. The qualifications he is thinking of were probably removed for a reason, but that does not mean that every such decision is always right or was made when all of the evidence was available. Certainly no decision is ever for ever.

Finally—in this season of good will, I do not wish to test anyone’s patience, Mr Davies—I will reflect on the general points that the hon. Gentleman made about the nature of engagement in areas such as his. He referred to his own long-standing support for localism. That was the first thing that brought us together, before I was elected to this place, and I share his support for it. I know that he welcomes the progress the Government have made with local growth deals, city deals, local economic partnerships and, most interestingly of all, the recently announced agreement with Greater Manchester that will see a substantial devolution of powers and budgets to the new combined authority, not least in the areas of skills and employability. I hope that that is just the first of those moves. I know that my colleagues will be looking forward to receiving proposals from other areas of the country and I will certainly be happy to lend my support to any proposal for Nottingham, led by the hon. Gentleman, to be a candidate for receiving further powers of that sort.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Mr Allen, there is no obligation for you to do so, but if you would like to take a couple of minutes to wind up the debate, I am happy to facilitate that.

Assistive Technology Sector

Nick Boles Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Westminster Hall

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

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Howarth.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) on securing this debate on a subject about which he is clearly very passionate. He is of course right to say that it is the responsibility of a fellow Minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, who unfortunately had another commitment today, which is why I am responding to the debate. It is fortuitous, therefore, that I have two advantages in coming to a subject on which I am otherwise not an expert. First, my Parliamentary Private Secretary is my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who has a great and equal passion for support for disabled people to make the most of their abilities and to be offered as many equal opportunities as it is technologically feasible to offer them in their lives. Secondly, by a bizarre coincidence—I was not even aware that I would be responding to the debate until quite recently—I spent yesterday evening, after returning home from voting in the House, filling out a disabled students’ allowance application form for someone in my family who has acute dyslexia and dyspraxia and scotopic sensitivity. I did not even know what that was until he told me, but it means that he is in a position to apply for some support with his studies. Therefore, although I am not an expert, I am entirely sympathetic to the cause raised by the hon. Gentleman and advocated passionately and consistently by my hon. Friend.

I entirely accept that this country is lucky in the range of businesses, charities and social enterprises that are active in trying to help disabled people to maximise their potential and gain access to all the opportunities on offer in education and employment. We are lucky in the range of innovation that is taking place—much of it is driven by this country—in improving technologies, inventing entirely new technologies and, as the hon. Gentleman said, creating adaptations to existing technologies that make them more accessible to people.

The hon. Gentleman’s core point, of course, is a direct attack on a proposal that the Government have brought forward on the disabled students’ allowance. He makes his argument with great passion, but as Members of his party and, even more, Front-Bench Members of his party ever do, he entirely fails to address the fundamental issue: the budget deficit, which remains very high and was the largest ever seen in peacetime in a western country, and the level of expenditure on the disabled students’ allowance in the years since this Government came to office. An increase did not take place only under the profligate chancellorship and premiership of the soon-to-be former right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). A growth in expenditure has taken place under this coalition Government, who are pledged to try to bring the budget deficit down. To be clear, expenditure went up from £87.8 million in 2009-10 to £125 million in 2011-12. That is not the record of a penny-pinching or parsimonious Administration who are seeking to deny support to disabled people, or to withdraw access to technologies that would assist them. That is the record of a Government who are doing everything in their power to support vulnerable people but who nevertheless need to find economies.

[Mr Bain]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Boles]

I am afraid that I will not give way. The hon. Gentleman had his go and I am now responding to his very full speech.

This is the challenge we face: how do we continue to support disabled people in gaining access to education, employment and all the other opportunities of society while nevertheless ensuring that expenditure does not continue to increase by so great an amount? Disabled students’ allowance expenditure has increased by more than 30% in the space of less than three years and that is simply not sustainable.

Fortunately there have been further reforms—also opposed by the Opposition—to the state of university finance. Those reforms have dramatically improved the financial position of every university in the country by giving them access to higher tuition fees, funded by a system of heavily subsidised student loans. Universities are now in a dramatically different position from the one they were in when we came into government in 2010, so to expect them to make a contribution out of their broader, much improved resources to support disabled students is entirely reasonable.

Universities are benefiting from the tuition fees paid by those students; they are direct beneficiaries of the funding provided by those students; so to expect universities to play some part in discharging the responsibility to those students—not the whole part, because the Government will continue to play an important role and the disabled students’ allowance will continue to provide a great deal of the necessary support—by means of a further contribution is entirely reasonable.

The hon. Gentleman would have much more chance of making a persuasive case if he had an alternative plan for how to stop the growth in a budget that has increased by 30% in less than three years. If he came forward with such a plan, or indeed if any Labour Front-Bench Member on any area of government activity came forward with any plan to save any pound of public expenditure—we have not heard such plans from him, or from the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) in her area of activity, or from any Opposition Front Bencher—it might well be possible to look again at the Government’s proposals. However, until we hear such a plan, it is incumbent on him to explain why it is unreasonable for us to expect universities to make a greater contribution to the support for disabled people that we all passionately believe in.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Boles Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The logistics sector is probably, if one takes all elements of it, the biggest industry in the UK, yet all too often children in our schools have no knowledge of the career opportunities in that sector. What will the Government do to ensure that children in our schools get to know about the sector, the fantastic careers available to them and the fact that in some ways it could almost offer a job for life?

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

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question. He was not here for the first bit of Question Time, but I am delighted he has turned up for the second bit—otherwise I was not going to get an outing at all. It is very important that young people understand the opportunities available in the logistics sector. The National Careers Service now has specific allocation to ensure that it does more work with schools. In any area of the country like his, where the logistics sector is vital, it should contact schools directly to seek opportunities. Schools are often crying out for employers who are willing to come in and talk to young people about the opportunities they can offer.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Schools’ efforts have ensured the successful launch of universal free school meals. In Chippenham, Redlands primary school is bidding for a kitchen pod so it can begin to serve hot lunches, and at Holt primary school lunches are served from the staff room, which is also where the washing up is done. Will the Minister look favourably on those schools, and other growing schools, that lost their kitchens long before we introduced free school meals?

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Boles Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

7. When he next plans to meet the Construction Industry Training Board to discuss apprenticeships.

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

I plan to meet the Construction Industry Training Board to discuss apprenticeships in December.

[Mr Bellingham]

Is the Minister aware that the Construction Industry Training Board and the National Construction college in my constituency have trained a record number of apprentices over the last year? Is he also aware that the current governing statute is not fit for purpose and needs to be updated so that it can enter into joint ventures with both the public and private sectors, training even more apprentices? Will he look at this important reform and have it on the agenda when he meets the chief executive officer, the chairman and hopefully me as well?

[Nick Boles]

As my hon. Friend knows, a triennial review of the training board is currently drawing to a conclusion. The issue that he raised is certainly one of those that will be considered, and one which I will discuss with the board’s members, not least because my hon. Friend has drawn it to my attention so insistently.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Will the Minister consider what more can be done to use and benefit smaller training providers such as Power in Partnership in my constituency? Such providers focus on helping young people who may not be attracted to a classroom-type environment into training and then into apprenticeships. Surely we can do more in this regard.

[Nick Boles]

I entirely agree. It is important for us to provide training opportunities through a range of organisations, including social enterprises, businesses and charities, as well as institutional further education colleges and the like. It is particularly important for us to provide training that is linked to work, either through the new programme of traineeships developed by my predecessor, who is now Minister for Business and Enterprise, or through apprenticeships. If there is anything that I can do to help any specific institution in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, I shall be delighted to try to do it.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

Will the Minister speak to his colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions about helping apprentices who are made redundant when a firm fails? A local training provider in my constituency has taken on apprentices who are in that position and is helping them through it, but is experiencing difficulties and is unable to give them any income. There seems to be a gap in the system.

[Nick Boles]

I met the Minister for Employment, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), only yesterday to discuss a range of issues, and I should be happy to discuss that issue with her as well. There needs to be tight co-ordination between our two Departments, and we try to achieve it.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

8. What recent estimate he has made of the resource accounting and budgeting charge on student loans.

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[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What steps he is taking to ensure that the UK’s system of skills training is relevant to the changing structure of work.

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

The important thing is to put employers in control of the training system, as far as possible. We are doing that by putting employers in control of designing apprenticeship standards and of the funding that goes towards apprenticeships, and by ensuring that all vocational and technical qualifications have business recognition if they are to be approved for state funding.

[Mr Sheerman]

I have a little secret, which is that I had a hand in the all-party Higher Education Commission’s report, which was soundly rejected even though it was based on good evidence. I also had a hand in “Still in Tune? The Skills System and the Changing Structures of Work”, which was published today. It is a good, cross-party report which points out that it is not just the employers but the people who receive the training who have the real stake in that education, because it will last them the rest of their lives.

[Nick Boles]

As usual, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The people who receive the training are the customers; they are the people on whose behalf we are making the investment, and it is crucial to take their opinions into account. However, that does not dilute the crucial importance of employers being the judge of whether training is worth anything or not.

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend acknowledge the work being done by university technical colleges in training young people for trades and apprenticeships? Will he recognise the work of the Burnley UTC, which is training young people from the age of 14 to be engineers and to work in the construction industry?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend does valuable work as one of the Government’s apprenticeship ambassadors. He has probably single-handedly persuaded more companies to offer apprenticeships to young people than anyone other than my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who is also an apprenticeship ambassador. UTCs are crucial, and we have many more coming through the pipeline. The Burnley UTC is absolutely a jewel in the crown.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Last month, I attended the groundbreaking ceremony at Humberside airport, where BAE Systems has invested £5 million in a training academy. The project is supported by North Lincolnshire council and the regional growth fund, and provides opportunities for 60 apprenticeships each year. Does the Minister agree that this is just the sort of project where the Government and local authorities should support private industry, in training for the future?

[Nick Boles]

I congratulate my hon. Friend’s local council on supporting that project and, in particular, I congratulate BAE Systems, which provides some of the best apprenticeships anywhere in Europe. A young lady recently secured a first-class degree through her BAE Systems apprenticeship. That is what apprenticeships can offer and we need to create many more of them.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

12. If his Department will undertake an assessment of the main causes of insecurity in the workplace.

--- Later in debate ---

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

We have a record number—about 840,000—of people doing apprenticeships, and we are on track to hit and exceed our target for this Parliament of 2 million apprenticeships. We are doing that by putting employers in control of the design of the standards and of the funding.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Apprenticeship starts in my constituency increased from 420 in 2009-10 to 1,020 in 2012-13, helped by community groups such as Whitwick Community Enterprises, which takes on an apprentice every month and runs two courses a months for NEETs—those not in education, employment or training—to get them work ready. Will the Minister congratulate community groups on the efforts they are making to halve youth unemployment in my constituency? What more can we do to empower such groups?

[Nick Boles]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing to the attention of the House the fact that it is not just businesses that create apprenticeships, and that community groups like Whitwick community group can play a vital role. They are directly contributing to a very good piece of news we have had this morning, which is that the number of young people not in education, employment or training has fallen again, by 136,000 since last year.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

A sure-fire way to increase apprenticeships in the UK would be to treat the apprentices fairly in terms of wages. They have had an increase in the last five years of 23p per hour. They get £2.73 per hour in wages. It is an absolute outrage. Is it not time that we matched the fine words and rhetoric with decent pay for our young people?

[Nick Boles]

Of course the hon. Gentleman is right, which is why we introduced the apprenticeship minimum wage, which did not exist until we did so, but he is also right that we need to make sure that the level is fair. Nevertheless, the chief value of an apprenticeship for the young person is the training and the preparation it gives them to create a career, so we need to strike the right balance: we need to make sure we set this at a fair level, but also encourage more employers to create apprenticeships, so that more young people are in education and in training and not on benefits.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

15. What progress his Department has made on facilitating projects identified in the Swindon and Wiltshire strategic economic plan.

Living Wage

Nick Boles Excerpts

Thursday 6th November 2014 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to reply on behalf of the Government to this thoughtful and interesting debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) not only on securing this debate during living wage week, but on his work, month in, month out, as deputy chair of the all-party group on poverty.

This has been an exemplary Backbench Business Committee debate. It has been polite, well researched, thoughtful and subtle, except when we were subjected to the ritual of Labour Members and nationalist party Members from other nations in our fine Union taking lumps out of one another. That is always a source of light relief for Government Members, so I make no objection.

It is fair to say that there is not a single Member of the House who does not want everyone in the country to command at least the living wage for their work. We share that goal, so the questions that we have debated so well today are how we get there, and how we ensure that the steps we take make progress and do not put at risk everything we have achieved.

We must remember that this country and economy were subjected to the most appalling shock. We lost 6% of our GDP as a result of the financial crash and the great recession that followed. The Low Pay Commission has not been able to recommend significant increases in the minimum wage until this year—it is important for me to say to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) that this year the increase was higher than the average increase in wages, but she is right that this is the first time for a few years that that has been possible. The Low Pay Commission has been unable to make such a recommendation until this year because of the weakness of the economy and the massive increase in unemployment.

Fortunately, that situation has improved—it is by no means perfect, but it has improved. We have a strong and stable growing economy. This economy has created 2 million jobs. In the past year, we have seen the largest fall in unemployment ever. I say that not just to blow the Government’s trumpet, as Ministers always do—a little trumpet blowing is part of the job—but because nothing makes a better backdrop for achieving sustainable increases in the minimum wage and the living wage than a stably growing economy that creates employment.

Once a person is in a job, it is far more likely that they will be able to secure increases in wages than if they are receiving unemployment benefit—it is much less likely that someone can go to an employer and say, “I do not want that job at that wage,” and persuade them to increase the wage. If someone is in a job and has worked well for a number of months, and if the employer looks around and sees that there are not quite so many people eager for that job, the ability of every employee and the unions who represent them to secure sustainable increases in wages is far greater. The most important thing, therefore, is a strong and stable economy that creates jobs.

The second most important thing is for those who can afford to pay more than the minimum wage to lead the way and set an example. Many hon. Members have mentioned the role of the Government, Departments, local authorities and major businesses in our economy. Others mentioned examples of businesses that can afford to pay more than the minimum wage and should, and that perhaps should know better, not least the premiership football clubs mentioned so eloquently by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy).

I make no pretence that I had anything to do with this because I have only recently been appointed, but I am delighted to be able to say that the two Departments in which I am a Minister—the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills—are living wage payers for all their direct employees. That is important. The Department for Education also ensures that agency workers are paid more than the living wage. However, as hon. Members have pointed out, under some contracts—often cleaning or security contracts—we cannot guarantee that everybody receives more than the living wage.

We need to work on that, but we should not fool ourselves by thinking there is a simple lever we can pull. I believe almost any contract, if it is thought about intelligently, can be reconfigured in such a way that an equivalent level of service can be achieved without increasing the number of people employed, and that therefore productivity improvements can be sought that will make it possible for a contractor to pay a very slightly higher wage. I therefore do not believe there is necessarily a choice between lower service from contractors or lower wages. It is possible to maintain or even improve services and pay better wages, but it is not simple and it is not easy. The way to do it is by working with one’s contractors, explaining to them one’s hopes, ambitions and aspirations and hearing from them other ways we can perhaps change our demands as employers and contract letters, so that they can afford to pay those wages.

We heard examples from many hon. Members, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), of major companies that found a striking improvement in their ability to motivate and retain staff after they agreed to pay them the living wage. It is fantastic that companies such as KPMG and Costco are now willing to come out on the record and say that this is their experience. It is, however, very important that we understand that those companies may be in a position where they can do that, and that not every small and medium-sized business in the country is in that situation. It is through argument and example that the case is best made, not by imposition. That is why the Low Pay Commission does not believe that imposing a living wage, or making the national minimum wage rise to the level of the living wage, would be sensible.

Finally, before I give my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington a chance to sum up, it is important for us to be very careful about what we say about the minimum wage and how increases are projected or promised. One of the reasons that the fears raised by my party on the minimum wage were not realised—Members were right to say that it was very controversial when it was introduced—and why most business groups in the country now support the national minimum wage is the way it has been constructed. The Government submit evidence to the Low Pay Commission, which produces recommendations, and the Government normally follow those recommendations. It is very important that we stick with that approach and do not start imposing on the Low Pay Commission politically driven expectations that cannot be delivered in our economy.

[Albert Owen]

On the national minimum wage, is the Minister saying that his party in local government, and many other parties where they are in control, should introduce this and build it in where they are not bound by the Low Pay Commission?

[Nick Boles]

Wherever they responsibly can, yes. Forgive me, but I must let my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington sum up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Boles Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

1. What recent progress her Department has made on increasing the number and quality of apprenticeships.

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

We have already delivered over 1.9 million apprenticeships during this Parliament, and are on track to achieve our ambition of 2 million apprenticeship starts. We are working with groups of employers to develop new trailblazer standards, and last week we launched the latest set of trailblazers in sectors ranging from the nuclear industry to TV production and fashion.

[Sir Andrew Stunell]

Will the Minister join me in commending Stockport council and employers in Stockport on the record numbers of apprentices that have been recruited? Does he, however, recognise that there is an increasing need for pre-apprenticeship help for 16-year-olds so that they can enter apprenticeships, and will he agree to meet some of my colleges and providers about that subject?

[Nick Boles]

I am certainly happy to congratulate any authority that itself takes on apprentices. We all need to set an example in all parts of Government and indeed in this House, as many Members are doing. Of course I would be happy to meet my right hon. Friend. I hope that he will welcome the traineeships programme, which was introduced by this Government specifically to provide people in that age group with a stepping stone to an apprenticeship or to a job.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Despite the Minister’s opening statement, fewer than one in 10 employers in England offer apprenticeships, which must surely be improved upon. Labour will ensure that all public sector contracts worth more than £1 million require the contractor to take on apprentices. That was the subject of my private Member’s Bill, which, sadly, was blocked by Ministers. Why do Ministers not wake up, smell the coffee and realise that that is the best bang for the buck of public procurement contracts?

[Nick Boles]

Well, of course I am sure that the hon. Gentleman meant to congratulate the Government on our fantastic achievement in creating far more apprenticeships. They are real apprenticeships—those that involve a job and last more than 12 months—unlike the ones that his Government produced. He is right that we need many more employers, public and private, to want to create apprenticeships. The way to do that is not to force them to do so, but to make it attractive to them to do so. That is why we are introducing new incentives through the apprenticeship grant, and why we are putting employers in charge of the standard of an apprenticeship so that they know it will be useful to them and not just some bureaucratic tick box.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

In my constituency of Wimbledon, we have woken up and smelt the coffee. Will the Minister join me in welcoming the Take One initiative under which Merton chamber of commerce, following on from the Government, is brokering relationships between apprenticeships and training providers and firms, with 150 extra people taking an apprenticeship this year as a result of that scheme?

[Nick Boles]

I strongly welcome that scheme and any other scheme that tries to make it easier—particularly for small employers, who sometimes face some level of risk—to take on an apprentice. There are all sorts of schemes, and I congratulate the one in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

2. What recent steps her Department has taken to improve schools which have been placed in special measures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

6. What progress she has made on introducing the technical baccalaureate.

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

Schools and colleges started teaching the 230 new tech-level qualifications that will count towards the “tech bac” from September this year.

[Steve Rotheram]

On 21 July the Minister told the House:

“I am very hopeful that about 25% of young people will take up the opportunity of a “tech bac”.—[Official Report, 21 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 1141.]

Will he update the House on enrolment figures so far, and say how far they go towards meeting the Government’s target of 320,000 young people?

[Nick Boles]

It is probably better to explain how the “tech bac” works. It is, like the EBacc, a group of qualifications, and we will know how many students have achieved the “tech bac”, or are studying for it, only when the 16-to-19 tables for 2016 are produced in early 2017. There will not be any figures under any Government for the number enrolled in “tech bac”—students do not enrol in it; they are measured after the event on whether they have achieved the qualifications that count towards the “tech bac”.

[Steve Rotheram]

What about the take-up?”

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Gentleman keeps asking questions from a sedentary position, but he has betrayed the fact that he completely misunderstands the policy. That is curious since the Labour party has spent a long time claiming that it was its policy in the first place. “Tech bac” is a group of qualifications. Students do not enrol in it; they discover whether they have achieved it at the end of the period.

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

If the “tech bac” is to be a success, it will need the full support of future employers. Will my right hon. Friend let the House know what efforts he is making to ensure that employers recognise the “tech bac”, support it, and are encouraging young people to get involved?

[Nick Boles]

My hon. Friend has, of course, thoroughly understood the policy, and it would make no sense if there was not intense involvement by employers in the design of those qualifications. That is what we are doing, and we want to hear from any employers about what further improvements we can make to that qualification design.

[David Wright (Telford) (Lab)]

Is not careers advice therefore important in partnership with employers? The CBI has described the system of careers advice as being on life support. What will the Minister do to improve careers advice and ensure that people moving out of the baccalaureate can go forward and get employment?

[Nick Boles]

We have changed Ofsted guidance to ensure it can check whether schools are adequately fulfilling their responsibility to provide independent advice and guidance to young people. We have also changed the nature of the National Careers Service contracts to ensure that it spends 5% of its contract value on providing career advice and guidance to young people. We have therefore taken a great many steps, but we never think that the job is done—we are not remotely complacent—and we are open to other suggestions, including the hon. Gentleman’s, on how to improve the quality of advice and guidance provided to young people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

9. What plans she has to increase the number of apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds; and if she will make a statement.

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

We are providing an additional £170 million to fund over 100,000 incentive payments of £1,500 to employers who take on a young person aged 16 to 24.

[Stephen Timms]

The official statistics show a big fall in the number of apprenticeship starts for under-19s, from over 130,000 in 2010-11 to 95,000 last year. Why has there been that fall? Why has it been allowed to happen, and how optimistic is the Minister that the measures he has just announced will turn around that very disappointing state of affairs?

[Nick Boles]

I am always optimistic, but it is easier to be optimistic when the desired result has already happened. Provisional data for 2013-14 indicate a slight increase in apprenticeships for under-19s and for 19 to 24-year-olds. We are therefore hopeful that that improvement will continue. However, there is a serious point here, which is what employers think about offering apprenticeships to people who may be as young as 16 and perhaps do not have all the emotional maturity and the employability skills that employers expect in an apprenticeship that will last at least a year and be quite demanding. That is exactly why we have created traineeships as a stepping stone to apprenticeships. It may well be in the future that for many 16-year-olds the right answer is to do a traineeship first for six months and then to move on to an apprenticeship, rather than to go straight into an apprenticeship.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Unemployment is falling fast. In my constituency there is now significantly less than 1% unemployment. Employers will have to recognise that it is in their own interest to take on apprentices, because if they do not embrace apprenticeships, they will not be able to find people with the skills they need in a few years because such people simply will not be there.

[Nick Boles]

That is a powerful message, and I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for delivering it. It is a message that all of us in the House, whatever party we represent, should be taking to every business and employer in our constituencies. If they are not offering apprenticeships now, why not? What is holding them back? We want them to come forward and offer apprenticeships and traineeships for our young people.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

11. What steps she is taking to equip young people with the skills they need to succeed in the workplace.

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

We have reformed the way in which 16-to-19 education is funded and the qualifications that count in league tables. We have also raised the quality of apprenticeships and traineeships, and enabled more students to take part in work experience. Students who do not hold at least a grade C in maths and English GCSE at age 16 are now also required to continue to study those subjects.

[David Rutley]

It is good to see schools such as All Hallows Catholic college making enterprise a priority in education. However, a recent study by the Chartered Management Institute pointed out that while 89% of businesses rate business experience as part of education, only 22% are prepared to provide such opportunities for young people. What steps are the Government taking to encourage more businesses to step up to the plate and provide opportunities for young people across the country?

[Nick Boles]

The key change that we have made is to make it easier for colleges and schools to go out and actively create those work experience opportunities. Previously, colleges and schools offering 16-to-19 education were funded on the basis of the qualifications that students were taking, and that meant that they were not being rewarded for their work in creating work experience. Now they are funded per student, and work experience is specifically allowed as one of the things for which they can be funded. That has meant that further education colleges are now directly incentivised to create those work experience opportunities.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Has the Minister had any specific discussions with schools about pupils with learning disabilities and how we can help them get into work more quickly?

[Nick Boles]

It is incredibly important that opportunities to work are not preserved for one group in society. We will be a fair and prosperous society only if we create opportunities involving all people, whether that is women in engineering or people with learning disabilities and other special needs. I visited my local college in Grantham the other week; it is working closely with local employers to create opportunities for young people with learning disabilities and other special needs to gain experience of employment. That is exactly what a great FE college will do in a community, and there are many such around the country.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

22. Our new studio school in Warrington is providing a brilliant link between the school and the work force. It is supported by parents and all local employers. Will the Minister confirm that he intends to accelerate the roll-out of studio schools in Cheshire and more generally?

[Nick Boles]

We are happy to take proposals for new studio schools from any area and any group of people who want to set one up, as we are for free schools and new university technical colleges. We do not have a prescriptive, one-size-fits-all policy: we believe in letting a thousand flowers bloom, and studio schools are an important part of that.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways in which schools can prepare young people for the workplace is by bringing businesses into their buildings? With that in mind, will he join me in congratulating Nigel Dawson and the Fearns community sports college in my constituency, which is hosting my jobs fair next week, on Halloween, with 200 vacancies and 31 employers in the school grounds during the holiday?

[Nick Boles]

That is exactly the kind of enterprising initiative that we want all schools to undertake. It did, of course, take a particularly enterprising Member of Parliament to persuade them to do so, and I know that other schools will want to follow his lead.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

12. What plans she has to reform careers advice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

T3. School sixth forms have a different funding formula, but they are under a lot of financial pressure. As the participation age is raised, they find themselves having to do a lot more with less. When will the Government be able to extend the protection of schools funding, which currently goes only up to age 16, to include sixth forms as well?

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

It is right—I think my hon. Friend would agree—to focus funding on school-aged children below 16, because that is the stage in life at which education has the most dramatic impact on the young person’s chances. That is why he is a supporter of and part of a Government who protected school funding up to the age of 16, but was unable to extend that protection to sixth forms—

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Steve McCabe.

[Nick Boles]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. You cut me off in my prime!

Adult Learning

Nick Boles Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. It is also a pleasure, and an unfamiliar one, for me to be in a Westminster Hall debate—although we are not actually in Westminster Hall—in which I am not facing a crowd of angry Back Benchers from my own party; they are much less gentle in their attacks than Labour party Members have proved to be today. That was my experience as planning Minister, and an uncomfortable one it often was. It is reassuring to find myself in the traditional position of mainly facing criticism, as well as inquiry and constructive suggestion, from the Opposition. I am, however, also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) for his contribution.

We have covered a lot of ground today. I want to be clear that almost everyone who has contributed to the debate knows more about the area than I do. I am still myself an adult learner, and a rather slow one at that, so if I do not have the detailed technical grasp to answer all the questions, I apologise. I am happy to have further discussion and correspondence with any Members who feel that I have not adequately answered their questions.

While setting the context, I am afraid—I hope that the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), will forgive me—that I must remind the House of a few awkward truths. Clearly, there has of course been a substantial cut in the adult skills budget; no one is denying that or pretending otherwise. As the author of a notorious note, which I will forbear to repeat the few words of, no one knows better than the right hon. Gentleman the financial environment that we inherited when we came into government. I also suspect that, had his party stayed in government after the election, no one would have been more ferocious than him in making the case for protecting that part of the education system that every child must go through, and which is critical to every education—whether academic, technical, vocational or professional. That is, of course, the schools system. That is what the Government have done. It has been difficult and painful and it has involved sacrifices in other areas, one of which has been in the adult skills budget.

The second awkward truth that we all need to acknowledge is that much of the spending in the adult skills budget—

[Pat Glass]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nick Boles]

I am happy to.

[Pat Glass]

I want to remind the Minister of another awkward truth: the £1 billion overspend on the academies and free schools budget. The Government had priorities and they made decisions—they chose to put money into new and experimental areas, while making cuts that affected the most vulnerable children in our society.

[Nick Boles]

Let us put to bed the ridiculous shibboleth that somehow free schools are an experiment. Free schools are, basically, new academies; they are exactly the same as academies. Tell the children at free schools that their schools are somehow different or experimental and that the money spent on them, that £1 billion, is not spent on the education of the children of Britain. I think that they would give the hon. Lady the flea in her ear that she so richly deserves—

[John Robertson (in the Chair)]

Order. May I draw us back to the debate?

[Nick Boles]

The other awkward truth is that a lot of the spending from the adult skills budget was, frankly, on a series of qualifications that were a fraud on those who were duped into taking them. A whole bunch of the qualifications that were funded did not prepare people for work, enrich their CVs, enable them to command better jobs or add to the productivity that, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill so rightly said, everyone needs. It was therefore right to do what we did, which was to focus the system of qualifications down and to ensure that the funding goes to produce qualifications that will actually help people.

[Mr Byrne]

May I draw the Minister back to the future, rather than to the past? In the autumn statement last year, the Chancellor talked about one of the most important adult qualifications available in this country, which is degree places. He said that degree places would be uncapped and he set out, conservatively, the cost of about £1.9 billion, which was to be financed by selling off student loan debt.

On 20 July the Minister’s boss, the Secretary of State, said that he and the Deputy Prime Minister had decided that the sale of student loan debt would not now go ahead. Will the Minister confirm whether the expansion will still go ahead and, if so, where on earth the money will come from?

[Nick Boles]

Needless to say, not being the Minister responsible for higher education and certainly not being my boss, the Secretary of State or indeed the Prime Minister, I can do no such thing. We are talking about the adult skills budget and that is what I will return to.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me to focus on the future and I am happy to do that. The position we are in now is not as bleak as some hon. Members have tried to paint it. Yes, we have a dire skills shortage in this country, but I remind hon. Members that all the young people who are not currently equipped to get the jobs that have been created and that hon. Members listed were educated under a Labour Government. All of them went through primary and secondary school under that Labour Government, so if they have left the school system ill-prepared for the jobs of the modern economy, let us share the responsibility for that lack and together work out how to fill the gap.

There is more agreement about the future than there will ever be about the past, and I will come on to the key elements of that. Specific questions were raised, however, and I want to make sure that I address them before I run out of time. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) made an interesting speech, in which she specifically challenged me to take up with the DWP the question—[Interruption.] Was it the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier)? I am sorry, I cannot remember. I was asked to take up the issue of jobcentres being inflexible about courses and requiring people to leave them. I am aware of the issue broadly but not in detail, and I will be happy to take it up.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), who is no longer in his place, invited me to visit an apprenticeship centre run by the EEF. Will somebody tell him afterwards that I will be happy to do so if I can, as it sounds like an interesting venture?

I am happy to take up any issues that individual hon. Members have with particular colleges and funding situations. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), for example, raised some issues about a specific college, and I would be happy to take those up.

Now I come to the actual question from the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston. She asked about funding of HNDs and HNCs. If I may, I will get back to her with more specific detail on that. She also asked specifically about extending the internship model to older adults. That is an interesting idea, but not one in which I am sufficiently well versed to give a response now. I will be happy to meet her to discuss the issue and see whether we can do more.

Now, to the future, and how we improve the productivity of people in this country so that they can secure the fantastic jobs being created—I hope we will all acknowledge this—in record numbers in this economy, to an extent that no other European country seems to be able to match at the moment. For the Government—we make no apologies for this—the most important policy to ensure that improvement is the policy on apprenticeships. That is why, even with a declining skills budget, we have ensured that the funding of apprenticeships is maintained and have been able to secure a dramatic increase in the number of people taking apprenticeships.

That is not at all to say that we are in any way satisfied with the position we are in. We also recognise, for instance, the very low number of higher apprenticeships as a proportion of the total and want to expand those, but without in any sense diminishing the lower level apprenticeships. Those are often the ones that young people who leave school without qualifications are going to be able to access first; we are not necessarily saying, either, that they should not move on to a higher apprenticeship in due course.

[Mr Byrne]

In that case, the Minister will want the maximum value for money from the programme that he is responsible for. A total of £340 million has been earmarked for the employer ownership pilot for apprenticeships, but the latest figures show that only 20,000 new apprenticeships have been provided. That is a unit cost of about £17,000. Will he explain whether he thinks that is value for money and what he is doing to drive up numbers for that programme?

[Nick Boles]

The right hon. Gentleman is too good a numbers man not to recognise the trick he has just played, which is to take the total budget as his denominator and use only the number of starts achieved so far as the figure that he is declaring it against. If he looked at the amount of money that has been drawn down from the pilot, he would see that his denominator is a very much smaller figure and that dividing that three-hundred-and-whatever million by 20,000 does not present an entirely accurate picture.

[Meg Hillier]

On that point, £340 million has been allocated and has not been drawn down at the right rate. What is going wrong, what is the Minister doing to check on what is happening and how on earth is the situation being monitored to make sure that it is not just backfilling what employers would do anyway and giving money to businesses without them adding more to adult skills education?

[Nick Boles]

What this Government do not do—we do not believe in it—is just push money out of the door. That is what the previous Government did, which is why we inherited a deficit on the scale that we did. We believe in inviting people to come forward with bids and come up with quite experimental ideas—the scheme is unashamedly a pilot—and then checking whether those ideas are high quality and are adding value, and whether the money is going to be put to good use. If we do not end up spending all of the money mentioned, I will be the first to say that we did not do so because we did not have bids that were good enough and were going to deliver enough impact. That is the responsible way to deal with taxpayers’ money and money borrowed from future taxpayers, not the approach of the previous Government.

To return—it seems rather optimistic now—to areas where we perhaps agree, we need to have more higher apprenticeships. We also agree that although the increase in the number of adults doing apprenticeships is welcome, we should not allow that to be at the cost of 16 to 18-year-olds doing them. We therefore need to ensure that the offer is there and stands for everybody.

The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and a number of others asked me about the changes in the funding of apprenticeships under the new trailblazer standards. All I can say at this stage is that, first, I am looking at the matter extremely closely, and, secondly, before coming anywhere near politics—before coming into the policy world, let alone to Parliament—I spent 10 years running a business that employed 150 people in the manufacture of paint brushes and rollers. I have lived and breathed—and wept—the experience of running a small business. I am not going to be a Minister who puts burdens on small or medium-sized enterprises that persuade them not to do what we want them to—provide more high-quality, long-term, demanding apprenticeships that improve the skills of the people of Britain.

There were also a lot of questions about adult learning and its funding. It is clear that there have been some very difficult decisions in that area, which have caused difficulties for some institutions and further education colleges, and, as we heard from the hon. Member for Sheffield Central, for some of the charities and social enterprises that work with FE colleges. Those decisions have also perhaps interrupted the availability of some provision, as the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) so eloquently described. We have had to make sacrifices, and it may be that some are never undone because of the fiscal situation we face as a country and the priorities we have to put in place. But we are going to look at the experience of advanced learner loans and then ask ourselves a series of tough questions about how much further it is right to go to align what is available for adult learners who are not going into universities with what is available for those who do.

We have had one little reassuring set of data. Wild and gloomy predictions were made about the effect of fees and loans on the participation of people from a range of different backgrounds, including poorer ones, in universities. Those predictions have not come about. Similarly, we have no evidence on advanced learner loans of any dramatic effect on or change in the profile of those who participate in adult learning. We will be looking at making sure the opportunities are available. They may need to be funded differently from how they were in the past, but it is right to see whether we can make sure they are available for all in the future. [Interruption.]