Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Aldous Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

10. What progress he has made on improving the quality of vocational education.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

12. What progress he has made on improving the quality of vocational education.

[The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

We are making the vocational education system more rigorous and more responsive to employers’ needs, removing thousands of qualifications that are not valued by employers and driving up the quality of apprenticeships.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Hancock]

Absolutely. Tech levels need to be signed off by employers in order to be recognised by the Department. In the past, there were too many so-called vocational qualifications that did not help people to get on in an occupation. We are changing that by insisting that employers publish support for a qualification before it is recognised by us, so that when people embark on a vocational course they know that they will get something valuable out of it.

[Peter Aldous]

Lowestoft college is doing excellent work in providing young people with the necessary vocational skills for the many jobs that will be created in the energy sector, but the cut in funding for 18-year-olds will have a significant impact on that work. I should welcome an update from the Minister on what mitigating measures are being introduced.

[Matthew Hancock]

I strongly support Lowestoft college, and I particularly welcome the fact that the number of apprenticeships in my hon. Friend’s constituency has almost doubled since 2010. As he knows, we are looking into the allocations to individual colleges, and also looking into measures to mitigate the effects of the change we have had to make.