Colleges Week

Peter Aldous Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Colleges Week 2024.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Robert, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate during Colleges Week, which runs from Monday until tomorrow. I should also point out that I chair the all-party parliamentary group for further education and lifelong learning, the secretariat for which is provided by the Association of Colleges, to which I am grateful, among others, for the briefings and support they have provided ahead of the debate.

This debate essentially falls into three parts: first, celebrating the great work that colleges do all around the country; secondly, highlighting where Government policy and support are working; and thirdly, pointing out the areas where more work and attention are required so that colleges can realise their full potential for the benefit of the people and the communities they serve.

It is important, first, to celebrate the great work that colleges are doing. All around the UK, they are an essential part of our education system. They are firmly embedded in their local communities, where they are fully cognisant of the opportunities and challenges and the strengths and weaknesses of their local economies. They enable people of all ages and backgrounds to realise their full potential. They are key players in boosting local regeneration and levelling up and in eliminating the gaps in skills and productivity, which are in danger of ever widening. They also play a vital role in preparing people for the jobs of tomorrow, which, all of a sudden, are with us today in areas such as digital, artificial intelligence and the low-carbon fields.

Colleges touch all our lives. English colleges educate 1.6 million students every year and employ approximately 103,000 full-time equivalent staff. Some 925,000 adults study or train in colleges, and 608,000 16 to 18-year-olds study in colleges. The average college trains 950 apprentices, and 100,000 people study higher education in a college. Twenty-three per cent of 16 to 18-year-olds and 27% of adult students are from minority ethnic backgrounds. Twenty-six per cent of 16 to 18-year-olds in colleges have a learning difficulty or a disability, and 58,000 college students are aged 60 and over. In summary, colleges do their job very well. Ninety-two per cent of colleges were judged to be “good” or “outstanding” for overall effectiveness at their most recent inspections. At times, however, colleges feel that they are doing their job with one arm behind their backs, and I shall touch upon that shortly.

I will briefly highlight the great work that East Coast College does in Waveney. It now operates from two campuses, in Lowestoft in my constituency and in Great Yarmouth in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Sir Brandon Lewis). It fully understands the challenges of coastal communities, the communities in which it is deeply immersed, and works very closely with local authorities, local businesses, the James Paget University Hospital, CEFAS—the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, where the Government’s marine scientists are based in Pakefield next to Lowestoft—and the two universities that cover the area, the University of East Anglia in Norwich and the University of Suffolk, which has its headquarters in Ipswich but operates across Suffolk.

In Lowestoft, East Coast College is an active member of the place board, of which I am also a member, which has overseen the projects carried out as part of the town deal. Its work focuses on two areas: first, the need in the health and care sector to support an ever growing elderly population. It has put in place the Apollo project —not a journey to the moon, but a two-year workforce programme designed to address recruitment and retention challenges in the health and social care sector. Secondly, opportunities are emerging in the energy sector. Among other projects, there are the offshore wind farms anchored off the East Anglian coast and the Sizewell C nuclear power project just down the coast.

In recent years, significant capital improvements have been carried out at East Coast College. Those include the Energy Skills Centre in Lowestoft and the eastern civil engineering and construction campus at Lound, midway between Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth. At present, the college’s challenges centre more on revenue funding, and its needs mirror those of the rest of the sector, to which I shall now turn.

The good news is that, in recent years, there has been a realisation of the vital role that colleges play in providing people with the skills they need to realise their full potential, to address regional inequalities and to ensure that the economy fires on all cylinders. Some good initiatives have been put in place, such as the lifelong learning entitlement, and funding has improved, albeit from a low base. That said, significant challenges remain; some are structural and long term, and others derive from the cost of living crisis and the long and sharp tail of covid.

The Local Government Association points out that

“the national employment and skills system is too centralised”,

“short-term” in outlook, and that

“no single organisation is responsible or accountable for coordinating programmes nationally or locally. This makes it difficult to plan, target and join-up provision.”

It also identified that

“poor-quality, insufficient and fragmented CEIAG”—

careers education, information advice and guidance—

“is a persistent and key barrier to youth employment”,

notwithstanding the introduction, finally, of the Baker clause in the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022.

The Edge Foundation focuses on the problem that is all around us: the skills shortages that are getting worse. The shortages are numerous and have grown significantly. The rate of skills investment is in decline, and skills shortages have significant costs for UK businesses, the economy and the environment. The engineering sector is important to me locally, as engineering skills will be much in need to fuel the transition to a low-carbon economy. EngineeringUK, in its “Fit for the future” engineering apprenticeships inquiry, has highlighted the variability and quality of training provision and the problems in recruiting teachers and trainers.

Colleges Week normally takes place in the autumn. This year, however, for good reason, it has been brought forward to the spring—not only so that it takes place in advance of the general election campaign, to provide the sector with every opportunity to set out its stall, but so that urgent representations can be made ahead of next week’s Budget to meet many of the challenges that I have highlighted.

I confess that I was expecting the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), to be here, but it is great to see the Minister for Schools in his place, because he and I have discussed this issue a great deal. I would be most grateful if he conveyed some of these asks to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in advance of his Budget statement next Wednesday.

As I have mentioned, there are skill gaps across the country in all sectors of the economy. To eliminate those gaps, I urge the Government to invest the extra money raised from the immigration skills charge to enable colleges to tackle the urgent priorities identified by employers in the local skills improvement plans that are now being rolled out across the country and those that are found in relation to the increased number of skills shortage vacancies revealed in the latest Department for Education employer skills survey.

At the Conservative party conference in Manchester in October, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister rightly announced a 10-year plan to give young people a better start in life through the advanced British standard, with more hours, a broader curriculum, and extra help for those who have struggled up to the age of 16. Those ambitions are the right ones, but if they are to be achieved —if there is to be any chance of having the teachers, the trainers and the facilities in place to deliver them—we must start investing now. To do that, three issues need to be addressed.

First, the pay gap between those teaching in colleges and those teaching in schools must be closed. It has been widening in recent years and now stands at £9,000 per annum. That pay gap cannot persist if the advanced British standard is to be a success.

Secondly, colleges are disadvantaged when it comes to VAT. Unlike for schools, VAT is not reimbursed for colleges—it cannot be recovered. Colleges in England were reclassified as public sector organisations back in 2022 and are now subject to all the controls that apply to academies, but, unlike academies and schools, they are unable to reclaim VAT under the refund scheme in section 33 of the Value Added Tax Act 1994. That could be addressed by amending that Act. The funds that would be released, totalling around £210 million, could then be reinvested, helping colleges to deliver the improvements to the school system that the Government seek.

Thirdly, as I mentioned, covid has had a long and sharp tail, impacting harshly on young people’s education. The Government recognise that and are providing funding for tuition support to help those with the greatest need to obtain the necessary grounding in English and maths and to catch up on the vocational courses where assessments were deferred. That is good news, but the indications are that the demand for those lessons and courses is still growing. It is estimated that approximately 40,000 more students than last year need to resit their English GCSEs, with 20,000 needing to resit maths. I therefore urge the Minister to do all he can to ensure that the funding for that tuition support is extended.

I am reaching my conclusion, Sir Robert. I am sure that others in this debate will refer to FE and colleges as being the Cinderella of the education system. Indeed, that was right in the past, but my sense is that all parties across the House have recognised the error and folly of that. We are now, after a long time, travelling down the right road, with the importance of vocational learning as provided by colleges being acknowledged and accepted by all. However, we are driving down this road in third gear and we now need Government to provide resources, support and more policies so that we can quickly and seamlessly move into top gear. If we do that, we shall provide opportunity for many and eliminate all those stubborn gaps that I have referred to a great deal during this speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Aldous]

I am a shade disappointed, not by the quality of the debate but because there was high demand to take part and we have not had as many colleagues as I would have hoped for. There are loads of demands on people’s time. However, what we have lacked in quantity, we have made up for in quality. I am the odd person out in this debate; I am the only participant who has not had a Front-Bench role, so it has been interesting to hear the views of those on the frontline.

The three of us on the Government Benches—I, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones)—have all been here since 2010. Colleges are in a better place, generally speaking, than in 2010, particularly in terms of the quality of their estate. That has certainly improved, but we need to move on. While the shiny new buildings are important, we need the teachers and trainers to be able to help with the learning in those colleges. That is where we have a particular problem. Look at the energy sector that East Coast College is having to deal with: we have a crying need for welders and fabricators, but there is a real challenge in getting those teachers and trainers.

Lord Baker fought for the Baker clause for years. He took too long to get it, but he got it. At some stage, I would welcome some information on how it is going down in practice, because when I go around the community I represent, I cannot say, “Ah! That is a result of the Baker clause.” If we pull a lever in this place, it does not automatically lead to a gear change in the rest of the country.

The one disagreement we have had is on the issue of apprentices. If one looks at where we were in 2010 and where we are today, we are generally in a better place, but the journey has not been smooth—there have been ebbs and flows along the way. I am slightly confused by some of the statistics. It may be that we were in a better place two or three years ago than today. One of the challenges is to get SMEs properly involved in the apprenticeship system.

That brings us on to the levy. The levy is a great idea, and the Government were right to introduce it, but there have been teething difficulties and challenges with money being returned to the Treasury. The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), and I have been in events where I have said that we need to press ahead with a review now, rather than waiting for next year after all the hullabaloo of the election. It must take place now, so that we can iron it out and get it on the right journey.

Finally, here are my funding asks of the Chancellor. This is ultimately about ensuring a level playing field. Colleges are not on a level playing field with schools and academies when it comes to VAT. They are not on a level playing field when it comes to what teachers are paid.

At the beginning of the time that I have spent in this place, there was the problem of colleges having to pick up the pieces for young people who, for whatever reason, had not acquired basic literacy and numeracy skills in secondary education. That situation has improved dramatically, but covid has thrown a big spanner in the works and the colleges are having to work very hard to address that. It is not going to go away immediately, and that is why they need those funds to be extended.

Sir Robert, thank you for bearing with me for a few extra minutes. It has been a good debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Colleges Week 2024.