Lifetime Skills Guarantee and Post-16 Education

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

It is good to see that the former Member for Twickenham is keeping busy in his retirement. I am sure that my hon. Friend the skills Minister would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady and other colleagues to discuss that. As I said, I think there is a strong will on both sides of the House to make real change in this area, and with that collective will and determination, we can make a positive impact on the lives of so many people.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I am one of the people the Secretary of State has been targeting with the measures announced today. I left school without qualifications, applied later in life to go to university and was rejected three times. I even went back to secondary school for a year when I was 25 to get the qualifications to get in to university, and then was rejected again. I had to beat down the door to get the education that I needed, but once I got into the University of Sussex, I found an educational institution that for the first time ever saw potential in me that I did not see in myself.

I understand the impact that these measures will have for some people, but I must say that they do not show the kind of ambition that we need, the kind of ambition that will match the scale of the opportunity that we face. We should be awash as a country; every community should be burgeoning with educational opportunities right now, and we are not going to do that on the back of these announcements.

Will the Secretary of State say what contact he has had with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that every aspect of Government is extending educational opportunity to every part of our communities? What conversations is he having with other Departments, such as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, to ensure that we are proactively putting educational opportunities into every community up and down our country? Right now, these measures are fine, but it does not match the scale of opportunity that our country needs and faces.

[Gavin Williamson]

I would like to reassure the hon. Gentleman on how closely we have been working, not just with the Department for Work and Pensions, but with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, to ensure that the actions we take match up with the needs of the whole economy and the whole country. We will continue to take that approach.