Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [ Lords ] (Fourth sitting)

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd December 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I support the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield on the Front Bench. Yet again, I find myself agreeing with the Lords in their amendments, which, as a republican, is sometimes quite tricky. However, as my hon. Friend said, these eminently sensible amendments were put forward with cross-party agreement.

I find it fairly odd that Government Members want to restrict competition. For a party that seems to have market competition at the heart of many of its policies, I find it strange that they are trying to narrow it and not allow students to have choice.

[Mr Perkins]

I slightly challenge my hon. Friend’s idea that this is a party that is in favour of market competition. We know it is in favour of a short list of one, devised by who knows the relevant Minister. They claim to be interested in market forces, even if their policies often do not follow that idea.

[Rachel Hopkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is a pity that the cameras are not in this Committee room or he would have seen my wry smile in response to his comments. The reason behind wanting to ensure that applied general qualifications—BTECs—are still available for a longer period of time, in greater breadth, is all about student choice. Ultimately, this is a Bill about skills and post-16 education, which should have students at its heart. That is why I want to make the case to retain those Lords amendments and the case against the Government’s proposed amendments to take them out of this Bill.

On retaining the moratorium for four years before any change to the breadth of BTECs, I want to query a point that the Minister made, which I hope he can clarify. He referred to the Wolf report and the Sainsbury report. The briefing I have received from the Sixth Form Colleges Association, which I have worked with as the governor of a sixth form college, rightly flags up that the Wolf report says that BTECs are

“valuable in the labour market, and a familiar and acknowledged route into higher education”.

The Sainsbury report did not consider BTECs or A-levels as

“reform of this option falls outside the Panel’s remit”.

So, the Department’s case for scrapping BTECs rests on one report that rated them highly—

“valuable in the labour market”—

and another report that did not look at them at all. I would be grateful for some clarity on that point in the Minister’s subsequent comments.

On the second part, around being able to study for a second level 3 qualification, the case was made very well by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield. As only a recent entrant to this place, I have spent my whole career in the workplace with people who want to better their careers. Looking at the pace of change of within the workplace over the last 10 or 20 years, many staff I worked with may have had some sort of qualifications—BTECs or whatever—but they needed to up their digital skills to become managers and to start leading teams. This amendment would mean that they would not have been able to do that if they wanted to take their career further. I think that shows a complete lack of understanding of what the world of work can be like for many people.

If people do not have money or savings, they will not be able to do that, which goes against everything that I want to see for people and social mobility, so that poor working class people in my town can get on and they are not held back by the short-sighted, narrowing of opportunities that these amendments from the Lords sought to prevent. The Government are seeking to narrow opportunities in the Bill.

One point made by my hon. Friend was that some areas are not included in these proposals. In Luton South, we have the town centre, which has lots of retail, hospitality, pubs and hotels, particularly linked to Luton airport, but the area would not be included. That is so narrow and makes me think, “Well, what is this all about?” Is it all about a two-way street, where someone who is poor will go and do technical qualifications, and someone who is able and has connections can go and do A-levels? The gap will not be filled by many of the applied general qualifications, which reflect the workplace.

It is not just about the qualification at the end; it is also about how the assessment takes place throughout the course of the qualification and the different assessment methods. I want to see that recognition. The point was raised earlier that it is not just about some exams at the end of two years, regardless of whether people are following a technical or an A-level route.

I would be interested to hear from the Minister about some the requirements around the T-levels with regards to employer placements, and the spread and availability of them. We appreciate that we are in the pilot phase of some of those T-levels, but that is why it is so important to ensure sufficient review of how T-levels have rolled out and how the success of the students taking them has manifested itself.

Will there be sufficient placements for students? That is one question and, to link back to much of the debate we had on Tuesday about the formation of the skills plans, another is how will students travel to those placements? When education maintenance allowances were taken away from many students, they could not afford a bus fare. To be aspirational for many of our students, they might have to travel out of area—I speak as someone who represents a town, but other colleagues have talked about smaller towns, villages and other areas—but how will they travel and get about?

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[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is touching on something that is important, but often overlooked about BTECs. Yes, they can be done as full-time qualifications, but many people do them on day release. People are already in employment, and they are released on a day to get a level 3, level 4 or level 5 qualification to make progress. Do we not absolutely have to keep that in the system?

[Rachel Hopkins]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. That is so vital, in particular for people with more flexible arrangements in the workplace. The pandemic has shown that people can work more flexibly through need, as much as through preference. For many, that day release is important. Many further education colleges work with local employers in their areas to ensure that the qualifications and the day releases meet the need. We must ensure that that can continue. We must not—as the phrase goes—throw the baby out with the bathwater. I hope that the Minister will address my points in his closing remarks.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I rise to support the Opposition’s quest to retain their lordships’ amendments to the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield said, the amendments are common sense. As someone who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, the very figures he mentioned, who now sit in the other place, were leading lights of the Governments of the late Baroness Thatcher and John Major. They have huge knowledge in these areas—whether I agree with them or not politically.

No one can deny that Lord Baker was an Education Secretary of some standing. He knows what he is talking about. No one can say that Lord Clarke is not a man of great knowledge and understanding in these areas. Other former Ministers of those Administrations and a former leader of the Conservative party know what they are talking about when it comes to these issues.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

I can see what my hon. Friend did there. For once, I agree not only with my hon. Friend—I always agree with him—but with the noble Lord Howard. Of course, he did not need to be asked the question 46 times to give the answer that we wanted.

I went through the BTEC route. For the Committee’s benefit, I will not go into all that again, but I believe that it is still a viable route for so many people—young people in particular but also adults—who want to better themselves and pursue a new career. To take away some of these options in the way in which the Government seek is regressive. My hon. Friend the shadow Minister is right that if the Government will not accept a four-year moratorium—even though they should—they should place the one-year moratorium in the Bill so that that is clear. I support their lordships fully on this issue.

I get what Ministers are saying about the risk of compromising quality, but nobody has ever made the case to me that the BTECs at my local colleges—Stockport College, Tameside College and Ashton Sixth Form College —are compromising quality. They give young people and adults some of the best opportunities to better themselves and reskill themselves.

[Rachel Hopkins]

The point about the quality of these qualifications has already been made. So many young people get to really good universities on a BTEC qualification, and surely those universities would not accept qualifications that were not up to scratch.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I believe that just one university in the whole of the United Kingdom does not accept BTEC qualifications, and it is not Oxford or Cambridge—they do. If these qualifications are good enough for Oxbridge, they obviously set the standard that academia wants to see.

It is more than that. BTEC is about more than reaching the same standards in theory as A-levels or years 1 and 2 of an undergraduate degree. There is also the experience and opportunities that BTECs bring to the people studying them, which academic qualifications—and possibly even T-levels—cannot.

I want the Minister think about the fact that some colleges are requiring GCSEs in English and maths to be considered for a T-level qualification That is fine, but what about those who do not have those qualifications but do have a whole string of other GCSEs at the equivalent of grade C and above, in old money? Do we really want to hold back our young people and keep them doing resits until they can get on to a T-level qualification, or do we want them to progress through T-levels and possibly study for English or maths resits at the same time? That really concerns me. I see colleges in Greater Manchester suggesting those entry requirements for T-levels, even though that is not necessarily the Government’s intention. We must look at that.

With BTEC, students who did not have GCSEs had the opportunity of going through a BTEC first before progressing to BTEC national and BTEC higher national. It is really important that we do not take opportunities away from young people. We should be increasing opportunities.

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[Rachel Hopkins]

I hope that the Minister will appreciate my concern. There are 10,000 students in the T-level pilots. He says that the Government are almost there on work placements, but nearly 250,000 people are studying for level 3 BTECs, so there would need to be a significant transition. I hope that he accepts those concerns about placements.

[Alex Burghart]

The hon. Lady makes a serious point of which we are mindful, but obviously there are lots of areas where there are no T-levels at the moment, and there are great opportunities for work experience; we are already engaging with employers and colleges.

Access has come up repeatedly. There is absolutely no good reason why a young person at 16 to 19 who is ready to study at level 3 should not do a T-level. The idea that large numbers of young people aged 16 to 19 will be shut out of studying at level 3 because of T-levels is simply wrong. There was a potentially serious obstacle in the English and maths exit requirement, which is why we removed that. I say in all seriousness to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish that if there are colleges out there still using an English and maths entry requirement, I would like to know which ones they are—I will happily speak to their principals. I do not expect him to put that on record in Hansard, but I would be grateful if he supplied me with that information.