Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords]

Rachel Hopkins Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I speak as a vice-chair of the all-party group on sixth-form education and as a proud governor of Luton Sixth Form College.

Under the Conservative Government, further education and training have been treated as an afterthought for over a decade. Post-16 and further education budgets have been slashed by a third since 2010. According to the Learning and Work Institute, last month’s Budget will restore funding to only 60% of the 2010 level, leaving a £750 million gap. Students make choices at 16 that will affect the rest of their lives. Sixth forms and colleges are there to guide them by recognising their strengths and shaping their development, including helping with appropriate choices about the right course of study.

BTEC qualifications are a key option available to students. They allow students to shape their learning, combining academic learning and practical skills and a range of assessment types. For example, the health and social care BTEC is a practical, work-related course that provides students with the option of formal study in future to become a nurse, midwife or social worker or of a more practical option through an apprenticeship or becoming a healthcare assistant. In towns such as Luton, the ecosystem is excellent: people can study a health and social care BTEC, study at the University of Bedfordshire in Luton and then progress to work at the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital.

Defunding—in effect, scrapping many BTECs—will leave many students without a viable pathway after GCSEs, hampering their progression to higher education or skilled employment. Disadvantaged young people are most likely to suffer. The Department for Education equalities impact assessment concluded that

“those from SEND backgrounds, Asian ethnic groups, disadvantaged backgrounds, and males”—

are—

“disproportionately likely to be affected.”

I am fully aware of how the proposals will impact on students at Luton Sixth Form College, where over 70% of students are not white and 70% receive bursaries, such as free school meals. UCAS data from 2020 shows that 92% of BTEC students accepted university offers.

Fundamentally, this is a class issue. Working-class students who are more likely to study BTECs and do not have the personal networks to support a future career will lose access to a route to higher education and employment. BTECs are engines of social mobility. Research from the Social Market Foundation found that 44% of white working-class students who enter university studied at least one BTEC, and 37% of black students enter with only BTEC qualifications.

It is impossible to square the Government’s stated ambition to “level up” opportunity with the plan to get rid of most BTECs, including all larger versions of the qualifications that are deemed to overlap with A-levels or T-levels. In his closing remarks, will the Minister explain how this ill thought out decision fits with the Government’s claim to level up in education?