Education Funding for 18-year-olds

Richard Burden Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on securing this debate, and I am happy to follow some excellent Back-Bench speeches. The policy we are debating will stop people getting the second chances that they need. If they do not have such chances, their life opportunities will be restricted, but it will also be bad for us and for the economy.

We all proclaim how much we support apprenticeships and welcome measures that are taken to boost them. Often, however, we know that far too few apprenticeship schemes reach the hardest-to-reach young people; the ones who, for good or ill, have been passed over by education up to and sometimes over the age of 16. Education has not given them the start in adult life that they would want. As well as being bad for young people, that is bad for the economy. It actually costs us as taxpayers in the long run, as well as the Government. That cost will not be taken away simply by cutting housing benefit for young people at some point down the line.

We also need those young people. The level and number of apprenticeships is often most advanced in the larger companies. They have the cushion of size—the human resources departments and the rest of it—to cope. For small companies, taking on apprentices can seem complicated and daunting. They are not sure what is at the end of it. That is why they need the confidence that they can go forward with young—sometimes not so young—people who are job-ready, or at least ready to be upskilled. That is where further education comes into the picture to provide the necessary education, training and aspiration, which are precisely what the policy is going to hit.

Of those in further education, 71% of those over 18 are studying vocationally based courses. Two thirds of the young people affected are disadvantaged in some way and require additional support. As other Members have said, we may be talking about black and minority ethnic students, or those with lower attainment at 16. At Bournville college in my constituency, 68% of those affected are likely to be disadvantaged in some way, including by previous poor attainment, deprivation, disability and learning difficulties. What impact will that have on the young—sometimes not so young—people who need support so that they have life chances? Who will provide job-ready or training-ready people for the firms that need them?

A lot of what I and other Members have said about post-18 education sounds like we are talking about people who are just over 18, going into their 20s. I have said several times that they are sometimes not so young—people who need chances later in life will also be hit. Look at the numbers of people we are talking about in my constituency. In December 2009, there were 100 people aged 24 and under who had been claiming benefits for more than 12 months. In December 2013, there were 240. That has more than doubled. There is a persistent problem of long-term unemployment among young people. If we look at the equivalent figures for people over the age of 24, there were 360 in December 2009 and 785 in December 2013. If we are to do something about increasing the chances for young people hit by persistent, long-term unemployment—even if there is a dip in unemployment overall—the policy we are debating will take us in the opposite direction from achieving that.

I know that the Minister will say that hard choices have to made, and they do, but we cannot simply do the sums and trade off chances up to 16, at 16 to 18 and post-18. We can do the sums in a different way. Let us start factoring in the cost to us, to taxpayers and to the young people themselves if they do not get life chances because their education is cut in an arbitrary, ill-targeted way. That is what the Government are doing with this policy. I plead with the Minister to think about it again. He will see that the objections do not come just from the Opposition; they come from the Government Benches as well. I really hope that he will rethink on this issue.