Government Skills Strategy

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon]

The right hon. Gentleman has a lot of experience in these matters; indeed, his experience is far greater than mine. I agree with him. There are two sides of the coin, and this push will not work unless businesses are incentivised and encouraged in more ways than one to set up apprenticeship schemes and to do the things that he describes.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Like the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith), I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and championing apprentices in this Parliament. It is very nice to see his own apprentice here. Could I just ask—

[Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)]

Order. I am assuming that the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) heard what I said to the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) when he made reference to an apprentice in the Public Gallery. It was not in order for him to do that, and nor is it in order for the hon. Member for Gloucester.

[Richard Graham]

Thank you, Mr Hood. Does my hon. Friend agree that a terrific opportunity is coming up in only a few weeks’ time, in national apprenticeship week, for employers to show their commitment, as he rightly says, to offering both economic opportunity and social justice to the young unemployed in our country by participating in that initiative? Does he also agree that what is being done in Gloucestershire, where we have the Gloucestershire apprenticeship fair, which will feature a keynote speech by the Minister responsible for apprentices, is exactly the sort of thing that should be happening throughout the country?

[Robert Halfon]

Yes. What my hon. Friend has just said, and particularly the fact that he has managed to secure the Minister responsible for apprentices for the event in his constituency, shows exactly why he is such a champion of apprentices. Something has come through to my office about MPs becoming apprentices for a day, and I hope very much to be able to do that during apprenticeship week.

I should also mention that my apprentice is partly funded by a local business man, who employs eight apprentices and 13 ex-apprentices in his construction firm. He wanted to support us because he was an apprentice many years ago. He is a real example of the social capital that can be built when employers take apprenticeships seriously, as the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) said.

The philosophical heart of the Government’s paper is that the world is too complex to be planned and delivered centrally. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will, I hope, welcome the new freedoms that the Government are devolving to further education colleges, with the simplification of budget lines and the reductions in audits and form-filling. Harlow college used to receive umpteen different ring-fenced types of funding for adult learners, all of which had to be monitored, with no flexibility to move funding between them. Now, there will be a single funding line for adults. It will be a much simplified system, with less paperwork.

At the same time, the quicker the Government can move to do the same for funding for 16 to 18-year-olds, the better. Harlow college at one time had 50 separate funding lines for 16 to 18-year-olds, all requiring separate reporting, which is bureaucratic insanity.

Possibly the greatest freedom that the Government are giving FE colleges—I am very excited about this—is the chance to bid for and run university technical colleges. The Minister is working closely with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and with a former Education Secretary, Lord Baker, on their roll-out across the country. Like the old institutions that taught technical skills, although they will not be seen as second grade, university technical colleges will combine English, maths, information and communications technology and business skills with specialist subjects that require technical equipment—for example, engineering, product design, construction and environmental services. They will be part of the Government’s massive expansion in academies and, crucially, a conveyor belt to level 3 and 4 apprenticeships and higher education. As a major structural reform, university technical colleges tackle head-on the problems of low prestige and poor routes to university from which apprenticeships are suffering.

I have met several times Lord Baker and representatives of Essex and Harlow councils, Harlow college, Anglia Ruskin university and Pearson UK about the prospect of a UTC in Harlow. Lord Baker has visited Harlow college himself—as has the Minister—to try to bring that into being. Only last week, the Minister reminded us that Harlow college

“is an exemplar in so many ways.”—[Official Report, 13 January 2011; Vol. 521, c. 411.]

Under the principal, Colin Hindmarch, the college has been transformed from being at the lower end of the league tables to being nationally competitive. Indeed, it is rapidly becoming one of the best colleges in England. In terms of value added—how much a student improves between starting and finishing their course—it is one of the best places to study in the UK. I am delighted to tell hon. Members today that Pearson UK—a national firm based in Harlow—is examining how it could support the college’s bid for a UTC in Harlow, perhaps with an application later this year.

The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has argued that we have not really decided as a nation whether we want American levels of taxation or European levels of public services, but increasingly I think that that is a false choice. When the private sector makes a voluntary contribution to enhance a public service, it can result in the best of both worlds. As the Government’s strategy paper states, the cost of training

“should ultimately be shared between employers, individuals and the state to reflect the benefit each receives.”

So long as there is no barrier to access, such as up-front fees for courses inherited by the Government, sharing the cost is fair, as it recognises that education is both a private and a public good.

I clearly support the Government’s strategy on skills, but I believe that further steps need to be taken. I recently met apprenticeship organisations, from livery companies to UK Skills and from the Association of Colleges to Edge, each of which represents a different part of the jigsaw of occasional qualifications. We discussed the idea of establishing a national society of apprenticeships, even a royal society, similar to the Law Society or the British Medical Association—or, better still, the Royal College of Surgeons. I tabled early-day motion 587 in support of that notion and raised the proposal in Parliament. A society with membership benefits such as high-street discounts and social events would dramatically increase the prestige and culture of apprenticeships. The Minister will be aware that I have been holding discussions with relevant groups, businesses and student organisations for a number of months, and I hope that we and the Government will be making an announcement in the near future.

Secondly, last week I spoke to the Minister about the pioneering wage-subsidy scheme run by Essex county council, and asked whether the Government would consider encouraging other local authorities to roll it out.