Colleges and Skills: Covid-19

Richard Holden Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Betts. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for obtaining this debate on this important topic, especially in Colleges Week.

I particularly thank Derwentside College in my constituency, which I have visited many times. It is truly excellent at working with local employers across the piece. This has been a particularly challenging time for people in my constituency.

The announcements over the past few months on the Government’s work in this area have been welcome. The huge lifelong learning announcement will be transformational, particularly for adult learning and FE, and the kickstart scheme is helping to drive the apprenticeships that we need locally. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) mentioned levelling up, and to me that is exactly what the FE agenda is all about—putting some meat on the bones of that and providing a transformation opportunity in people’s lives.

I hope that, as the Chair of the Education Committee said, we are entering a golden age for the sector; I know that the Minister gets it, I know that the Secretary of State gets it and, having spoken to the Chancellor, I think that he gets it as well. However, if we are to drive productivity and opportunity for people across our communities, FE will be crucial.

As hon. Members across the Chamber have mentioned, we cannot debate on FE on its own, without mentioning the relationships with higher education and business. I, too, welcome the Government’s direction of travel, particularly in the relationship with HE and in not constantly driving people on to courses that are perhaps not best suited to them, just to hit a statistic. We should be driving people on to courses that they want to do and that best enhance their life opportunities. I welcome the broader direction of travel towards collaboration. I chaired the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships call today, and it was great to see some of the work that colleges are doing with universities, helping with degree-level apprenticeships.

However, this is not just about 16 to 18-year-olds; we face a difficult time as a country and we are going to see a large number of people looking to retrain and reskill, so it is important that we look after the FE sector and lean into it, to let it do what it does best. Part of that will be about upskilling people to levels 4, 5 and 6, but not taking them out of their communities. We should provide those opportunities as locally as possible, so that people can train part-time or in the evening and improve their skillsets while they are in work.

Finally, I ask the Minister to keep highlighting excellence in the sector and, therefore, to visit Derwentside College in my constituency when she gets the opportunity.