Technical and Further Education Bill

Robert Halfon Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills (Robert Halfon)]

I think this is the first time that a lapel microphone has been used in this way—I appreciate that. I wish the House, and the many apprentices who worked over Christmas and the new year, a very happy new year. I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for chairing the debate. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) for his amendments—as ever, very thoughtful.

I will start by discussing new clause 1, but I just want to make the point that the hon. Gentleman talked about the completion of apprenticeships. Some 70% of apprentices complete and 90% get either employment or further training. We have nearly 900,000 apprentices, an all-time high and a record in our nation’s history, so we are making good progress. He talked about NEETs. He will know that between 2014 and 2015 the proportion of 16 to 18-year-olds in education or work-based learning increased to 90%, which is the highest on record. The percentage of NEETs fell to 6.5%, the lowest rate since records began. He talked about the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education appointments and went on, yet again, about Christmas. I have to say that IFATE is not just for Christmas, it is for life and we want to get it right. We want to ensure that the appointments we make are the right ones and are not made in haste. He sometimes says that we are doing things too quickly and at other times he says that we are doing things too slowly.

On new clause 1, as I explained in Committee, the institute will be required to report on its activities annually under schedule 4 to the Enterprise Act 2016, and the report must be placed before Parliament. That provision will also allow the Secretary of State to ask the institute to report on anything else she thinks appropriate, such as the information requested in the amendment. We think it would be an unnecessary and significant duplication of effort, as the information is already collected and published by the Secretary of State on the performance of the FE sector, which includes apprentices—I gave the hon. Gentleman some of the figures only a moment ago.

Much of that information goes far beyond the role of the institute. The institute’s core role from April 2017 is to oversee and quality assure the development of standards and assessment plans for use in delivering apprenticeships. Under the reforms in the Bill, college-based technical education cannot be held wholly responsible for, for example, job outcomes and wage rates of apprentices once they complete their apprenticeships. It is essential that the institute is aware of the impact it is making. We would expect it to make good use of the data on the outcomes made available to it through these public data sources and surveys, and to explain in its annual report how it has deployed them.

[Rob Marris]

I am grateful to the Minister for the work he does. He is very committed—whenever I see him he is wearing an “A” on his lapel to show his support for apprenticeships. Will he clarify one point in relation to new clause 1(2)(e), which would include in the report the satisfaction rates of employers? He will be aware that there is some concern that to reach the 3 million target there will be dilution. I am not saying there will be, but that there is concern that there might be. Is the satisfaction rate of employers currently collected —not for every employer, but through sampling—and published? If it is not, it would be very important for it to be published, so that the concerns about a dilution of standards could be somewhat allayed.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind comments. It is published. I think, if I am not mistaken, employer satisfaction is near 90%; it might be 88% or 85% or something like that. I am very happy to provide him with the information if he so requires.

I agree with the hon. Member for Blackpool South that the institute needs to consider the views of those who take an apprenticeship or a course in technical education. I am confident that it will do that. He will know—he pointed it out—that last week we published draft strategic guidance for the institute. In this document, which is now open for consultation, we set out that we expect the institute to establish an apprentice panel that will report directly to the board. I am pleased to say to the hon. Gentleman that it will be ready by April 2017, but the wider point is that we should not rush things. We need to get it right. The apprentice panel will be made up of apprentices from different occupations and experience. The panel will decide for itself which issues to focus on, and will challenge and make recommendations to the board. I am sure it will be a success. It will ensure that the views of apprentices are fed directly into the institute’s governance. It might not be exactly the right model in practice. I want to see how it works. I believe that the institute, particularly in its infancy, should have the flexibility and the freedom to decide the best way of gathering the views of an apprenticeship on an ongoing basis. Whatever model it adopts, I would expect the institute to do something similar for technical education students when it takes on this responsibility, but I want to see how the apprentice panel pans out.

[Gordon Marsden]

I thank the Minister for giving way with his customary courtesy. I just want to be absolutely clear about the implications of the wording of the document. Is he giving an assurance on the Floor of the House that the panel will be set up by April, that he will review the panel’s progress and whether it has the right form and structure, and that if he thinks it does not have the right form or structure he will replace it with something equally valuable in representing the views of apprenticeships to the board of the institute?

[Robert Halfon]

I am pleased to give the hon. Gentleman that guarantee. The panel will be set up by April. I believe it would be pointless to have an Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education without proper apprentice representation, but I want to see what the best format is. I am sure it will work and be a success, but I just want, as I said, to see how it pans out. We expect the institute then to do something similar for technical education students.

I agree with the motivation behind the amendment, but I am concerned about enshrining the establishment of panels in legislation. I do not want to put the institute in a constant straitjacket of legislative red tape that reflects every good idea there may be on how best to fulfil its responsibilities. I therefore think the amendment is unnecessary and would undermine the institute’s power to regulate its own governance and perform its duty.

On new clause 4, the hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin) made a remarkable speech in Committee on a careers strategy. She cares passionately about this, as I do, but I think we do have meat on the bones. It is not just words. The hon. Member for Blackpool South talked about budgets. We are spending £90 million, which includes the work of the Careers & Enterprise Company. A separate £77 million is being spent on National Careers Service guidance just this year. I am going further. I am looking at a careers strategy from the beginning to ensure that we address our skills needs, and to look at how we can help the most disadvantaged. I am looking at how we can ensure widespread and quality provision, and how that leads to jobs and security. I will set out my plans on careers over the coming weeks.

On the investment in the Careers & Enterprise Company, the hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest that there was no activity in London. I have been to a school in east London supported by the Careers & Enterprise Company and the local enterprise partnership. It is doing remarkable work. Some 1,300 advisers are connecting schools and colleges. They are slowly creating a way to connect with 250,000 students in 75% of the cold spots around the country. There is also money for mentoring. He talked about a famine. I would not say there is a feast, but substantive and serious funds are going in. I could spend a lot of time listing the different moneys, but if he looks at this carefully and fairly, he will see the work that the Careers & Enterprise Company is doing.

We will monitor carefully the impact of our work. In January 2017, destination data will be included in national performance tables for the first time, ensuring an even sharper focus on the success of schools and colleges in supporting their students. Before my time, we legislated to ensure that schools gave independent careers advice on skills and apprenticeships—that was done by my predecessor. Work is being done in schools. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s thoughtfulness in proposing the new clause, but it is my view that it is not necessary because of the action we are taking, the careers plans I am developing and the money that is being spent, which I have highlighted.

As the hon. Gentleman said, amendment 4 would require the institute to have regard to the need to promote equality of opportunity. I welcome the opportunity to debate that. I know why he tabled the amendment and why it is important. It is crucial to widen access and participation, and to ensure that apprenticeships and technical education are accessible to all, which is why I was glad that, for this year, we have our £60 million fund to help to encourage apprenticeships in the most deprived areas of our country.

I reassure the House that the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education will have to have due regard to widening access and participation. We carried out an equalities impact assessment before publishing the post-16 skills plan, which concluded that the reforms are likely to have a positive impact on individuals with protected characteristics, in particular those with special educational needs or disability, those with prior attainment and those who are economically disadvantaged. The economic assessment concluded that all learners would benefit from the proposed technical education reforms, which will give people access to high-quality technical education courses.

I believe that the need to promote equality of opportunity in connection with access to and participation in further and technical education already exists in legislation under sections 149 and 150 of the Equality Act 2010. It is expressly set out in section ZA2 of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 that the institute must have regard to

“the reasonable requirements of persons who may wish to undertake education and training within”

its “remit”. The Secretary of State has the power to provide the institute with further guidance under that section. I hope that that explanation gives the hon. Gentleman confidence. I am committed to ensuring that people of all backgrounds have equal opportunities. As he will know, over Christmas we removed the need for apprentices who have serious hearing difficulties to do functional English—they can do sign language instead. That is an example my commitment, as is the extra funding we are giving to employers and providers to get more apprentices who are disabled.

[Mims Davies (Eastleigh) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that bringing together oversight of apprenticeships and technical education in one place will bring coherence into the system, which will ensure and protect diversity and equal opportunity because there will be clearer guidance on all opportunities for career progression?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend, who campaigns a lot on diversity and equality, is absolutely right. The proposal will benefit the people who need it most. Many people from disadvantaged backgrounds and with disabilities are prominent in further and technical education.

Amendment 5 addresses the Apprenticeship Delivery Board. The hon. Member for Blackpool South was a little unkind about the board. The board’s representatives include the chief executive of Channel 4, the Compass Group, the City of London, Barclays bank, Sunmart Ltd, Fujitsu, Wates construction, the Ministry of Defence and a significant retail sector member. As he said, there are three women on the board. They are doing important work. They advise the Government and work with businesses to encourage them to have apprentices. As far as I am aware, those people are not being paid. They do not have to do it; they do it because they want to serve our country. They have helped the Apprentice Ambassador Network. The chair, David Meller, is doing important work on that and running the board. I pay tribute to the board. I mean this kindly, but I would not be obsessed with whether or not the Prime Minister has an apprenticeship adviser. As far as I am concerned, the Prime Minister’s advisers are the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, which is me, and my boss the Secretary of State. A new adviser for the Prime Minister will not change the course of history for apprentices in our country.

[Rob Marris]

Most of us would see the Minister as a journeyman or time-served Minister rather than as the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills. He will forgive me for not researching this earlier, but I did not notice in the list he read out any trade union representation. Unusually for Conservative Members, he is an active trade unionist—or he was. Does he agree that it would be desirable to have trade union representation on that board to get buy-in from the workforce side?

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that I am still a trade unionist. That is a good idea. The board is independent, but I will suggest it. I am very impressed and supportive of the work that Unionlearn does, which is why we have agreed to fund it by £12 million. It works to promote training and apprenticeships.

The institute will consult the Apprenticeship Delivery Board and other bodies but, as I have said, we do not need to straitjacket the institute with so much red tape that we stop it from being independent. The delivery board is not intended to have any special legislative standing or corporate identity. It would be unusual to name it in legislation, but the institute will consult the board along with others.

Amendment 6 would require the institute’s expenditure in any one year to exceed that raised by the levy. It is important to clarify that the institute will not have responsibility for the apprenticeship budget, which resides with the Secretary of State for Education. Although the institute is not a funding body, it will be asked to advise on the pricing of apprenticeship standards and allocation to funding bands. The institute’s operations will be funded by my Department and not from the levy funds. It follows that the institute should not be obliged to spend funds raised under the levy.

On devolution, which the hon. Member for Blackpool South mentioned, it will be up to the devolved authorities how they spend the money. If we were to tie the spending explicitly to the levy receipts, there could be adverse funding consequences for the programme as a whole. The budget for spending on apprenticeships in 2019-20 for England and the devolved Administrations totals in excess of £2.9 billion, whereas the projected levy income is £2.8 billion. Having certainty over the funding for apprenticeship training is preferable to linking the funding on a year-by-year basis directly to the wider performance of the economy.

[Mims Davies]

Eastleigh College, which is the third-largest college providing apprenticeships in England and trains over 9,000 apprentices, is particularly interested in how the funding formula for the institute will work and how that will support its work with communities, so the Minister’s clarity today around the levy, the funding criteria and how it will be delivered is very welcome.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my hon. Friend. It is brilliant that her college is providing such training, and I would be pleased to come and see its training programme when I am next in the area. That it is doing this means that it will also be receiving significant funds. I congratulate the college on the work it is doing on apprenticeships.

Amendment 7 would limit the power to confer new functions on the institute to “state funded” apprenticeships and technical education. All the institute’s current functions in part 4 of, and schedule 4 to, the Enterprise Act 2016 and in schedule 1 to the Bill apply to all reformed apprenticeships and technical education qualifications, not just those that are state funded. We would therefore expect that any new functions the institute is required to carry out should also apply in the same way, to ensure that they are fully effective and do not treat some apprenticeships and technical education courses differently in accordance with how they are paid for. We want to ensure that as many people as possible can undertake an apprenticeship or technical education course, and we would not want this to be restricted to those that are state funded purely because the institute’s functions have been limited.

On amendment 8, it is important that the institute considers what apprenticeships might be appropriate for 16 to 24-year-olds. We know that apprenticeships are incredibly important to school leavers and are making sure that anyone from the age of 16 will have an offering of either an academic or technical education or an apprenticeship. The occupational maps that the institute will put together and which will guide apprenticeships and technical education qualifications will be based on information about the skills needs of the country. They will focus on occupations that can help to increase the UK’s productivity and meet the needs of employers. Putting any constraint around the development of the maps and the occupations included, such as by focusing on a particular group of the population, could damage this overall aim.

My Department runs a number of highly successfully promotional and advice services to help to ensure that young people access the right apprenticeship for them. A significant number of 16 to 18-year-olds take up STEM subjects.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

On STEM subjects and the advice given to young people, successive Governments have tried to effect change, and the Bill, which is well meaning, will make a positive difference in many respects, but is not the real problem the fact that successive Governments have failed to persuade people that the vocational route is as good as the academic route? Is this not a cultural problem that has bedevilled our country for decades?

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman is completely right. When I talk about my priorities for skills and education, one of the first things I mention is transforming the prestige and the culture. As he says, this is regardless of what party is in government, and it is not just about Governments either; businesses have also underinvested. Vocational training has always been seen as a so-called—I hate the term—Cinderella sector. The whole purpose of the Sainsbury reforms and the levy is to change behaviours and give apprenticeships and skills and technical education the prestige they deserve.

[Vernon Coaker]

The question for the Minister, as it was for me and others here when we were schools Ministers, be we Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Labour, is this: why will it be different this time? The Minister is absolutely right in what he has said, but why will it be different this time from all the times that have gone before?

[Robert Halfon]

Unlike the hon. Gentleman, I was not around for all the other times that have gone before. We have our differences, of course, but there is much cross-party consensus on the Sainsbury reforms, for example. Moreover, the apprenticeship levy is a fundamental reform to change behaviours—it is not just about raising money; it also changes behaviours. I believe that there is a new national conversation about apprenticeships and that things are changing, but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. I think we are on the tip of something special, but a lot more work needs to be done.

Because of time, I will speak only briefly on some of the other amendments. On amendment 9, the hon. Member for Blackpool South raised some important points, but we feel that the amendment is unnecessary. The important feature of approved English apprenticeship standards is the move away from a reliance on a series of small and pre-existing qualifications making up an apprenticeship and towards a single end-point assessment. By not mandating qualifications in standards unless they meet one of these criteria, we are ensuring that individual employers have the freedom and flexibility to determine how to train their own apprentices to ensure they gain full competency. It is expected that the institute will continue with this approach.

The provisions on education copyright are very complicated, and I understand why the hon. Gentleman has raised them, but we do not think that the proposed provisions are necessary. Some of the concerns are covered by existing legislation, but we believe that the institute should have the right of copyright, and the bodies working with the institute will know that. We do not agree with the word “route” either because it could be confusing for employers. I want this form of training to be prestigious, and so I want the words “technical education”. I do not like the term “tech levels” either because it dumbs down a very important qualification.

Amendment 17 is on the power to charge for technical education certificates, and I should say that we also have a duty of care to the taxpayer. The institute will not make money out of this provision. It is all about giving it the power to do so if it so chooses and about having a duty of care to the taxpayer. It is for that important reason that we do not support the amendment.

On the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and amendments 18 to 21, the organisations named in the provisions will all have an important role. The omission of the QAA reflects in part the changes being introduced in the Higher Education and Research Bill, which is currently in the other place. Amendment 20, which specifies that the term “apprenticeships” should include those offered by higher education institutions, is not required. I am clear that the term “apprenticeships” includes all apprenticeships offered at all levels, regardless of the training provider.

In conclusion, I thank the hon. Member for Blackpool South for his thoughtful new clauses and amendments on technical education and I thank other hon. Members for their contributions. I hope that my responses have reassured the hon. Gentleman and the House on their underlying concerns. I therefore ask that he withdraw new clause 1 and not press his other amendments.

[Rob Marris]

If you will allow me a little latitude, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to place my remarks on the amendments in context. I was recently speaking to someone who made a very good point about who is fitting all the kitchens and bathrooms in Poland. This person had experienced very good electricians from Romania working in this country. Our conversation was about Brexit and the skills shortage in the United Kingdom. Whichever side of the debate hon. Members supported, Brexit provides our country with an opportunity to try to address the skills shortages that we have had for decades and have relied for filling on importing workers.

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[Rob Marris]

I am not surprised about that. In the last Parliament but one, I had the joy of visiting Lithuania with what was then the Trade and Industry Committee, and that was the sort of issue we talked about. In those days, Lithuania was already starting to import labour from Moldova—outside the European Union—because so many Lithuanians had come with their skills particularly to the United Kingdom and Ireland to ply their respective trades, and I specifically mean trades.

What my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) has sought to do from the Labour Front Bench is to beef up the Bill in two ways. One is to introduce even greater confidence in the new system that we will have, and part of that confidence building means moving towards national standards. This partly addresses the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) about parity of esteem. We talked earlier this afternoon about parity between mental and physical health, but in this case, we are talking about parity of esteem between the vocational and the academic.

Having been a semi-skilled worker for a number of years as a professional driver and a bus driver, I faced a fork in the road. Was I going to go down the vocational route—I had my eye on being a plumber—or was I going to go down the academic route with an eye to being a lawyer? I went down the academic route and I became a lawyer. I do not regret that at all. One reason I did so related to esteem or lack thereof, and another reason was that lawyers get to work indoors whereas plumbers sometimes have to work on building sites outdoors—and I do not like the cold. I am talking about quite a while ago, and the money was better in law than it was in plumbing. I am not sure whether that remains the case nowadays.

We live in a capitalist society. Part of what needs to be done to move towards parity of esteem in a cultural sense is the sort of thing that the Minister has attempted to do during his tenure of office and through this Bill; and, frankly, in a capitalist society, part of it is about paying people more. If we want parity of esteem, we should start paying people equal amounts of money—and pay plumbers as much as lawyers. Given that we live under capitalism, we are moving towards that because of skills shortages.

On new clause 1, I quite understand the Minister’s point that some of the information is already published as a result of the Enterprise Act 2016, but I believe that building this into the Bill as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South has proposed, would be helpful for sending out the right message about confidence. It is the same with new clause 2, so that the representative panels can become more representative when they are put in place. I welcome the Minister’s assurance this afternoon that those panels will be in place by April, and I hope they will have a breadth of representation that should, I think, be built into the Bill. I asked the Minister a similar question in a slightly different context about the involvement of trade unions. This is not just a tit-for-tat along the lines of “You have the bosses there, so we have to have the workers there,” although that is important; it more about getting buy-in to the new regime from all sections of our society to build towards addressing the skills shortages that we will face, as I have said, under Brexit.

Under Brexit, there is no mistake about it: the price for staying in the single market would be free movement of labour and people; and the UK population has said that it is not up for that and does not want free movement of people or labour. We will therefore not be in the single market, but we will not have free movement either, because there will be restrictions—whether Members like it or not. We should use these circumstances in a positive way, so that local people can train up for jobs and so that we do not keep poaching skilled people from abroad—whether from Lithuania, as my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) mentioned, or elsewhere. For that, we need national standards.

When it comes to confidence, we need proper advice. Careers advice in England has certainly been, to say the least, patchy over the years. I remember when my Government set up Connexions, which was not exactly a resounding success—certainly not in the west midlands. I urge the Minister to think again about new clause 4, which is all to do with building confidence. That is particularly clear in paragraphs (b) and (d) of new clause 4(3). These highlight the fact that the Secretary of State should seek to

“ensure that such information, advice and guidance may be taken into account by relevant authorities and partners to meet the needs of local or combined authority areas”

and to

“monitor the outcomes of such information, advice and guidance for recipients.”

It is part of confidence building that we have a regime that is sensitive to local labour markets, which will change greatly from April 2019 when we are out of the European Union.

This Bill is part of the Government—surprisingly, given what is not happening in other areas—showing a bit of foresight, on which I congratulate the Minister. If only we had such foresight about Brexit ramifications for other areas of public endeavour; we do not, but this Bill is a step forward and part of that jigsaw. I am not saying that this is why the Minister has sought to introduce the Bill, but I do think we should look on it positively in that way, and I think that new clause 4 would help to build confidence in the new system, by ensuring that it would be reflective and flexible.

In referring to amendment 9 and others that my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South said were in a sense under its umbrella—amendments 10 to 16—the Minister talked about employers having freedom and flexibility. Amendment 9 deals with “recognised technical qualifications” and these are connected, certainly for England as I said, with national standards. We need those standards as part of the confidence-building measures, but also to make sure that we get the right people with the right skills—in a sense, workforce planning.

This country is pretty poor at workforce planning. The one area where we could have excellent workforce planning because the number of employees is so enormous and they almost all work for the state is in healthcare delivery, yet it is absolutely appalling. We do not have enough doctors trained here; we do not have enough dentists trained here; we certainly do not have enough nurses trained here; we do not have enough professions allied to medicine—whether radiographers or phlebotomists and so forth—trained here. Yet this is the one area of workforce planning that the Government could get right. I do not mean that only this Government have singularly failed. Under the coalition Government, things went backwards when some nurse training places were shut down. Figures on the number of employees working in the NHS in England alone are so huge that we could take social trends into account and do some pretty good workforce planning on the kind of skills that will be needed in five years or the 10 years that it takes to train a doctor, and so forth.

Arguably, we have been absolute rubbish at this since 1948. Having national standards is important not just for confidence, but for workforce planning. That is why I again urge the Minister to have another think about the import of amendment 9, if not its wording. It is all very well having flexibility and freedom for employers. These were the sort of words that the Minister used—he will correct me if I am wrong—when he explained why he thought amendment 9 was unnecessary and invited my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South to withdraw it. In my view, however, the Minister should have another think about that, because I believe that national standards are important. Again, I draw on my own experience. When I qualified as a lawyer, I took a national exam that had to be taken by all those seeking to become solicitors in England and Wales. For most of us, if we passed, that led to what was, in a sense, the equivalent of an apprenticeship. It was called “articles of clerkship”, and it involved two years in a solicitor’s office. What had been a national exam taken by everyone who wished to be a solicitor in England and Wales then became a moderated Law Society final exam. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) will remind me what it was called. [Hon. Members: “Legal practice course.”] Yes. It became a legal practice course, and standards went down. I say that having talked to people in post-secondary institutions at the time and having trained articled clerks who had experienced the later system when national standards no longer existed.

National standards are not, of course, a guarantee of quality output, but they can be used by any Government, legitimately and properly, to ensure that we have confidence in the system and to ensure that those who undergo an apprenticeship process and emerge from it fully qualified have a qualification that is worth their having as individuals, and worth our society having.

[Robert Halfon]

Qualifications may be mandatory in an apprenticeship standard if that is a mandatory requirement set by the regulator. They include qualifications that are recognised as a legal requirement—that is, licence to practise—that are required for professional registration, or that are used in a hard sift when apprentices are applying for jobs in the occupation related to the standard and would be disadvantaged in the job market without them.

[Rob Marris]

I thank the Minister for that clarification. In a sense, he has made my point for me. There will be some national standards in certain fields of endeavour, which he has helpfully specified. However, I think that there is a contradiction in his position, a contradiction from which I do not think I suffer.

Amendment 7, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South, would insert the words “state-funded”. I found the Minister’s argument persuasive when he explained why he thought that the amendment should not be passed. I may have misunderstood what he said, but he seemed to be saying that he wanted a more overarching model that would encompass privately obtained qualifications. I agree with him. I merely suggest that, if amendment 7 is not accepted, it would be logical to accept something along the lines of amendment 9, which would not limit the requirement to state funding but would provide for national standards, not just in the broad but restricted field defined by what the Minister helpfully read out a moment ago, but more widely. I think that that would be better for confidence, better for our economy and better for the people—many of whom will be young—who will acquire those qualifications. I therefore ask the Minister to think again.

A similar issue is raised by amendments 18 to 21, which relate to the involvement of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. They, too, seem to me to relate to the ability of employers and prospective apprentices—and, in the case of young apprentices, their families—to feel confident that the system will deliver a qualification that our country needs and that involves enough training to ensure that those apprentices are likely not only to end up with jobs but to contribute to society as we would like them to. That returns me to the workforce planning issue to which I adverted earlier.

The Minister and the Government ought to think again about those amendments. They may not want to accept the exact wording, but I should like them to include the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education in the list of agencies that will have a role to play in the planning, the maintenance and perhaps even the raising of standards. That would be desirable.

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[Kelvin Hopkins]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this important debate. I, too, was a member of the Bill Committee, and I am somewhat disappointed that Government amendments have not been introduced at this stage reflecting some of the points made in Committee, especially as they seemed to be accepted at the time, in broad terms, by the Minister. I therefore hope that amendments will even now be brought forward in another place to reflect some of the discussions we had in Committee, and, indeed, some of the points made this evening, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) on the Front Bench, who made a tour de force speech introducing all his amendments. It is surprising that there are no Government amendments or new clauses on Report; that is very unusual.

All the amendments and new clauses have been introduced by my hon. Friend on behalf of the Labour Opposition—and they are all splendid and I support them all. The lack of Government amendments is disappointing, even though there is a degree of agreement on the value of this legislation, and we all know we have to do something about improving apprenticeships and training our young people for the future. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Rob Marris) said, we have to train our own rather than just poach people from abroad.

New clause 1, requiring the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to report annually, is specifically about the outcomes of completed apprenticeships; it is about the quality of apprenticeships, not just other, broader measures of success. The quality of apprenticeships is vital, to ensure that they lead to the development of skills for quality, long-term jobs after their completion. Young people who complete their apprenticeships must be desirable to their own and to other employers; they must be able to command good jobs for the long term and to look forward to relatively high pay and advancement in those jobs. It is very important to make sure that apprenticeships are high quality not just in words, and that apprentices can do the things they are required to do after they have qualified.

I remember the days, many decades ago now, when we had full employment. I taught in further education during that era, and in many ways it was a better and happier period than we are in now. Everybody who wanted a job got a job, and teaching in further education was a sheer joy. It has been more painful and stressful since then, I have to say, and less well paid, and the conditions of employment are less good than when I was teaching. But that was several decades ago, back in the early 1970s. We also had large companies, mainly in the manufacturing sector, and the giant public utilities, which were then in public ownership, employing thousands of apprentices every year. They had to train their own and they wanted to make sure they were good. Some of those they trained moved off to other jobs, of course, but it was nevertheless beneficial to those doing the apprenticeships and to wider society.

Our society did well because we were training our own, but we have failed to do that in recent times; we have left things to the market, and the market does not always work well in these matters. A degree of Government intervention is required, and it is significant that the Prime Minister has used a phrase not used by any Government for a long time: she has talked about the need for an industrial strategy. I absolutely support that, and we had a debate on industrial strategy just a few weeks ago, which the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) led very well.

The subject we are discussing now is part of that industrial strategy. We have to train these people, to make sure we rebuild industry. We do not produce enough any longer, particularly in the manufacturing sector; we do well in services, but not in manufacturing. We have a gigantic trade deficit because we cannot produce enough and we have to buy in from abroad. We must rebuild the manufacturing sector, not so that it becomes the dominant force necessarily, but at least so that it produces sufficient to have a sensible trade balance, which we do not have at present.

Apprenticeships have always been insecure in recent times because companies are much smaller now than they were and they are less secure because of economic crises. I have many anecdotes from my own experience. Just after the 2008 crisis, I was being driven to Heathrow for a parliamentary visit and the driver had an apprenticeship in the construction sector, but the company he had been with had collapsed and he finished up being a cab driver, which he could have done without doing an apprenticeship.

I have heard of fears, too, such as small companies training apprentices who are then poached by larger, more financially lucrative companies. That is particularly the case in the motor trade, where there are skilled small companies training their own people who are then poached by large companies that do lucrative insurance repair work, which can pay a lot more.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for, yet again, making a thoughtful speech. I do not have the figures to hand, but the evidence suggests that apprentices in companies are more loyal to that company than those on any other training scheme or in work experience or doing early-career jobs, and that they tend to stay with the companies they do their apprenticeships in.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I am sure the Minister is right in the majority of cases, but for some there is pressure to move on—for instance as a result of what is happening with house prices at the moment, as one can imagine. Certainly in Luton I know of companies, such as small motor repair firms, that employ apprentices who are under pressure to get a home, and if they can earn a few thousand pounds more at a larger company nearby to help them get on the housing ladder, they will do that. I agree that loyalty is important and many of them want to be loyal, but if the financial pressures on their lives are such that they have to move, they will in the end move.

I particularly want to support the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South about the need for a strategy for improving career education and new clause 4. We must ensure that when young people are at school or in further education they are aware of the enormous range of opportunities out there and they do not just look at a narrow field. In Luton too high a proportion of students want to get into the legal profession, for example; they want to be professionals and do not appreciate that there are highly paid, highly skilled jobs in manufacturing industry.

Vauxhall Motors still has a plant in Luton, and almost all its senior executives started as apprentices, leaving school, doing apprenticeships and going up the ladder, eventually doing higher qualifications such as higher national certificates and higher national diplomas and becoming highly paid senior executives in the company. Those opportunities are out there, and young people must be made aware of them. We must have a careers strategy making sure that every young person knows about all the thousands of different roles they could assume in life, rather than just going into the professions, or, indeed, just going into a local company; there are lots of things young people can do.

Life can be very exciting, and it is important that all of us do something we enjoy. I am very fortunate in that I was fascinated by politics in my early life and I finished up in Parliament where I wanted to be; I do not regret a moment of it. But sometimes people are not aware of the enormous range of possibilities in life. Having a powerful careers advice strategy is vital not just for young people’s lives, but for the economy. If people are happy in their work, they will work better and the economy will work better, and the world will be a much better place.

I have one more story that explains something tragic that has happened in Luton. We were a town that trained thousands of apprentices, and I know many of them personally. Recently I visited a small manufacturing company that makes components for Formula 1 and Jaguar. It could not find one toolmaker; it wanted one toolmaker from a town of over 200,000 people that used to be dominated by manufacturing, but could not find one. It is a disgrace that we have failed to train sufficient numbers of people in these areas.

There are many other things I would like to say—I could speak for an hour unaided, I am sure—but as others want to contribute, I will leave it there. I hope the points I have made are of interest.

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[Gordon Marsden]

My hon. Friend has a double qualification to speak on the subject: as the Member of Parliament for the constituency she represents and through her previous career as a distinguished local government leader in London. She knows whereof she speaks and she is absolutely right that the problem is accentuated in those areas.

Money has come in over the years including pre-1992 and in the major Building Colleges for the Future programme that the Labour Government introduced in the 2000s. Then, of course, significant sums of money were put in by regional development agencies and sometimes through regional growth fund developments and offshoots of European structural funding. As I said, FE colleges deliver not just FE, but higher education. If 10% to 12% of total HE provision is being delivered by FE colleges, it is really important that we do not lose that position.

I do not want to rehearse—indeed, we do not have time to tonight—the arguments that were made in 2011 about the private for-profit sector training coming in and being involved with various equity funds whose investment platforms were very much focused on a broad area. However, I would say, as many in the sector would, that although the private equity funding sector can be extremely profitable and useful, it is based on a relatively short-term view of providing management and initial capital to buy other companies and then taking them off the public share markets. It is entirely reasonable for us to be concerned about the possible disposal of lands with significant amounts of public assets. The question is not simply whether it is a good thing to transfer a significant number of public sector assets to a private provider, but what the financial guarantees are. More importantly, there are issues regarding the nature of the body and the guarantees to the students and the people employed there if such organisations use the insolvency to take on those colleges.

Ministers may talk about guarantees for staff under TUPE, but I am sure that hon. Members realise that TUPE does not offer protection forever and a day. I have had significant experience of that in my constituency in Blackpool over the years with people who have been outsourced from the civil service and TUPE-ed into other organisations that have then passed on to someone else, at which point those people’s automatic rights and security of tenure have almost become extinguished. Those are our concerns and they are not irrelevant. They are concerns of pragmatics and of principle. It is not as though there have not been concerns in the area previously.

In December 2014, the Public Accounts Committee severely quizzed officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which then had responsibility for the matter, about why private providers were allowed to engage in untrammelled expansion without proper quality checks. In February 2015, the Committee published a report that said that BIS has repeatedly ignored advice from the Higher Education Funding Council for England about vast sums of public money going to for-profit colleges without due process and consideration. There is the potential, as Martin Doel, the former chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said, for private organisations to

“asset strip colleges’ buildings and facilities”

or “pick” assets.

So, for the avoidance of doubt, we are not saying that we would oppose any private sector takeover of a college in any circumstances; we are saying that the education administrator will have to make a judgment. We are also saying that, without the protection in this amendment, the potential for the things I have described to happen would be very high, and that is why we are determined to press the amendment this evening.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) again for his amendments. I will begin by discussing amendment 1, which affects clause 14. I have to stress that, in the unlikely event that an FE body becomes insolvent, we want to ensure that any disruption to students’ studies is avoided or minimised as far as possible. It will be for the education administrator to deal with that, and according to the relevant clause in the Bill, they will be an insolvency practitioner—they are likely to come from one of the bigger companies and to have education experience. It will be the same system as with insolvent companies.

The education administrator will decide how the special objective will best be achieved. Clause 14(2) does no more than suggest ways in which that might be done. The education administrator will need to consider the specific circumstances of any insolvency and then determine the most appropriate approach. It is inconceivable that they would draw up proposals for achieving the special objective without having had discussions with a wide range of stakeholders, such as the Further Education Commissioner, student bodies and others, and without considering a wide range of pertinent issues.

Our expectation is that that will include discussions with the key stakeholders, local authorities and others. Where appropriate, it may also involve—I brought this up in Committee—a conversation with the care leaver’s personal adviser. We discussed in Committee the additional personal and pastoral support that care leavers might need. I undertook to consider the matter further, and I hope the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) will be pleased that we are keeping the promise we made in Committee. We will ensure that the guidance to local authorities on their corporate parenting responsibilities, being introduced through the Children and Social Work Bill, includes advice on the role of personal advisers in the event of a college insolvency affecting a young person for whom they are responsible.

We expect the education administrator, in developing their proposals, to take account of the quality of alternative provision and, if it is necessary for students to complete their studies in other locations, to consider the impact of travel distances. The hon. Member for Blackpool South will be aware that we provide funding to colleges to support disadvantaged and vulnerable young people. In addition to the disadvantage funding for post-16 places—£550 million in 2016-17—which can be used to subsidise college buses, there is also the 16-to-19 bursary fund and the fund for the particularly vulnerable. Colleges will be able to offer this funding to eligible students who transfer to them under a special administrative regime. There may be scope for the education administrator to set up a scheme to cover some or all of the additional travel costs if students do have to travel to another location.

In Committee, the hon. Gentleman said:

“We do not want this to become”

a

“long-winded, time-consuming process”—[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 1 December 2016; c. 174.]

I share that view. It is in the interests of students and staff to have certainty as soon as possible about what will happen. Requiring formal assessments to be carried out in the way proposed by the amendment would lengthen the process and reduce the education administrator’s discretion to find the best way of achieving the special objective. That is not to say that we do not agree that these issues are important, but I have shown that they are at the front of the education administrator’s mind.

On amendment 2, I understand the issue about double protection and why the hon. Gentleman has tabled the amendment. The amendment is unnecessary because the court, on hearing an education administration application, already has the discretion to make any interim order it thinks appropriate. If it is necessary or appropriate to make an order relating to an existing student protection plan, the court has the power to do that under the Bill.

On pensions, we have followed as far as possible the provisions of the ordinary administration regime that exists for company insolvencies. We propose to adopt similar provisions for college insolvencies, which, as I say, will be very rare indeed. As with any administration, once the administrator has adopted the employment contracts of the staff they decide to keep on, they are personally liable for the costs of those individuals, such as their salary and their pension contributions. They would take on the appointment only if they were confident that sufficient funds were available to meet the costs. Some pension contributions will continue to be made and benefits accrue. Some staff may be made redundant, whether at the start of the education administration or subsequently, but this will of course be in accordance with statutory employment rights. For these staff, contributions to the pension fund will end once they are no longer employed by the body, but this is no different from the position of any other person leaving their employer’s pension scheme. It is important to be clear, however, that the benefits individuals have accrued in the scheme prior to the end of their employment will not be lost.

I accept that the hon. Gentleman feels very strongly about the transfer issue. FE colleges are statutory corporations with very significant freedoms to deal with their own assets. A solvent college is free to transfer property to any person or organisation it chooses. In order to benefit, the college would of course expect to receive value when transferring an asset to a third party, and in general this would mean transferring at market value, although this depends on the nature of the transaction as a whole. In this case, however, we are talking only about a situation where a college has failed financially and is insolvent—an extreme case.

I need to make it clear to the hon. Gentleman that there are four vital protections that act as a quadruple lock to safeguard assets that belong to the college, which may well have been paid for with money from the public purse but have to be dealt with because the college is insolvent. First, unlike solvent, operational colleges that wish to transfer property, if the education administrator decides to make a transfer scheme, they are restricted as to whom they can transfer the assets. These bodies are prescribed in the secondary legislation made under section 27B of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. They are public sector bodies with educational functions. In addition, transfers can be made to private companies, but the company must be established for purposes that include the provision of educational facilities.

Secondly, just as with any other action of the education administrator, any transfer scheme must be for the purposes of achieving the special objective of avoiding or minimising disruption to students’ studies. Thirdly, creditors have a general right to challenge should they consider that the education administrator is selling things “on the cheap”, for example. Finally, the Secretary of State or Welsh Ministers must approve the proposed transfer scheme. Any approval will include, among other matters, consideration of whether it is for the purposes of achieving the special objective. I believe that the quadruple lock answers the hon. Gentleman’s concerns.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his amendments, and thank other hon. Members for their contributions to the debate. I hope that my response has reassured him, and the House, on his underlying concerns. I therefore ask that the amendments are not pressed to a Division.

[Gordon Marsden]

I have listened carefully to what the Minister has said and taken note of his views and the proposals he has made. On that basis, we are prepared to withdraw amendment 1.

On amendments 2 and 3, I heard the reassurances that the Minister has given, but when the Bill reaches the other place there needs to be a further examination of the very important issues around the pension schemes. I am not entirely convinced that the assurances, which I am sure have been made in good faith, will actually do the business.

As regards amendment 22, I thank the Minister for his explanation of what he described as the quadruple lock, but I am afraid, not least because of seeing past practice, that we have to plan in this Bill not for the best circumstances but for the worst. This is also a really important issue of public policy that we should establish within the Bill. On that basis, we wish to press amendment 22 to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 1.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.



Schedule 2

Education administration: transfer schemes

Amendment proposed: 22, page 30, line 39, at end insert—

“3A The education administrator may not transfer assets of any further education body to a for-profit private company where he or she considers that more than half of the funding of the acquisition of the asset came from public funds.”—(Gordon Marsden.)

This amendment would ensure further education bodies with a track record of accruing assets publicly, could not be transferred to a for-profit private company.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I can now inform the House of my decision about certification. For the purposes of Standing Order No. 83L(2), I have certified clauses 2 to 38 of, and schedules 2 to 4 to, the Technical and Further Education Bill as relating exclusively to England and Wales and within devolved legislative competence, and clause 1 of, and schedule 1 to, the Bill as relating exclusively to England and within devolved legislative competence. Copies of my certificate are available in the Vote Office.

Under Standing Order No. 83M, consent motions are therefore required for the Bill to proceed. Does the Minister intend to move the consent motions?

[Robert Halfon]

indicated assent.

The House forthwith resolved itself into the Legislative Grand Committee (England and Wales) (Standing Order No. 83M).

[Mr Lindsay Hoyle in the Chair]

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I remind hon. Members that if there are Divisions, only Members representing constituencies in England and Wales may vote on the consent motion for England and Wales, and only Members representing constituencies in England may vote on the consent motion for England. As the knife has fallen, there can be no debate

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83M(5)),

That the Committee consents to the following certified clauses of the Technical and Further Education Bill:

Clauses certified under Standing Order No. 83L(2) as relating exclusively to England and Wales and being within devolved legislative competence

Clauses 2 to 38 of, and Schedules 2 to 4 to, the Technical and Further Education Bill.—(Robert Halfon.)

Question agreed to.

The House forthwith resolved itself into the Legislative Grand Committee (England) (Standing Order No. 83M(4)(d)).

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83M(4)(d)),

That the Committee consents to the following certified clauses of the Technical and Further Education Bill:

Clauses certified under Standing Order No. 83L(2) as relating exclusively to England and being within devolved legislative competence

Clause 1 of, and schedule 1 to, the Technical and Further Education Bill.—(Robert Halfon.)

Question agreed to.

The occupant of the Chair left the Chair to report the decisions of the Committees (Standing Order No. 83M(6)).

The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair; decisions reported.

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[Robert Halfon]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I want to give my special thanks to all the individuals who have shared their time and knowledge during the Bill’s passage through the House, to the officials who have worked so hard to bring it before Parliament and to those providing written and oral evidence. I would like to thank members of the Committee for their diligent approach and careful consideration of the practical implications of the Bill, and Members who have already spoken today.

I am clear about the priorities that we want to see in apprenticeships, further education and skills, creating a ladder of opportunity for all. These include a transformation of prestige and culture; widespread, high-quality provision; a system that addresses our skills needs; social justice; and job security and prosperity. The Bill seeks to build those priorities into our system, bringing to life the fundamental reforms needed to ensure that we have a skills and education system that rivals the best in the world.

For too long, technical education has been overly complex, overlooked and undervalued. Putting employers at the heart of these changes, as demonstrated through the current apprenticeship reforms and as recommended by Lord Sainsbury’s independent report, we can provide a clear route to employment for our young people. The changes in the Bill will support the achievements of those young people from difficult backgrounds, such as those with special educational needs or disability. In response to what my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) said earlier, we are doing a lot to implement the Maynard reforms, we are spending £2 million to help apprentices with mental health difficulties, and we announced over Christmas that apprentices with severe hearing problems will be able to do sign language instead of English as a functional skill.

We expect individuals with SEND to be over-represented on technical education routes: 23% of those who access technical education routes will have some form of special educational need compared with 7% of those taking level 3 academic qualifications, and 20% of those in the cohort as a whole.

The measures in the Bill will drive up the productivity of our country, turning us into an apprenticeship nation and providing the skills we need for our country to thrive. That is why the CBI has said:

“Businesses have long called for a vocational route…so today’s proposals are a real step forward.”

[David Rutley]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the incredible work he has done in taking the Bill forward and I commend him for his efforts. Does he agree that one of the most important factors is engaging businesses in these apprenticeships and making the route to skills more relevant for business so that this will not only help to address the productivity challenges that he has mentioned, but improve life chances for the young people involved, too?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend, whom I thank for his work on the Committee, is absolutely right. We introduced the apprenticeship levy to change behaviour and involve businesses in supporting apprenticeships, we have created the institute and the employer panels, and we are giving huge financial incentives to businesses, especially small businesses, to ensure that they hire apprentices.

The Bill also introduces an insolvency regime for the further education sector that will, in the unlikely event of a college insolvency, provide clear-cut protections for learners to minimise disruption to their studies as far as possible, while offering certainty to creditors. During oral evidence, we heard from representatives of the Association of Colleges, Collab and others, who supported the insolvency regime and the protections that it includes for learners. Although there were issues about which the banks had questions, many spoke in support of the clarity provided by the proposed measures. Santander told us that it was keen to lend more to the further education sector, and said:

“On the Bill and the proposed insolvency regime, we are actually supportive of the clarity that they provide.”––[Official Report, Technical and Further Education Public Bill Committee, 22 November 2016; c. 38, Q41.]

[Kelvin Hopkins]

As the Minister will remember, I suggested in Committee that all colleges should have professionally qualified members with financial skills in both management and governorship, so that skilled eyes would be trained on the finances to ensure that at least mistakes were not made internally.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s premise, but, as I think I said in Committee, I do not want to put a straitjacket on colleges. The principal of Blackpool and The Fylde College acknowledged that there might be different requirements for different colleges. Nevertheless, there should be as much financial expertise as possible in further education colleges. When there is real financial leadership, those colleges will always be in good financial health whatever the funding pressures.

We forecast that, by March 2017, we will have spent a total of about £140 million on propping up colleges facing extreme financial difficulties. That money should have been spent on education and training priorities. While we envisage that only a very small number of colleges will ever find themselves insolvent, providing protection for learners and clarity for creditors is a crucial part of what we are trying to do, and of our responsibility to support the sector.

Since the Committee stage, we have been in a position to publish for consultation the Secretary of State’s draft strategic guidance. Following our conversations about the importance of incorporating the views of students in the running of the institute, it will come as no surprise that the guidance sets out our firm expectation that the institute will establish an apprentice panel by April this year. The panel will report directly to the board, ensuring that the learner voice—the apprentice voice—is at the heart of the institute. I am glad that the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Gordon Marsden) is encouraged by our approach. We also intend to publish for consultation, before the institute becomes operational in April, an operational plan for the institute which will set out in more detail how it intends to carry out its functions.

As for the insolvency elements of the Bill, we discussed in Committee the protections given to students through the special objective, and the possible ways in which the education administrator could ensure that disruption to students’ studies was avoided or minimised. In particular, we discussed whether the particular regard that the education administrator must have to the needs of students with special educational needs and disabilities should be extended to any other groups. I also recognise the importance of taking account of the needs of care leavers, recognising that they may need additional personal or pastoral support to deal with any uncertainty or upheaval should their college ever be subject to insolvency. Such support is best provided for each individual by a local authority-assigned personal adviser. As I said earlier, we will take steps to ensure that the guidance being produced for local authorities on their corporate parenting responsibilities includes advice on the role of personal advisers in the event that the young people for whom they are responsible attend colleges that enter education administration.

There is much to be proud of in our current system, given that 71% of FE colleges are good or outstanding and more than 50% are in good financial health, the proportion of 16 to 18-year-olds in education or taking up apprenticeships is at a record high, the reforms made following the 2011 Wolf review have raised the quality of qualifications, and 88% of students were recorded as having a sustained education destination in the year after key stage 5.

We know that high-quality further education can have a truly transformative impact on young people. That is why we announced as part of the spending review that we will protect the 16-to-19 national base rate of £4,000 per student for the duration of this Parliament. By 2020, if we include the adult education budget, the 19-plus apprenticeship funding and advanced learner loans, more funding will be available to support adult further education participation than at any time in England’s history.

The measures in this Bill will build on the key priorities, enabling students to make better choices about their future, with the opportunity to gain qualifications valued by employers that will secure their future prosperity and that of our nation.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

In my constituency we are very fortunate in having Richard Huish sixth-form college, which has just been shortlisted as one of the six best sixth-form colleges in the country for The Times award. It runs apprenticeship courses, but there are concerns that it cannot get enough students to apply for some of the business admin courses. There is a real demand from business for those students, yet there are loads of apprentices doing courses where business does not really have jobs for them. Does the Minister agree with me and the principal of the college that provisions in this Bill to develop the synergy between education, apprenticeships and business are welcome, and indeed vital in addressing the skills shortage in this country?

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and she is absolutely right: everything this Government are doing—the apprenticeship levy, this Bill, FE and technical education reform, the drive up of standards, the encouragement of apprenticeships, the money we are putting in with £2.5 billion that will be doubled by 2020—is designed to solve the problems she has talked about.

The OECD has said about the skills plan that

“the UK has a promising plan to advance technical education from a last resort to a first choice.”

Colleges, too, have spoken highly of the plan, including the principal of my own Harlow College, who said:

“As colleges we are not just about courses, we are about careers—we therefore believe that any reform that brings us closer to employers means our students gain higher skills and better jobs.”

This Bill is a Ronseal Bill: it does what it says on the tin. It transforms the prestige and quality of apprenticeships and technical education in our country, addresses the skills deficit, protects students in the event that colleges face extreme financial difficulty, and ensures that the most disadvantaged are able to climb the ladder of opportunity. The Bill underlines the Prime Minister’s commitment to a country that works for everyone. I commend the Bill to the House.