Skills Strategy

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to a debate about progress on the Government’s skills strategy, in which we will hear from the former skills Minister and the present one.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered progress on the Government’s skills strategy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. One thing that has remained remarkably consistent as I have spoken to business leaders in my constituency over many years is that, when I ask them what they look for in their future workforce, their answer does not often focus on exam certificates. They want individuals who have a good attitude and are good communicators, excellent problem solvers and strong team players. Yet, barely a day goes by without a story in the news about skills shortages in one sector or another.

It is a drain on our economy and our society that job vacancies cannot be filled because employers are unable to find the right skilled individuals. That is not just a challenge to productivity and prosperity; skills are a social justice issue too—perhaps the central one. When we look at the overwhelming number of senior leaders who were privately educated—I am lucky to be one of them—it is not so much their exam results that got them where they are today, but the connections they were able to make and the networks and team-working skills they developed. If we are serious about social justice, it is our duty to afford those opportunities to all young people.

Since the closure of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, no single organisation has had responsibility for monitoring skills shortages and sharing information about them, so I was delighted when the Edge Foundation stepped forward to form an analysis group, bringing together key organisations in the area. I pay tribute to the foundation’s chair, Lord Baker. The first in a regular series of its bulletin is published today, and it makes for challenging reading—I will happily ensure that copies are available to Members.

The British Chambers of Commerce report says that 60% of services firms and 69% of manufacturing firms experience recruitment difficulties.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Culham Science Centre in my constituency? It has got together an apprenticeship hub that specialises in providing high-tech engineering apprenticeships for local people, and it has transformed how local firms react to those skills.

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is a champion of skills and apprenticeships, and the Culham laboratory is exactly what we need to build up our skills base and address our skills deficit. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and to the organisation he mentions.

Shortages of skilled manual labour in manufacturing remain at their highest level since records began. That concern is echoed by the CBI, whose education and skills survey last year showed that the number of businesses that are not confident about being able to hire enough skilled labour is twice that of those that are confident. Reducing the skills shortages must be a key aim of our skills strategy and a barometer of its success.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on bringing the issue to Westminster Hall. Northern Ireland has a very strong education and IT skills system, which has been key in creating jobs and attracting new business. Does he feel that the Government should be encouraged to look to Northern Ireland as an example of how a skills strategy can be brought together? There are good examples there. Let us use what is good in the rest of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to benefit us all.

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman is a great champion of skills. We can learn a lot from Northern Ireland’s incredibly high education standards. I am sure we have a lot to learn from the skills and the IT that he has just mentioned.

I recognise that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills has her work cut out because, as the skills strategy is implemented, the economy is changing rapidly. Driverless vehicles will automate road haulage and taxi operations. Artificial intelligence will power medical diagnosis, and 3D printing will be used to construct bridges and houses. Our skills strategy needs to not only address the skills shortages in our economy, but create our most resilient and adaptable generation of young people. They will need to be able to turn their hands to new careers and demonstrate the human skills such as creativity that robots cannot master.

CBI research shows that the biggest drivers of success for young people are attitudes and attributes such as resilience, enthusiasm and creativity. Although 86% of businesses rated attitude, and 68% aptitude, as a top attribute, only 34% said the same of formal qualifications. The Department for Education’s own employer perspectives survey showed that more than half of employers said that academic qualifications were of little or no value when recruiting, while two thirds said that work experience was significant or critical. Yet in the same survey just 58% of businesses said that 18-year-old school leavers in England were prepared for work. That is a key blocker to social justice and a gap that must be addressed through the skills strategy.

Before they are delivered into the care of the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, young people have already received more than a decade of education in school. As I said in the House only a couple of weeks ago, I am convinced that the quality of education, particularly in English and maths, has improved greatly in recent years. Yet despite record overall levels of public money going into schools, the skills shortages in our economy have been growing. Clearly, something has become disconnected in the wiring between our schools and our skills systems.

Four key steps would build on the strength of the knowledge-rich curriculum to ensure that it fosters young people who are also skills-rich and behaviours-rich—the areas that employers say they value most. First, we must remember that since 2015 all young people have been required to participate in some form of education and training up to 18. Yet GCSEs remain just as much the high-stakes tests they were when many young people finished their education at that age. We must fundamentally reimagine this phase of education as a time for our younger people to prepare themselves for their future life and work. At a time when we can extend the ladder of social justice to young people from all backgrounds, broadening their horizons, building their skills and helping them develop the social capital that will take them far, we have an opportunity for that phase of education to end in a much more holistic and comprehensive assessment—a true baccalaureate. Just as the international baccalaureate does in more than 149 countries, this would act as a genuine and trusted signal to employers and universities of a young person’s rounded skills and abilities.

Secondly, we must match the broader phase of education with a broader and more balanced curriculum. I support the need for every young person to be able to access through their schooling a working knowledge of our cultural capital, our history and our literature. However, it is also essential that we develop the next generation of engineers, entrepreneurs and designers. A narrow focus on academic GCSEs is driving out the very subjects that most help us to do that. Entrants in design and technology have fallen by more than two fifths since 2010, alongside reductions in creative subjects such as music and the performing arts—the very skills that will give young people an edge over the robots. There is a real danger that no matter how hard the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills works to make skills a success post 16, young people who have never experienced anything but an academic diet up to that age will be unable to compete for an apprenticeship or even progress to a T-level.

Thirdly, I often speak about the importance of careers advice, and it is vital, but we must go further and create deep connections between the world of education and the world of work that inspire and motivate young people. I am talking about employers providing externships so that teachers can experience local businesses and provide first-hand advice to their pupils, collaborating on projects that bring the curriculum to life and sharing real-world challenges to help students to develop their problem-solving skills. That kind of profound employer engagement strikes right at the heart of the social justice debate: it gives young people from all backgrounds the kinds of experiences, contacts and networks that have traditionally been the preserve of those attending elite institutions. We should merge the duplicate careers organisations into a national skills service that goes into schools and ensures that students have the opportunity to do skills-based careers.

Fourthly, we must acknowledge that what we measure affects what is delivered in the education system. Therefore, we should start to measure explicitly what really matters—the destinations of young people who attend our schools and colleges. At present, destination measures are seen as no more than a footnote in performance tables. We need to move destination measures front and centre, giving school leaders and teachers the freedom to deliver the outcomes that we want for our young people.

I had the pleasure last month of meeting senior education leaders from Nashville, Tennessee. Ten years ago, Nashville’s high schools had very poor rates of graduation, and businesses were clear that they were not receiving the skilled labour that they needed. They set about working intensively with the school board to revolutionise the system. In the first year of their high school experience, young people have the opportunity to take part in intensive careers exploration: through careers fairs, mentoring, visits and job research, they broaden their horizons and understand the full range of opportunities available. For the remainder of their time at high school, they join a career academy, which uses a particular sector of the local economy as a lens to make their schoolwork more relevant and engaging. Young people in the law academy learn debating skills by running mock trials, while those in the creative academy are mentored by lighting designers, who help them to understand the relevance of angles, fractions and programming in the real world.

The results are extraordinary. High school graduation has risen by more than 23% in 10 years, adding more than $100 million to the local economy. Attainment in maths and English has improved by as much as 15% to 20% as young people see the relevance of their work. Leading schools in the UK are already starting to show that similar approaches work just as well here. They range from School 21 in Stratford, where employer engagement is its ninth GCSE, to XP School in Doncaster, whose innovative expeditionary learning Ofsted has judged as outstanding across the board.

The planned programme of skills reforms can be a success only if it goes hand in hand with a schools system that is equally focused on preparing young people for work and adult life. I would encourage the Ministers responsible for skills and for schools to work closely together on that shared aim. I have no doubt that T-levels can provide great opportunities for young people to prepare for a successful career, and I am impatient to see them on the ground, having a tangible impact on young people’s lives. I would encourage the skills Minister to learn from some of our most prestigious apprenticeship employers and attach a rocket booster to the programme, but sometimes I wonder whether there is really a need at age 16 for young people to choose between a wholly academic route and a wholly technical route. Might many young people benefit from a more blended opportunity?

An excellent model exists north of the border in Scotland’s foundation apprenticeships, which are the same size as a single Scottish higher and can be taken alongside academic qualifications to maximise a young person’s options. They carry real currency with universities and support progression to higher education. They also allow a head start of up to nine months on a full modern apprenticeship. That is truly a no-wrong-door approach that helps people to keep their options open.

I want apprenticeships to go from strength to strength. Most people think of apprenticeships as helping young people to achieve full competency in their future career, but the figures show that in the 2016-17 academic year, 260,000 of the 491,000 apprenticeships started were at level 2, and 229,000 were started by individuals aged 25 and above. It is essential that apprenticeships continue to focus first and foremost on preparing young people for skilled jobs, otherwise we will weaken one of the rungs on the ladder of opportunity.

Continuing the expansion of degree apprenticeships—my two favourite words in the English language—will play a pivotal role in that. They hold the unique power to fundamentally address the issue of parity of esteem between academic and vocational education, which has plagued this country for far too long. They give young people the opportunity to learn and earn at the same time, gaining a full bachelor’s or master’s degree while putting that learning into practice in a real paid job. Leading employers are already making a dramatic shift from graduate to degree apprenticeship recruitment, which allows them to shape their future workforce. More must follow suit.

I recently came across an example of a remarkable university from Germany, DHBW Stuttgart, which is entirely made up of degree apprentices. I issue a challenge to our higher education institutions, including Oxford University, which will not even open the door to degree apprenticeships, to be the first to declare their intention to work towards becoming the first dedicated provider of degree apprenticeships.

We are at an exciting crossroads for the skills system. Employers are clear that there are significant and growing skills shortages, but they have given us a clear recipe to address them. The foundation for that must be laid in school by a broad and balanced curriculum, intensive employer engagement, and destination measures as a key driver of success. That will create the basis for a holistic system that prepares young people for high-quality T-levels and apprenticeships as part of a blended route that breaks down the artificial divide between academic and technical education to create a real ladder of opportunity for our young people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne Milton]

Yes. My hon. Friend mentioned an organisation in his constituency and its apprenticeship hub, and I commend that local initiative. I have seen something similar down in Gosport that showed an absolutely groundbreaking attitude. He is right that careers advice in schools has traditionally not always been very good.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my right hon. Friend for what she said. She mentioned the legislation ensuring that schools have to invite apprenticeship organisations and university technical colleges into schools and further education colleges. What is she doing to enforce that? There are suggestions—and there have been a number of reports—that schools are not actually implementing the legislation.