College Funding

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. The number of people here today shows how much value we put on the FE sector across the parties. I certainly feel that very strongly. The right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) reminded us that funding has been going down in real terms for the past 10 years. That is one of the reasons why today’s debate is so well attended and it reminds us that, frankly, all of us have our hands dirty on this front.

Further education in my constituency and across the piece is something I was involved in when I was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 2010 to 2015. I chaired the all-party group on FE and lifelong learning. I was also the first MP to launch the 100 apprentices in 100 days challenge, which was very successful and was copied by 200 other MPs over the ensuing years. I got to know the FE sector far better than I knew it before, not just locally but, more importantly, nationally. I became an absolute convert. Ever since that time, I have been committed to the belief that the FE sector, for academic A-levels and BTECs on the vocational side, provides a really important function in giving millions of our fellow citizens from 16 upwards an opportunity that they would not have had before.

Funding has been frozen for various historical reasons. I remember having long conversations with the then Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Sir Vince Cable). Believe it or not, he fought like hell to fight off the then Chancellor to try to get as much cash as possible. That was one of the areas where the Liberals and the Tories sometimes had a slight distinction, although I appreciate the words of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), who was a Minister at the time. We believed profoundly and passionately in the strength of FE and we had a battle. We won some and we lost some, as we all know, which is the nature of politics.

Where are we at today? We are reaching crisis level. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) mentioned how someone teaching A-levels at an FE college, such as the Eastbourne campus of East Sussex College in my constituency, will on average be earning £7,000 less per annum than someone teaching GCSEs at one of the excellent local secondary schools down the road. I beg the Government to understand and appreciate that that is not sustainable. I go as far as to say, as I mentioned earlier, that it is not just the Government’s fault. We have all dropped the ball to one degree or another over the past 10 or 15 years.

There is an opportunity now for the Government to demonstrate to the House, the FE sector and the millions of people of all ages who attend FE colleges around the country that they can change tack. In my own constituency, they could demonstrate that to the tremendous teachers at East Sussex College’s Eastbourne campus, who have been teaching A-levels to a high standard, despite the shocking real-term cuts to their salaries over the past few years.

I look forward to the Government acknowledging that there is a real problem. I look forward to their making a commitment today in this Westminster Hall debate to come up with additional funds, perhaps in the March Budget. I look forward to the Government not simply saying empty words, but demonstrating that they understand the strength of feeling within this Chamber that FE is not sustainable in its current form. I also look forward to the Government not seeing the half a billion for T-levels as solving the problem, because, as the right hon. Member for Harlow reiterated, T-levels are a different set of qualifications. I support T-levels. The concept is excellent, but that issue is not the same as the issue of the many thousands of teachers around the country, including in my own constituency, teaching A-levels on salaries that are so much worse than in the local schools. It is no wonder that almost 25,000 people have left the profession over the past couple of years. I look forward to hearing real beef and vegetables from the Government: real details about what the extra funding will be.